An excellent weekend in East Texas at the North Texas Norton Owners Association's annual Lake o' the Pines vintage rally. Camping well away from civilization, it's amazing the number of stars visible when away from light pollution. A beautiful weekend.
In the Saturday show class, German motorcycles from 1970 to 1984 comprised the largest judging class with nearly twenty bikes entered. Lots of nice comment about my R65 but even if $10K were invested in resto, the earlier Airheads would still rock the house.
This year, my 1981 R65 was eligible to participate in Sunday's Concours Loop ride for motorcycles 30+ years old. $500 bucks was split between the top three judged bikes.
Did ol' Blackie win? Not a chance. Did I have a ball riding with Vincents, old Brit bikes, including a rare Panther, and a beautifully restored Indian, you bet.
Three Meriden Triumphs, ridden by "
sporty lads", blasted off in front of me. As my R65s are daily riders, I know the performance of these Airhead bikes and it didn't take long to catch them up in the Piney Woods twisties.
Had them in the crosshairs when a Turnip street tracker lost his ignition and all three pulled off. One passenger for the sag wagon. A Vincent also had his ignition go Tango Uniform. Lord Lucas lives.
For the Concours ride, I wore a distressed vintage A2 leather flight jacket, an authentic USAAF leather flight helmet and faux Brit split lens goggles. A legit white silk scarf trailed in the breeze. Riders that completed the loop received a participant's medallion. Thinking of attaching it to the bike.
Lottsa fun. Attempted to buy a Hodaka Combat Wombat from a new friend who allowed me to wear down the knobby tires on the beautifully restored machine.
