Visit with a fellow old motorcycle aficionado

[Mark44]

I post regularly on several web sites devoted to old motorcycles. A guy who posts on one of these sites was living in Salt Lake City, where my wife and I go to visit her daughter. I tried to get together with the fellow (Fabe) in SLC, but we weren't able to make it happen during one of the visits.
Recently I learned that Fabe had relocated to a town not too far from where I live, so after some back and forth, we settled on an agreeable day to get together.

I think Fabe has at least five motorcycles, among them a '41 Harley FL ("Knucklehead"), a '42 Harley WLA, a '50 Indian, and a '64 Harley FL ("Panhead").

Here are some pictures of Fabe and myself and a couple of the bikes. Here's Fabe on his 1950 Indian Chief.

Fabe's 1941 Harley-Davidson FL. The tanks are off because we were trying to determine why the front cylinder was leaking copious amounts of oil.

Here I am on his Indian. The '64 HD is behind me to the left.

 

[gmax137]

Nice to see older bikes that are actually ridden. So many are either trailer queens or dissected down to basket cases. I'm guilty of that, my old bikes are in drawers and shelves, waiting for me to retire.

 

[jedishrfu]

Knowing you like motorcycles, have you seen the movie The World's Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munro:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Fastest_Indian

 

[Mark44]

Knowing you like motorcycles, have you seen the movie The World's Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munro:

Yes, I've seen it. It's pretty amazing what he was able to do just in a small garage, with no financial backing.

I've posted these pictures before, but for those who haven't seen them, here are my two oldest bikes, both of which are running condition.
My '48 Harley FL ("Panhead"). The gearshift is on the side of the left tank. The clutch pedal is down near the footboard. Kickstart-only and manual timing advance/retard.

My '46 HD WL ("Flathead")
Super-low tech, probably makes only about 25 HP. Three-speed transmission with hand-shift and foot clutch like the one above.

Besides these two, I have two others that are more modern, with electric start, and hydraulic shocks at both ends, plus hydraulic disk brakes.

 

[gmax137]

Nice bikes, @Mark44. Many years ago I had a WL like that (with the aluminum heads too). Mine was more raggedy and I never rode it much. I wish I still had that one.

Here's a good Burt Munro story I read somewhere: He was driving one of his used beater cars from LA to the salt flats when one of the big end bearings gave up. He maneuvered the car to straddle the ditch along the roadside so he could crawl beneath, removed the oil pan, and replaced the bad bearing shells by wrapping a piece of leather around the crank pin. Here's the best part: he got the leather by cutting the tongue off one of his shoes.

I also like the one about writing the name of his hometown 'Invercargill'; he would leave off the final 'l' making it 'Invercargil' in order "to save ink."

 

[cosmik debris]

I raced at a speed event with Burt around 1972. It was held on a closed off public road in Canterbury where I live. I was on a Kawasaki 750 H2 and Burt was riding his Velocette 350. His ankle was very sore (arthritis I think) so he changed gear by leaning over and changing with his hand, this made the bike veer across the road and he hit the shingle on both sides of the road, undaunted he kept the throttle open and if I remember correctly did about 145mph.

I had already done a run and was waiting at the other end of the closed off road with a traffic cop who had placed his car across the road along with a barrier to mark the end of the course. We heard Burt coming down the road and it became obvious to us that he wasn't going to stop, his only brakes were leather strips around the hub of the rear wheel only. As one body the cop jumped in the car while the rest of us picked up the barriers and carried them off the road as Burt thundered through still doing quite a rate of knots. He admitted that he couldn't actually see very well and had not seen the barriers.

He blew the engine on the next run, his 88th blow up on that engine. He was a fantastic character and absolutely fearless.

Cheers

 

[dLouie]

Those are awesome vintage bikes! That '50 Indian Chief reminds me of uncle's bike he restored a couple of years ago. We'll be having a family reunion and I'll help him install the parts from 4WheelOnline for his truck and check out the Indian Chief he let sit for years.