Happy New Year

Well here we are heading into a brand new year.  No doubt it will be interesting.  With all the apprehension surrounding us it would be easy to get swallowed up in the noise.  The economy is a shambles, not just in the USA but globally.  The politicians and banks are greedily obtaining everything in their wake, so what to do?

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the small pleasures with friends and family are what make the whole deal work out.  The world as a whole has forgotten about any form of values in their personal lives.  Quality has gone out the window, good enough is good enough. There is no mindfulness that there is a God whom we are responsible to please with our lives and decisions.

Here is a whole new chance to do this thing right.  Get our priorities  in perspective and go on ahead with our faces toward the wind and the storm that rages all around us and find an internal peace that passes all understanding.

Cooooooooooooooool !

Du Pont Collection At Auction

Paul Du Pont took over management of Hendee Motor Cycles in 1930  and had a significant influence on the company.  He was a motorcycle collector and amassed an impressive group of bikes including an original Camelback Indian.  The auction is in Las Vegas pn January 12th, 2012
Bring plenty of cash !

Crossing The Ohio River

140.936 MPH

Check this bike out at http://www.iversenoriginals.com/projects/cycles_details.php?detail_id=13

Miss Winifred Wells

This girl rode her Royal Enfield 5500 miles in 21 days across Australia, by herself, with no support crew and in record time.  She traveled an average of 250-300 miles per day and a good bit of that was barren desert.  And her only motivation was, in her own words  "just for the heck of it".  Simply amazing !
Go here to read an article on her trip  
http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.in/2010/06/australian-girl-made-5500-miles-trip-on.html

Baker and O'Brien Trans-Continental Riders

1915. "Baker and O'Brien, transcontinental motorcyclists, back of White House." Bud Baker and Dick O'Brien. In May 1915 they embarked on a five-month, 10,000-mile overland jaunt to the West Coast via Indian motorcycle to see the California expositions. Harris & Ewing.

Old Reliable

I bought this bike out of the local paper in Albuquerque, NM in about 2004.  I think I paid about $600 for it, after about an hours worth of tinkering it started right up.  It was a bit thrashed looking but I liked it.  My son bet me that I couldn't ride it for one years time with the purple front fender, I actually rode it that way for about three years.  It was always a dependable motorcycle.  Eventually I decided to restore it and ended up selling it.  Should have kept the purple fender and the bike ?

Triumphs

My friend Chuck Kelly and my son Nick on a pair of 1968 Triumph TR-6 motorcycles.  These are real good bikes for someone who just wants a daily driver, with a little maintenance they are pretty reliable.  Not quite as quick as a Bonneville but there isn't enough differance to make a big deal about.  I would take one any day!

1919 Cleveland Single

I found this 1919 Cleveland in the rear of an antique shop in Sebastapol, California.  It was quite a find and I was quite surprised to see something like this in an old shop.  They really had no idea what it was so I bought it and took it home.  I did a little work on it but it was pretty much like this when I bought it.  I sold it to a collector in San Antonio and he had it for about 8 years and then sold it last spring at the Mecum Auctions.

The little Cleveland was popular in its day because it was so light in weight.  It had a 200cc two stroke engine and was ridden across the country a few times by Trans Continental record breakers.

1929 Velocette KNS

This was a really neat little Overhead Kam Velocette 350, for its size it moved right along.  These were the first motorcycles to incorporate a functional foot shift mechanism with a positive stop.

PERFECT !

1942 Chief and 1958 Chevrolet Apache, it was a good day even though you had to climb under the truck to shift out of reverse !

Bike Shop Pictures

Midnight Flyer

This is the Indian that got me back into antique motorcycles.  It took me about 3 years to complete the build, it was time period when we moved from Vallejo to Albuquerque so it took a little longer than normal.
I purchased the basket case from Jim Troche of Indian Alley, Vallejo.  He had already built the power plant so I was a bit further along than normal.

Board Track Racers

BSA DA10R Super Rocket

The Super Rocket was about the best thing BSA ever built, it had great lines and was a riders bike.  Plenty of torque with the alloy engine and a big valve top end.  The Gold Star Rocket may have been a bit better as it had a revised frame.  I have been looking for one of these for years and may have a line on one at last.  Most of them seem to be messed with so finding a fairly original bike is a bit difficult.

What In The World !!

The ultimate in custom fabrication, some genius took a super rare BSA Gold Star Alloy Clipper frame and welded a Triumph bolt-on hardtail to the frame.  A complete mess so of course I had to save it from the horde !   The engine is a 1961 Super Rocket 650cc engine that still turns over.  I will probably part it out.  I did cut the hardtail from the frame and cleaned up the motor. 

See the picture below of how an Alloy Clipper looks when done up correctly, I believe they only made these for a couple of years and they are quite rare.

Young Cannonball Riders

If you haven't been to the Cannonball site lately, go there and check out the young men and lady who are very interested in antique motorcycles.  Buck Carson is 20 years old and has a pretty good start on building a vintage bike business, he will riding an old BSA with wrenching assistance from his friend.

The students at SUNY Canton really really when impressed me with the way they spoke about bikes and working on them.  I guess there is hope that the young people will get involved in something besides video games and computers.
Best of luck to all of them and I hope to see them next September.
http://www.motorcyclecannonball.com/

Too Cool For School

1927 AJS H6 350TT "Twin Port"    How much better does it get than this, these old English twin ports were really something to behold !

Thor !

Cool old Thor engine, looks like a very early piece.  A lot of these engines were set up as farm engines to use as a drive motor for whatever work needed to be done.   I remember my Grandfather doing similar things when I was a kid.   He was an old school farmer in North Dakota and pretty much made whatever he needed at the time.  They were a different breed than the people you see anymore.  He was honest and hard working. He paid cash for everything and made it through the Great Depression supporting not only his own family but took in strays that needed help. They lived off what he raised himself or occasionally bought with his own money.  No subsidies !

Compare the Thor engine to the 1904 Indian motor, Thor actually produced most of these engines and they have a lot of different names on them such as Indian, Thor-bred, Reading Standard, Merkle, Apache, Raycycle, Manson and in years later Sears and Torpedo.

Interesting

This is a very well done special, it maintains the look of an Indian but a bit European.

The Oldfield was not a mass produced motorcycle. Rather, it is a one-off hybrid combining a 1940 Indian Sport Scout chassis with a Zundapp KS601 engine. Built in 1946 by Andy Oldfield of Waterloo, New York. The Indian frame has been modified to accept the final drive unit for the Zundapp's shaft drive. 

OHV Indian 500

Beautiful unrestored 1914 Indian Single