Black Magic or Just British Underengineering?

The Vincent nonsense never ends, does it? The kind of money involved in this motorcycle's existence and sale at auction makes me want to puke. $929,000 for an obsolete motorcycle that handles like a brick, is almost as fast as a modern 400cc sport bike, and can only be repaired by a machinist who can make parts from scratch? When motorcycling becomes the playpen of the idle 1% you know it's on the way out of mainstream.

You Don’t Have to Experience Everything

Since I was a kid, I’ve had friends who are into vintage stuff (PC for “old crap”): motorcycles, bicycles, cars, guitars, audio equipment, tractors, boats, stamps, records, clothes, and probably other crap I’ve ignored or forgotten. A few years ago, I conned myself into thinking a ride to Davenport, Iowa for the Vintage Motorcycle Swapmeet might be entertaining. A friend emailed me that his wife wasn‘t convinced he was competent to ride 300 miles by himself. I’ve been there before and out of some sort of misplaced sympathy I volunteered to ride along.

I, honestly, didn’t have any idea what the event was going to be like. My two experiences with vintage motorcycle events are the Vikings swapmeet in St. Paul and the Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week. The Steamboat event was an unrealistic introduction to what are usually fairly dismal events. Mostly, vintage motorcycle meets are an opportunity for way too many guys with way too much time on their hands to get together and trade crap. The Steamboat Springs event was mostly about competition: motocross, observed trials, flat track, and road racing. “Progress” and rich people contaminating Colorado eventually killed the Steamboat event and I suspect I’ll never see anything like that again. Davenport wasn’t even a poor second. The “races” were a dozen or so mile flat track with everything from seriously vintage clunkers to some modern and fast bikes.

The races supplied a couple hours of diversion, and then there was nothing left to do but “camp” for the night. I have never spent a night “camping” among a zillion other guys in an urban setting. It’s hard to imagine a much more ridicules situation than a hoard of tents, campers, and snoring old men within crawling distance from houses, motels, and stores. It’s not like these guys are all broke and can’t afford a decent night’s sleep in a motel or in their homes. It’s something else and I don’t know what. It’s damned silly, whatever it is.

When I was in my twenties, my step-sister got married and had a classic wedding in a church with all the trimmings. At the time, I didn’t own a suit, a tie, or a white shirt that wasn’t a stained tee-shirt. I bought all of that for the wedding because my father promised me, “Everyone has to go through at least one of these things.” He was wrong. I had to go through three more, including both of my daughters’ weddings. It isn’t true that you have to go through one of everything in a life. I could have easily missed out of sleeping in a fairground surrounded by snoring old men. I suggest you learn something from my screw-up and avoid those things like the plague.

Collections of old useless crap seems to be something handed down from my parents’ generation. Even my parents, who weren’t particularly enamored with old junk, had a houseful of “antiques” and memorabilia that mostly got tossed or donated or given away after my father died. The only people I know under 50 who collect old crap fall into two groups: 1) trust fund brats who are trying to appear useful or relevant or something and 2) grown children of hoarders who mistook their parents’ disease for a profession. There are always outliers, but for the most part hoarding “collectors’” junk appears to be a dying hobby. Good riddance.

Where Is This Going?

Bloomberg Press just published an article claiming "Americans Are Prioritizing Phone Payments Over Car Loans." The article says, “As cars grow relatively less important, borrowers struggling to pay back their loans on time are increasingly prioritizing payments on the latest iPhone instead of making sure they hold on to their pickup or coupe.”

“So what?” You might say . . . and rightfully so.

The reason Bloomberg was interested in this phenomenon is investments. In particular, good old derivatives. Remember them? Those unsecured, gambling vehicles that were used to bankrupt the entire world economy in 2007? Yeah, that’s the way we’re going to look at the future of motorcycling, cars, and cell phones. “The shift is increasing the attractiveness of bonds generated from mobile-phone loans, a small but growing portion of the asset-backed securities market. While just $7.7 billion of bonds backed by phone purchases have been issued since 2016 -- and all by Verizon Communications Inc. -- the number may increase over coming years.”

So, not only are Americans more interested in staring at their tiny screens, tapping away with their thumbs at the speed of mentally deficient secretaries, and double-checking their “likes” while walking into traffic without a clue or a care in the world. And they are walking because their car has been repossessed and they probably didn’t even notice.

If that’s the direction we’re going, you damn well better get whatever you can get out of your vintage bikes while you can. In another generation, you’ll be selling those wheels for scrap metal prices.

Wandering Down to Davenport

Back in early August, a friend wrote me, “Hey are you going to be back from Canada Labor Day weekend? I'm looking for a buddy to ride to Davenport Vintage Meet. Ride down Friday in time for the races, hang out Sat/swap meet, ride back Sunday with a ferry ride & a crazy Catholic church chicken dinner on the way.” Do not ask me why, but I said “Assuming no catastrophes or old age shit, I should be good for that.” And I put the ride on my calendar for the first weekend in September. I didn’t even look up the details about the “event” until a few days before we were set to go. I had delusions of seeing something like the old Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week. Not a chance in hell.

After an auspicious beginning, “The Easy Way or My Way,” prep session, the actual trip was anticlimactic. The ride between Red Wing and Davenport was way cooler than I’d expected. I haven’t really explored much of southeast Minnesota, other than the ride back from Cincinnati when I bought my V-Strom in 2007. Cal did a masterful job as tour director. There were fewer than 75 boring miles (one-way) in the whole trip, most of which came at the end near Davenport. 

Davenport, on the other hand, is a typical Midwestern town with typically boring fairgrounds: home of the Mississippi Valley Fairgound also home of the Davenport Vintage thing. This would also be our “campground.” Over the years, I have camped in some really stupid places: ditches, corn and wheat fields, hanging from trees, shouldering my way on to rocks, on picnic tables and park benches, beside highways and freeways, and in KOAs and worse. This place was close to the worst. We ended up setting up camp in two places: 1) Cal and Tim in the middle of a parking lot where they both had sworn they would never camp again and 2) me next to a gazebo and some metal park benches where I could hang my hammock. Later, I discovered two things about my far more prime site than Cal and Tim’s, 1) I was surrounded by the loudest, scariest snoring sounds emitted by biological beings (assuming old men are biological beings) and 2) everywhere but where I entered the area my campsite was labeled “no campers here.” I decided, screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke and opted to pretend ignorance: forgiveness being easier to come by than permission. Besides, there were no other places in the damn fairgounds where my hammock could hang.

Mostly, I managed to sleep about as well as usual, for a 70-year-old geezer in a hammock, after I plugged my ears to soften the snarl of snoring and choking and farting and old white man nightmares. Holy crap! I don’t think there was a guy near my part of the park who didn’t need a sleep apnea machine and an oxygen tank and a soundproof/vibration-proof booth to sleep in to prevent avalanches or earthquakes. A large pack of pissed-off lions would have been quieter. To top it all off, one end of my Lawson Hammock broke loose about 5AM and I gave up, packed up, and went looking for a place to eat breakfast in peace. For a farm town, Davenport is awfully urban. I couldn’t find a damn place for breakfast in the whole freakin’ town until 7AM. I didn’t come away with a positive impression of Davenport from that search.

However, breakfast was good if late and I wandered back to the fairgrounds to see what the guys had been up to. Mostly, it turned out, half of that group had an ok night and the other half was at least as miserable as me. They were walking the “display” booths, piles of junk with hilarious price tags, mostly. I walked with them, being an asshole and amazed at the same time. “Really? You guys have come back here for this for 20 years?” Stuff like that. I’d decided over breakfast that I wasn’t going to suffer another night among the shambling old guys and their giant kazoo noses and noises and I started bugging Cal about a half-way spot to meet on the way back home. I figured I could easily find a better campsite than the fairgrounds, a better breakfast place, and get some writing and reading time while Cal and Tim spent a day looking at piles of junk.

Turned out, Cal had a sudden personal reason to head for home on Saturday and Tim was more than ready to cut it short. My only requirement was that we get the hell out of Dodge quick enough to avoid much night riding. So, we made a quick loop of the junk piles, walked the restored vintage competition room, and headed out mid-morning Saturday.

The ride back wasn’t as scenic as the right down, because Cal was trying to cut off a few miles and minutes for the trip. I broke away just out of Rochester and took a deviated GPS-mapped route home up MN 42 through Millville to MN 11 to MN 60 to US61 and home. Sort of the scenic route and much of it was an incredibly fun road for the V-Strom. Would have been even more fun on the WR.
As you might know, I’m not much for group rides. This was about as good as they get for me, though. It probably would have been more fun to drive down and bullshit all the way, but it wasn’t bad. I’m NEVER “camping” in a fairground again, though.

Geezers on Beemers

(AKA: Steamboat Springs 1997)

Every year, since I moved out of Colorado, my expedition to the Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week gets a little tougher. Last year, I flew to Denver, borrowed a friend’s Honda Hawk, and nearly missed my flight home when my luggage fell off of the Hawk in the middle of traffic on I-70, spreading my belongings and plane ticket all over Colorado. This year, I decided to ride the whole 2,400 miles. Next year, I may try walking.

My bike is a ’92 Yamaha TDM, which is a weird cross between a crotch rocket and a dirt bike. It’s probably the closest thing Japan will ever come to importing a Paris-Dakar style bike to the US. Out of some weird allegiance to my dirt biking past, I put dual-purpose tires on the bike this past winter. Because of that strange heritage and hardware, I actually hoped to do some real cross-country touring this trip. Some people do not get wiser as they get older.

Because I had a few days of vacation to burn up, I left for Denver early Sunday morning, September 7^th. Steamboat’s Vintage Motorcycle Week was September 10 to the 14^th. The start of my planned route was diagonally across Minnesota, via highways 169 and 60, to Sioux City. Early in the day I passed the Mennonite settlement of Mountain Lake, MN, where there is a "phone museum" and other exciting attractions. I’d always thought of Mennonites as hardworking, honest types, but this place had to be their equivalent of a Florida swamp real estate scam. There is no no mountain and no lake, as far as I could see, anywhere near Mountain Lake. I have a new sort of respect for Mennonites.

I stopped in Heron Lake for my first fuel stop. I discovered, by drenching my bike and feet in gas, that the fuel shutoff was defective. With the helmet and ear plugs in place, I nearly dumped two gallons of gas on the ground before I noticed I was creating a Super Fund site. From here out, I did my trip documentation after filling the tank. It didn’t surprise the lady at the counter though. She said, "that side don’t register, this side does," when I told her about the screwed up pump. I kept an eye on the mirror, as I left town, half hoping for a mushroom cloud to compensate me for the wasted fuel.

Just south of Worthington, I tailed a yuppie in a Range Rover who showed no fear of Iowa’s CHP. He got me through that mind-numbing state in record time. I stopped at an interstate rest stop in Iowa where an old lady with a highway department uniform told me "I used to be in the bidnez worl’, that’s why I’m workin’ here." I thought she meant the business world ruined her life, but she was just working for the exercise. Go figure. Just south of Sioux City, I hooked up to highway 77 and to some even less regularly maintained roads.

I used to live in north eastern Nebraska and I mistakenly thought that gave me some ability to pick my way across the state. I ended up on a newly graveled road, about 10 miles north of North Bend, that was terminated by a large crane and a missing section of road. When I stopped to look at the construction damage, my wheels sunk past the rims. My next short cut took me though about 5 miles of really deep gravel and sand. By the time I escaped that desert riding experience, my front fender had a 3" hole pecked into the back side and my chain picked up about an inch of slack.

After relocating asphalt, I picked up 30 at North Bend and headed west. I failed the "will to live" test and stopped for a hamburger in Columbus, NE (Actually, I figured that ought to be the safest place in the US for a beef-eater, after that city’s most recent 15 minutes of fame.) Making up for lost time, I stuck with 30 to Grand Island and jumped to I-80. By the time I got to Gothenburg, NE; 630 miles from home, I was wiped out. I stayed in a truckers’ motel that night and set the alarm for a 5:00AM takeoff.
Poor road maintenance almost bit me in the butt this morning. I had a low rear tire and thought I’d developed an oil leak when I stopped in Julesburg, CO. The tire was low, but OK. I washed the engine and discovered the oil leak was just chain lube that was heating up and dripping off of the engine cases. I promised my self I would watch my oil level and temp gauge carefully for the rest of that leg of the trip, just in case. I managed to hold to that promise all the way to Denver, about 120 miles. Later in the trip, my failure to extend this pledge to the whole journey would haunt me.

By noon Monday, 372 miles later, I was in Denver. You can’t see the mountains until you are about 55 miles from the city. Mountain cloud cover suddenly becomes mountains and the air seems cooler and fresher. The last 50 miles into Denver seem to go quickly and the horizon’s view is terrific.

When I stopped, my butt hurt. My kidneys were falling out in chunks. My bike needed about 10 hours of serious maintenance. Being the high tech, serious maintenance guy I am, I lubed and re-tensioned the chain, put duct tape over the hole in the fender, washed the bike, checked for loose hardware, washed my laundry, and hung out in a bar until Wednesday morning.

Six of us left my friend’s home for Steamboat Wednesday at about 8:30AM. We were probably the weirdest collection of motorcycles on the highway that morning: a Yamaha TDM (mine), two Honda new Magnas, a ’78 Kawasaki Scepter, and an ’83 Yamaha Venture. After a few miles, we strung out across the highway in a several mile long "touring pattern."

We intended to get to Steamboat by noon so we could catch a little of the dirt track speedway racing in Hayden that afternoon. We’ve made that plan five years in a row. Like the other years, this year we didn’t get to Steamboat until 1:30PM, our trip schedule was sabotaged by several coffee, fuel, and meal beaks. Some of the group, including me, thought the lodge’s hot tub looked more interesting than another 100 miles on the bikes. Those who stayed watched the clouds cruise the mountain tops and drank beer. Those who left got to Hayden just as the last of the racers were leaving and got caught in a short rain storm on the way back. I try to make each of my millions of mistakes only once.

The next day, I went to town by myself because none of my group was all that hip on the trials event. This is the sport with which I ended my 15 year off-road competition career. In fact, the years defined as the end of "vintage" were state-of-the-art just before I quit trying to luck into a trophy. Every once in a while, Steamboat makes me reconsider my constant fear of knee injuries and I think about buying a Bultaco Sherpa T or a Yamaha TY and doing a little cherry-picking. Steamboat’s vintage traps are almost all easy enough that a good rider could zero out on a street bike.

This is also the day where the "geezers on Beemers" sub-title for Steamboat really becomes appropriate. There seem to be an incredible number of retired executives, military officers, and other non-working class types doing the vintage-bike gypsy tour. They live in 40’ luxury campers and tow bike-trailer/work-shops that make my garage look puny and unequipped. A few of them even have trophy wives in tow. Since most of these guys are pretty near my age and I don’t have any of that stuff, I try not to make too many comparisons or I’ll get discouraged.

I really get a kick out of seeing how many ancient bikes have been modified for trials. I didn’t even know BSA or Greeves made a 125 or that anyone was riding trials pre-WWII before my first trip to Steamboat. This is like a dirty, live-action museum with some dirty, active museum caretakers riding the exhibits. It rained a little about 10:00AM, just enough to send me back to the bike for my jacket. As soon as I had two arms full of stuff to carry, the weather got hot and I spent the rest of the morning sweating and grinding dirt into all of my body parts. I don’t know who won, probably some geezer with a collection of Beemers and a Yamaha TY in like-new condition.

Friday is vintage motocross day. Another of my favorite events. Again, I was up and out before the rest of the group. I spent the early morning walking through the pits, taking pictures, listening to experts talk about the history of various, long-dead motorcycle manufacturers. It’s still hard for me to reconcile Rickman, Bultaco, Ossa, Norton, BSA, and the rest of the deceased as being not only dead, but long dead. Seeing these bikes back in their prime, sometimes much better than prime, is a lot of retrospective fun.
Speaking of deadends, three other TDM’ers showed up for Steamboat. We belong to an Internet maillist for our bike and some of us have been writing each other for a couple of years without ever putting faces to names. I recognized a couple of the guys by their bikes. Yamaha orphaned the TDM after importing it to the U.S. for two years (1992-93). Most of us have done a lot of little things to personalize our bikes and it was fun getting to see the mods I’d been reading about. Everyone got a good laugh of the state of my front fender and the general condition of my bike compared to those whose owners, intelligently, avoid dirt roads. We experienced our "fifteen minutes of fame" when another biker recognized us as "those guys who met on the Internet." We took pictures, talked for a couple hours, and headed in four directions for the rest of the weekend.

The actual races are almost anticlimactic. It’s always a kick watching Dick Mann win. He was a Baja hero of mine when I was a kid. He’s still heroic at sixty-something. Dave Lindeman, a Denver fireman, put on a good show in the Open Twin Expert class, dueling and beating Rick Doughty’s zillion dollar Rickman/BSA on a cobbled up Yamaha XL650.

But lots of the actual races are pretty boring. There are wads of timid, over-forty wannabes who barely turn their bikes on in the straights and come to a lethargic near-stop at every corner. The race to the first turn is often more humorous than exciting. Everyone is so concerned with avoiding contact and a crash-and-burn that they barely make it to the turn, let alone work for a decent position on the other side. In the bulk of the races, there is rarely more than two half-decent racers. The other two dozen geriatric cases are nothing more than track obstacles when the fast guys start lapping them. The upside, for me, is that I regularly get pumped about buying an Elsinore and stealing a trophy. The downside is after making a couple of deep knee squats, I remember why the majority of the riders are going so slow. Getting old is hell. The body can’t even remember how to do what the brain told it to do.

Fairly late in the afternoon, the races are over. We cruise the streets of Steamboat, looking at bikes we will never own. This really is a BMW convention. I doubt there is a bike BMW ever made that isn’t represented here. Seems like there are more Harleys this year, too. Maybe that’s why the local paper doesn’t have a single word about the events. In years past, I could read about what I’d seen the previous day in the local rag. Not this year. There must be several thousand bikers in town and the only mention of motorcycles was when a local biker got smacked by local cager. It’s not like this is a pack of Outlaws, tearing up the bars and defiling local women. A pair of women, climbing out of a Jeep Cherokee on their way to lunch, asked one of my buddies if we were a "biker gang." He told them, "Yeah, after our nap, we’re gonna take this town apart!" That’s about the speed of everyone at Steamboat. Sedate. Old. Mostly intent on finding a good restaurant and a decent hotel. I guess we still found a way to scare them.

I didn’t cruise much Friday night. We really did find a great place to stay and I headed back, well before dark, to sit in the hot tub and watch the clouds and the mountains flare and fade in a crimson tinted sundown lightshow. Beer, a good book, a hot tub, and tired, old aching joints really go well together. If a local female stripped herself and jumped into my hot tub, I might have defiled her but I’d have more likely been pissed that she got my book wet. I bought my beer at the Clark Store, so I didn’t even have a chance to think about trashing a bar. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a biker, I guess.

Saturday is vintage road racing and the first opportunity we have to look at the concourse. We buy pit passes, which are $20, and head for the pits. I’m not much of a connoisseur of street bikes. In fact, I never paid any attention to street bikes at all until I’d been riding and racing for almost 15 years. I still don’t really know one cruiser or crotch-rocket from another. I don’t much care about cars either. But there are some really neat, loud noises coming from the pits and one of my friends has a great time describing all the bikes to me. I lecture on the dirt bike days, he does the street day.

About two hours into Saturday, I got bored. This is a terrible thing for a "reporter" to admit, but I’d have rather been riding than watching. When I fell asleep and lost track of where the rest of my group had gone, I decided it was time for me to hit the road. I’d planned on leaving that day, anyway, and it seemed like the time to do it. I wandered around the course for another hour, trying to find everyone, with no luck. I stuck a note on a friend’s seat and started getting ready for the long ride back to Minnesota.

Sunday is the modern road race. I have been going to Steamboat for 6 years and I’ve never stayed for the modern road race. My justification for leaving early is that I can watch modern crotch rocketing any weekend during the summer and I never do. Why blow a good day of riding watching someone else have a good day of riding? Like all the years past, I left on Saturday and missed the really fast guys. They’d just discourage me, anyway.

The real reason I wanted to leave early was that I wanted the extra riding time so I could go back the long way, through Wyoming and South Dakota. I retraced my trip into Steamboat back over Rabbit Ears Pass. About 30 miles east of Steamboat, I turned north on Colorado 14. This is one of the prettiest roads I’ve traveled in Colorado. It’s a neat combination of mountain plains and ranch land. The road isn’t particularly twisty, but it does curve its way through a beautiful section of the Rockies. The road is well maintained and completely unoccupied by cage or cop. I made good time to Walden, where I picked up 127 and continued north to Laramie, WY.

The scenery doesn’t stop when you leave Colorado. Good roads and great views all the way to Laramie, where I copped out and took the freeway (I80). After 300 miles of awesome two lanes, I80 was a complete bummer. But I stuck to it to Cheyenne, where I swapped freeways and took I25 north to Wheatland. I spent the night in Wheatland, at another truck stop. Leaving Steamboat early allowed me to knock off 250 unproductive (destination-wise) miles before I seriously head for home.

The actual route I took from Wheatland to Deadwood is up for discussion. I know I stayed on I25 for a few more miles to Wyoming 160. I know I swapped off of 160 to 270, because I had breakfast in Lusk, WY. I’m not sure I stuck with 270 all the way to Lusk, though. A good portion of that trip was on dirt roads. I mostly used the sun as a compass and tried to keep going north at every intersection. I popped out of the last section of dirt road on highway 85, just a few miles south of Lusk. I had been on reserve for about 30 miles when I filled up in Lusk. I’d like to tell you 270 to Lusk is a terrific road, well worth traveling, because it is. I’d like to tell you that I strongly recommend this route for the scenery and adventure, because I really enjoyed that aspect of the trip. The fact is, this is a route that requires a great suspension. The road (the real road, not the dirt road) is heavily traveled by farm equipment and is pretty rough. The TDM ate it up, but a crotch rocket or cruiser would deliver a severe pounding. You decide.

Leaving Lusk, I forgot to reinsert my ear plugs. Good thing. I heard several nasty noises and pulled over for a maintenance stop. You’ll probably notice that I haven’t mentioned maintenance since just before I pulled into Denver. I hadn’t done much since then. Another brain fart. The older you get, the more of them you’ll have. I discovered the front fender had a new hole, this one on the front, from poor tire-to-fender clearance and flung gravel. I pealed away pieces that were touching the tire and "fixed" that problem. I also discovered my chain was really wearing out fast, probably due to the offroad portions of the trip. It was actually hanging up at spots as they passed over the countershaft sprocket. I bought a can of WD40 and thoroughly cleaned the chain. I lubricated the chain and made some more promises to myself regarding maintenance.

The next section of the trip was sort of frightening, considering the condition of my bike. There is next to nothing between Lusk and Deadwood, 140 miles of nothing. There are some towns listed on the map, but they are barely bumps in the road. Some of them aren’t even that. But I took this route because I was bored with the trip across Nebraska and Iowa, so I figured it was worth continuing. Not that I had much of a choice.

Wyoming is a great state. I suppose every state has a motto. Nebraska blabs about some mystical "good life" that no visitor or resident has seen any sign of. Iowa yaks about "liberties" and "rights" and parks a cop on every road to make sure no one ever even dreams about freedom. Colorado’s "nothing without providence" is totally meaningless. But Wyoming is the "big country" and you don’t have to look far to find real cowboys just like the one on their license plate. Some of those cowboys drive farm trucks on highway 85. I only saw four vehicles on the road between Lusk and the South Dakota boarder. All of them were doing 90+ mph and they all waved when they went by me. I would have stayed with them, but I wanted to live through this section of the trip with chain intact. There is nothing, in any other part of this country, like the concept of "safe and reasonable" as a speed limit. It almost makes me feel like an American. Out there, Mamma Government is in short supply and nobody misses her.

The weather totally cooperated. From the beginning of this day until I hit the plains, just west of Wall, SD, the sky was clear, the temperature was in the low 70’s, and the wind was nonexistent. South Dakota’s Black Hills are a national treasure. South of Deadwood, 85 winds through the hills like the best Rocky Mountain highway. There are miles of twisty, narrow highway that parallels beautiful streams and cuts through wooded valleys and farm land. I could take a summer long vacation, traveling the roads of the Black Hills, and never grow even a little tired of it.

I made it to Deadwood in one piece. Stopped for gas, lubed the chain, washed the windshield, checked the tires, and thoroughly inspected the bike. Then I walked to the Deadwood Historical Society museum and wasted an hour looking at the coolest of western history. There are Harleys all over Deadwood. It’s only a few miles from Sturgis, which must account for all the heavy iron.

I still hadn’t eaten when I left Deadwood. I was making, and having, such good time that I couldn’t convince myself to waste any of the day in a restaurant. Slightly north of Deadwood, I struck interstate and there I stayed until Minnesota. Once you pass Wall, the home of Wall Drug, there isn’t much to say about South Dakota. Every diddly-butt town has some kind of tourist trap. None of them are worth stopping for. It’s not just that there’s nothing to see in those towns, there’s nothing to see in that part of South Dakota. It’s just miles and miles of flat, boring plains. Most of the state’s rest stops are "out of order," probably to force travelers to waste time and money in the state’s tourist traps. I stopped for gas at Wall, Chamberlain, and Sioux Falls. There isn’t much more to say about the space between any of those cities.

The wind was killer, once I passed Wall. It was 50+mph and I felt like I was making the world’s longest right turn. 420 miles of right turn. I wanted to make Sioux Falls by nightfall, but I was forced to take a stretch break every 50 miles. My arms, back, and butt were going numb and the road never seemed to end. I swear that some of the mileage signs increased the distance to Sioux Falls as I drove east.
The only break in the monotony comes a few miles before Chamberlain, SD.

The Missouri River valley almost instantly changes the scenery. It takes you from flat, barren plains to green rolling hills in only a few miles. The river is awesome, especially after 200 miles of desolation. It’s as wide as a lake and as blue as an ocean. Unfortunately, 10 miles east of Chamberlain, I’m back in a windy desert. That evening, 650 miles from where I left that morning, I pulled into Sioux Falls and headed for a Super 8.
The next morning, I tried to sight-see in Sioux Falls but failed to find any interesting sights. I left town at about nine and headed for home. I repeated the original leg of the trip by exiting I90 at Worthington and take 60 to 169, through Mankato, and on to the Twin Cities.

I got home a little after noon. I popped the cap on a beer, filled up the hot tub, and fell asleep dreaming about high mountain passes, unlimited speed limits in Wyoming, and gorgeous snaky roads in the Black Hills. I woke up, sweating, later that night when the dream turned to wind blasted, straight and boring South Dakota interstate dotted with hundreds of Iowa Highway Patrol cars.

Vincents in Minnesota

[Thanks to an invitation from Denny Delzer, in mid-September I visited with a group of people who have the polar opposite of my wimpy plumbing attitude; the Vincent owners group.]

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

Last year, I rode my Kawasaki Super Sherpa KL250 to work, via freeway and residential roads, every day from the moment school started. This year, suffering a catastrophic early summer countershaft oil seal failure, I've ridden the 250 maybe a half-dozen times post-repair. After replacing the oil seal the 2nd time and an o-ring (during the 2nd replacement), the bike appears to be mostly dry. It still drools a bit and that bugs me.

Yeah, I'm still running synthetic oil. Hell, if the bike is going to spontaneously dump all of it's oil in a couple of seconds, I want that oil to be something that gives me a few moments to get stopped before the motor seizes up.

I saw that Mobile 1 ad. It convinced me of . . . something.

I've done all kinds of repairs on all kinds of motorcycle failures, but it appears that a bike losing all of its oil in one quick Valdez-style dump put some sort of permanent dent in my confidence. When I go out to the garage in the morning, I just walk right past the Sherpa to the V-Strom. Work is a 6 mile commute, so the Sherpa is the perfect bike for the ride, but I don't even think about it. When I get home, I give the little bike a glance as I'm parking the 650, but I'm mostly thinking about pushing the Kawasaki to the back of the garage to get it out of the way. I guess it's official, I'm a quitter.

As a reminder of my inability with fluids, our kitchen bathroom toilet "automatically" refilled itself the moment I finished typing the last paragraph. I've been fighting with that damn toilet for years. Every once in a while, I decide I'm tired of wasting water and head down to the hardware store for another attempt at finding a flapper valve that will fit this toilet. I always fail. Apparently, there is nothing made that even gets close to fitting the opening at the bottom of my toilet's tank. So, it leaks and refills itself every few hours.

I hate plumbing. It's probably the Brit in me; about 50% of me. I can accept the insult implied in an Autopia article about the all-electric Evo Designs EV-0 RR (Electric Vehicle, zero emissions, Road Race) bike was titled "A British Motorcycle that Doesn't Leak Oil." My inability with fluid control probably explains why I became an electrical engineer. Plumbing frustrates me to the point of threatening to remove all of the indoor plumbing in my house and install chamber pots and an outhouse. I'd rather freeze my ass off outdoors in -25F Minnesota weather than admit being beaten by my inability to contain fluids.

Thanks to an invitation from Denny Delzer, in mid-September I visited with a group of people who have the polar opposite of my wimpy plumbing attitude; the Vincent-HRD Owners Club. They were having their annual North American Vincent Rally in Cannon Falls and those folks are not only unafraid of a little lost oil, they seem to revel in oil spots; big and small. All across the motel parking lot, Vincents were in various states of disassembly, forming spots and puddles of oil under their oil pans. The Cannon Falls' environmentalists were in shock. The Vincent owners were up to their elbows in their natural element.

"You got a busted valve spring, have you? Want me to have a go at fixin' that, mate?"

"Busted valve stem? No problem, mate. Anyone got a torch and a coat hanger? We'll have that back in shape in a jiffy."

Some of these 1930's to late 1940's bikes came to Minnesota from Oregon, British Columbia, Alberta, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Some of them were ridden all the way, some were trailered. More than a few sported Minnesota plates.

One, Dan Smith's built-from-the-ground-up "HRD" replica, took it's maiden 650 mile voyage to be in Cannon Falls. Dan labored over this machine for two years before firing it up and loading up his gear and wife for the rally. In Aberdeen, his home-built engine broke a rod. He brazed the rod and he and his wife arrived on time and a little worse for the excitement and wear. Not many factory one-off attempts could hope to do better on their first major test.

Denny introduced me to a boatload of Vincent owners and Vincent-famous mechanics and builders. I'm apparently Vincent-famous for stalling Denny's bike on my short test ride and managing to get it back without blowing anything up. I could be known for a lot worse.  For two days, vintage Brit iron rambled all over bits of Minnesota. I came through Northfield and spotted a half-dozen Vincents parked near the Defeat of Jesse James reenactment. Several riders explored Redwing and Wisconsin on Saturday morning. With each tale of exploration came a co-existing description of some broken bits that had to be cobbled together to finish the ride. Being able to fashion a clutch plate out of a beer can is as necessary a skill for Vincent owners as it used to be for dirtbikers.

There were all sorts of Vincents at the rally. Most of which, I knew nothing about. The Vincent Black Prince and Black Night, the forefathers of the Honda PCH and Goldwing and Victory's Vision and every other faired touring bike, was probably my favorite. Next on my list would be some of the Vincents custom-fitted for LD touring. Among the oddities was a Vincent dragster and a beautiful silver road racer.

Other than being a little touchy about being approached by an old guy riding a modern bike, a serious copout by any Vincent standard, the Vincent crowd was a lot of fun and incredibly generous. On my way out, just before the concours event, I was handed a commemorative Vincent cookie which was as much a work of art as the bikes. It didn't survive the trip home, so I ate it. It tasted as good as it looked.

[Note: There are a lot more photos of this event in a slideshow at http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2009/09/2009-vincent-rally.html. If you find something there you like, let me know and I'll be glad to forward the originals.]

Vintage Bike Show 2013

The vintage bike show was a decent way to spend a couple of hours before my daughter’s family fed me for Father’s Day. The only serious temptation was a 1980’s Yamaha IT200 in trashcan condition. It wasn’t a serious temptation, though. I rode to the show on my WR250X and that pretty much ruins me for older motorcycles. I don’t even like carburetors, let alone the vehicles fueled by that obsolete technology. So, it was fun looking at old stuff (not in the mirror), but the bank account is reasonably safe.

The Good Very Old Days

My Favorite Kind of Ad

Found on Craig's List today:

1981 Maico 250 - $1 (Twin Cities)

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Date: 2012-08-05, 12:33PM CDT
Reply to: vhr7b-3185582246@sale.craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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This bike has had a stage three modification completed by Eric Cook. Probably the most unbelievable bike I ever had the pleasure to ride. I just don't have the time to show it off at the tracks or even time to ride it like it should be ridden.

I just had the clutch chains changed and engine completely inspected. I'll sell it to the right person for 5k. Serious inquiries only... other wise I'll just keep this one of a kind bike. I purchased thru Bill at EC Maico and just bought some new "red" side plates from Bill also.

If you don't understand the names and processes completed; this is NOT the bike for you.

six5I*47O*87threeO

Dean 

Why even try to sell it if you won't take any offer less than outrageous and would rather store it in your garage, anyway? What's with the $1 price on the header? If you want $5k, have the balls to admit it and reap the consequences of the absolutely NO calls you will receive for this relic of the bad old days. 

In Pursuit of Quality

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

The most recent owner/manufacturer of the Norton label claimed that he's only going to be capable of making 2000-4000 bikes a year because "Nortons are essentially going to be handmade . . . you simply can't maintain that level of quality and control with large-scale production."

Funny. Nortons have never been particularly famous for "quality," unless oil puddles, unreliability, and no competitive advantage in power, handling, or any other performance category has become a quality value. The definition of quality this corporate goof is using is one that is mostly centered around cosmetics and no-expense-spared handiwork. That's a definition that only the richest folks can appreciate.

2010 Norton Commando 961 Cafe Racer

An old manufacturing maxim directs the fruitcakes in marketing and the delusional loonies in sales in the reality, "Quality, price, or delivery. Pick two." Modern American and Brit motorcycle manufacturing blew off the option making that decision and appears to be happy with going for the appearance of quality without caring a lot about price or delivery. That appears to be the tact Norton's new owner is going to take with the long-abused marquee. That kind of business model only works when a sufficient number of customers are dumb enough to cough up buckets of money for a mediocre product. It's probably a pretty good short-term tactic, assuming those rich, dumb customers aren't actually going to ride their new toy.

For the rest of us, the modern manufacturing standard of quality will have to do: a quality product meets its customers' expectations. That's it. Japan practically perfected this standard and changed everything in the world of manufacturing in the process. Before the quality revolution of the 1960's and 70's, middle-class customers expected products from Detroit, American electronics manufacturers, and their appliances to have "personality." Personality means defects, glitches, and high maintenance. Most of us have places we want to go, people we want to meet, deadlines and schedules, and bucket lists. We don't have time for vehicles with personality, so we settle for real quality instead of the cosmetic kind.

If you are going to make that choice, your only option is to go for "large-scale production" products because that's where practical quality usually lives. One of the beauties of large-scale production is large-scale consumer feedback. Even in our age of passive consumers, a noticeable percentage of consumers still make the effort to complain when they get ripped off. That percentage might be less than 1%, but 1% of millions is still a pretty large collection of complaints. 1% of "2000-4000' is easily ignored. NTSHA might ignore 10 irritated Norton owners, but even a federal government agency pays attention to 20,000 complaints.

More importantly, the large manufacturer has the motivation and manpower and talent to squeeze failures down into the six-sigma territory. Although quality is largely taken for granted in modern products, the reason for that expectation is that modern products are largely very reliable. The reason that is true is because designers and manufacturing engineers have the resources and the skills to anticipate and resolve product reliability problems. A group of shade-tree mechanics working for a rich kid who is intent on burning up his trust fund won't be so inclined or gifted.

So, I'll just stick with boring, machine-made, engineer-designed production motorcycles and it won't even cross my mind that I would be happier with a boutique one-of-a-kind handmade bike. Besides, I'd have to decide between having a home or owning a rare piece of art and I'm not that interested in two-wheeled art.

Your Opinion, My Opinion

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

On a web mail list, I stumbled into a discussion about air filters and it quickly turned into a pissing match between a guy who hated everything about the brand of filter that I've used for almost 30 years and he was pretty unimpressed with all other filtration options. I was a little put off by the dude's venom, so I bailed out of the discussion and fired up my word-processing software to write this column.

In my life, I have been rightly described as someone who is overly-dependent on personal experience and practical application. I'm all for science and theory, as long as it doesn't get between me and getting something done, but I'm not dependent on the advise of sanctioned experts or popular opinion. I've personally known quite a few of the folks the media uses for expert opinions and I'm not particularly impressed. They are all good men and women, but just like you and me they have opinions and their opinions are no more founded in fact than yours or mine. Sometimes, less so. In the end, if something I've been doing has worked for me, I'll keep doing it even when the experts claim it doesn't work. I'd rather spend my time fixing the things that are broke and the things that aren't will get my attention in my next life; the life where I will be born rich and with lots of idle time on my hands.

Sometimes, even well-intentioned scientifically conducted studies don't impress me. Of course, some scientific studies don't live up to the name, either. (I wasted a decade in medical device manufacturing and saw more of that kind of science than I want to think about.) Often, the constraints of a study limit the value of the study to rare conditions. For example, if a rat has a forced daily diet of one-fourth of his body weight in a given substance, he will get fat. Therefore, said given substance is fattening. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind the next time I sit down to a 50pound dinner.

In the case of the aforementioned air filter discussion, the one and only test I found on the subject assumed the user would improperly clean and prepare the filter and, therefore, the filter would be ineffective. On the other hand, I have subjected my bikes to above average dirt road and trail exposure and have seen no signs that my applications of this same filter are allowing above factory filter contamination into the engine. In fact, I have seen signs of contamination on the intakes of other bikes using stock or aftermarket paper filters that I never seen in my bikes. I was told that a poorly functioning filter won't necessarily leave signs on the intake manifold. 2-strokes, especially, tend to produce dust accumulation on the manifold, since the fuel-oil mixture provides a little glue for the contamination. Obviously, engine wear would increase with poor filtration, too. I see those signs of air filter failure on others' bikes when I maintain them, I don't see it on mine, for what it's worth.

I do not know what it's worth. I only know that I'm likely to change my behavior when I see evidence that what I'm doing doesn't work. The older I get, the less inclined I am to experiment with things that seem to work for me.

On the practical side, when I go on a long, backroads trip I don't worry about being able to find a clean filter after a couple thousand miles of dirt roads. All I need is a little soap, warm water, and a small can of filter oil. I don't need a Suzuki dealer, of which there seems to be a short supply in Canada or Alaska or North Dakota, for example.

In the mid-70s, when I first started using this brand of filter, a cross country race in western Nebraska provided a pretty severe test. About twenty miles into 120, the racers got hammered with a dust storm so thick that it was hard to see twenty feet ahead. In the dusty valleys, visibility dropped to less than ten feet. It was a Dust Bowl quality storm, a huge black cloud of sand and dirt that rose out of the southwest horizon and swept over the land like some kind of Hollywood supernatural evil. On top of the dust, the terrain was difficult and dry and the race would have been dusty, even without the storm. With the storm, bikes fell to the side of the road --sputtering and dying--like diseased animals in a plague. When I finished the first lap, I stopped to replace my choked up goggles and my wife and daughters got a kick out of my racoon-eye'd appearance. My mouth and nose were full of dirt, and I spit out the first half-gallon of water I tried to drink as it turned to mud in my mouth.

I took of for the second lap as the storm really turned ugly. About halfway through that lap, the event organizers threw in the red flag and called the event. Out of the original 50-or-so bikes, there were about a dozen of us still running. We cut across the course in a blizzard of dirt and fumbled out way back to our cars and trailers.

Some racers headed for Ogallala, where they planned to hide out in a bar or motel until the storm passed. I had to be back at work on Monday, so I pointed my car east and hit the freeway trying to out run the storm. A few miles later, my car's hydraulic clutch died. Both the master cylinder and the slave were seriously leaking fluid. Without a clutch and towing a trailer, getting back on the road was a hassle, but I had enough fuel to get home and planned to run every stop sign and light that didn't cooperate with my objective. Fifty miles later, my brakes became suspiciously soggy, but they still worked and I escaped the storm and made it home without any additional problems.

After repairing the clutch and brakes on the car and hauling a bucket of sand and dust out of the interior, I started getting the bike ready for the following Sunday. When I pulled the top off of the bike's filter box, I was amazed to see how much dust surrounded the filter. It was nearly buried. To keep from pouring crud into the cylinder, I pulled the whole air box off and dumped it out before removing the air cleaner for service. Still, not a speck of dust to be found in the intake manifold. I raced the bike for another year, sold it to a friend, and it lasted one more year off road before it died. The little Rickman ended up in the old motorcycles graveyard because the new owner tossed the air filter when it became so packed with river sand that the bike stalled. He almost made it back home before the motor seized. I don't know what that proves.

I've been using the same brand of air filters for exactly the opposite reason on my cars (older cars, anyway) and dirt bikes since the 1970s and I'm always amazed at how clean my intakes have been after some really nasty events and LD rides. Maybe it's the preparation and maintenance that bothers others? I put 380k miles on a 1973 Toyota HiLux pickup over 20 years and it was running strong when I sold it. Its whole life was spent with a the same filter. My CX500 gave me 130k miles with only a timing chain problem all with the same filter. All of my dirt bikes, from an OSSA Phantom to a Yamaha XT350 to my current 250 Super Sherpa breathe through that brand. So does my current bike, a Suzuki DL-650. I just have no motivation to change, so until some catastrophe inspires me to amend my opinion I'm sticking with what has worked for me.

I'm not trying to convince you to go with my brand. I'm not trying to convince you of anything except that the old adage "don't fix what ain't broke" isn't a bad way to go. It's not rocket science, but that's not all it's cut out to be either.

The 6th Annual Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show

I’m reading a book by a Frenchman, American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Lévy, that attempts to follow the path of Alexis d Tocqueville across this country. More accurately, he tries to cover all of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America bases, not necessarily in the order that he touched those places but in the spirit of that journey. One of Lévy’s continual features of amazement is our fixation on our own history. Not only do we spend a lot of time formally and institutionally collecting pieces of history and storing them in expensive buildings, we, individually, collect bits of history and display it as if it had some deep meaning. As individuals, we seem to think our personal history has interest to other people, as if we are all worthy of published and well-read autobiographies. I suspect he is implying that we are a bit self-absorbed.

A few days ago, on my way to a beginner’s MSF class, I passed a motorcycle shop that had some sort of convention going in the parking lot. There were loads of weird looking, and totally, ordinary bikes in the lot and a pretty decent sized crowd wandering around the bikes. So, I had to go back and check it out. Turns out it was the “6th Annual Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show” and it was more than entertaining. All of the self-historical aspects of American character that Lévy described were on full display in this parking lot.

For me, the most entertaining part of the show was the spectacle of “collected” cheap bikes that were practically throwaways when they were in their prime. Most of these bikes were still in their prime, too. Many of these motorcycles cost a fraction of a month’s income, back when a month’s income was today’s pocket change. Kids would save up their lawn mowing money to buy these little Japanese motorscooters. There was a Yamaha DT1 with less than 100 miles on the odometer. A Honda SL350 with 256 miles of road experience. In fact, most of the bikes were barely broken-in. While most were attempts to recreate a brand new 1970’s replica, some of the bikes demonstrated the “personality” of their owners in either creative or psychotic ways. At least one, not on display but for sale just off to the side of the show, had as split a personality as any weirdo ever depicted on CSI or Homicide. I met the owner, he seemed relatively normal, but his bike made me more than a little wary.

Here’s a quick look at some of the better moments in the 6th Annual Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show:

http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg127/grudgegeezer/?action=view&current=c1a6401d.pbw

I’m trying to establish this blog site as a place to go for motorcycle stuff. If you have comments you’d like to make regarding today’s subject, I’d appreciate it if you’d make them on the blog instead of emailing them to me. I’ll receive whatever you have to say the same way (through my regular email), regardless of how you send your comments. The more hits and comments I have on this blogsite, the more likely it is to get flagged by Google and that means even more hits. And so on. Feel free to pass this on, write bad things about my posture and grooming on the blog site, or add your own take on the state of American motorcycling. Thanks.