Kelowna, British Columbia

I just returned from a trip out west that culminated in a shoot for my upcoming book, Motorcycle Dream Garages. I found the garage on my friend Sam Martin's Manspace book blog, and discovered an amazing garage as well as a gorgeous corner of the world.


The garage is the creation of Geby Wager, the developer behind Woodland Hills who also happens to be a gearhead and all-around regular guy. His homes feature incredible views, amazing outdoor spaces, and optional gearhead garages that are out of this world.

Geby and his homes are in Kelowna, British Columbia, which is Canada’s premier wine country. Think of it as Napa Valley combined with Lake Tahoe. The area has hundreds of wineries located on the 92-mile-long Lake Okanagon, about 3 hours north and east of Vancouver. The lake has terrific beaches, and the mountains above the lake have great skiing in the winter and incredible mountain biking, hiking and fishing in the summer.


One of Kelowna’s residents happens to be custom motorcycle builder Roger Goldhammer, and he brought out a couple of his stunning creations for the shoot. Goldhammer’s bikes are a rare combination of function and style, and his latest creation just returned from winning the world championships. The supercharged, fuel-injected bike also set a land speed record at Bonneville last fall. Roger couldn't have been more gracious and modest, by the way.

In addition to the Goldhammer bikes, a number of other local riders brought customs and sport bikes out as well. Everyone pitched in to help move bikes, set up the garage, and arrange lighting for the shoot. Honestly, I couldn't have made the images without a ton of help, and thanks are due to everyone who showed up. Extra kudos go to the guys who hauled in bikes, and to Stefanie Giddens and Patti Cook from Woodland Hills, as well as my lighting assistant, Kathrine Gountas.

Oh, and Geby also runs Creative Motorsports, a company that builds custom-built trucks that are $100,000 independently-suspended engineering marvels capable of hard-core rock climbing as well as getting the groceries. And (of course) the first one of these Geby built won Four-Wheeler magazine's Top Truck Challenge in 1997.

Visiting Kelowna was an entirely surreal experience, as I simply didn't know much about the area and found a stunningly beautiful place populated by modest people doing incredible things.

I'll be back!