skibum69
Well-known member
My wee adventure started with an email I got a week ago from one of the Airheads. He was passing on an email about a woman named Jane Taylor who was hitting some locations talking about a book about a trip she and her husband took doing a little book tour. About the same time I caught wind of the Down East rally being hosted by the Riders of Southern Maine club close to where I am. Of course then it popped up that she was going to be there to talk.
That gave me a whiff of a plan to go see what she had to say plus I thought it might be fun to go check out another rally as I've only ever been to multiple CroMags and one MOA National Rally.
Friday afternoon rolled around so I headed over to the Hermit Island campground. I walked into the building and funnily enough Jane was the first person I started talking to. While waiting for her to start I was wandering around when I guy came up to me and asked if I was from Newfoundland. Yes I said and he replied, "hey I'm Red Ant on ridetherock.com, we're coming up to see you." I replied "you're bringing a group up aren't you?" "Yes." Then I asked him how the hell he knew who I was? He said his wife told him. How did she know? Turns out she was talking to Jane and info was passed on.
After a bit Jane got to talking and reading a bit from her book which was good. Then she invited people to stand up and tell a little story if they wanted to. I took a turn to tell the story of my failed Tuktoyaktuk tour and when I was finishing a guy there piped up and said "I know you. I've been following your B&B build thread on ADV, we're coming up to Newfoundland this summer too." One or two other people popped up who knew me from CroMag of from ADV. I have to say I was surprised to bump into so many people who knew me.
I booked out half early as I knew bedtime was coming for an early rise. Back story I had been to an amazing BMW motorcycle collection in 2008 when I went to my first CroMag rally in Brownsfield, Maine. I had always wanted to get back for another visit but the opportunity hadn't come up. The son in law of the owner is an ADV guy and very good friends with my buddy I'm working with down here. I'd known him from CroMags too. Anyway we'd seen each other and I told him I wanted to get back up there and he said sure. As I was asking about a day he said the collection was being opened up on Saturday for the rally crowd so why not come up then he invited me to come up early to help set up. Sure, I'd love to!
That was my early get up as I knew it was a 2 hour run up to his place.
I landed a little before 09:00 and got to talking with John. He showed me around a few things that I'd never seen before which was fun. I knew I planned to stay awhile so I brought street clothes to change into and got comfy for the day.
This was the first thing to catch your eye.
John has raced and won vintage classes on the bike on the left. He's going to be doing more racing on more of them. Interesting that a few of these bikes are mounted over the frame and some are mounted under the frame. The over frame mount gives more ground clearance and aligns the drive shaft straight which gives some advantages.
I helped John roll this custom bad boy out of the shop.
Time to go inside. Have you ever seen anything like this? Most models of most model years.
Just a little bit of history in here.
Here's Dave, super nice man who still cuts and stacks all of his own firewood to heat the whole compound!
Yeah he'll let you sit on the cool machinery. Amazing how good the ergonomics are on the very first motorcycles.
My buddy John was super excited to get up here as he'd been hearing about it for years.
Only 400 and change of these bikes were ever built over 3 years. You can imagine what they're worth today. At one time he had models from all years. There are 3 here.
Lost of custom bits and bobs around.
Ok, now I'm super unimpressed with posting my first RR on this site. no more than 10 000 words? No more than 20 pics? What the hell? now I have to cut my RR into like 4 different sections?! This is bullshit!
That gave me a whiff of a plan to go see what she had to say plus I thought it might be fun to go check out another rally as I've only ever been to multiple CroMags and one MOA National Rally.
Friday afternoon rolled around so I headed over to the Hermit Island campground. I walked into the building and funnily enough Jane was the first person I started talking to. While waiting for her to start I was wandering around when I guy came up to me and asked if I was from Newfoundland. Yes I said and he replied, "hey I'm Red Ant on ridetherock.com, we're coming up to see you." I replied "you're bringing a group up aren't you?" "Yes." Then I asked him how the hell he knew who I was? He said his wife told him. How did she know? Turns out she was talking to Jane and info was passed on.
After a bit Jane got to talking and reading a bit from her book which was good. Then she invited people to stand up and tell a little story if they wanted to. I took a turn to tell the story of my failed Tuktoyaktuk tour and when I was finishing a guy there piped up and said "I know you. I've been following your B&B build thread on ADV, we're coming up to Newfoundland this summer too." One or two other people popped up who knew me from CroMag of from ADV. I have to say I was surprised to bump into so many people who knew me.
I booked out half early as I knew bedtime was coming for an early rise. Back story I had been to an amazing BMW motorcycle collection in 2008 when I went to my first CroMag rally in Brownsfield, Maine. I had always wanted to get back for another visit but the opportunity hadn't come up. The son in law of the owner is an ADV guy and very good friends with my buddy I'm working with down here. I'd known him from CroMags too. Anyway we'd seen each other and I told him I wanted to get back up there and he said sure. As I was asking about a day he said the collection was being opened up on Saturday for the rally crowd so why not come up then he invited me to come up early to help set up. Sure, I'd love to!
That was my early get up as I knew it was a 2 hour run up to his place.
I landed a little before 09:00 and got to talking with John. He showed me around a few things that I'd never seen before which was fun. I knew I planned to stay awhile so I brought street clothes to change into and got comfy for the day.
This was the first thing to catch your eye.
John has raced and won vintage classes on the bike on the left. He's going to be doing more racing on more of them. Interesting that a few of these bikes are mounted over the frame and some are mounted under the frame. The over frame mount gives more ground clearance and aligns the drive shaft straight which gives some advantages.
I helped John roll this custom bad boy out of the shop.
Time to go inside. Have you ever seen anything like this? Most models of most model years.
Just a little bit of history in here.
Here's Dave, super nice man who still cuts and stacks all of his own firewood to heat the whole compound!
Yeah he'll let you sit on the cool machinery. Amazing how good the ergonomics are on the very first motorcycles.
My buddy John was super excited to get up here as he'd been hearing about it for years.
Only 400 and change of these bikes were ever built over 3 years. You can imagine what they're worth today. At one time he had models from all years. There are 3 here.
Lost of custom bits and bobs around.
Ok, now I'm super unimpressed with posting my first RR on this site. no more than 10 000 words? No more than 20 pics? What the hell? now I have to cut my RR into like 4 different sections?! This is bullshit!