Hundreds of biker’s rights activists from across the country gathered in America’s Heartland to discuss strategies and hear status updates regarding key issues of importance to all concerned motorcyclists, as the NCOM Convention convened July 23-25, 2021 at the Holiday Inn – Airport in Des Moines, Iowa for a weekend of learning, sharing and camaraderie.

From First Aid to traffic stops, this year’s NCOM Convention addressed legal, legislative and lifesaving topics, including a featured presentation on “The Demise of Gas-Powered Vehicles” by the NCOM Legislative Task Force that explored existential threats to our sport and lifestyle.

Other informative seminars included “Insurance Law and the Big Fight” during the A.I.M. Attorney Conference along with a “Biker’s View of the Law” talk by NCOM Public Relations Liaison Bill Bish, and “Protect Your Privacy & Probable Cause” by A.I.M. Attorney Joey Lester.

The Silver Spoke Awards Banquet honored Darrin Brook, Vice President of ABATE of Florida, with the Silver Spoke Award for Media; Michigan A.I.M. Attorney Dondi Vesprini for Legal, and in a stirring dedication, Boar, NCOM Board of Directors Club Liaison, presented the Ron Roloff Lifetime Achievement Award, NCOM’s highest honor, to former EMS Dick “Slider” Gilmore, SOS for his lively and life-saving “Two Wheel Trauma” first responder presentations across the country over the years.


SENATE PASSES HIGHWAY BILL WITHOUT MOST MOTORCYCLE PROVISIONS
The U.S. Senate passed their version of the Highway Bill 69-30 on August 10, a $1.2 trillion 2,000+ page Infrastructure measure to rebuild the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new climate resilience and broadband initiatives, but lacking the motorcycle-friendly provisions of the previously-passed House version, including only the reestablishment of the Motorcyclists Advisory Council (MAC).

The House Highway Bill contains several key provisions benefiting motorcycle riders; such as expanding prohibitions on motorcycle-only checkpoints, prohibiting law enforcement activities that profile motorcycle operators, evaluating biker profiling by law enforcement, specifies that motorcycles must be considered in autonomous vehicle operation, allocates increased motorcyclist safety funding, and reauthorizes the MAC at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Typically, the Highway Bill would be taken up by a conference committee of both chambers to iron out any differences before sending a final compromise measure to the President for his signature or veto, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that they will not take up the bill until the Senate passes a separate, even more ambitious $3.5 trillion social policy bill.


FEDS LAUNCH BROAD INVESTIGATION INTO AUTOPILOT ACCIDENTS
U.S. regulators have launched the biggest investigation of Tesla’s Autopilot software since the driving-assistance technology was introduced, investigating a string of collisions with emergency vehicles that resulted in numerous injuries and at least one fatality.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced its Office of Defect Investigations opened the official review on August 13 to look into 11 crashes across 9 states involving Teslas hitting vehicles at “first responder scenes.”  An estimated 765,000 vehicles produced between 2014 and 2021, including every Tesla model, are covered in the investigation.

It will “assess the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist and enforce the driver’s engagement with the dynamic driving task during Autopilot operation,” NHTSA said.  The investigation will assess the effectiveness of the system’s “Object and Event Detection and Response” and circumstances under which Autopilot is designed to be functional.


California’s state Senate has passed Senate Resolution 41 by a vote of 39-0 on July 12 to “promote increased public awareness on the issue of motorcyclist profiling.”

Introduced by state Senator Anna Caballero (D-Salinas), SR-41 “encourages collaboration and communication between the motorcycle community and local and state law enforcement agencies to engage in efforts to end motorcycle profiling,” and further “urges state law enforcement officials to include statements condemning motorcycle profiling in written policies and training materials.”



VIRGINIA TO STUDY LANE-FILTERING
When House Bill 1236 to permit “lane-filtering” stalled last year on a 3-3 tied vote in subcommittee, Virginia Senator David Marsden (D-Fairfax Co.), chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, requested the state’s department of motor vehicles to commission a stakeholder study on the possibility of motorcycle lane-filtering.

“Several meetings will take place between now and the end of the year, at which point the DMV will issue a report to Senator Marsden,” said Scott Schloegel of the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) who will be participating in the study.  “We’re seeing more states taking an interest in what California has allowed for decades.  Oregon’s governor recently vetoed a bill to allow lane-filtering and not long ago, Montana’s legislature passed a bill allowing it.”

HB-1236 proposed to allow lane-filtering — riding between cars — when traffic is moving at 10 mph or slower and the riders are traveling at 20 mph or less.

“We hope the study will show that lane filtering is an accepted safe practice in not only a few states here, but also many countries in the rest of the world,” observed John Bilotta, Operations Director for ABATE of Virginia and NCOM Board Member, in reporting on the study at the recent NCOM Convention in Des Moines.
After a dip in average attendance during 2020, due primarily to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the 81st annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has been one of the busiest in recent memory, report officials at the event.

“There are more people here than in the 31 years I’ve been doing this,” Meade County Sheriff Ron Merwin told the Rapid City Journal.  Sturgis Public Information Officer Christina Steele said officials have heard the rally numbers could reach the 2015 record level of more than 700,000 attendees.

Public health officials have been raising Coronavirus-related concerns about the rally since before it started, particularly with the more contagious delta variant spreading across the U.S., but South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), who rode to the rally, baulked at the analysis, calling ‘super-spreader’ fears “fiction.”

When the Coronavirus outbreak shut down the country last year, highways emptied out as many people holed up at home. But those who got behind the wheel engaged in riskier behavior, leading to the deadliest year for U.S. traffic crashes in over a decade.

Traffic data indicates the higher death toll was related to higher average speeds in conjunction with more of those on the roads driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and a slight decline in seatbelt use.

The outcome was grim.  About 38,680 people died in vehicle crashes in the U.S. last year — the highest number since 2007, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  Despite fewer cars on the road, fatalities also increased among motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians, even as the number of miles driven nationwide dropped by 13.2% compared to 2019.

In the end, traffic deaths nationwide in 2020 grew about 7.2%, and based on preliminary data from the first three months of this year, 2021 has the potential to be even worse.

The recent rise in speeding and deadly crashes has been seen in all regions of the country.

“Some of the drivers on the road seemed to feel traffic laws no longer applied during the pandemic because of the decrease in commuter traffic volume,” said Sgt. Blake White, a spokesperson for the Colorado State Patrol.

As drivers have trickled back onto the highways, they’ve had to adjust to sharing space with others after a year of open roads. One result has been increased road rage and other aggressive behaviors; Sgt. White told CNN.



As Americans hit the road this summer, they are finding a nasty surprise: high gas prices.

According to Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, gas prices in some states are at their highest level since 2014, while others are at their highest since 2018.

The national average fuel price this August runs about $3.18 per gallon — 43% higher than this time last year.

The highest ever gas price average $4.11 on July 17, 2008, according to AAA.

Gasoline demand is also nearing pre-pandemic levels.  But this year, the rise in gas prices doesn’t just come from demand, the issue lies with a shortage of truck drivers.



IMS NYC CANCELLED DUE TO COVID RESTRICTIONS
2020 was a strange and stressful year when most motorcycle shows were canceled.  But if 2020 was the year of cancellation, 2021 has so far been a year of uncertainty, as this entire year has a caveat that events may be changed and/or canceled at any time.

CoViD strikes again, as the Progressive IMS Outdoors New York City stop will not be happening this year, as announced via Instagram and Facebook; “As a result of the state of New York’s recent decision to enforce proof of vaccination and rapid testing for public events of scale, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the New York event.”



QUOTABLE QUOTE:
“The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.”

 

THE AIM/NCOM MOTORCYCLE E-NEWS SERVICE is brought to you by Aid to Injured Motorcyclists (A.I.M.) and the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM), and is sponsored by the Law Offices of Richard M. Lester. If you’ve been involved in any kind of accident, call us at 1-(800) ON-A-BIKE or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.

I know many of you can’t make it out to the Petersen Museum every time they post a motorcycle exhibit, especially with the Covid plague. But is this case one of our longtime contributing photographers lives around the corner. Marcus Cuff has been a world class tech, feature, antique motorcycle and event photographer for Bikernet and Easyriders, American Iron, Tattoo Magazine and Cycle Source for over three decades.

With Marcus’s help we were able to bring the new Petersen Museum Overland Motoring Exhibit directly to you. Here’s how the museum describes the effort:

Adventure (ADV) and overland motoring are as old as the first motorized wheels and as modern as the future of manned space travel. In the pioneering era of the late 19th century, every journey was an adventure, and long-distance overland tours were worthy of news reports.

Tales of perilous travel to far-off places are cultural touchstones and among the oldest recorded literature, from Homer’s 3,000-year-old Odyssey to Xuanzang’s account of his Silk Road overland trip to India in 626. We dream of adventure travel, and fictional accounts in the late 1800s by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were perfectly timed to inspire mechanized journeys on Earth and inspire off-world travel to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, a century later.

ADV:Overland documents the motorized legacy of our long fascination with overland adventures, as a first-ever comprehensive exhibition of round-the-world and long-distance adventure motorcycles and related vehicles.

The first motor vehicle to cross the USA was a motorcycle, followed three weeks later by the first car, in 1903. The first motorcycle to circle the globe was a Henderson Four, in 1912. Their stories were lost in the noise of the 20th century, and many who followed in their wheel-tracks mistakenly believed they were the first.

Only in the 21st century has a chronology of motorized overland motorcycling come into focus, as the genre has exploded in popularity and spurred research. Regardless of “firsts,” overland adventurers are a rare and brave breed, and many of their motorcycles are displayed here.

ADV:Overland also features very special three-, four-, and more-wheeled vehicles built for the long haul, their science-fiction off-world counterparts, and models of actual Mars rovers from our friends at NASA/JPL.

Recently in Hagerty News, Davin (that’s pronounced Dave-in) walked through the basics of cutting new threads in stock materials. That is all but necessary for fabricating new parts and pieces for a project, but what about threaded holes that already exist in parts you need to salvage? Then it’s time to talk about chasing threads. While it’s a simple process, there are a few tips that Davin thinks are important to keep in mind.

The reasoning

Even on an engine block fresh from the machine shop, Davin goes through and cleans all the threaded holes. This is key to make sure when installing bolts that the clamping force is correct. If the threads are full of junk, or are rough or have a catch in them, the torque will not accurately reflect the clamping load. Clean threads are also less likely to strip or jam up and cause other problems during assembly.

The tools

While it is possible to use standard taps and dies to complete this process, those tools are made for cutting and run the chance of taking material out and creating weaker threads. Instead, purchase a set of designated thread chasers or make your own by filing a few grooves in grade-8 hardened bolts. The grooves give the debris in the thread a place to go as the bolts thread down and clean out the hole.

On the inverse, if it is an external diameter thread that needs cleaned up there are thread files that are cut to match various thread pitches, which can be used to quickly and easily reform any damaged threads and also remove built up corrosion or debris.

As Davin points out, this is less for easily replaceable bolts and more for threads formed onto parts that might be financially reasonable to replace due to one damaged thread. The example he has on the workbench is a GM pinion gear that would be hundreds of dollars to replace, but thread files are far cheaper and can revive this part easily.

The process

Using thread chases is as easy as tightening a bolt. Get the chaser started straight and true by hand, and thread it carefully either by hand or with a ratchet or wrench if a bit more torque is needed. If the amount of gunk in the threads is substantial, it might be prudent to start with a blast of brake cleaner or compressed air to try and remove as much of the big material as possible.

The thread file is also simple to use, but it requires a bit more care to keep from inadvertently damaging the part. Davin recommends placing the file on the damaged threads but offsetting it slightly so it has a good thread to guide the cutting.

Even with badly folded-over thread, it only takes a couple passes with the file to remove enough material to make the part new again. Also, worth noting is that files are design to cut in one direction, so proper use is to only put pressure on the file while on the forward stroke. Any pressure while retracting the file is just acting to dull the file prematurely.

These are two tools that don’t make sense to purchase until you need them, but as Davin shows there isn’t a great substitute for the proper tool to accomplish this task. Keep the threads clean and your next project will go together much smoother. Of course, but sure to subscribe to the Hagerty

“I would like to thank the Academy or whatever the fuck this roomful of people is who wish they were me at this moment……for giving me this award for poetry. You know, when I started my writing career writing comedy porn stories for magazines like Nugget, Rascal, Topper and Vue and the street vending machine porn rags that were the craze in the late ‘70s, people said I would never make it as a writer because those magazines were filth. This is them talking. Not me.

But, yeah, they WERE filth. I mean, it’s not as though they were wrong about that. But can we move on? I wrote filth but it was comedy filth. I wrote COMEDY porn stories. Do you here-gathered know anything about the porn industry?

Hey, I see you old codgers wondering if your wives sitting next to you are glaring at you right now to see how you are reacting to this question. I can see your nervous faces. Hey, fuck them bitches, boys.

Which in fact is what porn stories are: they’re stories of guys fucking bitches, like your wives sitting here this evening, but the IDEA of the whole thing is to give the guy reading it a boner, so he’ll jack off. I know what you’re saying: “That sounds like total fucking faggotry to me.”

Ya know, it sounds like total fucking faggotry to me too, and that is why I would like to continue with my acceptance speech and just kinda leave this for now.

I then graduated to Easyriders, although I suspect that most of you here in this room, and in fact in every other room on earth, would say that going from porn to Easyriders was not graduating, it was
the final step down into obscurity and uselessness. Ya know, I get that a LOT and I try not to pay a lot of attention to it.

Once in a while, yeah, it kind of intrudes into my consciousness and basically ruins my day for a few hours, I gotta admit. In fact, I seem to be drifting-off right now since bringing this up.

I have here a bottle of Riazul Tequila that I brought here for the occasion, I’m gonna have a swig right now, ok?

Ok. Now then. So, I went from porn to Easyriders and a lotta people say that’s going backwards, but not for me. Easyriders readers didn’t have to read porn to get boners and fuck chicks, that’s all they were doing already, getting boners and fucking chicks.

So, all I had to do was be funny. Piece o’ cake. Plus, you had to be careful not to piss them off. Bikers have a lot of notions all you hahaha commie fucking assholes in THIS room would not approve of. Hey, fuck you, grampaw. When did YOU win the fucking Pulitzer Prize for poetry. That’ll happen when I quit fuckin’ your wife.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, Easyriders. So as far as I myself was concerned, I figured E.R. was actually for me the highest I could ever go. Ok, ok, ok, hold on everyone, let’s give mr. child-molester over there with the bow tie who is having a fucking conniption fit, let’s give him his moment of glory.

Ok, sir, you have the floor. What is your fucking problem? No no no, don’t repeat it, I heard you loud and clear. For any of you deaf codgers who didn’t hear, Senyore Perfect in All Things wants to know why Easyriders, which is one word, has TWO capitalized and separated letters in its abbreviation version. Wherein, I would ask Mister Hasta Know Everything why his daughter has syphillis when the only thing she fucks is hardcore dykes from the Daughters of Sappho island of Lesbos on Planet Cunt? Yeah, that’s what I thought: you gut no answer. Prick.

Which brings me now to my award for poetry. Combining ejaculate with a Vice President of the United States, teeth, and references to other bureaucrats contributing semen to the same set of teeth, all within four brief stanzas ending with the time-honored mention of a famous road-sign advertising campaign from the highways of the ‘40s……..I agree: it’s fucking more bitchin’ than the 30 year old Sophia Loren sitting on your face. You ever see Boy In A Dolphin?….

She comes up onto that rowboat
from the water and them two fucking milk hydrants on her chest are damn near inside your own gullet as you sit there dumbfounded……..Ain’t nuthin’ like what I’m seein’ in this room your endentulate bags o’ bones are callin WIVES. Holy shit.

Anyway, thanks for the award, and God Bless the Creative Arts!”

Right in the middle of our move operation to South Dakota Jeremiah strips his rear belt of all its teeth. This is not the first time. I just checked all the forums and didn’t find anything conclusive. Is he too hard on his belt with hole-shots and excessive acceleration? Did he adjust the belt too tight or too loose? Did it have anything to do with the belt?

I remember Ben Kudon testing a primary belt by cutting sections out of it to make it slimmer until the belt was about a ½ inch wide and it still worked. On the other-hand rear belts are not perfect. A week before I rode to Sturgis in the ‘90s, I rode out to Ventura fairgrounds on my dresser. My belt picked up a chunk of gravel and punctured it. It made for an all-day operation to replace the rear belt. If I had a problem with a chain, which is rare, we could pop the masterlink and replace it, bada-bing.

I spoke to Micah McCloskey a 40-year shop owner and he said, “I’ve run rear belts for 100,000s of miles without ever an issue. They are golden. I always load the belt before dumping the clutch. If you adjust a belt too tight it will break. If it’s too loose you will shear teeth.”

So, back to Jeremiah’s issue. He decided to switch to chain and started to research. He’s a persnickety soul with two elements to his criteria. One is cost or the deal. The other is quality. After several months and plenty of rumors about one company over another he came up with a kit from Drive Systems.

It included a 530 O-ring chain (black) with stainless pins, a light steel rear sprocket (50-tooth), the proper spacer and a heavy, silver anodized silver trans sprocket (24-tooth). The Superlite kit came from Series Performance.

His first issue was trying to find all the components. Seems everything is back-ordered, especially 51-tooth rear sprockets. He was desperate. His bike was down. He chose to run with the 50-tooth for just slightly higher gearing.

So, just as I sold my war-era-built 1946 Indian to my brother, Dr. Hamster, and we loaded it onto a flatbed for transportation back to Santa Monica, Jeremiah pushed his 2009 Dyna into the packing torn shop for this installation.

He started the installation by removing his mid-control shifter and riding peg and then his outer primary. I thought I had a JIMS tool for locking the clutch and mainshaft pulley but couldn’t find it. But I did find something we may have used in the past. With some grinding it started to do the trick.

Jeremiah removed the automatic primary chain adjuster and between the two of us we had the sockets to remove the engine and trans (left hand) nuts. The primary drive came off as one heavy piece complete. James found a piece of wood plank to place it on and removed it from the action lift, rapidly scattered with tools.

Next, he needed to remove the Allens from the starter motor, which took a long extension, a pivot socket and the proper Allen to free the starter and back it off slightly. I also suggested that we remove the ground strap from the battery to prevent any scary battery engagement.

The bolts were removed from the inner primary and it slipped off with some banging. That left the large 2 ¼ sprocket nut (right-handed threads). First, we didn’t have a massive socket large enough.

With the new 6-speed trans, the nut was enlarged, and I didn’t have the JIMS special tool. Jeremiah jumped into his truck and jammed to Settles Custom Motorcycles for the custom socket Larry modified to fit over the mainshaft and reach the thin bolt. It worked, but my impact driver didn’t have the power. We tried heat, prybars and whatever we could throw at it.

Jeremiah jumped in his truck and jammed to Harbor freight for a more powerful impact driver, returned and got the job done. Sometimes it’s the driver and sometimes the air compressor is the issue.

Jeremiah didn’t need to remove his chromed chain guard but decided to pull it out of the way. He stripped the front bold Allen head and cut it off with a die-grinder. He considered running without the guard, but I suggested against it. A busted chain can be notoriously dangerous, way more dangerous than a loose belt.

We cleaned all the components and started to assemble the new chain system. Jeremiah tried to slip his new trans sprocket into place and it wouldn’t go. “It doesn’t have the correct splines, fuck.” That wasn’t the case but making sure you have all the correct elements is critical. The offset transmission sprocket needed to align with the spacer and sprocket on the wheel. Fortunately, Jeremiah hadn’t changed his rear wheel for something custom or wider.

“You need a very tight sprocket,” Micah added. “It’s called interference fit, so it won’t tear up the transmission splines.”

We struggled with the trans sprocket, cleaned the splines on the transmission and wire brushed the splines on the sprocket. It started to gradually rock into place.

Fortunately, Jeremiah had his manual, and we could sorta follow the tightening instructions. We used a large Phillips screwdriver to hold the sprocket from turning as we turned the nut against the sprocket. It was so tight we couldn’t tell when it bottomed.

Jeremiah called a tech for more advice because the manual called for 35-foot pounds of torque. That didn’t seem like enough. The tech said to tighten the sprocket down to 100 ft-pounds, back off and tighten it to 35 plus a quarter turn to install the locking plate. The nut was finally installed with red Loctite and the locking plate. Jeremiah always follows the manual torque specs. The red Loctite makes the bastard so hard to remove.

The next day we jacked up the bike using an old floor jack I built in the ‘70s. Jeremiah messed with the wheel, while I worked at welding a nut to the busted chainguard 5/16 bolt to remove it. Ultimately it did and I chased the threads.

Jeremiah removed the rear wheel, he questioned the new spacer/sprocket mounting system, which used 10 bolts instead of five. We went ahead with it, but I’m sure the manufacturer felt more confident with shorter bolts. But notorious pulley bolts are the bane of riders all over the country. Maybe they loosen because of their length, abuse, or aftermarket wheels made with inferior materials.

In this case, five bolts hold the spacer in place and five bolts hold the sprocket to the spacer. He used red Locktite and lock washers on all of them. Then we started to put the wheel back in place.

For some reason we fought the axle out of the wheel. This time we slathered it with anti-seize and started testing our luck. We discovered a tight wheel spacer from the left side of the swingarm. We trimmed the edges with a knife. It was better but still not easy. We ran a hone through it a couple of times, and bada-bing it was golden.

Finally, it was time to install the chain, which Jeremiah shortened with James’ chain breaker. It was cool and drove the pin completely out. But then we started to install the new masterlink that needed to be riveted into place. There was some discussion about rivets vs. the normal and historic clips. Someone convinced Jeremiah that rivets were stronger. I wondered whether it was another ploy to make folks purchase a product over and over.

As it turned out manufacturers use the rivets for ease of installation. Here are some comments from motorcycle forums:

I can see and agree that the rivet style link is the most secure, but just for purposes of personal experience over decades of motorcycle use, I’ll admit to never using anything but the old-school clip masterlink. Riding and racing motorcycles of all kinds and sizes since 1969. I never had a masterlink failure. I raced enduros for decades, often even on open-class 2-strokes…no problems. I also had several hot rod Kawasaki Z1 series street bikes with modified engines…no problems. Even had a couple of those Kawasaki H2 750 2-stroke triples…no problems. I even ran some of those crapola Bikemaster cheapest-chains-you-could-buy on a KLR650 with a master link and rode that bike like a dirt bike…no problems…other than short chain life.

–Candy Ass

Clip type master links are not ‘unsafe’. They have been used successfully for what? 100+ years and continue to be used. The advantage of a clip link is convenience. You can remove the chain without disassembling the whole rear suspension. Very useful if you make large changes in gearing which is required for many forms of racing.

Also, rivet links are far from idiot proof. It takes care and knowledge to install one properly. It’s easy to compress it too far and damage the O-rings. It’s also easy to end up not swaging the pins enough which could be unsafe.

I’m certain the main reason we see rivet links on new bikes is that riveting is much more factory production friendly. A machine can stamp them into chains 20 times a second. No so for a clip.

The rivet notion takes a whole different and demanding mindset. An old school builder told us about his heavy ballpeen hammer and supporting rods to peen the extended ends. Jeremiah wanted nothing of that and bought a $100 chain breaker tool (made in China) with an anvil attachment and peening rod. It was cool but didn’t work.

First the hole sizes in the guide plate were too small and out of alignment. We drilled out the holes one size larger than ¼ inch. Finally, we were able to press the pins through the final plate. We also discovered that the back-up plate behind the link was not machined properly. We needed to push the pins through the support link just long enough to match the length of the rest of the chain pins. If we over-pressed it, it would bind and damage the O-rings.

Okay, so we started the peening process, and it was a bitch. The instructions called for very little peening. I watched a YouTube with a similar chain installation tool, but maybe it wasn’t made in China. They suggested peening it to the same diameter as the other pins on the chain.

With a set of micrometers, I measured it after Jeremiah strained to peen one pin then another. We ultimately ended up with the pin .010 over the original pin size. If we could have followed the YouTube instructions, it would have been almost .020 over the original pin size.

I would never use this type of riveted master link for several reasons. First ease of assembly. Second would be for ease of disassembly in an emergency or for gearing changes.

Jeremiah tested is new system around the block. He wasn’t happy with the softer acceleration. Then he hit the freeway and jammed to 150 mph. He still wasn’t happy, but his top end jumped from 135 mph. The chain also slapped his passenger peg mount on the swingarm (which is a bad notion for the passenger, lotsa vibration).

We found a piece of Teflon and prepared to make a guide, but Bung King makes a piece just for this application. See the description below.

Product Description

When swapping a ‘06 and up Dyna over to a chain drive, in most cases during riding, the chain will contact the passenger peg mount, and some the inner primary as well. This will cause a groove to be worn in the aluminum peg mount, premature chain wear and some funny noises from time to time.

With our chain slider in place, the chain will contact the Delrin block instead of your aluminum parts when your suspension is in rebound. The block attaches with the included powder-coated steel bracket to the front bolt of the passenger peg mounting bracket.

Jeremiah installed it by removing one of the Torx peg mounting fasteners, with the chain in place. He bolted it down with the same fastener and some blue Loctite. He was a little concerned about its closeness to the fastener, but we will see after some testing. He’s on the road now.

Sources:

Drive Systems

The 36th annual NCOM Convention is right around the corner, so plan now to be a part of one of the largest gatherings of motorcycle rights activists in the world.  This year’s NCOM Convention, to be held JULY 23-25, 2021 at the Holiday Inn Des Moines – Airport, located at 6111 Fleur Drive in Des Moines, Iowa (515-287-2400), will draw hundreds of concerned motorcyclists to America’s Heartland to address topics of concern to all riders.

All motorcyclists are welcomed and encouraged to participate in the many meetings, seminars and group discussions that focus on legislative efforts and litigation techniques to protect our riders’ rights and preserve Freedom of the Road.

Agenda items will cover legal and legislative issues, with Special Meetings for Veterans Affairs, Women in Motorcycling, Clean & Sober Roundtable and World of Sport Bikes, as well as the Christian Unity Conference and Confederation of Clubs Patch Holders Meeting.

For more information, or to pre-register, call the National Coalition of Motorcyclists at (800) 525-5355 or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.

In recent years, our nationwide biker community has worked diligently with Congress to include several key motorcycle-friendly provisions in the federal highway bill that died last session; H.R.2 “Moving Forward Act,” including further prohibitions against motorcycle-only checkpoints, expanding anti-biker profiling restrictions based on mode of transportation or style of dress, and furthering riders’ future advisory role with Congress to ensure our voices are heard when determining traffic and transportation laws, as well as advancing safety funding and autonomous vehicles protections.

Because H.R. 2 failed to pass, our lobbying efforts will need to be redoubled in the U.S. House and Senate once a new transportation measure is introduced in the 117th United States Congress, which now has an extended deadline of September 2021.

The Biden Administration may utilize a new highway reauthorization bill to pass a massive infrastructure spending plan, hoping to authorize some $2.25 trillion on such items as road construction, mass transit, passenger and freight rail, airports and electric vehicles, with more than a trillion-and-a-half going toward expanding broadband, improving the electric grid, and a growing wish list of additional items.

As Congress begins deliberations on the package of transportation and infrastructure spending, it will once again fall on motorcyclists to ensure that riders’ priorities are included in the “Wish List” as this 2021 version of the highway bill develops.

You can contact your federal legislators by calling the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or contact their local office and set up a meeting to discuss these issues of importance to all motorcyclists!

MOTORCYCLIST ADVISORY COUNCIL BILL IN CONGRESS

A bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives has introduced a bill to reauthorize the Motorcyclist Advisory Council, a committee comprised largely of motorcycle riders established to advise Congress and the Department of Transportation on matters involving motorcycle safety, and make recommendations regarding infrastructure issues such as road design, traffic issues, and intelligent transportation systems.

H.R. 2141, introduced March 23, 2021 by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), would reauthorize the MAC for six years; require biennial reports; clarify that specific seats on the 12-member board would be occupied by motorcycle riders and advocates.

RPM ACT NEEDED TO SAVE MOTORSPORTS

If you have made modifications to your car or motorcycle, or have an interest in motorsports and racing, you could be impacted by the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports (RPM) Act, which was first drafted up after the EPA’s Clean Air Act (CAA) in 2015 sought to make the conversion of production vehicles for “dedicated racing” illegal.  Despite bipartisan support in Congress, the RPM Act has failed to pass, but because of the EPA’s renewed push to restrict any vehicle modifications for motorsports purposes, the RPM Act is more important now than ever before.

Concerned about emissions, street vehicles — cars, trucks, and motorcycles – can no longer be converted into racecars, according to the EPA, which recently announced that enforcement against high performance parts — including superchargers, tuners, and exhaust systems — is a top priority.

According to the automotive trade association SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association), the sale, manufacture and installation of performance parts for racing would also be a violation of the EPA’s ruling.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO SCRAP EU ‘VNUK’ LAW

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced plans to scrap the controversial ‘Vnuk’ motor insurance law, which was introduced across the European Union following a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2014.  The case involved a Slovenian farm worker (Mr. Vnuk) who was injured when he fell from a ladder that was struck by a farm tractor.  As the tractor was used entirely off-road, it was not required to have insurance.  The case was referred to the ECJ, which extended the requirements for vehicular insurance to cover a vehicle’s “normal function,” and not just use on a public road.

The far-reaching implications of the legal ruling were huge, according to MotorcycleNews.com; “For a start it meant that all vehicles, even those not registered for road use such as track bikes or motocross bikes (or even forklift trucks and golf buggies), would have to be insured at all times.  It also meant that any collision involving two vehicles, even if the collision didn’t take place on a public road, would have to have been treated as a regular road traffic accident for insurance purposes.  So a bump in BSB between two riders would have gone through insurance.  Calculations by the DfT suggested the insurance industry would have been on the hook for roughly £458 million ($641 million USD) per year, which would likely have been passed straight onto the general public with estimates of £50 ($70) per person per year.”

UK POLICE CALL FOR MONITORING ALL MOTORCYCLES

It appears that the reckless riding problem in the U.K. has reached a fever pitch, as Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Kim McGuinness has proposed the use of mandatory trackers “fitted to all motorbikes so their whereabouts and speed can be monitored.”

The commissioner has proposed this rather drastic mandate in a bid to locate and check the speed of all motorcycles at all times, as law enforcement’s effort to fight the rising number of cases of speeding, and what the commissioner is calling “anti-social behavior.”

SPAIN MAKES MOTORCYCLE GLOVE USE MANDATORY

Spain has now made the use of motorcycle gloves while riding mandatory, in a ‘safety’-trend that appears to be trending in Europe.

Some countries already have rulings around gloves, with approved motorcycle mitts being the norm in France since 2017.  There, motorcyclists and their passengers must wear gloves and according to RideApart.com, now Spain’s DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico) is enforcing a similar law.

SURVEY SHOWS FEW DRIVERS TRUST ‘SMART MOTORWAYS’

A smart motorway, also known as an Intelligent Transport System, is a section of roadway that employs active traffic management (ATM) methods to increase capacity and reduce congestion using traffic cameras and variable speed limits to control the flow of traffic, occasionally utilizing hard-shoulder running and ramp metering at busy times.

IAM RoadSmart conducted an online poll about smart motorways in England, their safety, and whether or not road users really find them any better than traditional motorway systems.  Not surprisingly, out of 4,500 people who answered the web poll, 81% felt less safe travelling on a smart motorway compared to a standard motorway; 84% have little faith in the safety systems spotting them if they break down in a running lane; 40% of drivers found no noticeable improvement in their journey time while only 4% found a very noticeable improvement; and 85% want construction halted until the safety is fully proven.

NEW BIOMETRIC MOTORCYCLE PARKING SYSTEM PREVENTS BIKE THEFT

A tech company has developed a motorcycle ‘parking solution’ that scans your face and license plate before opening the gate and letting you roll in, as biometrics company ’Unioncommunity’ has decided to integrate a biometric identification process into motorcycle parking machines, for now, dubbed Ubio-X MPass.

Biometrics is the use of biological data to authenticate identity, just like using your fingerprint or face to unlock your phone.  The parking management system is being developed primarily for the South Asian market (for now).  It’s noted as a means of preventing motorcycle theft by associating the vehicle with its driver.

SKUNKLOCK FIGHTS BACK AGAINST THIEVES

With motorcycle thefts increasing yearly along with ridership going up, motorcycle security technology is constantly developing ways to stay ahead of ever-more ardent bike thieves.  From ear-splitting alarms to high-tech tracking systems, security devices have become more creative — and now, it seems, even more devious!

Now, the SkunkLock motorcycle lock, a fairly conventional-looking D-lock device, actually fights back against crooks by releasing odious pressurized gas when cut, spraying the thief with “vomit-inducing chemicals” that hopefully stop the would-be thief in their tracks in the process.

QUOTABLE QUOTE:  “He that cannot reason is a fool.  He that will not is a bigot.  He that dare not is a slave.”

TKR & Associates Top Fuel

The biggest thunder inGeorgia was brewed up by the big nitro V-Twins of TKR & Associates Top Fuel. RyanPeery’s quickness nailed down numberone Top Fuel qualifier on Saturday, and remarkableconsistency carried him all the way to the final on Sunday. “Wewere the quickest on qualifying day, which paid off and gave us a bye run inthe first round, and we needed it,” said Peery, who didn’t really. His 6.55 wasthird quickest of the round.

Jay Turner’s path to the finalincluded low ET (6.412) and high MPH (224.28), but The Bulldog chewed up a camin the semi and couldn’t make the final against Peery—guaranteeing Ryan thewin.

“We weren’t the quickest on elimination day but weran consistent, and consistent passes will win races,” said Peery. “We also hada little luck too, and that trumps everything. When you gotta run The Bulldog,let alone in the finals, you need some luck as he’s tough. And then we heard hebroke a cam at the end of the round before and that ended up giving us the win.Not the way I want to win as I prefer to run side-by-side.”

So Peery had the opportunity to easeup or go for broke in the final, and broke is what happened. “Westill wanted to put on a good show for the fans so we left a good tune-up init, but unfortunately we ended up torching the front head (at about half track)on our finals pass.

“All in all it was agreat weekend. The last TFH race at Atlanta became my first ever TFH win.Thanks to Midwest Construction, P&C Johnson Trucking, everyone at Jay TurnerRacing, and nitro Harley’s biggest fan—Maddy!”

“We struggled with the fuel system allday Saturday but did manage to qualify eighth out of thirteen,” said Rich. “Sundaywe overpowered the track and spun the tire. We didn’t have the results wewanted, but the team worked together and overcame a bunch of issues. Theweather was great and we got to hang out with friends we hadn’t seen in ayear—God is good!”

Other semifinalists were Tracy Kileand Robert “Ziggy” Stewart. Kile had his BadApple Racing bike on kill, and nailed a killer .018 light on Turner. But thatwasn’t enough to keep Jay’s 6.41 from taking the stripe.

Ziggy was going rounds, beating FrankCapone in E1, getting a bye when “Doctor” Jim McMillan’s bike shut off afterthe burnout, and then falling to Peery.

Two-time NHRA champ Tii Tharpe’s SamsonExhaust bike dropped a hole at the hit in E1, Michael Beland had the light with a.009 but not the bike in an E1 loss to Kile, and TimKerrigan fell short against Turner in E1.

Atlanta saw the long-awaited return ofMark Conner to the seat of a Top Fuel Harley—in this case, Red Rhea’s bike thatMitch Brown rides at NHRA races. The bike has had its struggles, and Conner hasthe knowledge to help straighten things out. As Rhea said, “This is the firsttime I ever had someone riding for me that knows as much about my bike as Ido.”

Evenwith over six years away from riding, Conner brought all of his seat experienceto bear when the bike’s right axle adjuster broke in round one againstMcMillin. After an .028 light, Conner fought the bike away from the centerlineand mostly stayed in it until the last 320 feet. Let’s hope we see Mark at lotsmore AHDRA races this year.

HawayaRacing Nitro Funnybike

Rhea’s other bike experienced betterluck, taking the Hawaya Racing Nitro Funnybike win withbrand new rider Mike Baulch aboard.

Number one qualifier Armon Furr “Just got beat,” accordingto Furr, when he met Baulch in the final.

“It was absolutelyperfect,” Baulch said about his first win. “I just kept the throttle open andstayed in it. The tune-up Red put together gave me the ability to look goodwith a poor (.256) reaction time. That win belongs to Red.

“I could not have scripted a better weekend.Honestly, I’m blown away that I won this event. I’m a nitro fan before I am aracer, I’ve looked up to the Furrs, Tii, Jay Turner, Bob Spina, Larry McBride,and Jason Pridemore for years. I’m just blessed to be in the position to racewith these people.”

HawayaRacing Pro Fuel

Preston “President” Bartlett startedhis Hawaya Racing Pro Fuel championship defensewith a win in a stout seven bike field for the carbureted nitro class, but hisname wasn’t at the top of the charts until the final round win.  

KirbyApathy qualified number one with a 7.32, but “Experienced acatastrophic mechanical failure in the semis” against Bartlett, who beat championRocky Jackson in round 1.

Preston faced steady JimMartin in the final, where Martin’s back tire kicked towards the wall at about150 feet. Jim was forced to back out and Preston—already with a .120 advantageat the tree—ran his best of the weekend (7.391) for the win.

“It was a tough weekend,” reported Bartlett. “Wehurt the motor during the third qualifier, so we scrambled till 2:00 in themorning, then stopped ‘cause everybody was tired. We finished up in the morning,then went one round at a time.

“I’d like to thank Bookie Rigsby for all the helphe gave Walter (Halonski) and I.”

GMSRacing Pro Open

Last year’s Extreme Gasand Outlaw Street are now GMS Racing Pro Open. Mike Motto won both of those last year and started this oneoff with a win in the new class.

But before Sunday’s wincame perhaps Motto’s biggest win of the weekend—a match with RichardGadson, who was on hand to make laps on Mike Beland’s turbocharged Meth Bethbagger. Make no mistake about it—both combinations were aiming to put 7s on theboard.

“We rolled the bikeoff the trailer with some new changes for this year,” said Motto. “We neededsome runs to test so we got down to business. We were not sure what the bikewould run with the new changes, but we were hoping for 7.60s at 175-180 mph.The bike ran great but fell a little short of the numbers we expected.”

Then came the race with Gadson—a huge rivalrybetween Mottos’ builder GMS and Beland’s A1. “It was a great race!” said Motto.

Gadson was on hand specifically to try for a 7second pass on the Beland bagger, and the “race” happened in round 2 ofqualifying. “It was a race?” Gadson asked later.

“There were people side-betting on the sidelineseverywhere,” remembered Motto. “A lot of people bouncing around and pointingwhen we pulled up to stage. I assume they were betting, but I was in my zone sono telling what else was going on around me!”

Motto left like it was a race,with an .070, while Gadson left like he was focusing on laying down a perfectpass, with a .173. After that it was all turbo pumping and nitrous spraying (orwould be…turns out Motto’s solenoid was broke) to the stripe.  “I beat him with an 8.12 to his 8.18 in a veryclose race!” said Motto, who noted that his bike ran 7.92 at 169 last year.

“He treed me and beat the snot out ofme, that’s for sure” agreed Gadson. “A good old ass-kicking.”

“I’m pretty excited to be ableto line up next to a legend like Gadson and pull off a win,” said Motto. “GMS power,baby!”

That “Grudge” win held up fornumber one qualifier for Motto, who went on to handilybeat Kevin Campbell for the win in the final. Without the kind of conditionsfor a 7, Gadson was already well on the road to Pennsylvania to work on thenitrous Suzuki GS Pro Street bike he rides for Brad Mummert when eliminationsbegan in Atlanta.

“When you’re running with the best team in Harleydrag racing, anything is possible!” said Motto.  “Thank you Gregg Dahl, Damon Kuskie, Steve Rominski,and the entire GMS Racing staff for all your help and support!

“We will get back to testing in the next coupleweeks so that we can meet our goals. Stay tuned because we have some new thingshappening at GMS Racing that are going to set the Harley no-bar racing world onfire!

“Special thanks to my wife Jennifer, who is alwaysby my side and assists with the tuning; my brother-in-law Chris Hoppe for allhis help in the staging lanes; our entire race family; Bill Rowe and the AHDRAfor giving us a great place to race; and our go-fast helpers—Fuel Tech systems,Energy 1 clutches, R&D Racing Transmissions, and Renegade Fuels. Thesecompanies supply the products that help our machines fly! See you at the races!”

Zippers Performance Pro Modified

Shane Pendergrast swept ZippersPerformance Pro Modified, qualifying number one, setting low ET (8.546) andhigh MPH (158.99) and winning the final against George Futch III.

“Just thank the AHDRA for a good event and mysponsors Hotshotz, SA Racing, and Pope’s Automotive.” Pendergrast also thanked thisauthor “For taking the time to write something for us.”

Pingel Modified

JeffWorkman is another defending champion who opened the season with a win—in thiscase, Pingel Modified.

Workman had to beat numberone qualifier Gary Douglass in the final, and it took low ET (9.376) to do thejob after Douglass halved Workman’s reaction time (.046 to .092).

“It was some very close racing all weekend long,”said Jeff. “I know it would be a very difficult task to keep my belt, but Ipulled it off!

“I’d like to thank AHDRA and Bill Rowe for a greatevent, Atlanta Dragway for hosting it, POWERMIST racing fuel, REBEL GEARS, DBRfabrication, family and friends for helping me along the way. Fantastic weekendof racing.”

Horsepower Inc. Hot Street

Gary Douglass may havelost the Pingel Modified final, but his son Charley sealed the deal in HorsepowerInc. Hot Street. Charley’s .030 light set the stage for the 9.68 to 9.87 winover number one qualifier, and defending champion, Scott Shenckel.

“Feltgood to get back to the track,” said Charley. “We only went to four raceslast year and one of those got rained out, so I was beyond rusty as a rider. Ididn’t even get to blast down the road before loading the trailer.

“First round of qualifying was my first timeriding this year. It was ugly for sure. We have to foot shift these bikes in HorsepowerInc. Hot Street, and I didn’t get a clean pass in qualifying.

“Sunday during eliminations I felt much more atone with my bike. I won the semifinal with a 9.84 and went on to win the finalswith a 9.680.

“I traveled this weekend with my best friend, crewchief, and he just so happens to also be my dad. Normally we travel withseveral members of our family and they were missed. My wife is my biggest fanand she is unable to attend the races, because she is a full time stay at homecaregiver for her mom.

“Energy One clutches has been a long time supporterof Douglass Racing. Lynchburg H-D and Vreelands H-D both also help withdiscounts on parts, thank you goes out to them. Thank you Bill Rowe for puttingon such a great event. Special thank you to Jesus for saving my soul andkeeping us all safe!”

Law Tigers Pro Bagger

In addition to Gadson,there was another Suzuki Pro Street racer sending a bagger in Atlanta. VictorGotay picked up a last minute ride and swept Law Tigers Pro Bagger—qualifyingnumber one, setting low ET (9.423) and high MPH (144.38) and then winning thefinal round against redlighting (-.010) Orlando Williams of Street Kings.

Vreeland’s Harley-Davidson 9.90

Brad Reiss Jr. won astirring Vreeland’s Harley-Davidson 9.90 final against Crosby Blair. Both bikesran identical 9.952s, but the winning difference came at the tree with Brad’s .094light obliterating Blair’s .171.

Vance Houdyshell qualifiednumber one with a perfect 9.90 but lost a double breakout quarterfinal toBlair.

Universal Fleet & Tire 10.90

Reiss followed up his Vreeland’s9.90 success with a Universal Fleet & Tire 10.90 win. Brad caught a littlebit of a break when double defending champion, final round opponent, KevinWinters took the tree by .011 but still broke out by .012. Reiss’ 10.904 litthe winlight.

Number one qualifier JasonLeeper lost early with a .197 reaction time.

10.30 index and T-Man Performance BaggerEliminator

Reiss wasn’t the onlydouble winner on Sunday, as Scott Tomsu won 10.30 index and T-Man Performance BaggerEliminator.

“Wow, what a great weekend atthe AHDRA Georgia Peach Nationals,” said Tomsu. “We won two classes, but I ampumped about the Super Pro 10.30 win. That is the closest side-by-side racing Ihave ever been a part of. Also, I was the only bagger in class, I had noelectronics (2-step, delay boxes, or air-shifter), and no wheelie bar. Theracers in that class are very experienced as well, so every round was tough.”

EspeciallyTomsu’s 10.30 final round opponent—9.70 number one plateholder John Shotts. Tomsutook the tree by a full .102 against wheelie bar racer Shotts in a doublebreakout race. Vance Houdyshell qualifiednumber one with a near-perfect 10.302 and lost to Shotts in the quarterfinals.

Tomsuwon Bagger Eliminator when final round opponent Brett Carlisle redlit.

“Dragbagalso went 141 mph! I believe that is the fastest of any naturally aspiratedHarley-Davidson with stock cases EVER! Just more proof that STFUmotorcycles.comhas the best pistons, rods, drop-on kits currently on market.

“Ialso want to thank my race family for the support this weekend—A1, Street Kings,and Casey Smith.

“Thesetrophies are special because the track is getting bulldozed. Seems unrealbecause I have been to this track many times as a spectator.”

Joe D. Gladden won BaggerEliminator on Saturday.

Mad Monkey Motorsports Eliminator and Trophy Street

Reiss and Tomsu may haveone two, but Drew Queen won THREE races last weekend in Atlanta. Queen wonTrophy Street both days and Mad Monkey Motorsports Eliminator on Saturday. JeffJennings was the Sunday Trophy runner-up.

Terry Mason won Sunday’s MadMonkey Motorsports Eliminator race, beating champion Kevin Winters in a doubleredlight final round.

9.30 index

Ken Strauss parlayed his9.30 index number one qualifier into the win on Sunday, beating Greg Howerhandily at the tree (.062 to .293) and maintaining a cushion to the stripe.

11.50 index

Last but not least is 11.50index, won by the ubiquitous 27X champ Donnie Huffman. He beat Eliminatorwinner Mason by running closer to the number (11.52) after losing the tree .093to .038.

Donnie was on his 2004Sportster, not his Livewire—which clicks off 11:50s so steadily that it is notlegal for the class. “Me and Chad Rawlings was going to the finals on theLivewires in Eliminator, but the redeye got us in the semis,” reported Huffman.

ShutdownArea

And with that, AHDRA closed the dooron their way out of Atlanta Dragway. The veteran and friendly Atlanta Dragway staffposed for one more photo in front of the iconic track tower.

But the AHDRA lives on. Bill Rowe, hisfamily, and the hardest working, all-American motorcycledrag racing organization in the business look forward to welcoming racers andfans to Cecil County Dragway on May 21-23 in Rising Sun, Maryland.

The AHDRA website is at http://raceahdra.com/

The AHDRA Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/ahdraracing/

The AHDRA Facebook group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/AHDRA/

For more information, email AHDRA’s Bill Rowe at bcrowe92891@gmail.com

AHDRA is owned by Pulse Marketing, the Hellertown, Pennsylvania-based motorsports promotion companyrun by veteran drag racer Rowe and his family.

AHDRA thanks

When I read the Wikipedia entry on Jochen Zeitz, the new CEO of Harley-Davidson, up until then only Jesus of Nazareth held in my mind the Golden Humanity Award and the “Awesome-And-Yet-One-Of-Us” trophy for Entity Excellence.

But now I have to say to Jesus, “J-ster dude?…… You might wanna get up from Your chair….and let this fucker sit down in it because, and this is no offense to you, my dead-and-resurrected Friend……But I am thinking this year of 2021……dated from Your birth, as I recall……might have to be renumbered as Year One. Because if YOU had taken over the management of Harley-Davidson….and this is no offense…..I do not think You would have gotten the write-up in Wikipedia that this Jochen dude got for himself. I mean, You You! or, Jesus Christ!….. to put it another way; this guy is a mixture of Albert Schweitzer, Rameses II, Joan of Arc, Tarzan, the Guggenheim Family, Pope Peter the First, Prometheus, Merlin, and maybe John Barrymore because I THINK he has a Screen Actors Guild card.”

That’s what I would have to say to Jesus regarding his replacement on the “What Actually Fucking Matters” roster. And you’ll notice I capitalized all pronoun references to The Big J-dog when I was talking to him. ‘Cause, hey: I only look stupid.

 But that was then and Jesus ain’t here now. So, no more caps. He’ll just have to fuckin’ deal with it. Besides, he’ll never know. You gonna tell ‘im? Yeah, me neither.

So, yeah, this Jochem Zeitz dude what took-over the alleged buck-stops-here slot at HD. I mean…. this is gonna be a fucking piece o’ cake for this rascal because he is a, and I am not making this up, he is a sustainability specialist. That’s right, a “sustainability” specialist. What’s that?…..am I kidding? No I am NOT kidding. Yeah, I know, right? Fuckin’-A you’re impressed, I hear ya, pal.

Ya know what “sustainability” means? I’ll tell ya what it means, it means “no one knows what this means.” How fucking cool is THAT!! And he is not just a sustainability SPECIALIST…………he was once a sustainability OFFICER. That’s is correct, mi amigo. A sustainability OFFICER in a company. That’s right, he not only had a title, he might have actually even worn a military uniform. Like some Scientologists sometimes do. I think. At least in the Sea Org. You know, them ropes on the shoulders things?

Navy-type shit. He mighta even had medals. I mean….what more could a motorcycle manufacture and sales company ask for in a top decision maker than sustainment attributes enabling sustainability within a sustained environment empowering the visualization of attainment aligned with a diversity of inclusion coupled with a commitment to a varied range of broad-based objectives compatible with slow-growth incentives commensurate with real-time objectives. And not only that but having medals as well. And officer ranking. I mean…. Patton didn’t have that much fruit salad on his chest. And “sustainability officer” is not his only achievement.

I strongly advise anyone who is interested in the history of this fucker’s achievements, and apparently there are no failures or losses of ground with this dude, to go to the Wiki entry because I am far from worthy to itemize a list so bloated with accomplishments and awards and titles and achievements.

Maybe bloated isn’t the right word. Maybe Impressively Resume’-ed is a better way to put it. I mean he is a combination of Aristotle, Yahweh, Madame Curie, Voltaire, Columbus, Copernicus, Scrooge McDuck, William the Conquerer, the Buddha, MAYBE L Ron Hubbard, I dunno, that would be quite an accomplishment I’m not sure if that’s even possible, Mother Theresa, The Little Match Girl, Florence Nightingale, all of the Shriners, most of the Jesuits, some of the Franciscans and just a touch of Alexander the Great.

I mean….if anyone is ready to step into the job
of selling motorcycles it’s this guy. This dude was BORRRNNNNN…… to sell motorcycles. And that’s all there is to it. There is no discussion here. This maestro of human virtuosity who has salvaged planets from abuse and unsustainments throughout the galaxy and who has saved wildlife on land, on sea, in the air and has paved the way for processes to reduce solar heating on the surface of the sun and who has shown humanity that there is a nobler and more enlightened way of accelerating nobleness among those in need and destitute and in need of the needfulness of noble-ness, and who has scattered new and improved wildlife throughout the savannahs and rain forests and mists and grottos and archipelagoes and who has pioneered research into the rights of bacteria…..this is a man destined to achieve new sales goals for two-wheeled-transportation commensurate with units sold. I mean……this guy is READY…..to sell motorcycles. Whew! LOOK out.

I cannot say enough good things about the guy. And apparently that’s the view of everyone on earth. So, it’s not just me.

I CAN say a few bad things about the art he puts in his museum, however. I don’t know where he gets it from, but my FIRST guess would be from inside the dwellings of the tuberculars now living in blue tents on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. The museum itself?……it’s like something designed by the intestinal bacteria of HR Giger. This is not a criticism. This is praise. The museum structure fucking rocks.

The stuff that’s IN it? Mary Poppins would have that debris cleared out of there so fast it would register as a category 5 on the Fujita scale. And wherever she threw it would be roped off for a hundred years as a hazardous waste site. I know what you’re saying: “You don’t have no aesthetic aptitudinies, mah bruthuh.”

Not true: you don’t hear me raggin’ on the building itself, do you? That’s because the building kicks. Fucking-A, No, I’m raggin’ on the art that’s in it. That’s because the art that’s in it should be in a landfill. IN FACT, if he charged admission just to see the building itself and replaced the art with picnic tables… that would be better.

A lot better. In fact… he might want to convert the museum building into a Harley showroom. He might not sell more bikes. But he WILL get people into the dealership. And then he can use his award-winning sustainability gifts and personal magic on people actually in the showroom, where the sales actually occur. Sales never occur in the CEO’s office, no matter how Accomplished in Wonderment the CEO may be.

So Zeitz-Man?…… take the “art” out of your art museum…….fill the new empty spaces with Harleys…..you’ll sell some product, baby. String some o’ them snapping, noisy triangular car-lot flags around the property outside… you’ll have some sustainable job security in your new post. Not that you’ll be hurting for dough if you get fired in two weeks from what I read.

All over the English-speaking-world journalist hacks are asking each other “Why is it that Bikernet journalists are so much better than us? While we, on the other hand, are just useless meaningless carbuncles on the ship of literary history? And parchment fragments in the Museum of Bad Writing Skills??”

This is what they’re asking themselves. I know: it’s pathetic. No one ever said journalists……well, weren’t pathetic. And there’s a reason.

As you know, the long tradition in journalism is that no one should actually be possessed of any actual writing ability. In other words, no one should be better than anyone else at bad sentence construction and at achieving successfully-communicated absence of content. All should be equally mediocre word-slingers if not actually out-and-out incompetent prehistoric troglodytes. This is the Guiding Principle of journalism.

You’ll noticed I’ve used the word “actual” in one form or another three times in one of those sentences. This is to emphasize the importance the Journalist Aggregate places upon their members not having any actual writing talent. Or any other talents for that matter. Whereas Bikernet writers have so much talent they can actually write while sober. Which of course is taboo in the Journalism Cult, writing sober. Journalists pride themselves on being so drunk so often that bad, wandering, vague, pointless, incorrect, shoddy sentences and paragraphs appear to them to be lines composed in Heaven by Greek Gods via quills dipped in Sacred Semen extracted with great stealth from the steaming, swaying balls of the Minotaur.

The only difficult part of writing drunk for a Non-Bikernet journalist is hiding the bottles from Mom, or in the case of married Non-Bikernet journalists, from their same-sex partner. NOT that the same sex partner would have a problem with the liquor ingestion, unlike Mom. Still, unless the same-sex partner is another Non-Bikernet journalist…there’s going to be some discussion from time to time regarding the – you would think lethal – quantities the Non-Bikernet journalist partner is guzzling.

Bikernet journalists drink, but not so that they can stand to read their own writing. They drink for its own sake. Bikernet journalists do as many things as possible that are inherently fun and interesting just for the sake of doing them: among which would be riding motorcycles and having heterosexual sex.

For you see Bikernet journalists do not start out “wanting to write.” Unlike Non-Bikernet journalists. They don’t start out with the dream of being famous for doing absolutely nothing, like, say the Kardashians or people holding public office. For another thing Bikernet journalists are familiar with “the real world.” Unlike Non-Bikernet journalists.

There are reasons for this. And it has to do with what is called “college.” Which is where “real” journalists, or Non-Bikernet journalists in other words, go to have their brains extracted and to have Greta Thunberg installed in there instead. Bikernet journalists don’t go to college. They go to work. Whole different universe from where college journalists reside. As I will now explain.

“College,” which is where Non-Bikernet journalists come from, is a place where people go to learn that reality is not actually in existence. In college you are “told,” though it’s more of a permeating vibe, to use hippy terminology, that the loftiest minds in human history are the minds of something called “philosophers.”

“Philosophers” are people who make, or once made before they died, daydreamed pronouncements about the proclaimed fact, (or fake news!) that things in existence are not really there. They then “backed this up” with “reasoned preposterousness” that proves the validity of their original proposition: that nothing actually exists.

Chief among these “thinkers” and with varying degrees of contact with reality were people like No-First-Name Plato, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Georg Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, John Locke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Baruch Spinoza, Professor Irwin Corey and approximately one million other gentlemen who ‘thought’ about things.

Philosophers are the first Non-Bikernet journalists. The operating programming of journalists as a result of their forced feeding of “philosophers” in college is: reality doesn’t exist; therefore do what I say.

Bikernet journalists, by way of contrast, have the premise that….. “Reality is actually there: so I’m going in to check it out and report back. Take what I have to say or leave it. Thank you and fuck you. No, really: fuck you. Thank you.”

This is an open-eyed and an all-in attitude that is horrific and terrifying to a Non-Bikernet journalist.

Which is why all Non-Bikernet journalists focus and have as their prime motivator….. getting people who actually do things and don’t want to be fucked with; getting them into one form or another of what is currently called “lockdown,” be it mental, physical or spiritual. Once everything is locked down and nothing is happening…..college-groomed Non-Bikernet journalists will go to sleep and be calm at last.

Until then, Non-Bikernet journalists love anything that is 1: a lie and 2: fraught with folly. That is why “political science” is their favorite mental playground because it’s both. Political science is their deity and religion and their reason to live and their reason, nothing remotely close to being rational or scientific. Politics is “survival based on deception and misdirection needs a name change. And “Political Science” rather than “criminal behavior” gets that job done.

Non-Bikernet journalists in college also learn something called “economics.” Which is also not only not a science, it’s not even a mode of behavior, unlike politics.

Economics – in reality – has one operating principle: the “law” of supply and demand. Period. And it’s not even a law, it’s just a “here’s what’s gonna happen” observation based on past observations. But in college economics is a delirious never-ending maze of fractals filling millions of badly-written textbooks that can never be fully explored or understood except by Marxists.

Non-Bikernet journalists in college also learn something called “sociology.” Sociology is the denial of individual identity and the proclaiming of “the group” as the most basic, indivisible entity humans are capable of existing in via an “identity.” There is only group identity in other words.

Meanwhile keep in mind Bikernet journalists are not “learning” ANY of this crap. And there’s a reason which I will go into soon.

So, you’re in college, you learn that reality doesn’t exist. You, in particular may or may not exist, politics is a science, economics is an actual course of study, and only groups, not individuals, matter. And when it comes to groups there are only four that hold actual potential power to demand obedience: the government: the church: the “people:” and journalists. These are called “the four Estates.”

It used to be the three Estates. Journalists declared themselves an “Estate” and the other three Estates actually what bureaucrats are doing to you because of their fear of a bad press. Like ’em or hate ’em, the fourth Estate is actually in charge of things in the “free” world. This is quite an achievement for the Non-Bikernet journalists to have accomplished. Shows you how STUPID the other three Estates are.

Meanwhile let’s return to Bikernet journalists.

Bikernet journalists, before they become Bikernet journalists, are people found usually under rockpiles, inside rotted logs, behind dumpsters, wandering on foot across the desert, on parole, on rocky shoreline cliffs, fucked up, and literally barking at the moon, falling down drunk on the sidewalk, stumbling panicked through the forest shouting “They live!!” or slumped at a bar counter facedown in the bean dip, or ejaculating in whore houses, or maybe in houses they have turned INTO whore houses for as long as it takes to bone Senyore Fuckhead’s wife or daughter.

It’s often the case that these people can’t read, forget about writing. However most of them have actually heard all the names of all the letters of the alphabet, so teaching them how to pronounce them in “long” and “short” versions for the vowels et cetera, the sounds the consonants make and so on….they learn how to read and write at the Bikernet Remedial ABC-WTF Academy tons faster than kids in school learn, one reason being actual desire and the other being you can smoke, drink and grab teacher’s titties and no one has a problem with it.

Plus, the course and curriculum were created by someone that sheer absolute modesty forbids me to identify. Plus, it’s free. Teachin’ someone to read and write is a duty in charity. It’s like teachin’ someone to swim. It just needs doin’, is all. Plus, it ain’t that hard. Math? Different animal. Different critter. Let’s not even fuckin’ go there, ok? And when does a fuckin’ journalist ever add up a column of figures. Fucking never.

Bikernet journalists are different from the asshole or “normal” kind of journalist, (once they learn to spell and form letters freehand, etc) in that they don’t pretend to be “exposing and declaring catastrophes” to keep YOU from harm. They figure fuck you. If they write about something it’s about how it affects them personally.

If you’re anything LIKE them, you’ll take the hint and either get on board or stay the fuck away from whatever it is. Whereas journalists from “real news outlets” all wear a grandly-displayed holy garment of “concerningness” for YOUR welfare. Like as though some parasite living in his mom’s laundry room actually gives a shit about you. “Normal” journalists want everything to rot and disappear so that the whole earth population will be living like they have to live: as parasites off someone else.

They dress this all up in saintly nail-biting about your health and safety. But they’re fucking lying. Bikernet journalists don’t lie. They say “This is pretty cool, check it out” or they say “This is majorly fucked up, have a clue, steer clear of this shit.” Based on their own experience and personal investigation. “Normal” journalists just make shit up and tell you if you don’t obey them, you are a guilty and uncaring threat to “society.” Society is them, by the way. Not you.

“Real” journalists use a different dictionary than Bikernet journalists. For instance, in “real” journalism Islam is a race. Not a religion. And Muslims are also a race. So, let’s say you have a problem with Islam and/or Muslims, and I know, we are really using our imaginations to the limit here, but let’s say that you have this problem. Normal journalists will say you are a racist.

In the real, non-philosopher world, “Islamophobia” is a condition that doesn’t actually exist, even though “real” journalists insist it does. No one actually fears Muslims or Islam. Other than Muslim women and children. To a Non-Bikernet journalist a “phobia” is newly-defined as “having a conviction that differs from the edicts of a journalist.”

In Non-Bikernet journalism “science” is defined as “whatever all the journalists and bureaucrats working in tandem claim is the case.” Keep in mind that journalists and bureaucrats never propose hypotheses, run experiments, check results, form conclusions, leading to further hypotheses. Which is what actual science is. “Real” journalists and bureaucrats have no idea what any of that “hypothesis-test-conclusion” stuff even is forget about doing any of it.

For instance, “real” journalists’ new and latest now-hear-this science proclamation is about the “earth wobbling as a result of the industrial revolution and you in particular causing glaciers to melt.” And no, I am not making this up.

Just this week, even as this is being typed by me between shots of tequila and puffs of cigars, the journalist “science” cult has declared that the earth is going all freaky in its rotation due to glaciers melting due to human progress.

APPARENTLY the asshole idiot journalist unemployable parasites living off Mom are convinced that when a glacier loses water in the form of ice and has that water run off its sides and out across the land in tiny trickles and eventually into the sea….that it disappears from existence and thus causes the earth to weigh less and thus wobble erratically and thus killing us all unless we stop using “fossil fuels.”

To prove it you need to measure it with Star Trek technology proving wobbling the earth due to weight-shifts….meanwhile, it doesn’t matter to the journalist college graduates that all the oceans of the world slap and slosh billions of megatons of water back and forth onto the beaches and shorelines day after day via something called “the tides”….that has no effect on the earth’s “wobbling parameters.” But slowly trickling water draining from a fucking glacier causes the entire fucking 4-billion-year-old planet to spiral out of control and thus killing us all.

Does it matter that the CONTINENTS actually changed locations by thousands of miles over the course of all the time in billions of years that the earth has been spinning on its axis? No: you using refrigeration, heat and fuel, and hydroelectric electricity, and thus and thereby causing the glaciers to melt in your reckless pursuit of comfort and some kind of a LIFE is what is threatening us all.

Does it matter that volcanos are puking a lot more weight off the terrain and into the atmosphere day after fucking day all over the planet than the glaciers, restricted to the polar regions, are tricking into the sea?

Does it matter that the polar ocean Up North is not even landlocked but is a moving wandering fucking morass of thick fucking ice-vistas that never stops AND it changes it’s mass by trillions of tons annually, growing and shrinking and wandering the fuck all over the place?

Does it matter that ten billion fucktillion tons of water are lifted off the oceans via evaporation every second without the earth going apeshit wondering “Why do I weigh less???” No, because, oh dear, it’s always the fucking glaciers that are what need to be nurtured and kept intact and coddled and caressed like Biden meeting a new child or else we will perish as the Fourth and Third Estates have decreed. And why glaciers? Because hack journalists proclaim their conclusions regarding your behavior based upon something that has no fucking bearing on ANYTHING….. and declare it your fault, so you need to obey the journalists and the bureaucrats. Because they’re so motherfucking smart.

This is the journalist mentality, ladies and gentlemen. Thank God for Bikernet, uh? You tell a Bikernet journalist we are all going to die because the glaciers are spinning the earth out of control unless he stops riding his motorcycle….he’s going to probably beat the fucking shit out of you.

When was the last time you heard of a “real” journalist beating the fucking shit out of anyone. They have a fucking heart attack when they see road kill.

They watch Craig LeBeau in his Science Fiction Spawned Tree Eradicator saw a pine tree off its stump and remove all the branches and place it onto a pile of 200-foot-long logs all in one second on Mud Mountain Haulers…….they actually require smelling salts to bring them back to consciousness.

In other words, what I’m saying is, “real” journalists are hypersensitive, hyperfrightened, mommas boys. The Non-Bikernet journalist WOMEN, if you can call them women, have SOME manliness, I’ll give them that.

Bikernet journalists of the female variety, on the other hand, are all very girly and delightful. If you say to them “That’s some nice assflesh you’re displayin’ in them camel-toe’d daisy dukes with no underwear there, cutie, I would sure like to give them shorts a pull-aside and see if maybe that’s a pussy I wouldn’t mind stickin’ my dick in.”

She’ll respond, “Why, aren’t you the impudent rascal, you flatter-flinging imp. Now, you just behave yourself while I get you a cold beer to calm that roaring libido of yours and then MAYBE, once we get that raging cock of yours under control, we can maybe start this relationship again.

College-bred female journalist ain’t gonna react like that. She’s gonna have you up on verbal-assault charges. Unless you have a vagina. Then things’ll turn out different and more amiable. Pro’bly.

So now that you know that Bikernet journalists are superior journalists and why…..you will be a delight to be around at all further gatherings with friends and loved ones! You’re welcome!!

–J.J. Solari

A couple of years ago the growing membership of the Cherokee Chapter of the AMCA (Antique Motorcycle Club of America) in central Texas made a monumental decision. The antique motorcycle group wanted to establish a major antique motorcycle event closer to the center of the country. Davenport, Iowa, Daytona, Florida and Wauseon, Ohio were like a thousand miles away.

The decision was made to institute a serious antique motorcycle event in Texas, not historically a motorcycle state, but don’t tell the Bandidos that. They looked hard at the Dallas area for proximity, but ultimately the town of Fredericksburg. It shined for several reasons, located just 70 miles from Austin and San Antonio in an area blessed with beautiful open roads and terrific destinations such as Lukenbock, Texas where Willie and the boys play (just six miles away).

Here’s where they could have stumbled into a briar patch of thorns. Fredericksburg is of German heritage, and celebrates Pioneering, ranching, rodeos, oil, cattle, the old west but not motorcycles. The town thrived on tourism and contained breweries, distilleries, and wineries. So persuasive Greg McFarland the president of the Cherokee Chapter of the AMCA met with the city and the fairgrounds officials and miraculously they were all for this event.

“The fairgrounds are larger than the Davenport location and a bit smaller than Wauseon, Ohio fairgrounds,” said Steve Klein, of the Gillespie County Fairgrounds, the first facility to host a fair in Texas in 1881. Officially established in 1888, 133 years ago, they are the oldest continuously operating Fairgrounds in Texas. “It sported 133 years of horse racing until three years ago. Now we race motorcycles.”

Greg McFarland, the current president of the chapter came up with the name Fandango and it stuck. Fandango (noun) means, “a foolish or useless act or thing” Tomfoolery. Greg and Steve developed a successful formula for the event, much like the infamous Smoke-Out: Action all the time and something for everyone.

The Fandango fairgrounds rocked with motorcycle action, interactive play, education, races and shows. The first year 2019, a national AMCA antique motorcycle ride ended at the Fairgrounds. This year Oliver Peck of Inkmasters TV series hosted the Chopper Coral with over 100 choppers on display along with Chopper related vendors and a bandstand.

The town stepped up this year after the Covid canceled 2020 and built an official ½ mile flat track. The old horse track contained over 6 inches of surface sand, which had to be moved to form a rideable track.

Cycle Source Magazine sponsored an indoor show. Over 116 motorcycles were on display of ever vintage and make including: American, Italian, German, Asian, Vincents, H-D, Indian, Excelsior Henderson, BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, street bikes, vintage, trails, enduro and motocross were represented.

The RV park at the facility was packed and brothers and sisters formed tents with their highbar choppers and slept on the grounds. “Tent camping looked like Woodstock with choppers, VW vans, and vintage vans with shag carpet interiors,” said Steve. “Young bikers slept on Indian blankets next to their choppers. Young ladies in halter tops and striped bell bottoms were everywhere. It was a throwback to the ‘60s.”

One of the major Fandango goals was to make it new- enthusiast friendly. “We wanted to develop a larger, younger membership in their 20s and 30s. Our existing membership average age is 62,” said Steve. They were proud to host over 600 spectators who were from their teens to early 30s.

“They dug the choppers and young enthusiasts couldn’t get enough of their swap meet and mini-bike races.” After being locked down for 18 months and with no sources for vintage parts the demand was high for action and resources.

They hosted 200 Vintage vendors who bought 262 vending spots. “No modern shit or non-motorcycle shit,” Steve pointed out. All the existing vendors have already signed on for 2022. “This is an old-fashioned motorcycle event that is low key and enjoyable.”

Attendance surpassed 5,000 and the action never stopped with chopper dirt drags and mini-bike races, contests and pinstriping demonstrations. The fairground grandstands held 1,700 folks and the Chopper Drags drew a crowd. The XTREME Flat Track National Organization organized the flat track race to be the second of the national circuit after Daytona Bike Week.

“If you want to dodge the crowd for a minute,” Steve added. “The best riding in the entire state of Texas is right here.” Next year they plan for more tent camping with showers, better signage, improved trash services, etc. “We want everyone to have a great time all the time.”