I was able to
make this year’s four-chapter ride only by making some last minute changes in
my plans and I feel fortunate for having done so. I strongly urge other members
to try and make next years ride. It was a blast thanks to great company,
beautiful scenery, mild weather conditions, good food stops, elephant seals,
and did I mention really great company.
I’ve always had a strong desire to ride the Central coast on the old
one, my Chief that is, and it was all I hoped it would be. The event brought
out a good number of spouses, similar to our Borrego run. My wife would
probably ride with me if I didn’t have the bad habit of running into every
fixed object placed on this great green earth by God or man. I don’t care what
anyone says anymore about how I look; I’m going to start wearing my glasses
when I ride.
Tom
Lovejoy and me were both pressed for
time, so we trucked our stuff to the Atascadero meet
spot (Motel 6) Friday night. We had to leave immediately following the Saturday
ride; otherwise I’m sure I would have lots of Uncle Tom’s lies to tell. Such as
it is, I still found as couple worthy targets to zero in on. Thanks to newcomer
target George Hood and good oleTom (the grinder) Lovejoy. I pause here to give
honorable mention to Marc Gallin for his Hawaii 5-0/ Indiana Jones
impersonation while riding his ‘50 Chief with a valve noise that could wake the
dead. Mrs. Gallin and Mrs. Menezes both looked cool as always.
Tom
Lovejoy and I arrived at the motel in time to squeeze in
about 4 hours of sleep before Saturday’s ride. We woke to a hearty breakfast of
grease and grits at a local diner before returning to the motel parking lot
where we found Mr.Tom Bodet Hood working on his checkerboard painted Harley. It
seems that George visited a nearby service station to gas up before the ride (as all good riders should),
but he fell prey to a mishap which apparently required some mechanical genius
of sorts. I interviewed George and he stated that as he was departing the
service station, a speeding vehicle (traveling at 90 to 100 MPH) caused him to
turn sharply and drop his bike on the left (clutch) side. The impact with the
pavement caused the damage noted above, according to George anyway. I examined
his bike and saw no evidence of contact with the road on the crash bars or
anywhere else for that matter. I interviewed other eyewitnesses, who wished to
remain anonymous, and they told me that George had actually been engaged in a drag
race with a local youth on a Suzuki trail bike 125 at the time of the alleged
crash. This competition resulted in George getting his doors blown off. George
was heard saying something to the effect that “It must have been the clutch,
I’ll fix it at the motel and be back for a rematch, you little #@%&#*”.
Once again, I only report the facts, as I want to see them. Personally, I think
George might do well to check with Kevin Spear about obtaining a set of those
new and improved super-duper pistons Kevin uses in his JD.
Anyway, around 10:00 AM the group of 35 bikes from the L.A.,
SoCal., Fort
Sutter and the San
Francisco area chapters left the motel for Moro
Bay. We encountered a little
moisture enroute to the coast, but that gave way to a pleasant, although
somewhat cloudy, afternoon as we traveled north to Lucia for lunch. We
impressed many a local with a strong line of antiques (both bikes and riders).
Our club entries included Vic and Harry Sucher, Jim Falk,
Marc and Patty Gallin, Dudly Pollard, Craig Dillman, Phil
Shore, Mike and
Beverly Menezes, Kevin Spear, Gil Armas, Tom Loveyoy and myself.
Our route took
us through, or near, the towns of Cayucos, Harmony (with all of its proud 17
citizens), Cambria, Gorda and finally to Lucia for
lunch. While traveling north on Highway 1, Tom Lovejoy,
on his ‘40 Sport Scout and Phil Shore, on a
60’s something Triumph tried to outdo each other with varying degrees of excess
speed (remember that “excess “ is a relative term). I bring to your attention
the fact that the highway they were traveling on had 10 to 15 MPH turns. When
we stopped for lunch at Lucia, Tom checked his floorboards and found that he
had ground off a rather important ¾ in. nut on the frame. Phil, a skilled dirt
bike rider in his own right, was greatly impressed with Tom and tried to
compliment him on his ability to push the edge of the envelope with an antique
bike. Tom had difficulty paying attention as he was still in shock from his
close encounter with Mr. Guard Rail and Mr. Cliff. What Phil saw and praised as
“Extreme hot-dogging”, Tom viewed as a near death experience (while being
totally out of control). “If” Tom could have talked, I think “awesome“ is a word he might have used to describe the moment. The
antics of these two might sound like a reckless and dangerous stunt, but
consider this; I was video taping the two Kamikazes while driving my Chief in
first gear and continually braking to avoid rear ending them.
The clouds gave
way to intermittent sunshine as we made our way back to Atascadero
via Highways 1, 46 and 101. We stopped for a Kodak moment somewhere near San
Simeon when Tom spotted several dozen elephant seals playing in the surf and
taking up a lot of real estate on the beach. Those babies were really huge (and
ugly). They were so ugly that they went all the way back around to being cute
again. Kinda like my wife’s English Pug.
Kevin Spear
supplied some additional material to share with you. You know how meticulous he
is about his 27/29 (whatever) JD. Sometime prior to our arrival, Kevin dropped
the front end of his bike off a curb at the motel and broke the brace securing
the front brake and fender assembly. A nearby shop welded the brace and fender,
but the brake was no more. Kevin, being the easy going, laid back, kind of lad that
he is just accepted the new damage and rode the bike anyway. Kevin’s bike has
many scars to boost about. No one (including Kevin) can explain why the bike
still runs at all. Prior to our club’s Carpinteria ride, Kevin’s bike took a
fall in a tire shop and ended up with a bent handle bar, a leaky gas tank and
an electrical short. Before that, Kevin squeezed the life out of his rear
wheel, fender and tire assembly with a steel cable on the Las
Vegas ride. On this ride, he discovered that his
bike’s rear sprocket was not fully attached to the wheel and that it made
absolutely no difference what so ever what he did with the carburetor metering
system. He even closed the jets completely and the bike still ran. The broken
exhaust brace, holding the right side of the bike together, is hardly worth
mentioning.
I believe there
were about six breakdowns, which totally disabled various bikes on this run, Kevin was not
one of them. Endeavor to persevere is Kevin’s credo. Considering all of the
above, I find it just a little strange and inconsistent that Kevin wanted to
borrow my measuring tape to get the exact
pin stripping measurements, off the gas tank of another well used JD, so he
could get his bike’s paint scheme jusssss right.
Remember to keep
those wheels turning, that means you are still upright and doing fine. That’s all folks, Tom