The other day

I was driving the Miata around the Grabill area. There is a ordinary looking restaurant in this Amish town that has the best beef Manhattan sandwich!

Any way, many yeas ago, this area had been a favorite of mine to ride at a slow pace. The absence of traffic made it so. Today, this area is much busier but still not too bad for being so close to Indiana's second largest city, ft. Wayne.

My thoughts turned the clock back to 67 years ago as I remembered good times. A quick search of my stories in the computer brought up this.

Indian vs Matchless, A Story of the Past

Some years ago, I won't say when, I was riding' down St. Joe River Road north of Ft. Wayne.
As usual I was on my Matchless 500 thumper. I had on my "Snoopy" hat and was wearing
goggles (my eyes water in the wind, even to this day). The day was beautiful, typical summer
day sunny and comfortable temperatures.
I notice that I am coming up on another fellow motorcyclist riding even slower than me. As I
passed him he motioned to me to pull over. We both stopped at the side of the road (not much
traffic back then.)
He was riding an Indian Chief 74 cubic inch sidevalve, the year escapes me. It was in nice shape and had the required Indian chief lighted trademark on the front fender.

We talked.

Evidently he had never seen a British bike before and had a lot of questions about the foot shift and hand
clutch. We had a very good conversation as brothers on two wheels even do today. Anyway, the
conversation drifted toward acceleration. He asked me if I would like to see what a 30 cubic inch single
could do against his 74 cubic inch vtwin. All in good hearty companionship. I agreed, although I had my
doubts about the Matchless holding up to his Indian.
We lined up side by side. The road was still without traffic.. To make a long story short, I beat him every time. The faster shirting of the Matchless helped but I plain had him on power to weight ratio even with the thumper's 22 hp!
We stopped again at the side of the road and compared notes. No excuses were made but he
finally brought up an interesting suggestion. He said, "Would you ride with me back to my house
in Cedarville, I have one other bike that I would like to try against yours?" "Sure" I said.
We pulled into his yard, he parked the Indian, got off, and walked to the garage and opened the double wood doors, walked in
and pushed out a Harley Davidson 80 cubic inch.
"Whoa" I said in my mind, but I was game. We didn't waste any time. We started side by side
even before we left Cedarville. I got him on the jump, but after that, forgot it! My old thumper
got its hardtail butt beat but good!
We stopped and compared notes again and came to the conclusion. There is absolutely no
substitute for cubic inches.

Afterthought: The garage is still there. Weeds have grown around the doors, the paint is gone, and the wood is much the worse for wear. The whole look is one of abandonment. I've always wondered what happened to the rider. As he was much older than I suspect that he is riding somewhere else now.

Wayne, solo1