Fog and cool temperatures greeted us at the ship museum in The Soo. The various classes of bikes were brought to the start line…some purring, some popping and smoking.
The roads out of town quickly brought us into some beautiful parts of Michigan. At first, straight roads through mixed hardwood forest; blue skies emerged and the riders and bikes settled into their “sweet spot”. For an early single cylinder motorcycle, that might be 25-30 miles an hour. For Lydian, that seems to be 52-62 mph – which was the case on smooth, straight sections of Route 31. We did get to negotiate the Mackinac Bridge with it’s metal grate surface…makes for interesting riding as the tires get steered by the grate groves. But motorcycles are meant for curves and we were routed to a really nice 20 mile stretch called The Tunnel of Trees. We had a continuous, twisty and narrow roadway with speeds of 25-45 mph. Occasional peek views of the Great Lake led to the quaint (with a capital Q) town of Harbor Springs.
Several bikes suffered with mechanical gremlins…parked on the side of the road trying to fix things before the Sweep Wagon and trailer came along. If you couldn’t fix the problem in short order, that was your ride back to the hotel parking lot. Creativity and resourcefulness reigned especially for Jeff and Loring. The beautiful 1912 Henderson shown in an earlier post suffered a breakage of the two bolts that hold the rocker tower onto the top of the cylinder. The number 4 tower came free and the bike ran roughly on three cylinders. The solution? Ride into a John Deere repair shop, borrow a drill press and left-hand drill bit, back out the bolts and install temporary replacement screws. Nice work and all miles completed on time!
Lydian suffered her own problems…one easy, one a bit harder to fix. The easy one only required a screw driver to tighten the throttle cable clamp and restore throttle control while standing on the side of the road. The harder challenge exemplifies the benefits of looking over your machine carefully on a daily basis. While parked on display at the Hagerty Insurance headquarters for public viewing, I put the bike up on it’s rear stand and noticed excessive movement between the rear sprocket and the rear wheel hub. That could be a disaster! A gentle ride back to the hotel parking lot and time to break out the tools. Four hours of work revealed a poorly seated sprocket on the hub splines with some wear. If this had been allowed to continue over the next 3500 miles, it would have destroyed the hub and ended the Cannonball ride for 2021. The repair was carried out with the help of Vern, Mark, Paul and Jeff who provided advice, tools and green Loctite. (That is the stuff for loose bearings and once set, cannot be easily removed).
Nancy has kept everything going on track with hotels, food and support. She is the best! Saturday brings us to Battle Creek which is about a 250 mile ride. Weather should be good and Lydian should be ready to roll.