Join us for the CityBike Mojo-to-Zen Ride August 7th! We're pleased to announce the first annual Mojo-to-Zen CityBike ride! We'll leave from Mojo Town Motorcycle Shop at 9:00 a.m. and ride up to Zen House Motos in Point Arena. Route is posted below, and you will be given a copy of th...
We have pulled a majority of our street racks out of San Francisco for rehabilitation. After years on the street, most were battered and faded. Please note that CityBike is delivered to every motorcycle shop in San Francisco and that they should still be available indoors at this point - go on in a...
Story By Gabe Ets-Hokin Last month, a friendly source from deep in the bowels of a Ducati dealer leaked to me that Ducati would introduce a new middleweight Monster based on the Hypermotard 796's motor and the Monster 1100's chassis and single-sided swingarm, priced under $10,000. That model...
By Gabe Ets-Hokin, Photos: Kevin Wing Racing is racing, right? Seriously, when you see a fast guy, odds are he’ll be fast racing anything: motocrosser, flat-tracker, go-kart, sportbike. Some of us are just fast, and some of us...well, we have a good time and don’t look like total jackass...
Join us for the CityBike Mojo-to-Zen Ride August 7th! We're pleased to...
We have pulled a majority of our street racks out of San Francisco for rehabilitation....
TAKE THE SHIRTS OFF OUR BACKS Did you know City Bike has official T-shirts? Yes,...
/INTERNATIONAL MOTORCYCLE SHOW Time once again to head to the International Motorcycle...
BUELL CRUSHED, MV AGUSTA FOR SALE We were already a little bummed in mid-October...
| TRUE GRIT:The 555 Ride |
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TRUE GRIT:The 555 Ride By Courtney Olive  Originating a year ago with a group from Tennessee, the 555 ride was born as a great equalizer. Sinking to the lowest common denominator of the smallest, oldest, cheapest bike amongst the group, seven friends set out to ride from Knoxville, Tennessee to Portland, Oregon. As ride themes go, this one was sheer brilliance.As if to answer a challenge, this summer the Portland, Oregon-based Sang-Froid Riding Club (SFRC) embraced the concept and reversed the route to meet the original riders in Tennessee. To say the SFRC and friends -11 men and one brave woman- rode a motley collection of bikes would be generous. The dozen machines included the likes of “Team Tiny Twin,” consisting of two Honda 175s and a Honda 200. To up the ante the 175s were a CL and an SL; a CB would have been far too civilized. Larger in displacement but still chided as the longshot of the trip was a ’70 Yamaha DT-1. Revolutionary in its day, yes, but even in its era it would have taken a special breed of 1970s enduro rider to campaign a 250cc two-stroke Single across the country. Also “bringing the noise” (and the blanket of blue smoke) was a contingent of three RD350s. Well, two really. The third was a 350/400 meld with clip-ons and a sissy bar – the hot setup. Rounding out the lot were the big bores, a Honda CL350, Kawi KZ400, and Honda CB500T that, when not running on one lung, provided much-needed drafting for Team Tiny Twin. And then there was the chopper. A 1974 Honda CB350F (yep, “F” as in four) that had been languishing for at least two decades in a chicken coop. Tarnished but completely together, the bike retained every bit of its period-correct custom treatment. Extended forks reaching down to a jaguar hood ornament on the front fender, wheelbarrow bars dangling atop dog-bone risers, a homemade king/queen seat with sissy bar, and four individual straight pipes that, when travelling through Osage Indian country, earned the bike’s apt Indian name: “Big Wind, No Rain.” And, as with any proper chopper, the bike’s crown jewel was its dreamy custom-airbrushed tank. Painted by one-time Portland legend “The Beard,” it depicted a scene only the ’70s could conceive. On a cool June morning in Portland, we wedged ourselves between tank bags full of tools and duffle bags of parts to begin the 555 experience. Reaching the city limit was a feat in itself. But everyone knew the day’s first real test would be cresting snow-capped Mt. Hood. At the base of the mountain in Sandy, Oregon, the first sign of trouble began (it was a wonder it took that long). The CL350 was belching blue smoke as if in a fit of two-stroke envy. Waiting at a stoplight, rider Kenny “The Shin” assessed the situation with a few gratuitous revs, a nod, and a big grin – “just rings reseating after the old Bon Ami in the plug hole trick,” he’d later claim. Whatever the case, the CL’s smoke was miraculously gone by the top of the Mt. Hood climb and stayed gone. Mostly. Just beyond Sandy several riders pulled to the shoulder. The Honda 200 of Team Tiny Twin was faltering – finally our first true breakdown! It proved to be much ado about nothing however. Dan “Grapeya” had simply run out of gas. Fuel lines were yanked and siphoning began. But, in pulling over with the crowd, The Shin suffered a blown fuse due to using his turn signal for the first time. These sorts of cascading breakdowns became common on the trip. They solidified the bond between riders and took the adage of “shared suffering” to a glorious new level. Deep bonds also arose between the riders and their machines. Within the first day I developed a delicate but deeply intimate relationship with WFO on my ’72 CL175. Listening to the aged aluminum howl, I calmed myself by recounting words from a Cycle Guide review of my bike the year it was built: “Soichiro Honda, the founder and leader of the giant Japanese company, has long believed in four-stroke, multi-cylinder engines with relatively small pistons. With the reciprocating weight thus reduced, the engine can be spun faster to produce more horsepower for its displacement, without coming unstuck.” Unstuck indeed; I still vowed to change my oil every other day out of respect to the little motor. As the first day drew to a close we suffered our first big casualty only a handful of miles from the day’s final destination in Sumpter, Oregon. Jarrod “Germ” had been fudging the 555 formula; his ride was two years too new. His punishment came in the form of a piston so severely seized that it stretched the cylinder studs and pulled his Honda XL500’s barrel away from the bottom end enough for daylight to peek through. Prepared though we were, this was game over for the cheater bike. But adversity equals opportunity on the 555 and the next morning found Germ doubled up with one of the big bores and eager to roll to Idaho in search of a new POS to pilot. After a day of minimal breakdowns (a few garden variety electricals hardly worth mentioning) we arrived in the Boise suburb of Nampa, Idaho, where we were to stay in the backyard of a motorcycling friend-of-a-friend. Thanks to the miracle of iPhones (a strange juxtaposition on the ride) the search was on for a local Craigslist gem for Germ. Within an hour we smoked, rattled, and roared up on an unsuspecting suburban neighborhood where a farmer was trying to unload an early ’70s DT250. Although he had advertised the bike as “solid” and “wants to run,” we quickly concluded the bike’s carb would have to be cleaned if we were to evaluate its cross-country capability. With the farmer’s okay, our tools came out to triage the carb. Back together, the bike fired up but the top-end clatter was far too much for the now very seize-wary Germ. That night, as we convened around the campfire in our host Mike’s backyard, beer (as it so often does) led to a midnight revelation. Mike announced, “well I don’t think you guys are gonna want it, but there is that tiny old CL in the barn.” What?! We rushed across the back 40 and opened the barn to find a carbless, lightless, plateless, flat-tired CL200 – perfect! For the next 90 minutes Mike’s garage was a blur of test lights, 10mm wrenches and penetrating oil. By 1:30 am the bike coughed to life and fell into a near-perfect idle. Germ was ready to meet the nicest people! And that we did. The kindness of strangers and the richness of the American motorcycling community epitomized the 555 ride. In Vernal, Utah we were invited into a Harley mechanic’s home for breakfast and given free reign of his garage and tools. In Hugo, Colorado a former ice-racer turned liquor-store owner gave us sodas and provided comic relief with a tongue-in-cheek tech inspection of our rides. And in the South the hospitality lived up to legend, with pastures gladly offered up to sleep in and real deal corn liquor passed around generously. Even the boys in blue tolerated us: despite nine encounters we remained ticket free, although we sensed that the generosity was motivated mostly by a desire to avoid the reams of paperwork that our equipment violations surely would have generated.  The ride took on a comfortable rhythm of waking in a beautiful campsite, brewing coffee and spinning preventative wrenches, ambling to the next town down the line, repairing bikes in the shade, craving the next lake to dive in and cool down, scaring up a meal where we could, and rolling into the next campsite around nightfall. In many ways it was as if we were riding in another era, a time more like when the bikes were built. Not much mattered beyond how our machines were running, finding places to top off our tiny tanks, and tracking down cold beer. There were no chase trucks, no GPS units, no reservations at Shilo Inn. This was true grit motorcycling; the sort of purity that a “Screw It” ad campaign could only hope to conjure up.People we encountered could sense this. Some were confused by the idea of the ride, but most took a keen interest – especially other riders. By casting aside consumerism and complication we were managing to have more fun. If part of motorcycling is about being a step away from the rest of society, then we were a step further still. It was the ultimate in cheap thrills. After fifteen days and over 3000 miles, the crew finally rolled into Knoxville on the Fourth of July. A roadside historical marker we’d seen back in Wyoming quoted Mountain Man and author James P. Beckwourth’s description of the 1825 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. It summed up our state and the spirit of the ride: “There were some…who had not seen any groceries, such as coffee, sugar, etc. for several months. The whiskey went off as freely as water…. All kinds of sports were indulged in with a heartiness that would astonish more civilized societies.” To learn more about the 555 ride, the riders, and of course daily twitter updates sent from the road visit www.motonw.com. Courtney Olive, born a Hoosier and raised a Tarheel, now makes his home in Portland, Oregon. He recently married a very understanding lady and is constantly doing his part to “Keep Portland Weird” through membership in the Sang-Froid Riding Club, more at www.sang-froidridingclub.com. |