A group of women dubbed the ‘Motor Maids of America’ sit astride their motorcycles. Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images

Because of media portrayals in movies like The Wild One (1953) or TV shows like Sons of Anarchy, motorcycle clubs are tarred in the public psyche with a bad reputation. But the Motor Maids of America worked to convey a different image and create a community of women riders.

The club, now Motor Maids Inc., was founded in 1941 by Linda Dugeau and Dot Robinson. It was the first all-women motorcycle club in North America. As described in a 1986 Los Angeles Times article, this club was founded to show that “women who ride motorcycles can be above reproach.”

In the 1930s, Dugeau, who was then an enthusiastic rider in the Boston area, began a letter-campaign with other women riders mentioned in motorcycle magazines. She corresponded with Carol DuPont, who told her about Amelia Earhart’s Ninety-Nines club, an organization of female flyers. Inspired by the iconic pilot, Dugeau decided to mount an all-woman motorcycle club.

A group of women dubbed the ‘Motor Maids of America’ sit astride their motorcycles outside the shop they use as their headquarters. Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images
A group of women dubbed the ‘Motor Maids of America’ sit astride their motorcycles outside the shop they use as their headquarters. Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images

During the same period, Dot Robinson had become a successful racer. The Motorcycle Museum website states she became the first woman to win an American Motorcycle Association (AMA) competition with her victory in the Jack Pine race in 1940, which at that time was the motorcycle equivalent of the Daytona.

Dugeau met with Robinson in 1940 at the Laconia Motorcycle Week Rally in New Hampshire. The two embarked on a long cruise across the United states to gather the 51 female motorcycle riders whom Dugeau had previously corresponded with: they were the original Motor Maids. The Motor Maids decided to embrace their feminine identity and follow the example of Earhart’s Ninety-Nines pilots, to fight for equal perception of men and women motorcycle riders. Take a quick look at the iconic figure of Amelia Earhart below:

When the club started, Dugeau and Robinson had two rules for the Motor Maids: members must possess their own motorcycles, and conduct themselves like ladies at all times.

In the 1950s, Robinson started to wear pink outfits instead of the more traditional black leather outfits, coupled to the Motor Maids’ already famous white gloves. She felt films of the time like The Wild One negatively portrayed riders as wearing black leather and causing trouble, and made this pink and white outfit the club’s official uniform, according to the AMA website. Their distinctive outfit became a symbol of their identity.

Dot Robinson made sure to maintain her image at all times. “Hap”, a Honda dealer from Sarasota, Florida, said that he competed against her in a two-day race, as reported by the Motor Maids website. After Robinson won the race, all the men in the race went straight to the bar, while Robinson went to her room to get cleaned up.

“I’ll never forget the picture: Dot walking into the bar in a black sheath dress and a pillbox hat,” Hap said. Today, the Motor Maids’ uniform consists “of royal blue mock turtleneck shirt (tucked in)” and a “white cotton vest,” following a change in 2006. Aside from their classy distinctive uniforms, the Motor Maids have also been active citizens, with many of them having served in the American armed forces during the second world war as convoy escorts, motorcycle couriers, or dispatch riders.

Despite their efforts to convey a positive image, their first members sometimes faced outrage from their parents and friends. People were not ready to accept an all-female motorcycle club, Timeline explains.

In 1986, the LA Times wrote that the club faced a potential decline, with most of its 500 members having joined the club in the 40s and 50s. But as Timeline reported, the original fears and concerns of the members justified the role and the existence of the club. In other instances, the Motor Maids were in fact supported by their friends and relatives.

The LA Times told the story of Don Behnke, who showed support for his wife Donna, recording her rides on camera and wearing Motor Maids apparel. “I think this is one of the best clubs around,” Behnke said. “A bunch of clean-cut people.”

Today, the Motor Maids count more than 1,300 members across the United States and Canada, as reported by their website. They are attached to maintaining the same image that Linda Dugeau and Dot Robinson had in mind when they started the club.

It’s the tenth anniversary next week of the 2009 Climategate email dump that exposed top climate scientists’ chicanery and subversion of science – and did so in their own words and out of their own mouths, or keyboards. I’ll list a few emails-of-infamy shortly, but first some background.

For the three years before Climategate, the climate crowd was ascendant with its pseudo-narrative of “settled science”. Al Gore’s error-riddled propaganda movie Inconvenient Truth of 2006 had swept the Western world and its readily-traduced schoolkids. In 2007 Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In late 2008 Barack Obama won the White House, proclaiming in his modest way, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

The Climategate emails hit the blogosphere just a month before the Copenhagen summit was scheduled to lock Western countries into Kyoto Mark 2, a legally-binding commitment to renewables from 2012. Climategate destroyed warmists’ moral high ground and reinforced the natural reluctance of most governments to up-end their economies with emission controls. The Copenhagen circus fell apart, resolving merely to “take note” of the exhortations to action by Obama and like-minded leaders.

The mainstream media strove to ignore and bury the Climategate revelations. The climate establishment ran half a dozen inquiries with limited briefs and ludicrous lack of rigour, all of which purported to clear the climate scientists of wrong-doing.[1] But even today, ten years after, scientists faithful to their calling and disciplines can only shudder at what Climategate revealed. Those who subverted the scientific method were not fringe players but at the pinnacle. They were doing the archetypal studies “proving” catastrophic human-caused catastrophic warming (CAGW) and shaping the content and messaging in the six-yearly reports of the IPCC.

The hacked (or otherwise revealed) email archive spanning the prior decade was stored by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit[2]. The CRU co-compiled the HadCRUT global temperature series, along with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre. This data set charting alleged global warming in fractions of a degree was a key input to the climate computer models forecasting doomladen heat for this century. (The model forecasts continue to exceed actual measured warming). Based on these dud modelled forecasts, the West is now spending $US1.5 trillion a year in quest of zero CO2 emissions.

Today, anyone questioning this colossal enterprise is told to “respect the science”. Based on the Climategate emails released in 2009, 2011 and 2013, I’d rather respect the Mafia, who at least don’t claim to be saving the planet. For example, today we’re told that warming of 2degC above pre-industrial level is some sort of a tipping point of doom. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, emailed on September 6, 2007, that the supposed 2-degree limit was “plucked out of thin air”, a throwaway line in an early 1990s paper from the catastrophists at the Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute.

Now for the emails. We journos love a local angle, and here’s one – the CRU’s Ian “Harry” Harris worked for four years to de-bug and properly document a CRU data base “TS 2.1” of global stations recording monthly temperatures.

One input was from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, with its frequent adjustments that result in a greater warming trend (think Rutherglen and Darwin). Harry’s comments in a 200-page logging of notes:

What a bloody mess. Now looking at the dates… something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS [data from an Australian weather station] cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993! … getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. So many new stations have been introduced, so many false references … so many changes that aren’t documented … I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was…Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight…!

What else did Harry Harris mention? Perhaps science-respecting Dr Ross Garnaut (Q&A on November 11) could get his head around this lot (emphasis added):

OH F**K THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases … Bear in mind that there is no working synthetic method for cloud, because Mark New lost the coefficients file and never found it again (despite searching on tape archives at UEA) and never recreated it … This whole project is SUCH A MESS. No wonder I needed therapy!! … So, uhhhh what in tarnation is going on? Just how off-beam are these datasets?!! … Unbelievable — even here the conventions have not been followed. It’s botch after botch after botch …Where is the documentation to explain all this?! … It’s halfway through April and I’m still working on it. This surely is the worst project I’ve ever attempted. Eeeek … Oh bugger. What the HELL is going on?!.. Oh GOD if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite!! .,. Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!! … So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage…

Who added those two series together? When? Why? Untraceable, except anecdotally. It’s the same story for many other Russian stations, unfortunately — meaning that (probably) there was a full Russian update that did no data integrity checking at all. I just hope it’s restricted to Russia!! … What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have ?? … [My attempted corrections] will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad, but I really don’t think people care enough to fix ’em, and it’s the main reason the project is nearly a year late.”

That was then. How’s things today?

In 2015 Prime Minister Tony Abbott set in train an audit of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature adjustments that increased Australia’s apparent warming, but one of the first moves of his successor, Malcolm Turnbull, was to scuttle that audit. Of equal significance is that late last year, Melbourne scientist Dr John McLean published the first-ever audit of Britain’s HADCRUT4 temperature data set and commented,

It’s very careless and amateur. About the standard of a first-year university student … Governments have had 25 years to check the data on which they’ve been spending billions of dollars. And they haven’t done so once.

For example, he found that for two years the temperatures over land in the Southern Hemisphere were derived from just one site in Indonesia, and on two occasions the average December temperature at an airport on tropical St Kitts in the Caribbean was reported at zero degrees. The inaccuracies in the data record are so bad, McLean believes, that it is impossible to know how much global temperatures have really risen – probably about 0.4degC in 70 years, not the 0.6degC claimed.

Subverting peer review

Climategate showed how warmist scientists gamed the peer review process to ensure a monopoly for their views. When two papers contrary to their ‘consensus’ were published, CRU director Phil Jones and his circle pulled out all stops to get the editor sacked and prevent such papers being considered by the IPCC. Jones, 8 July 2004:

…I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, leading climate scientist] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

US colleague Dr Michael Mann (author of the influential-but-wrong Hockey Stick graph of the past 1000 years’ temperature), July 3, 2003:

It seems clear we have to go above [the sceptic author Chris de Freitas] … I think that the community should, as Mike H [warmist scientist] has previously suggested in this eventuality, terminate its involvement with this journal at all levels –reviewing, editing, and submitting, and leave it to wither way into oblivion and disrepute.
(De Freitas at the University of Auckland served as deputy dean of science, head of science and technology, and for four years as pro vice-chancellor. He also served as vice-president of the Meteorological Society of New Zealand)

Concerning another sceptic scientist, Steve McIntyre (who used his superior statistical skills to refute Mann’s work), Mann wrote, in August 2007,

I have been talking [with] folks in the States about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose [him].

Restricting and adjusting data

CRU director Jones destroyed emails subject to Freedom of Information requests and urged colleagues to do the same. Some of the emails could have exposed improper manipulation of IPCC processes. In 2004 Jones refused a sceptic’s request for his source data:

…We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it?

He had good reason to conceal his data. Perhaps here’s why:

# Jones, April 15, 2009: For much of the SH [Southern Hemisphere] between 40 and 60 [degrees] S[outh] the normals are mostly made up as there is very little ship data there.

# Jones, November 10, 2009: For the 1940-1960 period if the SSTs [sea surface temperatures] were adjusted they would look much better

# Scientist Dr Tom Wigley, then with the US Government, to Jones September 28, 2008, urging more adjusting: …If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s warming blip. So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip… It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with ‘why the blip’.

# From Jones’ CRU colleague Dr Tim Osborn, December 20, 2006: Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were…

# Jones in November 2007 mentioned research malpractice allegations against some climate people in the US and Europe…I reckon only a few in the climate field know the full extent of what is going on behind the scenes in climate science. The Nobel Peace prize will certainly help, but some skeptics are redoubling their efforts.

# Jones’s University of East Anglia colleague Anthony Footitt, June 25, 2009: I do hope all these emails are just staying within UEA because it really makes us – UEA as a whole – look like a bunch of amateurs

Hiding the decline

On November 16, 1999, Jones welcomed and had re-used professionally a “trick” in a Nature article involving secret switching from tree-ring proxy temperature data to actual data. This covered up that tree-rings ceased to suggest rising temperature after 1960. That would have invalidated Mann’s tree-ring-based temperature chronologies for earlier centuries.

Jones: I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s [Briffa] to hide the decline.

Scientist Tom Wigley points out flaws in Mann’s own research:

Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive … there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC.

UK climate researcher Douglas Maraun:

How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think that ‘our’ reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not especially honest.

The IPCC exposed

UK Met Office’s Peter Thorne, concerning work on the IPCC’s 2007 fourth report:

I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

Jones admits the political bias in the IPCC’s all-important Summary for Policy Makers (SPM):

He says he’ll read the IPCC Chapters! He hadn’t as he said he thought they were politically biased. I assured him they were not. The SPM [Summary for Policy Makers] may be, but not the chapters.

IPCC coordinating lead author Jonathan Overpeck:

The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out [of IPCC reports].

Need it be said that leaving out inconvenient stuff is anathema to real, genuine, principled science?

Warmist Mike Hulme agrees that the debate around climate change is fundamentally about power and politics rather than the environment … There are not that many ‘facts’ about (the meaning of) climate change which science can unequivocally reveal.

From climate scientist Giorgi Filippo, who contributed to all five IPCC Assessment Reports:

I feel rather uncomfortable about using not only unpublished but also un- reviewed material as the backbone of our conclusions (or any conclusions)…I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes

Email 5286 from scientist Hans von Storch:

“We should explain why we don’t think the information robust yet. Climate research has become a postnormal science, with the intrusion of political demands and significant influence by activists driven by ideological (well meant) concerns.”

Also from von Storch:

The concealment of dissent and uncertainty in favor of a politically good cause takes its toll on credibility, for the public is more intelligent than is usually assumed.

Scientist Richard Somerville, 2004:

We don’t understand cloud feedbacks. We don’t understand air-sea interactions. We don’t understand aerosol indirect effects. The list is long.

Warmist Kevin Trenberth:

We are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter.

Michael Mann, 2006:

We certainly don’t know the GLOBAL mean temperature anomaly very well, and nobody has ever claimed we do.

Jones’ CRU was meant to provide part of the gold-standard science in the IPCC reports. Sadly, it lost or destroyed massive raw data from global temperature stations, admitting on its website in 2011, “We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.” [I’ve now been alerted that Jones only had and lost copies of the raw data; the originals remain at their sources].

Warmist Keith Briffa:

It seems we got the balance between realism and hype about right

In light of all the above admissions of lost data, mangled data, twisted data and the stated intentions of the Climategate correspondents to produce work that confirmed warmist preconceptions, there is a delicious irony to the lament of Phil Jones in 2008

Why can’t people just accept that the IPCC is right!!

Miscellaneous mayhem

# University of East Anglia’s Mike Hulme: I am increasingly unconvinced by the majority of climate impact studies – including some of those I am involved in.

# Michael Mann: It would be nice to try to ‘contain’ the putative ‘Medieval Warming Period’. His Hockey Stick did just that. The medieval warming remains an embarrassment to climate scientists, since it is natural rather than CO2-related.

# Milind Kandlikar, 2004: Tuning [of models] may be a way to fudge the physics.

In November 2007: UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, perhaps actually believing what he was saying on the strength of the guff being fed to him, suggested CO2 might cause sea levels to rise six meters in 10 years — that is, by 2017!

Needless to say, universities have showered climate guys with honors. IPCC author Ben Santer agreed with honors for Jones and Wigley: “Phil Jones is one of the true gentlemen of our field” and the pair “deserve medals as big as soup plates”, he wrote, October 8, 2009.

After Climategate

Climategate’s influence on the public debate was fleeting. But now groups like Tim Flannery’s Climate Council persuade many citizens that any weather drama or fire is proof of global warming.[3] A steady stream of younger scientists, fueled by propaganda from their earliest years in high school and locked onto their career rewards at “woke” universities for adhering to the warmist party line, is continuing the tradition of shoddy climate scholarship. Meanwhile, non-conformers like reef expert Peter Ridd get sacked.

Call me an optimist, but I see warming extremists alienating voters with a panoply of far-left “social justice” issues attached to their climate narrative — causes that make Greenpeace seem traditionalist.

The debate about the many interpretations of the science has become esoteric compared with close-to-home arguments about fossil-fuel power versus renewables. While Climategate exposed dud science, ten years later the hot topic is the exposure of unfeasible electricity makeovers.

Tony Thomas’s hilarious history, The West: An insider’s tale – A romping reporter in Perth’s innocent ’60s is available from Boffins Books, Perth, the Royal WA Historical Society (Nedlands) and online here

[1] “The inquiries were largely unable to deal with the issue of the issue of blocking publication of papers, or intimidating journals. But academics reading the emails could see quite clearly the tribalism at work, and in comparison to other fields, climatology comes off looking juvenile, corrupt and in the grip of a handful of self-appointed gatekeepers and bullies.”

[2] The still-unidentified Climategate “hacker” said his motive was to help divert useless trillions for renewables towards doing genuine good for the world’s poor.

[3] Warmist scientist Steve Schneider perceptively said: “A mega heat wave this summer is worth 3 orders of magnitude more in the PR wars – too bad we have to wait for random events since evidence doesn’t seem to cut it anymore with the MSM [mainstream media].”

By Tony Thomas, Quadrant Online
www.quadrant.org
www.Climatedepot.com

“I’m still hungry, but I’m tired of chewing,” Denis Manning said with a laugh. The 73-year-old always seems to have the perfect one-liner to illustrate a point—in this case, his undying passion for building the world’s fastest motorcycle streamliner. “I knew when I was 15 years old that this was what I wanted to do,” Manning said. “And now, 55 years later!”

Fifty-seven years later, to be exact, the perfect moment was upon him and the Team 7 Racing crew on the salt of Lake Gairdner, Australia, at the 2018 World Speed Trials Australia meet. It was the final day of the meet, dawn was breaking and wind was at zero. It was the day the team and rider Valerie Thompson had been waiting for. But what was the most hopeful moment of the week quickly turned into a disaster when the BUB 7 Streamliner went into a spectacular wreck at 363 mph with Thompson on board. Much to everyone’s relief, Thompson was uninjured in the crash, but the damage to the machine was severe.

Wreckage was strewn out over a mile on the salt, and by all indications, the dream was over. Aside from the validating the safety of Denis Manning’s streamliner design, he and the Team 7 Racing crew were left with little solace. As they surveyed the damage and tried to figure out what went wrong, they could only wonder how to pick up the pieces after such a devastating wreck. How do you keep moving forward? Or more importantly, do you keep moving forward?

The thought of going back to a ground-up rebuild of his BUB 7 streamliner left Denis Manning at a loss. “I’m not kidding myself,” Manning said as the mangled BUB 7 streamliner was being wheeled into the container at Lake Gairdner. “I’m getting advanced age and so the question is, can I do it again? And the sad answer right now is, I don’t know. I’m tired, I hurt… but I still have that spirit in me. I still want it. Give me a couple months on my ranch at home and let’s see.”

For Thompson, it was a much easier question to answer: she wanted more than anything to get back in the cockpit and deliver a win for her team. “I’ll find a way. We’ll find a way,” Thompson said a month after the crash. “We’re right there; it’s at our fingertips. We just need a perfect world and a perfect day.”

Following a thorough post-mortem from the ill-fated run, Manning, John Jans and Team 7 Racing announced months later that they were going to rebuild. The good news is they didn’t need to go back to the drawing board—just back to the shop. They came away from the wreck at Lake Gairdner knowing one thing for sure, “The design worked,” Manning said. They knew they had a winning model. Now it was time to rebuild it.

BACK TO THE STARTING LINE

The long trip back to the starting line begins with building an all-new carbon-Kevlar monocoque frame. Earlier this summer Manning invited me to visit his ranch in Grass Valley, California, where the carbon Kevlar was being laid for the first of the new bodywork. The new BUB 7 streamliner was officially underway.

“I want you to come see the shop for yourself so people don’t think we’re just some chicken-sh*t outfit,” Manning said over the phone. “Well… it is a chicken-sh*t outfit, but I’d still like you to see it.”

From there, I would head to Arizona to meet with Valerie Thompson in her Scottsdale home to spend some time with one of the fastest women in racing. Not only was there a physical need to rebuild after Australia 2018, but a mental one, as well.

BUILDING A CARBON COPY

Denis lives a humble means in rural Grass Valley; he drives a decades-old Toyota Camry, carries a flip phone that only sometimes receives text messages, and resides in a modest but comfortable home with his wife, Melissa. The outward appearance of the shop down the hill from his house is even more humble. You’d never suspect that a custom-built world-class racer and all its accessories lay inside.

Once inside the workshop, I began to notice things like one-of-a-kind machinery lying dormant under a shop rag, faded old photos of historic moments in land-speed racing, dusty trophies and memorabilia. It’s quiet and unassuming, oftentimes with no one more than goats to marvel at the innovative engineering happening inside, but make no mistake—Manning’s shop is a hub of world-class speed. His dedication to land-speed racing is palpable, and it was no surprise to hear they planned to rebuild.

John Jans and Archie Owens were already started on the day’s task when Denis and I arrived. I was just in time to see the first side panel emerge from the mold. The 21-foot BUB 7 streamliner molds sat side by side atop two long tables. The damaged bodywork from Australia was propped against the wall behind the tables—a fitting backdrop for staging the rebuild.

“You see the result of our ‘test,’” said Jans, pointing to the remains of the previous model. “What we learned that we’re not going to deviate too far from what we did last time. If this had been a fiberglass skin on a steel tube we’d still be picking up pieces in Australia.”

Jans described the formula for building the streamliner frame “it’s made from carbon and Kevlar composite core construction. That means that you have a skin of either carbon or Kevlar and a honeycomb core in the middle and another skin of carbon or Kevlar or combination of the two. The honeycomb is 98% air. It greatly increases the rigidity without adding any weight. When you bond these two skins together with a short rigid honeycomb, you’ve increased the rigidity exponentially. And it’s still very light.”

The nose is the only Kevlar section of the frame, which Jans explains. “Kevlar has a greater intrusion resistance. If the tire blows up, you have a better chance of containing it. Kevlar doesn’t shatter. That’s why they use it in bulletproof vests.”
After chatting for a bit about the construction process, I helped as the crew began to peel off the sealant and materials that were holding the carbon composite pressed into the mold.

It was sealed tighter than a snare drum by a plastic sheet with a vacuum applied to it that sucked the carbon into the mold as it set. Jans had to gently tap a wedge under the edge of side panel before it would dislodge. When it did, we lifted out the first completed side panel of the BUB 7 streamliner and placed it directly on a scale. The eight-foot section of the monocoque frame weighed in at a just 20 pounds.

The lightweight strength of the carbon composite is quite a thing to behold. Manning began to describe their learning process behind their carbon-working skills as he dug through some old samples. “Remember these, John? This was our carbon-fiber, Kevlar, fiberglass 101. We were trying to learn about the material,” Denis said as he handed me one of the carbon-composite samples. “Try to flex it.”

The sample, about the size of a paperback book, was as rigid as a bathroom tile and didn’t weigh a thing. Once they completed the original monocoque frame, Manning explained the method they came up with the measure its rigidity.

“We took the machine and we bolted it to the ground at the swingarm pivot. And at the front put in a pin on a swivel so what we could do was torsion this thing, coming off of that pin and putting lead weight 60 inches (5 feet) out. Like a big lever. By putting more and more weight on it, we could calculate the torsional rigidity.”

“That was the bare chassis,” John added. “Then we put the doors on and it increased the rigidity. And we put the tail on and it increased the rigidity. We put the canopy on and it had a small but measurable effect on the rigidity of the whole structure. So all these pieces worked together. They’re all stressed components.”

Over their previous steel-tube streamliner model, the carbon monocoque chassis was 40% stronger, while also going from 800 pounds down to a svelte 260 pounds.

So effective was the structure of the BUB 7 streamliner, it did more than protect Thompson in the crash. Aside from a bent swingarm, the engine and components were unscathed in the crash, leaving only the monocoque chassis to be rebuilt.

Just as important as the material is the shape of the BUB 7 streamliner. Like all aspects of Manning’s lifelong passion, there’s an intricate story behind that as well. Upon discovering that their previous steel-tube streamliner design was hitting an aerodynamic wall at 283 miles per hour, Manning knew he needed a new shape.

“We found out that at that speed, the nose was diving into the ground and the tail was coming off the ground,” Manning explained. “That’s when we had this come-to-Jesus with Joe [Harralson, mechanical engineer and team consultant]. He said it’s gotta be slipperier, it’s gotta be lighter, and you gotta make more horsepower. It sent me on a chase to find an aerodynamic shape that was better than our first shape.”

Manning found his inspiration in an unlikely place—underwater.

“I saw a program on 60 minutes and they were talking about salmon going up the Colombia River, and how efficient they were in the water.”

Manning consulted an ichthyologist and found out that salmon, for a short distance, could go up to 50 miles per hour underwater. “Well, that’s 400 mph in air,” said Manning, “Water to air is an 8:1 scale, so at atmospheric pressure of 14.7 psi (at sea level), going 400 mph is the equivalent of going 50 mph underwater. Imagine trying to design a motorcycle that could be stable going 50 mph underwater and you start to see the aerodynamic/hydrodynamic challenge.”

Using the Coho salmon as a model of hydrodynamic efficiency, Manning and Jans came up with a shape that was “half fish and half motorcycle,” and set out to create a mold.
“We sculpted two male halves of this shape.”
Out of what? (… I had to ask.)

Manning burst out laughing as John answered my question.
“Styrofoam, fiberglass, beer cans, there was some cow sh*t in there, just to fill in some gaps,” Jans said with a chuckle. “Then we ordered about 27 gallons of Bondo. It got to the point where we would go to the body shop and buy more Bondo and the guys would say ‘Do you guys know what you’re doing?’ We were going through so much Bondo it was crazy, because that isn’t normally how you do it, but we didn’t know that.”

Their self-deprecating tales of unorthodox techniques are entertaining, but they belie the true nature of the craftsmanship that takes place in Manning’s shop. Even as first-timers using their own peculiar method, they managed to achieve their goal of creating a mold, then going on to build with carbon, guided by little more than a few books on the topic.

“That’s kind of the nature of this whole thing,” said Jans, “doing stuff we’re not qualified to do. We just do it. So far it’s worked out real well.”

“Don Tilley was there when they announced it. He’s a NASCAR guy. And he said ‘You boys better check and see if that f***er’s still in there!’” Manning said with a laugh. “Point zero eight! It takes nothing to make it go through the air.

“Fish know more than we do.”

With the first of the new carbon and Kevlar composite bodywork now complete, the team is well on their way to rebuilding a proven machine. “This is a premier endeavor,” said Manning. “It’s crazy, you work for 20-some years, for… nine seconds? That’s how long it takes to go through the mile. If we can get there in under nine seconds, it’ll be a happy day.”

A HARD RESOLVE

The flight from Sacramento to Phoenix was a passage into a different world. After being dropped off in Denis’ Camry, I was picked up by Thompson in her Bentley sedan. Arriving at her Paradise Valley home was another stark contrast, the sprawling estate, home to her husband Ray Garcia and their three Maltese pups, Bentley, Speedy and Britt, looking more like a resort than a cozy home for two.

“I told my husband I’d retire at 200 [mph], because we were trying for 200 on that BMW in my garage. And when the 300 opportunity came up, I said, ‘Yeah, 300 I’ll retire, sweetheart.’ And now it’s 400!” Thompson said with a laugh. (The following week Thompson was revealed to be the new driver for the Target 550 streamliner, so now it’s 550 mph.)

With eight land-speed records (the first two with 5-Ball Racing Bikes built by the Bikernet team in 2006 and 2007), a 300-mph club membership and touted as the world’s fastest woman on a motorcycle, America’s “Queen of Speed” has plenty to hang her hat on. But you wouldn’t know it from the weight of the world currently on her shoulders. Her focus is not on what she has done, but fixed entirely on what she has yet to do. After coming home from Australia in March 2018, she’s had plenty of time to contemplate everything that happened at Lake Gairdner.

“You see that bike and it’s like, ‘Ugh… I did that,’” Valerie said with a sigh. When the topic of the crash comes up, there’s a somber shift in Thompson’s typically upbeat tone. More than a year later, her memory of the crash is still hazy, which makes it even more difficult to reconcile.

“All I remember was skidding,” said Thompson. “I had no idea with all the flips and turns. I didn’t even know until I got back to the hotel and saw it on video. I said, ‘I did that?’ I don’t remember any of it.

“I remember specifically thinking, ‘Oh… wow! It’s going to be a great ride! Let’s stay focused.’ And after that, the crash occurred and so that was…” Valerie fell silent.

“We were on a hell of a record. Just to go that fast was the most incredible thing.”

 The trauma of the crash was compounded by an even worse trauma when she returned home. Thompson’s mother passed away a few short weeks later.

“The process that I went through from being on that high and then coming home and facing that… When she finally let go, that was just… the end. I didn’t know how to process it,” said Thompson. “I didn’t know what to say, who to talk about it with, so I just kept it all to myself. I don’t share too much with Denis or with any of the team about exactly what I went through with all that.”

“I have lots of support. But finding that right one to support you and talk through things, that person was always my mom. It really hurt. She was my rock. I could tell her anything. But I didn’t have her to talk about it with.

“But I am taking a lot of steps into healing myself, to not keep blaming myself for what if I could have done this better, what if I could have done that… you know, the what-ifs. It was a heavy burden on me.”

Thompson’s path to mental healing has also involved a lot of time in the gym.

“I’m just building my strength and it’s going to build my confidence,” she said. “That’s what I think I need to bring to the table. Step up my game, match my performance of my body and my mind to the performance of the race bike. That is my cure to get myself back in that seat.”

While some might hesitate to get back in the saddle after such an intense wreck, the thought of getting back into the cockpit of the BUB 7 streamliner is Thompson’s driving force. Her dedication to the team is the new core of her motivation.
“Now it’s for the team. Where before, it was like, I want the record,” Thompson said. “I want to be the fastest. I want to win it for the team. I think that’s the most important part of this whole thing. I want to give back. And give Denis Manning back the title of being the world’s fastest again. He is all about that world record. And if he didn’t believe I could do it, he wouldn’t put me in it. It’s not for the money, it’s not for the fame. He’s got his name on the line. This is our time. These are going to be our days ahead.”

It’s moments like these when her confidence is unmistakable. Despite hearing her talk about the challenges of the past year, her resolve shines through like it never left. “I always knew I was going to be in Denis Manning’s streamliner one day,” Thompson continued. “When I was watching Chris Carr in 2007, I wanted to be in that seat. I watched and studied Chris’ every move.”

A bonus for Thompson is a small modification that will be made to the new BUB 7 streamliner. The new seat, previously molded for Chris Carr, will be molded for her.

?“We’re going to fit the seat to me. Now instead of racing in Chris Carr’s seat, I’m racing in Valerie Thompson’s seat! That’s a feather in my cap!” she said with a laugh.

The road back to the start line will no doubt still be littered with mental hurdles and emotional confrontation along the way, such as the release of the documentary film Rockets and Titans that has chronicled the team’s efforts. I asked Valerie what it was going to be like to watch the movie and see the drama unfold on the screen.

“I don’t know. I feel emotional just thinking about that right now. I don’t want to relive it. I want to go to Australia with a clean piece of paper and a brand-new attitude of coming home with a world record!”

For Thompson, it’s all about looking ahead and being able to deliver a win for her team. “I can’t wait to be on the ground again [at Lake Gairdner] and see all the people, all the staff of the DLRA, because they treated us so wonderful. But I don’t know what that feeling will be like. I don’t know what that fear will be like until we get a little closer time for it.”

But one thing is clear in Thompson’s mind, a thought she shares with the rest of the Team 7 Racing crew. All the ingredients are there, and all they need is the perfect day again. “It’s going to be our day. We have what it takes. It was there in Australia. It’s just sitting there waiting for us to grab it.”

WHY DO WE DO THIS?

In many ways, Denis Manning and Valerie Thompson couldn’t be more opposite. At the same time, they are two sides of the same coin, and that coin remains fixed on rebuilding and accomplishing their goal.

Through my visits with the team, I asked the same question of Manning and Thompson: “Was the decision to rebuild a difficult one?” The short answer—no.

While it might have been a simple decision, it hasn’t been an easy one. And another point became clear to me: this goal of regaining the land-speed world record is a burden—one that everyone, including Jans, longs to be relieved of. But the only way to be released from the task is by accomplishing it. The only way out is through.

“For me, it was very difficult,” said Jans. “My intent was to go to Australia, go really fast, and go whoopie! I’m f***ing done! But I couldn’t leave it in the shape it was in. I want to go until we can’t go any faster. Then I’m done.”

Finding the limit of the machine is the goal, and whether or not that limit is beyond 400 mph seems almost irrelevant. (Though considering they had reached 328 mph on a “bad run” running on only three cylinders and in third gear in Australia strongly suggests it will be.) The current record sits at 376, and going beyond that to the limit of the BUB 7 streamliner is the aim.

“We don’t have to be the first motorcycle to go 400 mph,” said Thompson. “But we have to be the next motorcycle to break the record. I’ll squeeze as much out as I can. I won’t give up! I won’t back off the throttle! [laughs] But to get the record is the main focus here. Who’s going to go 400 someday? Somebody will. If that’s us, that’s great.”

Being within reach of the goal makes it even more impossible to walk away, especially since the team expected to be reveling in their victory at this point. “We really thought that we were going to be done with this,” said Thompson. “We thought that we could enjoy ourselves after all this hard work and move on. But our thoughts going forward, it’s very clear I can do it. And it’s very clear that I will do it. It’s just going to take me a little longer.

“I want to be released of my duty. But I need to conquer my duty first. Because I’m going to bring home the record for Denis Manning one way or another. I think Denis is so deserving of it. He’s gone through so much; he’s been on top of the world and he’s been on the bottom. He knows he’s got the rider, he knows he’s got the equipment, he’s got the crew and he knows it. He can taste it.”

As for Manning, it circles back to his simple adage; he can most certainly taste it after chewing for so many years. Only time will tell if and when he is finally able to savor that world-record bite.

###

A week before the Bonneville International Speed Trials in warm Wendover, Utah, the wind was mild and the salt wet. It wasn’t a stellar year on the salt. Speed Week was shut down for 4 days due to rain.

 

 

I needed to improve my skills at aluminum TIG welding, and I had one of those moments of clarity. I decided to strengthen the connections to the swingarm mounted to the front of the frame. At Phillips I bought a piece of 1/4-inch wall tubing for the center and machined it to fit. Andrew Ursich helped with the welding after I made the gussets.

Since the rules call for not being able to see any light through the wall, I needed to find a fire-caulking substance and found fire putty.

 

Also, I ordered two external marine-type vents. We had a number of discussions about venting, the engine heat and such. I gave in and bought two of the smallest clamshell vents I could find. We now have two vents on either side and a JIMS fan to blow between the heads.

When it comes to shaping, Jeremiah is the king. Give him a Makita with a flapper wheel and he can shape anything to fit. I welded and positioned the firewall puzzle and he shaped the edges to fit the body.

 

 

I prepped for a scrutinizing inspection by one of the great racers, Tom Evans. As an SCTA official and VP for 25 years he inspected thousands of race vehicles. Today, he sent me the current inspection check sheet. He may come down from his shack in Tujunga to take a look. I had my work cut out for me. Nothing like deadlines to keep you moving.

The next report should be final touches and loading the Torpedo for a run into the desert for trial runs. If all goes well, we will come back, make any necessary mods or repairs and go to paint. Hang on.

–Bandit

Jim’s Machine

Hot Rod Underground

Paughco

BDL

Strictly Hawgs

MetalSport Wheels

Custom Cycle Engineering

LowBrow

S&S

Bassini Exhausts

Twin Power

Lucky Devil Metal Works

Jeremiah is a nut about products on his motorcycle. He’s very analytical. He decided he needed front turn signals, so he checked the Dyna page for model year 2009, 49mm front end products and discovered a set of black-anodized Joker Machine, LED, billet machined, one-piece turn signals.

 

He was impressed with the angle of the lights designed to match the rake of his glide fork tubes. He was also impressed with the price. The product was unused, in the original package, yet he got ‘em for used part prices. These slick units are good for ’06 to the last Dynas manufactured by the factory.

He had one obstacle to his installation, he didn’t have the original wire leads from the stock loom to the turn-signals. He couldn’t find the leads online, so off to California Harley for some help. They don’t sell the leads constructed. He had to buy the male plugs and the pins. Then he faced buying the wires and insulating tubing and making his own.

Fortunately, he knew one of the techs in service. He took the connectors to him and he made up the leads with the wires in the stock positions, so when the plugs snapped into place, the black wire was connected to the black wire in the loom and the purple wire was happily connected to the purple wire in the loom.

Hang on, we’ll get back to the wiring once the Joker turn-signals are installed. First Jeremiah, James and the lovely Honor helped him jack the bike up with a hydraulic jack. Keep in mind the treachery of trying to jack up Dynas. They can be quirky and dangerous.

Take your time with the jack and maybe use a chunk of 2-by-4 to get around the frame bracket in the back under the transmission designed to protect the oil bag and watch out for the kickstand in the front. Make sure the bike is comfortable and supported. It’s not a bad idea to have a brother nearby to act as jack security.

First, he removed the front wheel, the front brake caliper and the front fender. This is the precarious time slot. He loosened the Torx pinch bolts for one tube, slide it out of the trees, installed the Joker turn-signal and replaced it.

Note: When it comes to removing fork legs from triple trees, it’s not a bad notion to clean the legs and the trees first and spray them down with WD-40 or a light lubricant. This is especially important if your tubes are chromed, anodized or color coated. You don’t want to scratch the bastards.

Joker turn-signals come with Right and Left indicators machined in the bottom, so he knew which one to slip on which tube. Jeremiah had a plan for getting the tubes back into place perfectly. He uses a nickel to indicate the space the tube will extend past the top triple tree. He snugged up the tree pinch Torx bolts and moved onto the next fork leg.

He did the same with the other fork leg and installed the new Joker Machine turn-signal and snugged down the pinch bolts using his nickel formula. Now he installed the front wheel for a safety precaution. If, during assembly the jack slipped or collapsed, the wheel would be in place to catch the bike.

At this point Jeremiah, who is a nut about torque specs, referred to the manual and tightened the tree Torx pinch bolts.

Jeremiah used the seam in the lower tree to align with his turn-signal seam for perfect positioning before tightening his Joker
Allen pinch bolt.

At this point he messed with the wiring. If he had the stock leads he would have just shortened the lead to the desired length and connected the black to the black and the red to purple from the Joker unit. The other wire wasn’t used.

The first thing he did was to connect and test the wire leads to make sure the system was connected to the correct turn-signal. He cut his leads, taking into consideration the swing of the front end. He cut shrink tubing and slipped it over each wire and soldered the connections. Then he slipped the shrink tubing over the connections and used a heat gun to shrink the tubing over the connection.

Then he installed the front brake caliper and tightened it to specs, and finally he installed his front fender. Bada Bing, on the road again, except it started to rain…

Bikernet has supported and sponsored Las Vegas Bikefest for about a decade. Each year the boss or someone from the staff flew out to the desert to check it out and write about the action.

Once we sent two thugs on Dynas and they scored a young prostitute the first night on the strip. Between the drugs, the girl and the booze, they didn’t see the light of day until the event was nearly over.

The boss jammed out one year with a full load of 5-Ball leathers, books and bling. The brothers rode out through Pahrump and hit a famous whorehouse in the desert berg. We won’t report on who took park in the action, but it turned into a stir.

Bandit set up on the Bikefest lot adjacent to Freemont in downtown and manned the booth. The brothers were so moved by the girls in Pahrump they couldn’t sit still and chased broads and parties all weekend. They weren’t much help, and if you asked them to report they just looked at one-another, muttered, “Awesome!” and sought another cold beer.

The stories continued from year to year. And this year was no different. James “The Tileman” pulled the long straw and grabbed the Las Vegas Bikefest 2019 assignment. Out of long-standing respect for his lovely Japanese wife, he asked her to attend half-heartedly.

He kept up feeble attempts at getting her to ride out with him, although he itched to ride out by himself and slam into the Vegas Bikefest action unencumbered by his feisty, fight-prone wife. Thursday at 4:30 in the morning, he couldn’t sleep anymore. He slipped out of his bed like a cat burglar, donned his riding duds and quietly move his hot rod Dyna out of the garage. He fired it to life and peeled down the street, before she could call his cell or scream profanities out the window.

He was on his way to adult paradise, neon nirvana and metal flake mayhem in the desert. The weather was clear and traffic minimal as he jammed to the edge of the ever-spreading Los Angeles county border.

His ’07 FXD enjoyed 90 mph with its new cams and TT turner system tuned by Gene Thomason. He loved his new Barnett Clutch, Screamin’ Eagle pressure plate and performance exhaust system. He stopped for Breakfast just outside Barstow, and at State Line for gas. Even state line contained a rush of adrenaline. He jonesed for that magnificent 48-mile stretch of straight open highway into the city of glitter and action.

He checked into the Golden Nugget before the sun began to blaze pure desert heat. Riders started to roll in from all over the western states. That’s when his report started to get hazy. Maybe that first tropical refreshing drink had something to do with it.

We couldn’t reach him, but the girls of Las Vegas Bikefest augmented our communications as the Tileman sought his own nirvana at the fun fest in the desert.

“Thousands of Bikers Cruise into Sin City for the 19th Annual Vegas BikeFest, October 3-6, 2019,” said Mindi Cherry.

“Thousands of riders and motorcycle enthusiasts from the United States and 17 countries around the world cruised into Las Vegas for the nineteenth annual Vegas BikeFest at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center. The action packed, four-day rally delivered an abundance of activities and attractions.”

The hardworking event manager continued, “This year, through our partnership with John Oakes and Freeze Management, the rally was about bringing more experiences to our attendees and attracting new attendees. With the addition of the Hooligan Dirt Dash Flat Track Racing taking place at the Plaza Hotel and Casino’s Core Arena, the Bell Brawl at Red Rock Harley-Davidson, and the return of the Artistry In Iron custom bike show display, a new type of energy was felt throughout the entire rally.”

We didn’t catch up with the Tileman until the next day. He mentioned that Law Tigers was giving away a bike and Kuryakyn installed accessories at their booth. We had never heard him so happy before. He seemed to be floating on some kind of mystic pleasure cloud.

Vegas BikeFest 2019 offered attendees a variety of entertainment at the rally including Moonshine Bandits on Friday night and the always entertaining metal band Steel Panther on Saturday night. Carol Lyn’s Herstory of Rock kicked off the weekend on Thursday night. “Steel Panther was great,” The Tile man added in a slurred voice, “and the chicks on stage were amazing.”

Riders explored over 100 vendor booths filled with motorcycles, parts, accessories, apparel and more. Vegas BikeFest partnered with V-Twin Visionary and Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys to give away another custom Harley-Davidson Street Glide on Saturday night. Valerie W. from Fontana, CA, was the lucky recipient of the bike that included custom parts from Leading Edge, Saddlemen Seats, Bassani Xhaust, Klock Werks, and ThunderMax.

Vegas BikeFest gave away over $100,000 in prizes and cash, including $5,000 in BikeFest Bucks Shopping Sprees that was spent with vendors at the rally. The always popular Miss Vegas BikeFest did not disappoint along with other crowd favorites Best Facial Hair Contest, Bikini Contest, Tattoo Contest and Biker Bingo. Poker Walks, Poker Run, and Lady Luck Fun Run were big hits and mulligan sales raised $2,500 to benefit the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation.

We lost track of the Tileman late Friday Night and didn’t hear anything until Saturday morning. Something about the Golden Nugget room service and a Ribeye steak. Everything about the weekend seemed to delight James to no end.

Vegas BikeFest featured four different bike shows kicking it off on Thursday with Full Throttle Magazine’s Ride-In Bike Show featuring over 10 different categories. Best in Show went to Anthony Robinson with his 1966 Triumph T-100. On Friday, V-Twin Visionary Performance Bike Show debuted with Best of Show going to Ramjet Racing with the completely custom ’03 Dyna.

Saturday was the Vegas BikeFest Custom Bike Show sponsored by Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys; with over 15 categories. Brian Hendricks with his 2011 Harley-Davidson Road Glide won People’s Choice while Anthony Robinson’s 1966 Triumph T-100 took home Best in Show.

On Sunday, the Sick Chicks, No Dipsticks (All Female Bike Show) debuted at the rally, adding to the festivities with a great showing of all female owned bikes.

James had more fun than was humanely possible and of course he didn’t fill in all the blanks, just the G-rated ones, but we knew something was afoot or a thigh…

Hooligan Dirt Dash brought two nights of flat track racing to Vegas BikeFest with Mikey Virus taking first place on both nights of racing.

Sunday morning came way too soon. James the “Tileman,” was forced to suit up for the seriously hungover, 95-degree ride back into the city and back to his tortured reality in Los Angeles. He moseyed onto the freeway like a foot soldier force back to the front after a long weekend in Hong Kong.

James knew what he had to do, but a shining star or a few sparkled in his memory of the weekend: the action, the food, the fun, the girls and solid sparkling motorcycles, new products and resources for the open road. He chilled with the excitement of the weekend and the knowledge of the next rally and Bikefest next year.

Plans are already underway for the 2020 Las Vegas BikeFest in downtown Las Vegas, with dates set for October 1-4, 2020.

We will draw straws again next year when Bikefest rolls around once more.

–Wrench
I never get to go…
Associate Editor
Bikernet.com™

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lasvegasbikefest
Twitter: @VegasBikeFest
Instagram: #VegasBikeFest
info@lasvegasbikefest.com

“I had nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion”

— Jack Kerouac, On the Road

What do you do when you drop 30 K on an incredible looking trike but it handles like an over caffeinated college student maxed out on Adderall? That is the question that was posed to me by my good friend Bruce Seigal.

To be honest, he did not use those exact words. He said he has a beautiful looking trike but he doesn’t enjoy riding it because it handles so poorly. Bruce was experiencing a jittery front end at neighborhood speeds and there was no confidence to corner with any serious speed. Now, this is not my area of expertise. As I think about it now, I’m not sure if I have an area of expertise. Anyway, at the time I probably knew more about Japanese water gardens than I did trike suspensions and I am not even sure Japanese water gardens are a thing. Are Japanese water gardens a thing? They have coy fish, right? Arrrgg… that is not the point. I am distracted again. I probably need Adderall.

Anyway, it was a question that I posed to Mike Alex from Suspension Technologies (SuspensionTechnologies.com). Suspension Technologies is one of the top, if not the #1, industry go-tos for difficult suspension questions. Mike started out as a suspension engineer for Chrysler and GM many moons ago and he eventually ended up on the Bonneville salt flats with both companies engineering suspension solutions for teams breaking word speed records. He is a long time Harley rider that kept answering suspension questions until it became evident that he might as well have his own company. He teamed up with Noah Jacobson of Elite Machining to establish a new home for Suspension Technologies and the rest is history.

I asked Mike about the trike and he responded with an interesting offer. “Edge, we are only 7 hours from you. Why don’t you just give us a visit?” I answered “yes” immediately.

A couple weeks later I was the kid in the candy store touring the Suspension Technologies facility. Everything these guys do is USA made and resourced. Most of the process is “in house.” The company has invested millions in machinery in order to produce suspension products to exact tolerances.

I also got a first-hand look at what goes into a shock. One thing that impressed me is that there are 26-30 parts that are assembled by hand. A good number of the parts looked identical to me because my eyes can’t distinguish between washers that may only have a thousandth of an inch difference. The really interesting thing is that switch any part and it will greatly (and negatively) affects how the shock works.

I bought a new set of shocks from one of the biggest names in the industry a while back and I was disappointed. After some serious testing on the road I had to admit to myself that the stock HD shocks that I had replaced, actually handled better than the new shocks I shelled out big bucks to get. This was unbelievable to me. Stock HD shocks can be pretty horrible. “Better than stock,” is a pretty low bar.

I saw the XYZ factory rep later in Daytona and they gave me an exchange with another set. This time the handling was better than stock. The handling was OK however, for the money I shelled out, my world wasn’t set on fire. Anyway, what I realized in this tour is that quite possibly just one of those many parts could have been installed out of order which caused the poor performance. It seems to me like this would be really easy to do.

I asked Mike Alex about this and he said the only way to catch this before the shock goes out to a customer is to use a shock dynamometer. The only way to do this right is to individually test each shock. This is an arduous and therefore expensive process. Ohlin and JRI do this. The high volume, overseas manufactures that I had been giving my money to through the years do not.

Suspension Technologies tests every shock and then the shocks are matched, which is also a big deal. Their shocks are sold in matched sets. They start with cutting edge engineering, materials and processes so that when they are finished; so they have a lifetime warranty, no questions asked. The tour answered my questions about how things that essentially looked the same (to me) could perform so differently. I was a lil’ bit awestruck and I stuck around for a bit and I was able to see the process. Incredible.

Back to the problematic trike. Most of what they do is for bikes but they also deal with trikes and they even manufacture their own trike conversion kit. Mike and Noah each rode the problematic trike and made their observations independent of one another. They don’t talk until they have made their notes independent of each other. It’s a simple idea but it’s pretty smart.

They were both OK with the front forks. Suspension Technologies manufactures a killer fork cartridge replacement kit but both testers thought it wasn’t necessary in this case. They did indicate the need for a front stabilizer (which they don’t make) and steered me to one of their competitors for that. Classy engineers.

The big culprit was the air ride rear suspension. Despite the insanely high price tag on what we took off the trike, they showed me how the “sweet spot” on the air shocks was pretty small. It wasn’t possible to even dial in the sweet spot in this particular case.

After installing the new rear suspension, the trike was instantly more manageable. The crew took turns riding the trike and then comparing notes as the shocks were fine-tuned. Science came full circle to art as the gurus compared notes.

Notes about tuning the suspension from Mike:
First, no spanner tool or any special tool needed to adjust the shock.
If you feel bounce a simple adjustment to the rebound will most likely fix the issue. Soften the preload. Also, with some of our products you can adjust the rebound with the bleed adjuster.

We do advise you take the pressure off the rear of the bike when installing the shocks. It just makes it so much easier. And yes on some bikes you may need to raise or lower the bike to get both sides on, depending on swing arm tolerances.

Now the trike handles like a dream. I don’t think Adderall was a thing when these guys went through engineering school but they got it right. These guys know suspensions.

–Edge