photos by Amy Roper

29 May, 2011 Steve Rossi hosted a Tiddler Tour from his house in East Haddam, Ct. About 20 bikes participated, a few of them being non-Tiddlers. This included Steve himself, who rode his Nuevo Falcone after first his 124 Gilera, then his 175 Benelli let him down. We had three Moto Guzzi Airone Sports (my '53, John Harris' '55, and Bill Burke's '56). It was a 75 mile route through beautiful back road (some dirt) on a beautiful day. Pretty close to perfect. Harry Elliot's 118 Suzuki, the smallest bike on the Tour, died at the lunch stop after being totally trouble free on several previous TTs. An extra bonus on Steve's TTs is checking out his evolving pile of bikes, cars and stuff, a magnificent personal museum. Next Tiddler Tour is July 4th in Haddam, Ct., hosted by my brother and his wife.

The next morning, I took off on my daily beater, a '90 Honda VTR 250, in the rain for my house in Hicksville, N.Y. to unpack and pack and head for JFK to fly to the IOM. About 40 miles into the trip as the rain is starting to abate, the motor died. It would start and idle, but opening the throttle at all or putting it in gear would cause it to die. I called my good friend Carlos Escudero, owner of Solo Moto, and he had nothing better to do on Memorial Day than drive up from Greenwich with his van and pick me up. This added a bit of tension to the day but I still made my flight with plenty of time. I'm posting this from the Dublin airport as I wait for my flight to the IOM