Roper TT

July 4th marked the social event of the season, the Roper TT, put on by my brother Doug and his wife Amy.  People started arriving Fri., the 3rd with Gordon Pulis coming over on the ferry from eastern Long Island on his CL 175 Honda.  Rich Ronay probably gets the long distance award riding his '90 VFR 750 Honda from Tracy's Landing, Md., east of D.C, via Roscoe, N.Y. (although we had a couple from Brisbane, Australia who were visiting the Brauns and rode J's R100RS).  Rich and I go way back having raced against each other in the mid '70s in AAMRR.  He had come to a race that I competed in at Summit Point and expressed interest in the Tiddler Tours, so I told him that I'd sponsor him on my '68 TC200 Suzuki.  When he arrived, I had just finished changing the failed petcock on the Suzuki to a Bridgestone one my brother had given me.  So, Rich and I went for a shake down run, me on my '53 Moto Guzzi Airone Sport.  After ten or so miles, we stopped to debrief.  Rich was having a lot of trouble with the motor loading up and, after a minute sitting there, we saw that the right carb was pissing gas out.  We switched bikes and headed back to D & A's house, me turning the petcock on and off to control the stuck float.  When we got back we decided that the carbs had to come off and be cleaned.

Doug and Gordon supervise while Rich and I clean the carbs on the TC200.  Amy Roper photo

The TC is the high pipe model, which most people think looks really cool.  But, I'd prefer to have the low pipe model as it gives easier access to the carbs.  We decided we'd be better off removing the pipes completely, which didn't prove to big job.  Carbs cleaned and back on, the flooding stopped and we were ready for the next day's ride.  A TT wouldn't be complete without a little pre- ride wrenching for evening entertainment.

Amy Roper photo

All told, about 40 bikes showed up for the ride with people from N.H., Ma., N.Y., R. I.?, and N.J.  Bikes included three Bultaco Metrallas, a Ossa Wildfire, a couple of R27 BMWs, Honda CB 160, CL 175, and CL 77, Yamaha YDS5 and R5C, Kawasaki 305 GPZ and 250 Sherpa, Jawa 350, my brother's 260 Benelli, a couple of H-D Sprints and a Triumph T 25 SS.  

Mark Turkington checks out the TC200

There were quite a few cheater bikes, being well oversized or new, but a few that were interesting and didn't deserve chain whipping, including a Yamaha 550 Vision and a beautiful Norton Commando.  

A 'Taco, 850 Commando, 550 Vision, and 350 Jawa

Yamaha 550 Vision

Another was a Ryca CS1, which is a U.S. made chassis kit for a Suzuki 650 Savage single motor.

Ryca CS1

The morning ride headed east across the Connecticut River to E. Haddam, Moodus, E. Hampton, N. Westchester, Colchester, Salem, Lyme, Old Lyme, Hadlyme, and back to E. Haddam, and Haddam, picking up lunch and returning to D & A's house, a total of 75 miles of great back roads with little traffic.
Before we left for the afternoon section, I gave my nearly 15 year old 1st cousin, once removed a ride on the Airone.  This was the 2nd motorcycle ride in her life as I had given her a brief ride around a parking lot maybe 8 years ago.  She remembered it and asked for another.  There's always the question of how fast to go as one doesn't want to scare the newbie and turn them off motorcycles, yet one wants to go fast enough to give them a feel for it.  I guess I did about right for, though she left holding on pretty tightly,...

...she came back with a big smile

Amy Roper photos

Some lightweights skipped the afternoon ride, but I rode with my old buddy, Leif Gustavson, on his egregious cheater bike, a EX 650 Kawasaki, (when he had a perfectly good TW200 Yamaha sitting at home).  I made him work to keep up with the mighty Airone.  The afternoon ride headed west through Higganum, Durham, Middlefield, Wallingford, back to Durham, on to Killingworth, Chester, and back to Haddam.  Again, about 54 miles of great roads, though maybe slightly more traffic and the roads were surprisingly dirty and there were quite a few trees and limbs down from a heavy storm a few days before.

Some loaded up and headed home; some stayed to join a bunch of neighbors who came over for a pot luck dinner.  Then, a spectacular fireworks display, put on by J. Braun, Hannah, and Erika.  Several stayed over Saturday night.

Sunday, Rich Schlachter and Al Hahn, more sparing partners from roadracing in the 70's, came over on bikes.  Rich Ronay hadn't seen Doug, Schlachter, Al, and Leif for 37 years, and Leif hadn't seen Al for almost as long.

left to right: brother Doug, Rich Schlachter, Rich Ronay, Leif Gustavson, yours truly, and Al Hahn, still riding after all these years.  Amy Roper photo

We all went for a ride, with Amy on her new Moto Guzzi V7 Stone, lead by Doug.  After 30 or more miles, Ronay headed back to Roscoe, and Schalchter and Al headed back to Old Lyme, and Doug, Amy, and I back to Haddam.  So ended one of the best Tiddler Tours in the history of the know universe.

Markus Koelbl's Yamaha YDS-5 (and a bit of my finger)

John Strempher with his Metralla

Parker Heath gassing up his Metralla

Phil Turkington's Metralla, 'Camilla'

Al Anderson's and Ching Chiang's R27 BMWs

Rick Bell's nicely hot rodded Yamaha R5C, which he's owned for about 40 years. 

Jamie Goodson's 250 Sprint

Bob Bendix brought a bike to sell

It could be yours

Charlie Van Deck on his beautifully restored 350 Jawa twin.

Oak Hill Classic

Last Sunday was the inaugural Oak Hill Classic vintage road rally in Durham, N.Y.  The weather was challenging, esp. for a inaugural event, with rain and cool temperatures.  Despite this, ten interesting bikes and riders showed up.  The oldest bike was a '63 R-27 BMW ridden by Gabrielle Isenbrand.

 The next oldest was my brother Doug's 64 400 Norton Electra.

Doug achieved excellent oil containment for a British bike with the help of a catch bottle.

The smallest bike was Cater Willey's 125 CZ which his friend Jan, who's from the Czech Republic, rode.  Carter rode his 150 MZ, which had to be the bike with the least mileage: 54 Km.s on the clock.

The 150 MZ with 54 Km. and the 125 CZ behind it.

My sister-in-law, Amy, rode her CL 350 Honda, for which Doug had found a new license plate.

And, Rob Sigond rode the CL 350's predecessor on the ride: a CL77 Honda.

I rode my '68 Suzuki TC200, which may have been the second lowest mileage bike on the ride: 626mi.

But perhaps the most interesting bike was Jake Herzog's 'Grossa': an Ossa Pioneer motor in a Greeves chassis.  This was Jake's first real ride on the bike and he said it worked very well, though he thought it could stand to be geared up and the 12V headlight bulb blew.

Greeves chassis, Ossa motor and Honda fuel tank

note the horn

I didn't get a photo of Jack Cole CA 160 Honda Dream or George Ellis' Honda CB500, the biggest bike on the ride.  George was the one who laid out the route with Rick Synder assisting.  Mike Shia brought a Guzzi Eldorado, but didn't ride.

Trailer Queen

It was an excellent route of mostly county roads with very little traffic and a total of almost 89 miles.  There was drizzle for most of the ride, but some hard rain in the middle.  When we got back to the Oak Hill Volunteer Fire Dept., we were serve an excellent lunch.

George was hoping for more older bikes.  Let hope we get better weather next year and the event gets off the ground.

Owls Head Transport Museum

Recently,  I drove up to Maine to visit my dear friend Phyllis on Mt. Desert Island.  I brought my '68 TC200 Suzuki and we worked on her '78 V-50 Moto Guzzi.  We got it running better by adjusting the valves, cleaning the carbs and petcocks and fixed a problem with one of the front brakes.  We did a bit of riding around the Island through Acadia National Park, trading off the two bikes frequently.
When I returned home, I stopped at the Owls Head Transport Museum just south of Rockland, Me.  The Museum has planes, cars, motorcycles and the odd ship and railroad model.  Just inside the entrance was a Pierce four cylinder, a bike I've always admired for it's large diameter frame members.

The first hall off the entrance is titled 'Power' and the first thing I was attracted to was a cut away aircooled, supercharged, 28 cylinder (four banks of 7) radial Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major R-4360 aircraft engine.  Surely this has to rank as one of the all time great cut aways.

I tore myself away from the Wasp to find the Holy Grail:  a replica of the 1868 Sylvester Roper steam cycle (the original is in the Smithsonian Institute).

Notice the compressed air hose going to a regulator at the bottom of the boiler.  Evidently this has a working motor, though it wasn't running when I was there.  I've seen the original at the Smithsonian, though I'm told it's no longer on display, and I've seen replicas in the Motorcyclepedia Museum and the Barber Museum.  Both of these were done by William Eggers of Goshen, Ct. and they are non-runners.  I asked the woman at the desk who had made this replica and she didn't know, but said they had had it 'forever'.

It's interesting that they call it 1868, but then say Sylvester 'in 1865 created what is consider the first motorcycle.'  I have also seen it dated as 1867.  For those who aren't aware, I am related to Sylvester, his 2nd cousin, four times removed and, I subscribe to the 'Wandering Gene theory'.
Moving on to the other halls was a bit anti-climatic, but there were some other nice bikes among the cars and planes.

A 1901 Steffey motor bicycle

An unrestored Excelsior V-twin

A four cylinder Excelsior Henderson

A somewhat eclectic line up of bikes in the 'Quest for Speed' exhibit

Some neat micro cars including an Isetta and a couple of Crosleys

I'm not sure that I'd recommend going far out of your way to see the motorcycles but, if you're in the area, the Owls Head Transport Museum is worth a stop, especially if you're into cars and planes.  

Grattan

From Road America,I drove to Chicago and spent three and a half days with some dear friends that go back to college days.  Once again, Ken Kales of The Sports Car Store let me use his shop facilities to work on my bike.  I tried to methodically check everything to cure what ever was wrong at Rd. Am.  I took the points out and dressed them, replaced the wire from the points to the coil, replaced the condenser, repaired the battery ground wire.  I found the ignition timing well retarded, but that could have been from removing and replacing the points.  I checked the valve clearance, which hadn't changed, and did a leak down test, which was excellent.  I checked the coil for resistance and found no evidence of shorting.  I took the carb apart and found that the tip of the air screw needle was broken off and jammed in the jet.   Knocked the broken off piece out of the jet and got on the phone to find a replacement.  But, I didn't think that was the problem, as I hadn't touched the screw in years  and suspect it had been that way for a while.  I didn't feel like I had found the smoking gun, but couldn't think of anything else to do.  I started it up and it seemed to run OK, but couldn't run it through the gears, so I went to Grattan with my fingers crossed.

The line up of spectator bikes at Grattan

I don't know which change or changes that I did made the difference, but the motor ran well at Grattan.  Unfortunately, I had lots of trouble with missed shifts.  I had had a few missed shifts at Rd. Am., but I had other problems to worry about.  Now it seemed to be getting worse.  It was almost exclusively on the up shifts.  More often than not, it would undershift from 2nd to 3rd and over shift from third to 4th, so I'd try to be very firm and deliberate for the former and lightly tap the shift lever for the later.  But, it wasn't entirely consistent.  I had a lot of slop in my shift linkage and I spent a fair amount of time tightening that up by bushing the arm on the shift shaft and replacing the clevises and pins in the linkage, but it didn't seem to help.

An A-50 BSA

Again, the 500 Premiere race was before the 350GP and we were gridded in front of 500GP, 500 Sportsman, Formula 500 and Vintage Superbike Lightweight.  I got a fair launch and then missed a shift and was swamped by the field.  Karsten Illg on his RD 400 based Yamaha won overall and F-500 with Tim Joyce winning 500 Premiere on Maurice Candy's Manx Norton.  Andrew Mauk and Wes Orloff, both on 450 Honda based Premiere bikes were having a good diced when Wes missed a downshift and ran off the track stalling the bike in a gravel trap and not finishing.  Kenny Cummings was next on his Seeley G-50, so I ended up 4th in class, though Alex Mclean came by on the 500 GP Mckeever Manx Norton, making me 7th overall.  My fastest lap was slightly faster than Kenny's, but my lap,times varied by some 3.5 seconds depending whether I got it in gear or not.

The 350GP race was gridded behind the 750 Sportsman and ahead of Formula 250 & 125.  Things went slightly better in this race, but I had token opposition in class as Paul Germain decided not to bump up from 250GP as his DT-1 Yamaha was running poorly, and I beat the other two starters, both on 250 Ducatis.  I finished behind two 750 Triumphs and three XS650/750 Yamahas and ahead of three Yamahas and a Triumph.

It rained hard over night and into the morning and I took it very gingerly in practice.  It stopped raining and the sun came out by the time racing started, but there was still water streaming across the track in several places.  Wes Orloff didn't start the race Sun., as his gearbox broke in practice.  Tim Joyce saved a big slide on the stream in turn #1 and pulled off after the first lap.  Kenny Cummings pulled off after the second lap.  Then it started to rain again and two 500 Sportsman bikes went down in the turn #10 'keyhole', with me having to take evasive action as one of the riders ran into my path.  The race was red flagged and on the restart, it was only Andrew Mauk and me in Premiere.  We were both trying to be really careful in the tricky conditions and I push Andrew hard, finishing a little over 0.1 of a second behind in third overall.  Andrew has been racing a long time in all disciplines and he said that when ever he raced on his birthday, he won a race.  He thought that streak was going it end this weekend racing against Tim Joyce on Maurice Candy's Manx, but he was wrong.  The streak continues.

Keith Leighty's CB450 based Premiere bike that Andrew Mauk rode to a 2nd and 1st

Keith and Andrew make a great team but they're unusual in that Keith lives in El Paso, Tx. and Andrew in Milwakee

The rain stopped again before the 350GP and the sun was out, but still lots of water streaming across the track.  The Robinson father and son on Triumphs sandwiched the Hargis father and son on Yamahas.  I got ahead of Pete Beyer and Mike Dixon, both on Yamahas, pretty early on, but they started to figure out conditions and both got back by me near the end of the race.  We swapped back and forth a bit and, in the end, I finished behind Pete in 6th overall, and 0.016 seconds ahead of Mike. After the race, I drained the oil out of my motor and a gear tooth came out with it.  I dropped the bike back off with Bill Himmelsbach on my way home and he took it apart and found two broken gears and the dogs badly worn on another.

3rd gear layshaft

5th & 3rd gear layshaft

Worn dogs on 4th gear layshaft

Road America 2015

After I had the trouble with my 350 Sprint at Summit Point, I dropped the bike back off with Bill Himmelsbach.  The intake valve had started to seize in the guide and the question was lubrication or clearance.  Bill found a partial obstruction in the oil feed through the rocker cover.  He also talked to Kibblewhite, the manufacturer of the valve and guide blank.  He ended up giving it more clearance than before and putting a different finish on it.  He then ran it on his DYNO, and everything seemed good.  I picked up the bike on my way to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wi.

The motor didn't want to start for the first practice Sat.,and I convinced myself that it didn't have any spark.  But, after much checking and futzing around, I realized that I did indeed have spark and evidently had just failed to flood the carb enough.  Somebody give me a dope slap.

I did get out for the second practice, but the motor ran very poorly with lots of miss-fire.  I changed the main jet, needle position, point gap, fuel hose from float to carb, changed the break-in oil, and charged the battery.

Starting to work of the ERTT

Some or all of that helped considerably, and the motor ran much better for my first race, my 'bump up' race, 500 Premiere.  I totally blew the start with the bike in neutral when the flag dropped.  Once I finally got rolling, I was a bit tentative, having gotten no good practice.  But, by the end of the 6 laps, I was starting to get into it and closed on Helmi Neiderer, finishing 5th in class and 8th overall.

I dropped the main jet again, and in the 350GP the bike ran better yet.  We were gridded behind the 750 Sportsman class.  I got a decent start this time, though Jack Parker and Paul Germain both got better starts (as they usually do).  I got by Paul and several 750 Sportsman bikes going into turn #1.  I got by Jack before the end of the lap.  I caught Pete Beyer and Nick Hargis on their XS Yamaha 750 Sportsman bikes and we went back and forth some. Nick Hargis is the son of the race leader Jeff Hargis and was competing in his third race weekend.  After passing me back a couple of times, he decided to follow me for a while and he picked up some tips, then went by again and pulled away.  I was able to get right on Beyer into the last turn, but he was easily able to out drag me to the finish line.  So, I won my class and finished 5th overall behind four XS Yamaha 750 Sportsmen bike. The day had been a steady upward trend and finished on a high note.

It rained some overnight and was raining for practice Sun. morning.  My bike ran terribly in practice with a heavy misfire under any kind of a load, and I pulled in after two laps.  I suspected it must have to do with the rain, as I had done nothing to the bike since I won the 350GP race Sat.  I pulled the points cover off and water came out, so I thought that must be it.  I cleaned everything up and sealed the cover and tried riding around the paddock; no better.  I found a high resistance in the battery ground cable and bolted a cable directly from the battery to the motor with on/off switch; no better.  I put a smaller yet main jet in the carb; no better.  I took the float apart, changed the spark plug, and checked the valve clearance.

Continuing to work on the ERTT

It stopped raining and the sun came out and I hoped that would make a difference.  I started the bike up for the 500 Premiere race and, as I was waddling down to pre grid blipping the throttle, the motor died.  I put it on starter rollers and it started, but died again.  And again.  And again. Then it wouldnt start and I did not start either race Sunday.  I was totally baffled, but some days are like that.

There's always a good turn out of Guzzi singles at Rd. Am.

A Sport 15? from the '30s

80 some odd years of evolution

A beautiful Bridgestone 350 GTR with 79K miles on the clock

It must have lost it's taillight lens wheelie-ing over backwards