If It Ain't Moto It's Worthless
Celebrating Salsa Cycles founder Ross Shafer.
This interview originally appeared on the Cycle World website in late August 2017.
The stars aligned last week when my friend Dave McLaughlin texted to coordinate a spirited ride from Livermore to Mines Road and up and over Mt Hamilton through San Jose with our pal Ross Shafer. My schedule was open and the roads were calling.
The late-summer heat hadn’t returned to Livermore yet, so our ride through the San Antonio Valley was crisp and fun, with a quick stop at the newly-renovated Junction at Del Puerto Canyon Road. We met several old timers on bikes, and after some BSing climbed the same switchbacks ridden by Lycra-clad Tour of California pros to the Lick Observatory before descending 19 miles into San Jose and back to our respective homes. Last Thursday also happened to be Ross’s 62nd birthday.
We’ve known each other for 20-plus years. Ross owned Salsa Cycles from 1981 to 1997, the year he sold it to Quality Bicycle Products (QBP). He makes pedal steel guitars on his farm in western Petaluma, a 20-minute bicycle ride from where Salsa bicycles were made. Salsa’s ‘corporate’ slogan was “If It Ain’t Moto It’s Worthless,” coined by Ross’s old friend Bob ‘Rat Otis’ Landry.
‘Moto’ was commonly used as a rating of whether something mechanical was worthy or not—and for Ross, handmade bicycles, custom bicycle stems for the 1988 Olympic cycling team and thousands of riders around the world, pedal steel guitars and motorcycles are all ‘moto’ in his eyes.
“Words to live by that haven’t changed a bit from my cycling days,” Ross explained. “Something that can’t handle the usage it’s supposed to be made for or doesn’t work well, just ‘ain’t moto’ and is therefore ‘worthless.’ This extends into life choices for me too—following the herd ‘ain’t moto’ for me. “Moto” is a way of life for me…doing the things I want to do how I want to do them is way ‘moto.’ If I couldn’t be free to be me I’d be ‘worthless.’”
I asked Ross about his motorcycle background, which I knew embarrassingly nothing about.
“I grew up about eight miles from Saddleback Park in Orange County, so I had lots of friends who got into riding in the dirt hot and heavy,” he said. “My parents would not even consider me having one, but enjoying them vicariously (and riding them anytime a friend offered) as an early teen, I developed a long standing love of motorcycles.
“That love waned somewhat as I went down the bicycle rabbit hole, but never went away,” he added. “At age 30 or so while on a long bicycle ride, I heard what turned out to be an early Gixxer wailing as it got closer and passed me at well over a 100…I about shot my wad right there. I got home and told my (then) wife, I had to get a motorcycle when I could afford it. She assured me she wouldn’t stick around if I did so and that even thought was foolish given our newborn son.
“Her interest in other relationships outside the marriage led to a painful and heartbreaking divorce. Once the papers were signed, I went out and bought (finally!) my first motorcycle, a BMW R 65…I was truly smitten! Apparently, as I’m told, buying a motorcycle is a fairly typical American male response to divorce.” He’s owned 18 bikes since then.
It was a challenge keeping up with the KTM brothers last Thursday, but anyone who has ridden Mines Road knows there’s no real flow to the bumpy and twisty road through the San Antonio Valley, which takes 100 percent concentration and smooth throttle control. Both Dave and Ross have racing experience.
“I took a riding skills course at Sears Point and even though the instructor totally sucked, I was hooked and realized how much more fun going fast on a track was compared to the street,” Ross said. “Best thing I ever did for my driving record, which was tanking from speeding tickets. I think I started racing in ’91 on my Yamaha SRX600, then bought another and raced it too.
“Having two bikes allowed one of my employees to go racing with me while he built his own race bike. I was a solid middle-of-the-pack guy in the singles class. Would’ve been nice to have the balls to be up front, but I doubt it would’ve been a whole lot more fun. Weirdly to some, racing was the most relaxing thing I’d ever done…way more than any of the yoga or meditation stuff I’d been into in my bliss ninny days.
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“The nearly singular focus I can achieve when riding is the most awesome meditation I’ve ever experienced,” he explained. “In ’95 or so, I destroyed my left wrist BMX racing (at 40…WTF Ross?). It was healed as much as it ever would be in time for the start of the next AFM season. It was the worst bone injury I’d ever had and entailed some major surgery and lasting nerve damage…apparently it shrunk my gonads too and upped my fear of getting seriously injured. This had a very detrimental effect on my ability to stay cool when something sketchy happened on the track. I’d never had a crash on the track until that season when I crashed three times in the first four races. I hung it up then. I really miss it!”
Happy birthday, Ross. Thanks for taking the time to make memories with Dave and I last week. You’re the true definition of moto!
Love all the Rossisms