A BSA that rode in the 2012 Motorcycle Cannonball Run.
This presentation on the 2012 Motorcycle Cannonball Run could have been better if the acoustics had been better. I mentioned to the guys afterward that I only heard about half of what was said, and Dan replied that I had done about 10 times better than he did. That’s too bad, because what I did hear was pretty interesting.
This thing was held up in Frederick at High Country Harley-Davidson, and there was a reason for that: Michael Lichter, the photographer who rode the entire ride sitting backward, was on a bike under the command of Dave Przygocki, whose card says he holds the title of Cycle Therapist and Sales Manager at High Country H-D. Lichter and Przygocki both shared in the telling, as did several others on hand who had made the ride.
Route guidance on this thing was pretty interesting for starters. Each bike had a scrolling sheet that the rider had to advance, telling them things like, “go 6 miles and turn left at the gas station.” One of the speakers–I forget who–told how there were times when he wondered if he had missed a turn, but would pull in to a gas station and see the oily drips and other detritus of this band of ancient motorcycles and be reassured he was on the right route.
And can you imagine riding 3,000 miles on a bike that is 75 years old? Those things broke down a lot when they were new; what do you thing they do now? There were tales of splitting the crankcase and doing entire engine rebuilds overnight, and we’re not talking about just one or two such instances. Another speaker noted that they had left a trail of irreplaceable parts across the country. You know, they’d be riding along and something would fall off, never to be found. Then the rider had to compensate in some way. Sometimes they had spares; other times they jury-rigged.
While some of the riders took advantage of modern riding gear, others went all the way and wore the kind of things that were available way back then. Things such as leather helmets.
Then there was the 5-foot, 1-inch woman whose bike had to be push started–that was how it worked when it was new. So she push started this bike the entire way across the U.S.
There was a lot more. You should have been there, if you weren’t. And there were a bunch of people there. I saw Linda and Russ McCartney, of Thunder Roads Colorado; Jerry Pokorny of the British Motorcycle Association of Colorado; and Todd Wallace, also of the BMAC and a restorer of old bikes. Alan ran into the guy he bought his current Harley from. It was old home week.
The word is that the next Cannonball should be in 2014. Just in case you want to join in.
Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Butler Maps goes east to the Ozarks
Biker Quote for Today
It takes less time to do things the hard way than to be too nervous to even start at all.
