|
solo1
|
 |
« on: May 24, 2018, 05:37:45 AM » |
|
Many years ago, about in 1948, I and my buddies would ride our motorcycles down to Brown County State Park. I was on my '46 Matchless, Vic was on his '48 Matchless, Pres was on his Panther 600, and another buddy was riding his Norton .
The trip down there was uneventful. All of the bikes were single cylinder thumpers and all were British, no Japanese then and we didn't prefer Indians or HD's. The 'sweet spot' for all of the singles except the Panther, was at 58 mph indicated on the Smith speedometers. Interesting thing about the Smith speedometers was that they would 'click' from one mph to the next. I think that it was to keep them from jumping around due to vibration of those thumpers. Were were lucky that the electronic digital speedo's weren't invented yet, as they would have never worked with Lucas as the electronics maker. Lucas, back then, was known as “The Prince of Darkness” as the Lucas made generators very seldom could be trusted to keep the batteries charged. It was interesting to note that all of the old singles that I knew about had impulse magnetos which generated the spark with no need for batteries, were dependable but also made by Lucas. However, Lucas still had a bad reputation. A joke was that Lucas made only one product that didn't suck.............A vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, back to the trip. Brown County state park had many gravel roads We were riding down this steep gravel road with a stream crossing it at the bottom. Dusty but otherwise, no problem. EXCEPT when we had to go back up after crossing the stream. I was bringing up the rear, and my Matchless couldn't make it. The gravel was washboarded and the rigid hard tail on my bike wouldn't let the rear wheel gain traction. The wheel started hopping under throttle and the bike slid sidewise. I had to get off the bike and 'walk' it up the other side using very little throttle in first gear. Pissed wasn't the word for ,by now, this dust covered hot, rider.
However, I made it back up and we all ran some roads which I now believe was route 135 and maybe also Salt Creek Road, one of my favorites. The banking in the curves, the subdued sounding thump of the singles, and the smell of the foliage mixed with the pungent smell of the gunk from a newly cleaned engine, was what it was about. After a full day of riding we came back on Indiana State road 3. There were no interstates then.
After about 10 hours and 400 miles of arse beating from the bicycle seat on my hard tail Matchless, I was pooped, even though I was in my teens then.
"Those Were the Days, My Friends"
|
