Hello,
It was a great ride though I did get rained on for about fifteen minutes but I was dry again in about the same time.
Twenty three people entered and twenty one people completed the run – sixteen were pre-registered. Several bikes fell out within the first five miles but a few people had extra bikes and went back to get their spare rides. This is east Texas near the Louisiana border and people came from as far away as Wichita Falls, Texas and “Elvis Knievel” came in from New Orleans, LA. Who knew that Evel had a black-wigged, cape-wearing little brother that rode a Vespa? LOL . . .
Dry rotted tires took out the 280-ish pound guy on the gold 1971 Honda CT70 very early. His wife / significant other on the Honda Z50 stayed with him but she eventually completed the course on that Z50 . . . winning the “Perseverance Award” for the day. The garage sale found blue Piaggio Vespa made it to the timed check point but the original rear tire from the 60’s shredded out and went flat. He used some monkey snot tire slime and my 12 volt pump that I was carrying in my milk crate to pump it back up but it was a lost cause for that tire. The event folks hauled his bike back to the starting point and hauled him to lunch and the eventual finish line.
One of the Cushman bikes also fell out early due to engine problems but he had a spare bike.
Speaking of lunch at Sawmill Town. Quite surreal. The place is filled with derelict tractors of every age, shape, size and manufacturer imaginable. That fellow could retire on what he would collect by turning them in for scrap steel. We had a good lunch and listened to the band for a while and then staged each class back out on the course much like as we started out in the morning.
My 76 CT90 with the Tech Weekend rebuilt engine (thanks, Mel and Jack) made it in fine and quite a few people had no idea about the dual-range transmission. I used a half a quart of oil and right at four gallons of gas covering 208 miles round trip – about 50 miles to the gallon. With the throttle pinned wide open most of the time, I was surprised at the fuel burn rate. I would have predicted closer to 70 miles per gallon. The ten MPH headwind that I had on the outbound leg did not help but I felt like I was on an orange rocket ship headed back with the tail wind. About 45 miles per hour on flat ground in a crosswind was the best I could do and to go any faster yesterday would have required liposuction. I tightened the drive chain at the half way point, gave it some oil and changed the spark plug but that was probably unnecessary . . . more for the camaraderie with the two stroke folks. I guess it was the over the handlebars, drag reducing crouch that I spent a lot of the trip in that was the worst part of the day.
I had the slowest bike in Class Two that survived contact with the first five miles of the course and spent most of the ride by myself. This meant that I had to do all of my own navigating, reading the course directions, time keeping, odometer reading, road sign checking and generally trying to avoid getting lost – no GPS on this bike and nobody else had one either. I did manage to get lost once and had to double back adding about twenty minutes to my time which took me out of the running for any rally prizes. I did win a big assorted package of screwdrivers as a door prize at the awards ceremony. Sadly, they are NOT a set of Japanese Industrial Standard screwdrivers but it was still nice and they are already in one of my tool boxes.
The scenery was scenic in the Sabine National Forest around the Sabine River and the Toledo Bend Reservoir. This is the area of Texas around Hemphill where the majority of the Columbia space shuttle debris came down. There is a museum to that tragedy in Hemphill and I have to hand it to those searchers out looking for wreckage, this is some rough country. I felt safer on these roads at 45 mph than anywhere else that I have driven one of these bikes. The car drivers were quite tolerant of us and I was never alarmed at anything they did. I should have stopped and taken more pictures along the route but I simply stuck to the course script and kept riding.
We had quite an assortment of old bikes. I had the only Trail 90 but Honda was well represented. One fellow made it about 190 miles riding a 1980’s, 49 CC Honda Express two-stroke smoker moped with a bad case of piston slap. But his wife had to haul him to the finish line using a Russian-made Ural with a sidecar. He will put a new top end on it but this might bump him up to Class 2 for next year. Those two stroke folks sure carried a lot of spark plugs yesterday.
The use of Vermont license plates must be big business for the Vermont Division of Motor Vehicles because three of us ran with those plates. You gotta’ love the very understanding, progressive and open minded DMV clerks at Montpelier.
Overall, it was a decided that we certainly need to do this again next year so mark your calendars for 2016. My bike will need a tuneup before then and maybe those are dry rot cracks on my front tire . . . it’s always something with different old Honda bikes.
The next Texas Tiddler Endurance Run will be bigger though with T-shirts, more bikes, more people and hopefully bikes without dry rotted tires. I hope you have enjoyed the day with me here and maybe some of you will join me next year.
Pictures are at the link below:
Texas Tiddler Ride Pix Photos by b52bombardier1 | Photobucket
Rick
It was a great ride though I did get rained on for about fifteen minutes but I was dry again in about the same time.
Twenty three people entered and twenty one people completed the run – sixteen were pre-registered. Several bikes fell out within the first five miles but a few people had extra bikes and went back to get their spare rides. This is east Texas near the Louisiana border and people came from as far away as Wichita Falls, Texas and “Elvis Knievel” came in from New Orleans, LA. Who knew that Evel had a black-wigged, cape-wearing little brother that rode a Vespa? LOL . . .
Dry rotted tires took out the 280-ish pound guy on the gold 1971 Honda CT70 very early. His wife / significant other on the Honda Z50 stayed with him but she eventually completed the course on that Z50 . . . winning the “Perseverance Award” for the day. The garage sale found blue Piaggio Vespa made it to the timed check point but the original rear tire from the 60’s shredded out and went flat. He used some monkey snot tire slime and my 12 volt pump that I was carrying in my milk crate to pump it back up but it was a lost cause for that tire. The event folks hauled his bike back to the starting point and hauled him to lunch and the eventual finish line.
One of the Cushman bikes also fell out early due to engine problems but he had a spare bike.
Speaking of lunch at Sawmill Town. Quite surreal. The place is filled with derelict tractors of every age, shape, size and manufacturer imaginable. That fellow could retire on what he would collect by turning them in for scrap steel. We had a good lunch and listened to the band for a while and then staged each class back out on the course much like as we started out in the morning.
My 76 CT90 with the Tech Weekend rebuilt engine (thanks, Mel and Jack) made it in fine and quite a few people had no idea about the dual-range transmission. I used a half a quart of oil and right at four gallons of gas covering 208 miles round trip – about 50 miles to the gallon. With the throttle pinned wide open most of the time, I was surprised at the fuel burn rate. I would have predicted closer to 70 miles per gallon. The ten MPH headwind that I had on the outbound leg did not help but I felt like I was on an orange rocket ship headed back with the tail wind. About 45 miles per hour on flat ground in a crosswind was the best I could do and to go any faster yesterday would have required liposuction. I tightened the drive chain at the half way point, gave it some oil and changed the spark plug but that was probably unnecessary . . . more for the camaraderie with the two stroke folks. I guess it was the over the handlebars, drag reducing crouch that I spent a lot of the trip in that was the worst part of the day.
I had the slowest bike in Class Two that survived contact with the first five miles of the course and spent most of the ride by myself. This meant that I had to do all of my own navigating, reading the course directions, time keeping, odometer reading, road sign checking and generally trying to avoid getting lost – no GPS on this bike and nobody else had one either. I did manage to get lost once and had to double back adding about twenty minutes to my time which took me out of the running for any rally prizes. I did win a big assorted package of screwdrivers as a door prize at the awards ceremony. Sadly, they are NOT a set of Japanese Industrial Standard screwdrivers but it was still nice and they are already in one of my tool boxes.
The scenery was scenic in the Sabine National Forest around the Sabine River and the Toledo Bend Reservoir. This is the area of Texas around Hemphill where the majority of the Columbia space shuttle debris came down. There is a museum to that tragedy in Hemphill and I have to hand it to those searchers out looking for wreckage, this is some rough country. I felt safer on these roads at 45 mph than anywhere else that I have driven one of these bikes. The car drivers were quite tolerant of us and I was never alarmed at anything they did. I should have stopped and taken more pictures along the route but I simply stuck to the course script and kept riding.
We had quite an assortment of old bikes. I had the only Trail 90 but Honda was well represented. One fellow made it about 190 miles riding a 1980’s, 49 CC Honda Express two-stroke smoker moped with a bad case of piston slap. But his wife had to haul him to the finish line using a Russian-made Ural with a sidecar. He will put a new top end on it but this might bump him up to Class 2 for next year. Those two stroke folks sure carried a lot of spark plugs yesterday.
The use of Vermont license plates must be big business for the Vermont Division of Motor Vehicles because three of us ran with those plates. You gotta’ love the very understanding, progressive and open minded DMV clerks at Montpelier.
Overall, it was a decided that we certainly need to do this again next year so mark your calendars for 2016. My bike will need a tuneup before then and maybe those are dry rot cracks on my front tire . . . it’s always something with different old Honda bikes.
The next Texas Tiddler Endurance Run will be bigger though with T-shirts, more bikes, more people and hopefully bikes without dry rotted tires. I hope you have enjoyed the day with me here and maybe some of you will join me next year.
Pictures are at the link below:
Texas Tiddler Ride Pix Photos by b52bombardier1 | Photobucket
Rick