Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

                               
       
                Found this on FB...and borrowed it. One of the projects I'm hoping to get back to
                is a 1957 Triumph 650 .

 Borrowed this from someone I follow on Instagram. The hardest part of the project will be restoring the frame of this bike. Actually the hardest thing is trying to do this post from my cel-phone !!!

Hope this finds all enjoying the holidays...and looking forward to a new year.

The Sacramento Mile....

The Sac Mile....has come and gone, and I better get with that post about it.  Hard to imagine hitting up to 130 miles per hour on that sand and clay surface up there....and then pitching it sideways to race around that corner.  Go fast....turn left.

That corner must come up so fast at this point...

(IMHO)  Two of the friendliest flat track racers in the AMA, Sammy Halbert and Doug Lawrence.

Sammy Halbert's XR's before the Main...

After the Main...

Got to meet another friendly smiling racer...this is Doug Lawrence...from Canada.He's not thirsty here...he was trying to flush some of that Sac Mile grit from his eyes before I got this shot... 

At this point I've realized I still have a bunch of missing shots filed...somewhere...but I do have a bunch of different shots of Doug's bike.

Think I'll go work on that DQUSA post, and when and if I find more Sac Mile stuff.....I'll post it.( It's in this infernal machine somewhere....)

Veteran's Day weekend...

Cruising down the road to the Monterey Coast area, coming up on Casa de Fruta...was passed by several bikes...managed to snap a quick off the steering wheel shot...thought,oh well...

Pulled into Casa de Fruta and as I parked my car spotted the two Harley's, and went over and had a nice chat with Gary and Lynn from San Francisco. Gary is a Vietnam Veteran, so I thought they would make a good subject for a Veteran's day post here at the old blog. Nice weather for riding this weekend, made me wish I was on a bike instead of the old 4 wheeler...

A couple of times a year I pull out my Dad's old stripes and old Army Air Corps patch...this might be the year I build a small display case for these and some other memorabilia I have. My father served in Korea and Viet Nam.

This Harley, I spotted at a truck stop earlier, had the oddest, widest handlebars I've ever seen...

Another off the steering wheel shot earlier on the road on I-5...Anyone out there able to ID this bike...some sort of BMW possibly...?

It's been about 3 months since the last posting here...various computer malfunctions, forgotten passwords...odd Blooger B.S. ...the usual suspects.... Have a belated Sacmile posting in the works, and a 'Part 2' for the trip up to attend 'Dirt Quake US'...so, check back in a few days, and the chances are good....there will be more stuff to waste your time with... 

Sacramento Mile 2014 is tommorrow!

Good old American Flattracking!

Was cancelled...now it's on. Harley's, Triumphs, Kawasakis, Ducatis even....battling it out in the main event. Even with my current transportation woes...I'll be there, even if I have to pedal over across the river via bicycle. It'll be a good one...

Click this link---------->  Click this link for more info

And, I even have more DirtquakeUSA pics coming up.... 

Another event happening on Sunday is a two day show of Classic Japanese Motorcycles  in the foothills of Auburn, California. If I can squeeze it in I'd like to get up to see the show and swap meet.  I keep telling myself I'm going to participate in the whole 2 day camp out...ride out...swap and show. Of course it'll have to be on a week end that doesn't conflict with the Mile race here in Sacramento! So...definitely pictures from the race coming up and just maybe some from the Classic Japanese show...

It's not the destination....

"...with you, it's more about the trip...the people you meet...the things you see along the way..." Crewchief* says to me at some point in our journey.  To this I reply..." True....I'm just happy to be on the road...with a good friend who knows the roads...has abilities...a guy I've trusted my life with when I was on the 'sharp' end of a rope, climbing sketchy sandstone cliffs in the desert...a guy who carries a first aid kit for all needs while out in the wilderness...a self taught kinda guy...that plays a mean guitar. As Tim, at another blog sometimes says..."I'm blessed, me"...got good mates...another one, kindly loaned us the truck... that made our journey possible.

At one of the nicer Motels in Oregon, Rick gets a little classical guitar practice in...

So...we made it to Washington state...found the track...met Rick Burchett who kindly allowed us to work at his garage...got the bike running pretty good. After settling down in a cheap motel...we discovered, via 'Instagram', that Travis Newbold and his friends were already setting up camp at the track...so we drove over to throw our tents down and claim a spot for the weekend. The clutch on the SL 100 was still acting up...but took it out on the track for a few laps...to see if that would help loosen up the clutch, but to no avail. I noticed that the old front tire that was still holding air...had now developed large cracks in the sidewall...started thinking about then it was not going to make it as a 'racer' that weekend....oh well, we made it up there...and the bike clutchless as it was still ok for a 'pit-bike'...and I did get to do some laps on the race track. It wouldn't have been safe to try to race it as it was, and would only have made things more hazardous for other riders on the track.


*also known as Rick

As usual having problems trying to get videos to transfer ...so regular pics it is....since I typed this last statement...my phones software got an upgrade...and it seems I can now do things with little videos by "resizing" them...interesting...And as it turns out, not that interesting...it turns them into another format that seems to be "un-recognizable"....

At any rate here is a peep at some peeps at Dirtquake USA........

This is Ben Part, art director of Sideburn Magazine. He's not really 7 feet tall...but at times he appears to be.

"Poncho"...or was that "Pancho"...some call him "Poncho Pancho". 

Travis Newbold in the Triumph patched denim and his ice racing friend Mike from Colorado, are checking out  Ben, on his bought at the swap meet chopped 350. Ben dubbed the bike "slow as porridge", but was all smiles as he brought up the rear of the "Chopper Class".

Skooter Farm Dave (Sideburn's Entertainment Director...) trying the 350 Chopper out ( Good thing there wasn't an empty swimming pool nearby...), also over from the UK...and looking on, is the "I" of 'Sideburn'....Conway...record shop owner and racing announcer...

I was told he was speaking English....eh wot?

DirtQuakeUK has the pie...DirtquakeUSA had pizza....

"Cowboy" aka Tommy of Tommy's Triumph in Kansas. This is the chopped Triumph 500 that Travis raced in the 'Chopper Class' ...held together with wire, bungee cords, and Hello Kitty tape...

Late Saturday night in the campground, Tommy starts the Triumph Chopper...to "drive mosquitoes away"...I don't think the mosquitoes would have survived the whiskey they would have encountered in some of the bloodstreams they would have been tapping into...

Gary Inman, Editor of Sideburn Magazine ...at the riders meeting.

Gary again, after yet another "costume" change...almost looks like he's doing a jig here.. running back and forth between the track and the pits.

This is Baja, Travis' traveling companion and main pit dawg...

Anthony of Co-built, and his best friend Anna of Custommadeuk, meeting Baja.

"Crewchief" hanging out in the pits...

Travis ,Mike and his brother Phil...also an ice racer...hanging out in the pit before races.

"Cowboy" again and Anna as the "E" in sideburn in the Newbold pit, after some races. Notice the tank on Tommy's Triumph after it came loose during the race. 

Brad Peterson and family celebrating the win in the Street Tracker Class

Yes, his street tracker happens to be an XR 750 Harley Davidson that I had last seen at the Sideburn blog...after he pitted next to us and unveiled this beauty...decided for sure I wasn't going to try and race my crippled SL-100 against the likes of this...

Norman of motorcychomagazine drawn like a moth to a flame...when Brad fired up the XR 750....

Everyone in Brad's family had their bike's, this is the out rigger equipped Honda 50, the littlest one rode all over the campsites...and...

in the parade lap with her mother. That's her next to the guy from See See Coffee dressed as the 'Creature from the Black Lagoon'...

Gary again, this time as the "S" in Sideburn...chilling in the Newbold pit.

Geoff and Anthony of Cobuilt, the "R" and "N" of Sideburn...post races.

The clutchless one...relegated to pit duty...maybe next year...

Past my bed time...curious to see if any of these videos are going to play...so time to hit the publish button...there will be more pics and video coming along shortly...

Just a teaser...of DirtQuake USA stuff....

The man in the British Policeman's hat above...is Anthony of Cobuilt...they build really nice motorcycles in England. You can follow them at cobuilt_anthony and cobuilt_geoff on Instagram. They also race flattrack in the UK in the DTRA series.


One of the reasons I haven't got around to posting more DQUSA pics, is my on-going turmoil... of the aftermath...of my smashed ex-Toyota...in other words, been burning up vacation days to get some wheels under me....at least the temps have dropped since I started this post last week...gonna top out at 87 degrees today...nice!  So, last week it was:

Sheeeeesh! It's 101 degrees in the shade at four in the afternoon here at the not ready to go back to work, works....it topped out at 103 a bit after this...and now at seven it's just a paltry 87 degrees. Been wanting to get the whole DirtQuakeUSA posts done...but the still not resolved issue of coming up with some transportation to work thing....keeps rearing it's ugly head...

To make things more interesting...in a moment of weakness I bought an old car...a !970 Karmann Ghia (see Dave...I spelled it right this time...)

They always look better at night....

First things first, a proper motorcycle oriented sticker to add to the collection of stickers it came with...

Since I started this post I've replaced the leaky "doughnuts" and other gaskets on the exhaust system, adjusted valves and timing, found some interesting "bodges" that would make John Muir of the "Complete Idiots guide to VW Maintenance" fame happy. He'd refer to fixes such as these as "Muldooning" it...in honor of a friend famous for coming up with fixes that would get you down the road till later...This Hershey's can fix  that the previous owner Jack came up with will stay....this is where the "fresh air" tube slips over...works quite well !

So, a few quick pics from DQUSA:

Here's "Casey", (I met him the night before as he and his friends came spilling out of the mosh pit of the Canadian band "Vicious Cycles")....I think he's cleaned some of the blood and mud off...for this portrait being taken by Michael Lichter...

Modern Triumph engine in a self-brewed nickel-plated,brazed (or bronze-welded) chromoly frame. He's currently building another one, you can follow him at Instagram as "Frankenstrange".

He used to race a Triumph Cub based speedway bike...with the transmission cut off. 

And yes, they raced "Choppers"...one even had a side car...Ladies and Gentlemen....I give you "Medievalean" !!

 Honda 750 Chopper with an Equalean sidecar mounted in a fixed positioning.

"Crewchief" aka my traveling companion Rick looks like he's not quite sure what to make of all of this...

You can imagine my relief to meet such a normal American couple.....

We'll be back with more pics from DQUSA....stay tuned....

Dirt Quake US 2014

Back in Sacramento..."Freeway Lagged"...still on a DirtQuake US high...decided to take off the rest of the week and catch up with life back home. So, a little blogpost....as I digest the events of the past week. To sum it up in a few word's ...it was a blast! Even though I didn't race my bike (more about that later).it was a good road trip. My partner in this adventure was Rick Willis, recently retired Plumber/welder in the school district maintenance department I'm still currently employed in. I dubbed him "crewchief" for the weekend.

Rick...in the blue shirt, with swiss army knife connected to a lanyard so as to always be handy....and another Rick. Rick Burchett, is a local racer we met at the local "four corners" food, gas and ammo stop.

We left Sacramento with a barely running Honda SL 100....that still had a laundry list of jobs to do... After telling us how to get to the race track....Castlerock....he drove down and fetched us back to his house where he kindly loaned us space, tools, a compressed air line. Here the two Ricks are setting up an on/off switch for the ignition

Between moments assisting us, he was taking his bike out on his front yard 'track' and testing out his gearing. Here he's just got off the phone with Sammy Halbert the GNC racer asking for advice on gearing for the track at Castlerock. He and Sammy's father are old friends. This is the bike he raced in Saturdays pro races.

Rick is looking for a grinding wheel to put on my battery operated grinder so as to shorten the new drive chain. The old one was as stiff as a stiff thing... and would have made a good club...

An out of sequence shot...but you can see how this bike had acquired a lovely patina sitting around in various back yards before I acquired it. It had last run in '92...

So the three of us got the hard as a rock Dunlop K70 removed to be replaced with a fresh trials tire. The front tire looked ok and even held air....so decided to leave it alone and not replace the tube. Since I had got it running, really didn't have a chance to ride it much . The tank still had some rust flakes in it, so added an in line fuel filter. The clutch would not disengage properly (the plates were stuck together)....so hoping it would loosen up with some use....proceeded to tear up some grass on our new friend's front yard....with his permission....he had already established a line with his real race bike. Tried bumping the front wheel against a tree and revving it up....it tried to climb the tree! Tried it again with the front brake locked up....it dug a trench in his yard....so after a few more laps around his 'track' which seemed to loosen up the rings....it was barely smoking now... the new oil probably helped too....we thanked our new friend and loaded up to go look for a motel, since camping wasn't supposed to start till Saturday at the track. 

Another bike Rick is getting together...

So ...next time...more on the adventures of two Californian's...looking for Castlerock Washington...