2009 VELO RALLY; DAY 2 - MAYHEM!

Was it the heat or a confluence of bad luck which made Tuesday so chaotic and destructive. By the end of the day, fully 20% of the motorcycles had taken a free ride on the back of a truck or trailer, (at least for a short while), and 5 motorcycles had shaken hands with the pavement, with two bone breakages as the struck bargain. Four flat tires, two total compression failures, four clutch teardowns and rebuilds, a mysterious graunching transmission, horrible rich running, etc... by lunch, some of us wondered if this were indeed the Terminator Rally.

The day began innocently, clear and warm at 8am as usual, and the route promised to be fairly straightforward, with a pig-roast feast in a vineyard as our pot of gold at the end. My 'posse' of the morning consisted of me riding the Endurance (which I had happily escorted home the prior afternoon), Dai on the 'Zumac' (a bored-out Velo MAC at 430cc) which had gone spare as its eponymous owner wasn't feeling at all well, and Uncle Brian on a borrowed Moto Guzzi V65, surely the most reliable machine of the bunch. Which of course proved the folly of assumptions, when the u-joints on the drive shaft disintegrated 20 miles from the start.

It seemed prudent to let Brian wait for a Chase Truck to snatch the Guzzi, while I rode Dai back to camp to grab my Norton Atlas, which suddenly needed a rear tire after 240 miles at 100 degrees.

Dai thus took posession of the incredibly leaky and bits-falling-off Endurance, which was poetic justice, as Dai's machines are always immaculate; a wayward drop of oil merits a rise of blood pressure and hasty investigation. Thus, to be saddled on a machine purported to shed 2 quarts per day over itself, the rider, and the greater world, held a sweetly smirking irony. He would simply have to Cope.

I blasted into town on the Norton, and rode back out again wearing a new rubber sash over my shoulder - it took a visit to 3 motorcycle dealers to find an 18" tire narrow enough to suit an old bike, but who's complaining? I bought a spare innertube, Just In Case. Thinking I might have missed my ride-mates at Dead Guzzi junction, judicious throttle application had me at that lonesome spot in a jiffy - only to find... Uncle Brian slumped against a concrete barrier, with no Dai or Chase Truck in sight, 1.5 hours later. This was double-plus ungood (in Newspeak), as the temperature was now hitting the Ton, and Brian is nearly 70. Luckily, the Truck appeared soon, and the Guzzi was loaded up.

Now we had to sort out if Brian's artificial leg would shift the Zumac! Uncle Brian, (whose photo you may have seen here) you see, has a very long history of motoring miscreantism, and around 1960 he lost a leg on a Triumph Thunderbird very late at night, post-pub, taking a favorite bend quite a bit faster than his usual hot pace, just after passing a local in a car... 'I'll either make it or be dead' he thought, before waking up in hospital. In truth, he hasn't slowed much since then.
Finding he could in fact shift gears, we set off, wondering where on earth Dai had got to.

We had all agreed to have lunch at the Quilchina Hotel, a Victorian anomaly in dead flat sagebrush plain, and as I arrived first, goal #1 was to get out of the Heat and into the Kitchen for lunch. As I relaxed at my table, I saw Uncle Brian pass by, flat-out on the MAC, with nary a sideward glance for the big pink hotel. That was the last I saw of him until the end of the day...and I admit to a moment of concern, as Brian couldn't kick-start the bike with his lack of leg. I reflected that we all attend Rallies looking for a bit of adventure, but the adventure we get is usually not the adventure we've chosen! So, Brian's day would clearly be a little different than he might have imagined...

Within a few minutes, Dai appeared on the Leaker, and lamented both oiliness and a general looseness to every nut and bolt on his mount. Dai's disconcerting habit is to go over a borrowed motorcycle with sockets and spanners, tightening Every nut and bolt on the machine, prior to riding it. Having watched him do thus to two of my motorcycles in the past, I chuckled inside that our morning game of musical bikes hadn't allowed him time to spanner-tune his machine, and Things were Falling Off. Not 3 miles from lunch in fact, he motioned me to the side of the road for a navigational query, not realizing that the rear mudguard was swaying from side to side like a happy tail. Every nut holding it fast had jumped ship... luckily a stash of stray bolts on the Chase Truck made everything secure, except for the taillamp assembly, which required a veritable prosthesis of electrical tape to hold in place.

Thus we continued through the Country-music-star-mural bedecked town of Merritt, heading north towards smaller and more interesting roads. Which luckily included the wonderful Otter Lake road, which while unpaved, varied in terrain from snaking baked volcanic boulders to sweet floral lakeside grasses. The only real hazard was a succession of massive logging trucks, truly hauling ass down this firm dirt track, leaving just enough room for a motorcycle to squeeze alongside without damage, but giving no quarter otherwise. See the film!

And, something Happened for me along this 40-mile stretch... I've described the experience previously as near-sexual, when road and rider and machine find a harmony of movement and sensation. Suffice it to say it was a kind of two-wheeled Bliss, and I literally could not have been happier during that extended moment. If I could bottle the feeling, I'd be a very rich man. Perhaps I am already, simply having felt thus for so many hours. I was astonished when I asked Dai at the end of this road, full of energetic happiness, how his ride had been, and he answered, 'Tiring!'.

As we neared our destination of Keremeous and the Crow's Nest Vineyard, the temperature climbed further, and we heard tales of two flattened rear tires - one of which caused a dramatic wipeout, resulting in the rider's leg being broken in 3 places... That's the kind of event which sets every motorcyclist to wondering. Still, by the end of the day, the mechanical carnage seemed to have stabilized, and once again those with afflicted machinery set to work after a relaxing hour on the patio with German beer, and a meal of whole roast pig with spaetzle and kartoffeln salat - the winery is owned by Deutsche expats, in a river plain surrounded by high mountains. Sleeping on the grass next to the vines was just about nice.

2009 VELOCETTE RALLY; DAY 1 - ATTRITION

One thousand miles from my home in San Francisco, Kamloops beckoned, hot and dry, soon to be ground zero for 70 old-motorcycle enthusiasts, intent on proving their machines over a week of riding through the remote mountain roads of British Columbia. The Velocette Owners Club of North America holds a week-long rally every July, somewhere in the West (that is, west of the Rockies), and usually covers a thousand miles over 5 days of riding. The club has three requirements for the location of the Rally; interesting scenery, an HQ which combines facilities for camping and hotels, and good roads... which translated means roads appropriate for Velocette - lots of twisty stuff for our light and good-handling mounts.

The South Thompson Inn served us well previously, in 2003, but rally organizer Cory Padula managed to create an entirely different route for this year, even better than last time. The temperature in Kamloops was on par with '03 though, hovering between 90 and 100 degrees during the day... certainly hot enough to cause a bit of strain on our quintessentially English vehicles. And thus it was to prove throughout the week, as a legacy of leaks, breakdowns, and flat tires was laid daily on the ramp of our support vehicle.

Or should I say vehicles. We've typically made do with one truck hauling a trailer to chase our old bikes, with capacity for at least 5 troubled machines. On day 1 my new belt-primary-drive conversion failed utterly within 10 miles of the start, the clutch basket growing so hot within this short distance that the industrial-grade polyurethane drive belt literally melted over the steel wheel, making an ungodly stench identical to, well, burned clutch.

The simplest fix for the moment, as our route was a 240 mile 'loop' that day (returning to the Inn), was to return to camp, grab my Sprinter, throw the Clubman inside, give one of my English guests my 1966 Norton Atlas to ride, and follow along in the van, taking photos, and picking up strays.
It was a good thing too, as the day proved a wrecking ball for rider and motorcycle alike. Within another 10 miles, our esteemed President's Velo Venom was hors de combat, with zero compression... a holed piston so soon? Into the Sprinter it went... with the official chase truck pulling up shortly with a lovely silver/blue Thruxton on the trailer... that made 3 bikes down within 20 miles. Not a good omen!

The canyons and mountains lining the Thompson river are brown and very dry, with the heat a blast furnace whenever the canyons narrow. But, as one pulls away from the river and gains altitude, greenery resumes with the evergreen trees, and the temperature drops to a very tolerable mid-80's. As we followed a small side track into a mountain pass, flowers and grass flanked the unlined road, and a freshet followed our progress. At one sharp hairpin bend which crossed the stream, we (for I had gained the Venom's rider Kiwi Dave, with the bike) discovered an actual sidecar lying forlorn and distinctly unattached in the dirt, near a very pretty scene by the flowing water, under a canopy of healthy (more on this later) green Fir trees. An orange ribbon, our signal for a vehicle in distress, was tied around the mounting struts of the solitary chair, and it was clear we were meant to fetch the thing.

Clearly, Something had happened; a little sleuthing revealed a deep Gouge in the tarmac, a banged up sidecar body, and a rag with blood spots... but, the motorcycle which had formerly been hauling the 'chair' was off and away, so the rider must have been basically healthy, if a little scuffed. The sidecar itself was an Indian copy of a Steib, reduced to perhaps 80% of the original size....but when hauling it onto the bed of the Official Chase Pickup, it took 3 robust fellows to drag the thing up a ramp - remarkably heavy! It was only later in the day, when an extremely dense blue brick was produced from the sidecar body, that the penny dropped; as the outfit had no passenger, the sidecar was filled with 200lbs of lead bricks as ballast! And we, the rescue-salvagers hadn't known/discovered/deduced that the weights were still laying in the thing when we carried it around... good for a laugh later, anyway.

Another 5 miles down the road found another rider, a very brave person who had only earned her motorcycle license the month prior, sitting quietly on a log, her newer Moto Guzzi resting upright deep in the weeds outside a curve... clearly yet another getoff. That made two crashes and 3 duff bikes within 50 miles; we still hadn't had lunch yet! The Terminator Rally had already gained a name... As the Guzzi was only a little bent, some judicious pressure made it rideable, but the rider was perhaps a little less easily fixed, and demurred a further ride (it transpired her collarbone was broken).

Kiwi Dave leapt at the chance to be on two wheels again, so my passenger changed sex, and away we went, shortly to discover a mammoth copper mine which had Altered the landscape dramatically, excavating an entire mountain, creating a 2000' high ridge of tailings, and a 20km long tailing 'pond', glowing fluorescent blue-green under the sun...nothing at all could live in a bath of copper sulfate, and the tourist signs assured the curious that the toxic liquid was 'totally contained and isolated from the groundwater'. As depressing as this devastated landscape might have seemed, copper works really well to conduct our electricity, so this place was merely the unseen underside of our various Conveniences...

We dropped down again to another section of the Thompson river, had an incredibly slow lunch break at an overwhelmed cafe, and followed another tributary upstream back towards Kamloops. At the Quilchena hotel, a Velo with an orange ribbon was sitting alone beside the road; it was the sidecar tug itself, a Venom Endurance. The rider, Jim Abbott, confirmed our suspicion about his crash, as he told of the sudden parting of bike and sidecar when a strut broke - he continued moving forward, while the outfit dug in and slew violently sideways. Sidecar jiu-jitsu, ouch. The bike appeared ok, the rider less so, and I prepared to ride it back the remaining 60 miles to camp, and handed Jim the truck keys.

After following motorcycles all day in the truck, I had a real 'wheee' of an hour on that Endurance. I was instantly reminded of just how much fun a good Velocette can be; light, nimble, with adequate power, and an intuitive resonance with the rider's every movement. Things improved further when we turned onto Campbell Lake Road; well-graded dirt for 20 miles, and the Endurance proved its intended purpose as a Dualsport machine, albeit 60's style.

I have a penchant for good untarred roads, as they provide a totally different riding experience. As the surface is loose, traction is questionable, and steering becomes a new art, in which a relaxed posture (and handlebar grip) is essential. Sliding motorcycle is viscerally pleasurable and best accomplished with the throttle and the hips...there would be plenty of opportunities to try my technique during the following days...

Monday night, very many men were seen huddling near their ailing motors, attending to clutches or pistons or magnetos or flat tires, with flashlights providing dim and insecure illumination to the scenes. It looked for all the world like an encampment the night before a battle...

'SQUARIEL' ADVENTURES

By John Joss

MRU963, seen in these dismal old photos, was an amazing machine. Its history is worth recording: it involved some of motorcycling’s greatest names and achievements. At the start of WWII, a motorcycle enthusiast and officer in the King’s Own Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (known as ‘The Beds and Hearts’—phonetic), wondered what would happen on the battlefield if radio communication became iffy and four-wheeled vehicles could not traverse difficult terrain. Answer: brave riders on high-speed, cross-country motorcycles. The officer? R.S. (“Dickie”) Wilkins, a close friend and fellow officer of my stepfather, Jack Malcolmson. Wilkins persuaded the Ministry to create the ‘DR’ or ‘Dispatch Rider’ corps, riding Army BSAs, Matchlesses, Royal Enfields and Nortons, to carry battlefield intelligence from unit to unit. They rode all over North Africa and Europe, serving the war effort nobly.

After the war these bikes became the first scrambles machines, breeding motocross and its derivatives. Wilkins went on to sponsor Bob Foster (1949 350-cc World Champion—Velocette). His motorsports enthusiasm was endless. He funded the ‘G-type’ ERA, a Formula 2 machine powered by Bristol’s two-litre, in-line six built under license from BMW, who had designed the engine before WWII. BMW used it in its 328 that won the last pre-war Mille Miglia in 1939. The G-type was painted a bilious duck-egg green (any green is considered British Racing Green) and Mike Hawthorn raced it successfully, bow tie and all. Dickie bought MRU963 but did not ride it. He did not need to. He had a Mulliner Continental Bentley for town and the prototype Aston-Martin DB3 sports-racer (David Brown’s personal car earlier) for fun in the country. He gave me that sky-blue Squariel—a truly magnificent gift. The pre-WWII-conceived, 1,000-cc motor, originally iron with twin pipes, was re-engineered in the early 1950s in alloy, with four pipes (see pix). It was, to oversimplify, a pair of coupled parallel twins similar conceptually to the great two-stroke 500-cc MotoGP bikes of the ’80s. It breathed through a big Solex mounted in the center of the engine between the rocker boxes. It worked well, a smooth and quiet ‘gentleman’s express’ that hummed along nicely but disliked being flogged (rear-cylinder overheating). The frame and suspension were acceptable for the time but lacked rigidity and precision; the rear link suspension (see pic) might have delivered ¾” compliance on a good day. The 8” drum brakes? Marginal. No, actually not that good.

In the action picture I was flogging MRU963 down the Kingston By-pass, snapped by one of the great race photographers of the time, Bill Banks. We were both working at the time for ‘The Motor Cycle’ (the ‘blue ‘un,’ as opposed to ‘Motor Cycling,’ the ‘green ’un’—both weeklies). One day a curious mechanical problem afflicted MRU963. I had decoked and reassembled it. On kick-starting, it would turn over 8-10 times, then run at valve-crash revs briefly before shutting down. Twice, three times I did this but decided that I risked harming it (insanity: “repeating an action and expecting a different outcome”). I unbuttoned everything and discovered that one rocker-box gasket had bowed, preventing the Solex from seating. It was only getting the necessary 14:1 air/petrol mixture every 8-10 kicks. Problem solved. No damage, mercifully. The Squariel (sadly, not MRU963) is a bike seen often at shows and in collectors’ hands and is memorable for its smooth, elegant way of going down the road. I wish I still had mine.

MOTO MELEE 2009; PART 1

For the less fortunate souls who have never heard of the Moto Melee, let's just start by saying its probably the most demanding vintage motorcycle event on the planet. Three days tracking across California's notoriously deferred-maintenance backroads, through intense heat and often many miles from anything which could be called civilization. Racking up nearly a thousand miles of hard-core twisted mountain roads, punctuated by catch-up straight sections, where you might just make up a little time, and arrive at your destination (as a rule, a questionable Motel...) before dark, or at least in time for dinner.


That 75 people would clamor to attend such an event on a pre-1971 motorcycle speaks to some arcane need for Adventure, Challenge, and perhaps a little madness. The motorcycle attrition rate hovers between 25-33%, and that's a lot of 'chase truck' to fill - so this year we had 3... and still several people arranged their own transport for their crippled machinery, returning the following day on a different bike, ready to try again.

Those with less egregious calamities find ways to make do, which this year included quite a bit of parking lot fabrication (blanking plugs for engine shafts, welding footrests, repairing leaky tanks), the odd ingenious bodge (rectifiers from Radio Shack, 'borrowing' electricity from vending machines), and occasional 'liberation' of useful parts from derelict machinery found en route... (hence a horribly rotted and engine-less Honda quad suddenly found its gas tank bungeed to a Rickman Kawasaki; like the head of a mule transplanted to the body of a race horse - see photo below, with Jennifer Bromme happy to have finished the day).

The Melee traditionally starts from the hidden parking lot behind the Palace of Fine Arts (designed by Bernard Maybeck for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition... and never meant to last, but the structure is so lovely, funds are raised every few years to fix the rot). A surprising number of well-wishers, former attendees, and groupies show up at 8am to view the assembled warriors, ready for action... or being readied!

Several motorcycles had engine cases open, tanks being repaired, clutches adjusted, etc, as the coffee and pastries were dispensed (thanks Roger from Farley's) from the back of a truck (below, organizers Jeff Guzaitis and Harley Welch give the 'Don't Crash' speech, which was violated within the City limits!).

Familiar faces and quite a few newbies showed up, bringing a host of famous names; Triumph must be #1 in numbers, followed by Norton and Honda, with a smattering of MV, Vincent, Velocette, Suzuki, Bultaco, etc, and even two scooters! Engine capacities ranged from 200cc (Lambretta - albeit highly tuned) to 1200cc (the lone Indian Chief), with the average falling around 650cc, thanks to all those Triumph twins.

I rode my trusty '66 Norton Atlas, which has proved shockingly reliable and a good touring mount - plenty of power at 750cc, and suspension(!), which is a change from my previous Melee mount, my '33 Velocette KTT, which was airborne for probably a quarter of the mileage. My back thanked me for the choice.

Mine wasn't the only Atlas on hand; Justin from Glory in LA (top pic) brought his Norton cafe racer, decked out Manx-style, and looked distinctive in his candy-striped Ruby helmet - the object of much interest, and just a little envy (I visited the Ruby HQ in Paris last month; real enthusiasts, beautiful products). Justin's Atlas has perfect patina... although somehow it ended up on the second-floor motel balcony, very late Sunday night. Perhaps such a charming machine needed an elevated status...

As mentioned, the ride began inauspiciously with a minor get-off on the Golden Gate Bridge approach; a combination of heavy traffic, 75 motorcycles, a little adrenalin, and a moment of inattention. No major damage, and both rider and machine rode a further 900 miles without incident, although his hands looked like Mickey Mouse's, after hi-fiving the pavement...it turned out later that Lou had broken bones in both hands, and ridden the entire route!

As we rode into the Wine Country, the temperature began to climb, from a cool 65 degrees in SF, rapidly into the 90s by lunchtime near Clear Lake. It looked like predictions for 106 degrees at our inland destination of Red Bluff would prove correct, and cries of 'hydration' were echoed amongst the riders. It became the sort of day where much liquid is taken in, but there's never a need for 'roadside relief', as its all sweated away. It seemed to take ages for riders to arrive at lunch, and it was clear that many, including myself (!), had taken creative liberties with the rally map. (Below, my off-route excursion onto Knoxville-Berryessa road, which is a sterling example of Cali roads at their worst.)

As we left Wine land and headed across the last Coastal Range hills to the Central Valley, the thermometer topped the 'ton', and we still had 150 miles to ride, through some Very remote areas, most of which had absolutely no shade. The destination was Red Bluff, certainly one of the hottest towns in the State, but rumors of a pool at the motel had everyone focussed on Arriving.

Tiny towns with gas pumps and ice cream are a blessing, with the added bonus of having distinctly old-fashioned frozen stock... Fudgesickles and 'bomb pops' being old favorites which are no longer chic enough for City freezers. (Above, Paul Zell, Jeff Guzaitis, and Kevin Burrell try to beat the heat)

A great surprise and visual treat was this MV Agusta 350, which ran with the fast boys all weekend, sounded hearty and bigger than its capacity, and made everyone think twice about the reliability of rare Italian hardware.

This little 350cc ohv twin is from the 'round' styling period from MV, which I prefer, although the later 'Elettronica' models are handsome in a 70s way.

We were greeted at our Motel in Red Bluff by 110 degree heat, a rather small (but thankfully cold) pool, and this amazing contraption brought out by a local collector, dubbed the 'Trashy Trike Trailering a Triumph'. The motive power is Volkswagen, or Budweiser, depending on which transfer/beer tap you trusted.

The pool was fairly suspect by 6pm, after 60 sweaty people jumped in. We heard rumors of seizures (Triumph, Bultaco) and broken bikes being whisked away by friendly hands, back to the City. A few showed up on the chase truck, and work commenced when the temperature dropped a little; welding footrests, scrounging bits, stopping leaks, adjusting valves, as on this 350cc Benelli/Riverside, which sounded a bit clattery to its owner.

Benellis were sold in the US by the Montgomery Wards department store chain as the 'Riverside' during the 1960s, and they turn up regularly with low mileage at bargain prices. They're neat little machines, and while not as exotic as an ohc bike with race pedigree, they give a lot of Italian flair for the money.Large-capacity twin cylinder machines weren't the only bikes of choice on the rally, and several classic Singles made the rally with no problems.