The Great Mac-Pac Bike move of 2008

Migration is a funny thing. Every Spring various species of birds decide to go some place else, just because the days are getting longer. Guided by magnetophores found in their itty-bitty birdy brainds they can travel hundreds, or thousands of miles accurately.



Well the Mac-Pac is almost as good. We are able to move a collection of bikes 10 miles with very few getting lost. A couple who are members of our clan has built a new house, with a suite shop and a beautiful pole barn and needed to move their bikes from the old house to the new. The call was put out and answered in a big way. Trucks trailers and riders converged and made short work of the deal.



That was the good. On a personal note I had a couple of issues. First the bike wouldn't start after it got cold and we needed to jump it. So We push it up to the garage. While trying to move it to get it closer to the jump vehicle I dropped it. In the garage on the concrete floor. My pride was hurt more than anything. I have never dropped a bike before. I did have an R60/6 fall while on the center stand on the side of the road in a torrential downpour in 1988 or so, but I was standing 100 feet away, I was holding my bloody bike and it fell. Crap. Like I said damage was minor, so I can fix it quickly and fairly cheaply, a couple of pop rivets and some touch up paint and all will be good. Enjoy the pics. Some of the details were added by the bikes owners.

Here is the staging area. A church parking lot. Our Spoon bearing leader thought it neccesary to tell us not to piss on the bushes. We didn't we pissed on the flowers. Ha!

Reipe brought donuts and coffee. Nothing for me who happens to be allergic to coffee, the bastard. Oh well, no big deal, I brought my own Amp, someone has to support Dale Jr.

One of the trailers loaded at the old house. An old AJS and a Matchless from the most recent iteration of that company.

An older Matchless, and a beauty at that.


The same Matchless and an R90/6



This Harley is American made and an exact copy of a DKW. After WWII everyone took the plans of the DKW D1 as war reparations (In other words they stole the plans) In our collection is the 1950 Harley (sometimes called a Hummer)
1951 BSA Bantam (another DKW clone but engine is flipped over so it breaks and shifts like UK bikes) 1951 Minsk (clone made in Belarus It was the one that had no front wheel axel) and a 1951 DKW (the real thing)

The bike in the collection I lust over the most. A 441 BSA "Shooting Star". I love British singles, I had a Triumph 500 single that had essentially the same engine as this bike, just rebadged as Triumph and punched out a tad. That thing ran great, and it had so much torque you could pull stumps with it.

Tom Cutter declares the move a success and puts the seal of the "official" Rubber Chicken upon it.

A Simplex, little blurry, sorry about that, it was dark. These bikes were
made for about 30 years in New Orleans by a Harley dealer who thought that that sized bike was needed.


A good bit of the collection in the barn.

And the shop. Best of luck to the owners. We had fun and did our duty!

The Rites of Spring

Ah yes, Monday was a beautiful day. Temp in the 50's but with bright sun, when you were working it felt much warmer. Over the weekend I installed new driving lights on the K bike. I haven't had it out at night yet. But it looks good and should improve people seeing me during the day. Here are pics of it Lit and Unlit for a comparison. I also gave the beast a good scrubbing which I haven't done for a while so I could not resist taking a pic to share.

Here it is without them lit up.

And with them lit, nice huh?


Here is one of the side after a good scrubbing. Looks good huh? Yeah well not for long, see the post above.