photo by Vnak Hello, We always took the coastal highways up north to the S.F. Bay area. It was so much nicer than the alternatives, the 99 Freeway inland or even the I-5 also inland, but kind of parallel and running through some awful areas as far as smell and sights to see. Travelers on this portion of the I-5 will understand. So, we took our time traveling up the coast where any day is better than inland hazards. By the time we were getting closer to the destination, the Oakland Roadster Show, now, we were moved over from the coastal highway running up to San Francisco and turned north in Santa Cruz, after a pleasant breakfast and morning walk, for the cool mountain drive through to my old college town, San Jose. But, somewhere closer to Oakland, we came upon an interesting site. I was driving the El Camino, and my wife was road spotting various sights along the way. She said that there are… “a bunch of choppers up ahead on the right.” In no time, we saw several bikes in the two far right lanes. No not political definitions, but actual traffic lanes. So, my wife took out the 35mm Pentax Camera with color film in it and proceeded to shoot some photos from inside of the car. She tried to be as nonchalant as possible. We did not want any confrontations at this point. As we got closer, she lowered the camera out of sight. Now, we were next to this giant of a guy wearing the “colors” and he looked over at her. Jnaki At that moment, we were in some kind of panic mode, but, she remained calm. She had on her sunglasses and long hair style, so that was a good sign. She just waved hello, and smiled. Well, the big, giant biker of a guy also smiled back and waved hello… with his hand and a cool head nod… like, “hey what’s up” type of look. They accelerated away and we had to slow down in our lane due to traffic ahead. It was probably the same thing happening in other cars when a huge group of choppers rolls up next to your car. Especially, this particular group of choppers. H.A. Instant frightening situation, but to us, they seemed to just be normal people with cool looking chopper motorcycles. No, I did not want to take photographs, although if I did, it would have opened up a whole line of chopper magazine articles from my Los Angeles sources at the time. We were intimidated, just like all of the other travelers headed for Oakland. YRMV My wife wanted to take a photo directly at the big guy on the custom motorcycle next to us in the lane, but decided that it may cause some problems. Those H.A. guys were known to be unpredictable. So, she was content with a wave and a smile.
Man, there is some great stuff in this thread. Every day I have to read the Ford Barn and all the hot rod stuff and don't make it over here often. But now I'm going to. Here is a little Beezer I ride a lot. Always carry two clean plugs and can always get her started:
Thanks! The tractor belonged to my moms brother who rode a 57 panhead, shredder belonged to my dads brother, they made a good pair. Mom has the Pan now, it was apart in the living room when he passed, been slowly getting it back together
Hello, When we were racing out in the desert with our 250cc Greeves Scramblers, our friend has a 250 cc Husqvarna. He started racing earlier and was now riding a super fast bike. As he got better he was starting to go up in the ranks. So within a couple of years, he moved to the Amateur class. I was still in the huge Novice ranks. I had a couple of top ten finishes out of 50 plus in the Novice class and had a new Greeves Challenger to allow me to get better. During the rise to the Amateur class, my friend thought that a larger motorcycle was going to make a difference in the rise to possible Expert class. Those guys had 500 cc Triumphs, BSA, Matchless and countess other larger displacement bikes. So, he bought a 500 cc Matchless AJS bike with a desert racing larger seat. Now, he could go a lot faster and would be able to stay up the the really faster racers. Back at his Westside of Long Beach house, I was able to ride it in a tune up mode and went to a dirt lot to do a couple of jumps and slides. It has so much more power and with each twist of the throttle, it instantly leaped forward. Impressive is a word that would be used to describe the experience and the power that bike had in all aspects of handling it in the dirt. Jnaki The 500 cc Matchless bike was a single cylinder motor. It was called “The Thumper.” As it idled it made a big thumping sound with that big 500cc cylinder. It was not like our bee buzzing 250 cc racing bikes. YRMV. similar in style, but just a powerful motorcycle. After a few races in Baja, Mexico, we got on with our lives and finished college, finally. Our dirt bike adventures were now coming to a close on another chapter of our motoring lives. I started in the Novice class and did get a lot better with more experience, but in the end, I was still in the Novice class as the year got to the last semester ... YRMV
Great story as always. The 500 singles do sound extremely cool sitting there idling, thumping is probably the best word for it. My dad had a Husqvarna 430 two stroke that was insanely fast, but really not near as fun or enjoyable to listen to as my Triumph 500
View attachment 5704293 Gotta love this photo, hat coat and a pipe, looks not like a good idea go motocrossing with a pipe
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