Viewfinder: Photographer Yve Assad profiles The Blackbird Moto Assembly.

During the winter of 2011, three good friends reunited in Nashville, gathering around their passion for motorbikes. Not allowing the cold to hold them back, Robert Longhurst, Josh Orr and JT Daly suited up to ride before spring hit. With whiskey warming their bones, they shared many conversations about motorcycles, trips, people they met through riding, and about forming a group. They weren't thinking a club or a gang, but an assembly of like minded individuals with a common interest in two wheeled machines. The Blackbirds Gentlemen’s Motorbike Assembly was born.

With spring arriving, the original three committed to meeting every Wednesday at the same time and place to put their jobs aside, ride motorbikes, and enjoy some fine food and drink. It quickly became a gathering of friends, with the same fervor for motorbikes, and evolved into a tight bond of passionate, creative and talented individuals. The Blackbirds consist of craftsmen, mechanics, artists, bartenders, photographers, architects, producers, musicians, directors, and engineers. Some have ridden through the desert together, written songs together, built motorcycles together and even helped make a short film that made us all look entirely cooler than any of us really are. It quickly became obvious that what brought us together was not something as material as a motorbike but a passion for life that somehow these machines tend to magnify. While the term gentleman is used loosely, as the guys kindly made an exception for me, I am proud to consider these great people family and look forward to sharing the road (or trail) with them in the years to come.

To see more of Yve's work please visit her website.