MOTORCYCLE CANNONBALL RUN

The Motorcycle Cannonball is a cross-country 'endurance run' featuring pre-1916 bikes, in the spirit of Cannonball Baker's record-breaking 1914 jaunt, which took 11 days.  'Cross-country' as in across the United States; yes, the premise is outrageous, and that's where the fun begins.  The riders are collecting in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to begin their theoretical two-week run over 3300 miles, averaging around 250 miles per day, over the fairly flat terrain of the southern US (to see their route, click here).

This ride has been planned well over a year now, with Lonnie Isam responsible the complexities required to feed, house, and manage the riders.  As you can imagine, with such old machinery (and a few old riders!), the cast of characters, mechanical and human, changes weekly, and it was anyone's guess who would actually fire up their engine on September 9th, 2010, and set off on a loooong ride.

The possibilities for mechanical carnage are endless, but the intrepid entrants have come generally well-equipped for the task, typically with a rolling workshop/trailer and multitude of spares - whole engines, wheels, frames, the lot.  Early motorcycles are simple, so an engine swap will take only a couple of hours.  Changing a frame, maybe four.

If you're getting the notion that the entrants are generally well-heeled enough to take a couple of weeks to ride an old bike around, with an entourage of mechanics, spares, masseuses, and a fancy-damn truck...you'd be generally right.   But, to their credit, they're riding, and I'm not!  (I tried for a year to find a sponsor with a bike, but no luck).

I have many friends on the ride, and will rely on their first-hand photographs and notes for occasional updates on the progress of this puffing, chuffing, smoky circus.

                                 (If you're using a drive belt, better bring a spare!)

                                 (Chabott Engineering means Shinya Kimura!)

(Plenty of room for troubled machinery)

      (Note modern wheel rims and tires, plus bicycle mechanical disc brake - all encouraged)

(Our hero; Pete Young on his Excelsior, the English kind.  His mechanic Patrick says 
"I think there are just over 50 registered with perhaps 45 ready to start.  There are a few bikes that arrived and won't operate.  Pistons and clutch bits laying about the parking lot.  One guy with an Indian twin spent 5K on an engine rebuild and spit out an exhaust valve in the parking lot!  I've just driven Pete's truck from SF.  I'm having a real hard time imagining these heroes tackling the eastern mountains and western deserts.  Actually, I'm in awe that most of them start.  Forget the regular runners.  There are pristine museum pieces here and their owners fully intend to try the full distance.  There are bikes here worth over 300K and they are just going to go down the road.

My only source of info on the owners is the reg list available on the website.  Look at my photos and find the guy who registered and then got a California vanity plate with his rider number!!  Now that is PLANNING.  You should see some of the trailers and tow rigs out here.  With Pete's truck I look like the Beverly Hillbillies.")

                                 (Indian with a few modern touches)

(Now THAT'S what I'm talking about...if you're bringing a trailer, bring a lathe, and a welder, and some spares, and a massage table, and perhaps your therapist too)

(Fred Lange's trailer includes a lift!  For the man who makes these bikes every day from scratch, I would expect nothing less)


(Advanced planning - registering your machine with your Cannonball entry number!)

(Yes they smoke a little,  because they need oil to run, and the tolerances are kept loose)

(Some detail on the Militaire; a museum piece to be road-tested over two weeks.  Rare!)

(Matt Olson spent months prepping and restoring his Sears.  Note the Triumph twin-leading shoe front brake!  Note complete lack of brake on comparable Sears!)

(Yes, there was a LOT of this in the parking lot; clutches, gearboxes, and whole engines being fettled.  Like I said, they're pretty simple beasts, meant to be maintained by enthusiastic farm boys)
 
                           (Some of the gang on the Kitty Hawk pier)

Many thanks to Patrick Hayes for the photos!

ON DUCATIS, RUBYS, AND WOMEN RIDERS

Karl Lagerfeld has once again drawn on the allure of a vintage motorcycle for Chanel's advertising.  Last Spring he used the amazing 'Chanel' Triton  as a prop in his short and quizzical film about , it seemed, the joy of shoplifting Chanel clothes on a cool bike (see the video here).

Yesterday in Paris, Keira Knightley was spotted on a rolling rig, 'riding' a '74 Ducati 750 Sport, which had been painted tan to match her suede catsuit and Ruby helmet.  While the Duc's tan paint job made me lose my Chianti, I was curious about the color of the helmet, so spoke with Jerôme Coste of Les Ateliers Ruby, who explained:

                                       (note Keira's body double in the background)

"Regarding the Chanel commercial, I don't know every detail yet, but I can tell you that this helmet is the Ruby 'Belvedere Marceau' from my Autumn-Winter 2009/10 collection. The story is quite funny - at least to me - as this helmet with its "nude" colour was a tribute to Yves Saint-Laurent's work (the Maison YSL has been for years been located on rue Marceau, hence its name).  It was created beside the 'Pavillon Cambon', named after the long time address of Maison Chanel - but that was a powder pink. Anyway Keira's is a stock helmet, but the story doesn't say if Chanel cut Kiera's suede catsuit and painted the Ducati to match the Ruby helmet nude colour ?!"

By chance, well-known blogger and motorcycle personality Jacqui van Ham (of 'The Vintage Advantage') passed through San Francisco today on a long motorcycle journey from her home in Kentucky to Los Angeles, and back, via Sturges and Bonneville, on her trusty 1972 BMW R75/5 'Toaster Tank'.  Jacqui qualifies as a Real Rider, putting up serious mileage on a vintage motorcycle - solo - and always manages to look great despite the heat, dirt, and bugs of a long ride with an open-face helmet...also a Ruby.  A light bulb went off in my head - wouldn't it be fun to match her black helmet and riding gear with a black 1974 Ducati 750 café racer?

No big crew, nothing to advertise, but Jacqui is a real motorcyclist, who looks terrific with the Ducati.  The Keira Knightley photo shoot will surely become an alluring fantasy in Chanel print ads...

...but Keira can't ride....

...while women who can and do, like Jacqui, rock my world.

[A note on the  black Ducati; its a 1974 750 GT which has been tuned past 'Sport' spec with Venolia pistons and 36mm Dell'Orto carbs, with twin Scarab discs up front, 750 Sport seat, rearsets, clip-ons, controls, and instruments, with a Laverda SFC fairing.  It used to be mine, is an excellent fast roadster, and is currently for sale, contact me if you're interested.

The Chanel bike looks to be an early 750 Sport - ca.'72, with black primary cover - and an SS fairing...painted tan!]

Thanks Jacqui for indulging my inspiration in the middle of your road trip! 

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

I can imagine few journalists working outside of motorcycle-industry 'rags', who have been as intimately connected to motorcycling as Hunter S. Thompson.  The legendary writer invented a whole genre of reportage, 'Gonzo journalism', diving into his subject matter with such passion as to become a central figure in his own narrative.  Writers before Thompson had lived with and identified with their subject matter, as he did in 'Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs' (Random House, 1966), but few admitted to and chronicled what exactly that meant - sex with designated 'mamas', Bacchic revelry around campfires and in seedy clubhouses, shooting and fighting.  If you haven't read 'Hell's Angels', I highly recommend it, for while the club may have changed dramatically over the years, Thompson humanizes club members and lays out a sociopolitical context for their 'outsider' stance, and to his credit, never apologizes for or glosses over the worst of their behavior, or buys into their Romantic self image.

Thompson was a motorcyclist from his teens, as shown in the top photo from ca. 1963, on his stripped-down 1948 Triumph, a true California special.  He had at least some affinity as a rider with the wild, bearded Outlaws who came to the attention of the press and the California Attorney General (Thomas C. Lynch - perfect name).  Lynch submitted an official report on the gang in '65, blowing their influence, crime statistics, and numbers all out of proportion, perpetuating the image of a Bogeyman on two wheels, summoned dybbuk-like by Life magazine in their 1947 article on the Hollister 'riots', which formed the basis for the film 'The Wild One'.  (For an education on this event, with witness interviews, click here)

                                       (Photos by Hunter S. Thompson )

 Lynch's report created another wave of popular mistrust of motorcyclists, and Thompson, living in San Francisco at the time (with a wife and child no less), spent two weeks visiting and interviewing HA gang members to get the 'real story', after gaining an introduction from ex-HA Birney Jarvis, a police reporter from the SF Chronicle.  He quickly discredited Lynch's report, which claimed '233 active HA members in San Francisco alone' - Thompson found 11.  It was a brave bit of reporting, not only to spend time with a gang who thoroughly distrusted journalists, but as well to throw all the rubbish, exaggeration, and fearmongering printed about the Hell's Angels right back at the Authorities and lapdog media.  Thompson's article, 'The Motorcycle Gangs', was printed in The Nation in May 1965, and offers came immediately from publishers who wanted Thompson to expand the story.

Hunter S. Thompson spent the following year with the Angels, who fully participated in the project, recording lengthy interviews.  Thompson's fair reporting in The Nation, combined with his riding skills, a measure of fearless crankiness, and a taste for bending his mind, earned the respect of the club.  He also allowed club members to review drafts of the book for accuracy - probably a wise move, given their propensity for violence.  Thus, his visits, interviews, and ultimately the book, were fully sanctioned by the club.  That he was savagely 'stomped' at the end of his book is the stuff of legend, although he later admitted that those who beat him weren't HAs with whom he had spent time.  Enjoy this sensationalizing television interview from shortly after the event (and you thought Jerry Springer et al were a novelty - this is 1966!):

The resultant book was a sales success, even though Thompson botched his book tour with continual drunkenness and erratic behavior.  His writing career blossomed, and he continued to follow 'outsider' stories of drug use in the Haight-Ashbury district, and the media circus following political candidates.
In 1970, a 'small' assignment for Sports Illustrated (photographs of the Mint 400 motorcycle race with a 250-word caption), metastasized into a drug-fueled 2,500 word rant on his depraved Las Vegas trip with attorney Oscar Acosta (below). 

While the magazine 'aggressively rejected' (!) his piece, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner liked what he read and commissioned a lengthy article, which appeared in two parts.  'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' (Random House, 1971) grew out of the articles, and in the midst of the druggy haze, a lot of hilarious writing about motorcycles is included.  Here's a sample:

                         (Thompson also began a long collaboration with illustrator Ralph Steadman)

"Well," he said, "as your attorney I advise you to buy a motorcycle. How else can you cover a thing like this righteously?"
"No way," I said. "Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?"
"Whats that?"
"A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."
"That sounds about right for this gig," he said.
"It is," I assured him. "The fucker's not much for turning, but it's pure hell on the straightaway. It'll outrun the F-111 until takeoff."
"Takeoff?" he said. "Can we handle that much torque?"
"Absolutely," I said. "I'll call New York for some cash." 

And in 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72' (Random House, 1973):

After Miami the calendar shows a bit of rest on the political front -- but not for me: I have to come back out to California and ride that goddamn fiendish Vincent Black Shadow again, for the road tests. The original plan was to deal with the beast in my off-hours during the California primary coverage, but serious problems developed.
Ten days before the election -- with McGovern apparently so far ahead that most of the press people were looking for ways to avoid covering the final week -- I drove out to Ventura, a satellite town just north of L.A. in the San Fernando Valley, to pick up the bugger and use it to cover the rest of the primary. Greg Jackson, an ABC correspondent who used to race motorcycles, went along with me. We were both curious about this machine. Chris Bunche, editor of Choppers magazine, said it was so fast and terrible that it made the extremely fast Honda 750 seem like a harmless toy.
This proved to be absolutely true. I rode a factory-demo Honda for a while, just to get the feel of being back on a serious road-runner again . . . and it seemed just fine: very quick, very powerful, very easy in the hands, one-touch electric starter. A very civilized machine, in all, and I might even be tempted to buy one if I didn't have the same gut distaste for Hondas that the American Honda management has for Rolling Stone. They don't like the image. "You meet the nicest people on a Honda," they say -- but according to a letter from American Honda to the Rolling Stone ad manager, none of these nicest people have much stomach for a magazine like the Stone.
Which is probably just as well; because if you're a safe, happy, nice, young Republican you probably don't want to read about things like dope, rock music and politics anyway. You want to stick with Time, and for weekend recreation do a bit of the laid-back street-cruising on your big fast Honda 750. . . maybe burn a Sportster or a Triumph here or there, just for the fun of it: But nothing serious, because when you start that kind of thing you don't meet many nice people.
Jesus! Another tangent, and right up front, this time -- the whole lead, in fact, completely fucked.

His most legendary piece of motorcycle writing, though, on par in my opinion with T.E. Lawrence's extract from 'The Mint', is from an article in Cycle World, March 1995;   'The Song of the Sausage Creature' (read the entire piece here):

Of course. You want to cripple the bastard? Send him a 130-mph café racer. And include some license plates, so he'll think it's a streetbike. He's queer for anything fast.
Which is true. I have been a connoisseur of fast motorcycles all my life. I bought a brand-new 650 BSA Lightning when it was billed as "the fastest motorcycle ever tested by Hot Rod magazine." I have ridden a 500-pound Vincent through traffic on the Ventura Freeway with burning oil on my legs and run the Kawa 750 triple through Beverly Hills at night with a head full of acid.... I have ridden with Sonny Barger and smoked weed in biker bars with Jack Nicholson, Grace Slick, Ron Zigler, and my infamous old friend, Ken Kesey, a legendary Café Racer.



Or maybe not: The Ducati 900 is so finely engineered and balanced and torqued that you can do 90 mph in fifth through a 35-mph zone and get away with it. The bike is not just fast -- it is extremely quick and responsive, and it will do amazing things.... It is a little like riding the original Vincent Black Shadow, which would outrun an F-86 jet fighter on the takeoff runway, but at the end, the F-86 would go airborne and the Vincent would not, and there was no point in trying to turn it. WHAMO! The Sausage Creature strikes again.
There is a fundamental difference, however, between the old Vincents and the new breed of superbikes. If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time, you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society. The Vincent was like a bullet that went straight; the Ducati is like the magic bullet that went sideways and hit JFK and the Governor of Texas at the same time. It was impossible. But so was my terrifying sideways leap across railroad tracks on the 900SP. The bike did it easily with the grace of a fleeing tomcat. The landing was so easy I remember thinking, goddamnit, if I had screwed it on a little more I could have gone a lot further.
Maybe this is the new Café Racer macho. My bike is so much faster than yours that I dare you to ride it, you lame little turd. Do you have the balls to ride this BOTTOMLESS PIT OF TORQUE?

That is the attitude of the New Age superbike freak, and I am one of them. On some days they are about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The Vincent just killed you a lot faster than a superbike will. A fool couldn't ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once, but a fool can ride a Ducati 900 many times, and it will always be bloodcurdling kind of fun. That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME." 

Thompson may have been light on technical data (surely for effect), but his adrenalized style really suits the experience of that special cocktail of Speed; half gonna-die danger, half gotta-live thrill.

THE VINTAGENT IN 'CYCLE WORLD'

 The October edition of Cycle World magazine is out in print, and includes my review of Falcon Motorcycle's 'Kestrel', as part of CW's 'World's Coolest Bikes' series.  Thanks to editor in chief Mark Hoyer for including the piece in this issue, and for a skilled editing job (most instructive, actually, how a few minor tweaks can integrate my florid writing style to the 'feel' of a modern motorcycle mag).

If you're not a subscriber, find it on the rack...it IS the biggest circulation motorcycle magazine in the world, so your local grocery store might have it.  Cycle World has always included a few vintage motorcycle articles among the hyperbike shootouts.  Their 'Rolling Concours' events are the best possible concept for a motorcycle show, where your show bike MUST be ridden on their day tour (75 miles or so) to be eligible for a prize...not just onto the podium!

PEBBLE BEACH 2010: UNRESTORED MACHINES (PART 1 of 2)

It took the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance only 59 years to allow motorcycles onto their hallowed greens by Monterey Bay, and coincidentally onto 17 Mile Drive, which is the only access into this gated community.  Previous to last year, attempted entry onto the Drive would have seen you riding back whence you came, as it will today if you approach the guard kiosk, after the parties are over and the temporary motorcycle welcome has worn off.  Don't get Notions just because 27 amazing motorcycles were tucked onto a patch of unmowed grass (the 'rough' - and aren't we just) during the Concours; there are still drinking fountains marked 'biker' at the PB Lodge.

Pebble has chosen a strict thematic presentation for their motorcycle Concours, and this year all entries were US-made and pre-1941.  The number of machines increased 50% over 2009's 'British' display, with a good balance between restored machines, unrestored survivors, plus a few troubling 'restored-to-look-unrestored' bikes.  All hinted at the abundant variety available to an interested customer in the 'Teens and Twenties especially; singles, twins, fours, overhead-valve, sidevalve, F-head, direct drive, belt-drive, two-speed, three-speed.

Of the Unrestored category, most were racers not roadsters, each with a 'wow' factor for different reasons.  Vince Martinico brought his 1908 Indian 'Torpedo Tank', last seen winning Best in Show at the Legend of the Motorcycle Concours; a small miracle of a machine from the advent of that famous company, Vince brought a few photos along to document who raced the bike (Paul Derkum), and pedalled into chuffing life several times during the day.

The little v-twin engine has atmospheric inlet valves (no direct cam operation, opened by piston suction), and the whole machine is still very much a bicycle with a motor stuffed inside...amazing to think that 3 years later, Indian would begin developing their 8-Valve racers, shortly to exceed 100mph!  This little bike simply oozes character.

Dale Walksler of the Wheels Through Time Museum brought this 1929 Harley-Davidson DAR track racer, with four-valve cylinder heads, and four exhaust pipes giving the raciest look of all.  It's a '45' (750cc), and extremely rare as most ohv H-D racers were built for Hillclimbs at that time.  Clearly meant for flat-out speed , this DAR is really the business.   Dale found the intact rolling chassis in the estate/barn of a former Harley dealer, and the proper engine just a few days later.  He is convinced the engine is the Actual original from this chassis, as it fits perfectly with all the oil fittings and chassis brackets - and given HD only made a few of ohv racers of this type, he's probably right.

The DAR bears scrutiny - it's a masterpiece of racing engineering from the 20's; brutal, antiquated, and fast as hell.  To compare this machine, with no gearbox or brakes, with other racers of the day (check this '26 Indian ohv road racer, or any road racer from England or Italy from the late 20s), highlights the unique character of US motorcycle racing pre-WW2, when it was all about dirt or board tracks, or hillclimbs, which evolved quirky machines so specialized as to be useless in any other context, and bearing zero technical similarity to the products in the showroom.  The American equivalent of a GP racer.

Note the hand-hewn racing Schebler carburetor, with extra air intakes - a full separate bellmouth brazed onto the carb body, plus a hole in the mixing chamber, both controlled by the rider at speed via sliding covers - I've never seen a carb quite like it.  More air!

Also interesting - the bike retains bicycle pedals, but these are appendages left from an earlier age, as pedal-starting such a beast would be impossible.  Perhaps racing veterans felt comfortable with hinged footrests?  The oiling system is unique, with two oil tanks inside the left pannier, one feeding the throttle-controlled oil pump, the other oiling the chains.  A hand-pump gave a shot direct to the drive side main bearing; all the oil eventually went back the dirt, not to the oil tanks.

As all machines at Pebble are expected to run (and ride onto the podium in case of a prize award), starting this Harley presented a challenge, solved via the largesse of Bryan Bossier, who allowed his 'Big Tank' Crocker to be used as a starting mule, the two machines backed into each other and making an unforgettable racket as the HD came to smoky life.   It was quite a scene, worth the price of admission - definitely the most expensive set of starter rollers Ever. (photo courtesy Bob Stokstad)

Larry Feece brought his 'barn find' racing team of four Indian Scouts (750cc), '37-'41 models, owned and modified by Buck Rogers, an engineer at Studebaker cars.  Rogers began with one Sport Scout (1937), had it tuned by Art Hafer, then purchased three more over time to support young racers with a bike and some gas money.  He ran his privateer team for five years, then parked the bikes in 1955, where Feece found them in as-last-raced condition decades later.  Larry has wisely kept them strictly as found during his tenure, whilst the collecting world catches up to the idea that untouched machines are simply irreplaceable, and our true historical treasures.

Two unrestored/original Harleys were remarkable historical references, and likely the best century-old (or nearly so) HDs around, both resplendent in subdued grey paint, with oxidation appropriate to their age.  This 1915 '11F' twin sold at the Las Vegas MidAmerica auction in 2009, and gives an idea of the fine quality pinstriping emerging in Milwaukee during the 'Teens.  A very appealing motorcycle (and having ridden a '15 HD just like this, I can attest they go surprisingly well too, with decent handling).

Even more subdued is this ex-La Grange Police Department 1909 HD single, the 'Silent Grey Fellow', very quiet indeed with no whining gearbox or thrashing chains, just that big flat leather belt going around with a quiet 'tic' every time the riveted joint goes over the engine pulley.  This is another amazingly well preserved motorcycle, the sort of bike which might have been restored 20 years ago, but thankfully wasn't.

This 1913 Flying Merkel is mostly an original paint machine, although owner Mike Madden admits to 'sprucing-down' the primary chain cover, as the original was missing and a new one fabricated.  He didn't try too hard to mimic the original paint, so the replacement is clear but doesn't glare.  The Merkel was quite a sophisticated motorcycle, with monoshock rear suspension and an oil-in-frame chassis; features which would be loudly advertised again in the 1980s!  The front fork are rigid though...

Last up on our tour is this faux-original 1916 Excelsior Board Track racer, which has an impressively applied patina.  It took real skill to develop the 6 or 7 layers of paint, varnish, stains, and chips to achieve such visual depth and amber/oily coloration on various new components.  Someday, though, when the paintwork has actually oxidized, it may be difficult to tell this machine from an original/unrestored bike, and then the trouble begins.