The area around Kitty Hawk, NC should be home to a lot more classic motorcycles this week than is usual. Today is the first official day for the Motorcycle Cannonball riders to begin assembling before the 17 day cross country ride begins on Friday.

The official action begins tomorrow fr the Motorcycle Cannonball riders and their pre-1916 motorcycles. Michael Lichter, the official photographer of the event, is scheduled to shoot formal studio photos of as many of the roughly 70 pre-1916 motorcycles as he can fit in. Official registration and inspection starts tomorrow and runs through Thursday afternoon.

Antique Motorcycles For Motorcycle Cannonball Coast To Coast Ride

Then there is a rider meeting on Thursday, September 9 at 6 pm.   Following the riders meeting is a kick-off dinner. There is then an official Motorcycle Cannonball group panoramic photo at 9 Friday monring and then the first motorcycles (Class I - single cylinder, single speed motorcycles) pedal away into history.

Conrad Leach is one of the very few motorcycle artists worth following. So when I read that he was involved in the creation of a new custom motorcycle, I pricked up my metaphorical ears. Information was hard to come by, but finally, here are the images.

Cro Customs BS1 is a post from Bike EXIF - Classic motorcycles, custom motorcycles and cafe racers

Hi everyone

Not long ago I had to take care of a gear cluster that was machine to accept loose roller bearings and fit newer caged bearing in each end, the reason for doing that was that it is much easier to change worn out caged Torrington B-1212 bearing , save a lot of time by only changing the caged bearing instead of fitting loose rollers in the cluster gear, I decide that from now on, I will always do that modification, or use a newer style gear cluster that is already made to accept the Torrington rollers, in this case the gear cluster was in great shape as a NOS, but was an early model with loose roller bearings.

Here are pictures showing how the complete modification is done.

First you can see a genuine NOS cluster gear set to fit the early style loose bearing.

More on Early Harley four speed cluster gear updated to late style caged bearing.

I'd like to publicly thank everyone and all companies that have helped me build and ride my 1915 Harley across the country in a few weeks on the Motorcycle Cannonball.

Motorcycle Cannonball 1915 Harley Motorcycles

My supporters and sponsors include (in no special order):

Dave Fusiak of www.flatoutvintagemotorbike.com

John Shuck of the Fairfield County Concours www.fairfieldcountyconcours.com

Vanson Leathers  www.vansonleathers.com

Spectro Oils www.spectro-oils.com

Avon Tyres www.avonmoto.com

Heathers Leathers www.heathers-leathers.com

Rubber Ducky floats www.rubberduckyfloats.com

Harley-Davidson Motorclothes

American Iron Magazine www.aimag.com

And anyone else I might have forgotten along the way.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,,, Oh! Wait a minute. That isn't this story.

Back in 1960 a friend who lived on a ranch had a Globe Safety Scooter. It was powered by a Continental Red Seal single cylinder engine. A centrifugal clutch. Not much in the world of motorcycles. When he graduated to a bigger bike my dad brought the Globe home to me. No license plate, headlight, tail light, brake light, or horn I was off and running. This was the beginning of my run-ins with the law. I ran the wheels off that thing. Live and learn!

 One day a classmate told me he wanted to sell his 1955 Cushman Eagle. WOW! This not only had a foot operated clutch but it had a two speed tank shift transmission. I bought it from him. I was well on my way on the road to ruin at this point. The Cushman served me well until I got my '55 Chevy then it took the back seat and was eventually sold.

Time passed and I found myself in Viet Nam doing service for my Uncle Sam. While there I was reading another More on Living and learning