SPRING RUN
The Year's First Event Promised A New But Dubious Approach To Motorcycling
GENE BIZALLION
THE OLD SPRING Run. To the non-motorcycling public, it was a mere rally. Something Sunday drivers were forced to put up with once a year. But, for connoisseurs of two-wheeled sport, it marked the beginning of activities for the year.
Weeks in advance of the run, speed merchants began tuning their mounts, which for the most part had been in storage all winter long. Some busied themselves dreaming up something radical for the occasion-like racing camshafts, higher compression, or a new exhaust system to emphasize the sharp bark of increased power.
There were plenty of jobs on the road then capable of cranking out better than a hundred miles an hour-and quick. In New Jersey, during the Twenties, we had a few long straights to allow a good unwind, so the emphasis was definitely on acceleration. For those with more money than imagination, Harley would put out, on order, an 80 cu. in. stroker, and Indian made the “B” motor Chief, identifiable by the polished aluminum crankcases in contrast to the stock cases, which were painted red.
For us basem*nt engineers Harley made it easy. For three or four years, up until 1924, the factory designed the crankcases for the 61 and 74 cu. in. engines with identical cylinder base mounts. The popular setup was to fit 61 pistons on a rebalanced 74 lower end and, using 61 barrels, come up with an engine of 68 cu. in. It might seem odd, but these engines could outrun a modified 74!
There was some detail work involved, though. The heads ot the Harley JD barrels were simply sloped down across the bore to the exhaust valve pockets. A better design was the Ricardo head which had been developed in the automobile industry. This head was flat across the bore and scooped out at the valves. To change over to the Ricardo design, we would pour plaster-of-paris in the 61 barrels and shape it to the Ricardo. When it had set we rapped it out and had copper castings made. A convenient engine mount bolt in the top of these cylinders could be altered to hold the copper casting in place. This raised the compression considerably and produced a better combustion area, but the higher compression called for a little different fuel than the low octane gasoline usually available. Fortunately, we had Mitchel gasoline on the market which contained about 20 percent benzol, a forerunner of ethyl gas, and it performed well up to 8:1 compression. I hat was high for those days.
The intentions were to have a happy gathering, a pleasant ride across the spring-bedecked countryside, an orderly array cruising through the tangy air to a day of organized games and planned recreation. Road captains for both solo and sidecar outfits were appointed, with selections slanted toward riders with the fastest machines. It was thought that men on the fastest bikes would be able to lead their groups, regardless. Hopeful instructions were issued that solos should ride no more than double file and sidehacks single tile, following their respective road captains; a beautiful and touching concept. There would be gatherings at club houses and at dealers ot an early morning where serious participants worked out their formations under the nerve-racking harrassment of exuberant, impromptu performers up and down the streets.
The day of my first run I was sitting in front ot the Indian dealer’s taking in the confusion of preparation, when down the street came this “show-ott’’ with the sidecar lilted high ott the ground. The stunt was old hat to most motorcyclists, but it followed that this rider had a special treat in store for the jaded audience-an accomplishment he claimed had been well rehearsed in private and calculated to sear the eyeballs ot all. With his machine canted over fantastically to hold the rig at a 40-degree angle, he grasped the right handlebar with his left hand and climbed from the saddle to sit triumphantly in the elevated sidehack. He was evidently counting on some definite reaction from a pre-selected segment of the feminine spectators. It appeared highly satisfactory, for one girl sitting in a Harley sidecar feasting on a box of candy rose to her feet in anticipatory alarm.
Then an unforeseen contingency thrust its ugly head into the magnificent demonstration. Unaware of the entertainment being furnished, someone abruptly backed his car into the path of our intrepid performer. With no means of braking, this poor soul could only lay back his head and yell at the top of his lungs. His frantic cry froze the car driver on the brakes, but not quite in time.
The sidecar wheel bounced off the car trunk and the outfit began a slow roll, with the thwarted hero scroonched down in the hack, braced for the worst. The combination slid to a screeching halt, audible for blocks, wheels spinning in air, and bedlam reigned supreme. People ran in assorted directions— screaming; the engine roared unrestrained, and the accumulation of dogs which had been watching with wary interest took off yiping for the hinterland. The gal, who had risen with gaping mouth and the lifeblood of a chocolate cherry dripping from her hand, promptly tainted into the sidecar while this unfeeling lug on a Reading Standard kept shouting, “Run, somebody, run! Quick-get th’ acrobat spirits of ammonia!” Volunteers finally righted the outfit, and he who had tried and failed was dragged ignominiously from under, saturated with gas and oil-moderately uninjured. One of the crowd, unschooled as he must have been in first aid, dipped a rag in gasoline and passed it under the nose of the unconscious gal, reviving her instantly without benefit ot “acrobatic spirits. Immediately this run, which I had viewed with lukewarm regard, promised an entirely new approach to motorcycling.
on my first run I was pulling a hack, because I had only been riding a few months, and not yet solo; my little 37-cu. in. Scout unwisely hooked to a sidecar. This very fact led Harvey Snyder, the Indian dealer, to ride as my passenger, for with a badly infected hand he was unable to drive, and quite cleverly he presumed the Scout outfit would never get> moving too fast. We didn’t, either; but for diverse reasons Harvey returned home by other transportation.
I thought we had been doing all right, although my lack of horsepower required a bit of dashing through traffic with sufficient but not liberal clearances. Harvey cradled his sore hand and uttered menacing predictions, until at one coffee stop a well-meaning soul volunteered that he knew a jim-dandy shortcut, free from Sunday drivers.
We mention Sunday drivers today, but the specie which inspired the term back in those days was a large proportion of the motoring public. The automobile, then, could be truly classed more as a recreation vehicle than a utility. They were largely driven for weekend pleasure; a fact made possible by circ*mstances hardly credible now—ample public transportation. Not mass transportation, which is efficiently handled by huge trucks hauling sheep and cattle, with destinations and schedules chosen by the hauler and not the haulee; but a system of buses, streetcars, interurbans and even passenger trains that would take one from near where he was to pretty close to where he wished to go, at just about the time he was due there.
On the two-lane highways of the time, the Sunday driver was a condition to be reckoned with. It simply meant that within a radius of a hundred miles or more of the metropolitan area, cars would be so spaced of a Sunday that passing need hardly be considered, unless one was mounted on a motorcycle. The solo rider could weave through the lines of traffic with the greatest of ease; the sidehack driver could also weave through traffic; however, not with the greatest of ease. It took a bit of doing, a feat which could, according to Biblical quotation, separate the quick from the dead.
True to his promise, the self-appointed leader took us from the crowded main highway to cruise placidly along well-graded dirt roads enjoying the untrammeled beauties of spring, when suddenly a development developed. At a railroad grade crossing, our guide swung blithely and unexpectedly onto the ties of the railroad, and all the others followed. Being blessed with more enthusiasm than judgment, and forgetting Harvey’s pet hand, I cut left onto the tracks with my machine between the rails and the sidecar wheel riding the ties on the outside, blissfully confident we had bypassed the Sunday drivers.
The quick move and bone jarring acceleration to 40 mph caught my passenger speechless, but as our speed smoothed the going into something near a rhythmic hum, there arose from the hack a voice as one crying in the wilderness, which voice I pretended was inaudible. Then, upon rounding a curve in the tracks, came a scene which wrung from Harvey the scream of a wounded panther. Ahead of us stretched a trestle about a quarter-mile long, 20 ft. above the Musconetcong river. I can see now the situation could have been alarming to Harvey, riding as he was practically hanging out over the river, knowing full well there was no turning back. Sometime later, when we were back on limited speaking terms again, he had words on the matter.
“Suppos’n,” he supposed, “suppos’n, you rattlebrain, when we was right in the middle of that dang trestle-suppos’n then a train had come around that curve ahead, smack dab at us?”
The thought had crossed my mind at the time, but the options were so extremely limited there had seemed no gainful purpose in idle speculation.
“The only thing I could figure,” I told him, “was that you being the Indian dealer, I’d trade the Scout in on a Chief right then and we would join the birds.”
By the looks of Harvey’s face I was afraid for a moment of apoplexy, but after a few minutes recitation which could only be described as sulphuric, he returned near enough to normal to vow by the beard of the prophet to never set foot in my sidehack again.
Afriend of mine—a non-motorcyclist—who was unfortunate or thoughtless enough to be taking a drive in his car along the highway toward Pennsylvania during the run, had some comments on our manner of travel.
“A bunch of you guys,” he said, “go by me like the devil was after you-which unhappily he wasn’t-then five miles farther on, there you all are, sprawled out on the grass or roosting on a stone wall like you never was going anywhere. Then five minutes or less later—wham-you go by again, a hundred miles an hour and like that all the way to Easton.”
Granted, at times our progress might be compared to the flight of the bumblebee, but now and again there were reasons. On one particular occasion we had due cause to stop for Dave Boston to rebuild a transmission. Some of us lounged on the grassy roadside, others sat on the edge of a small bridge idly watching the ripples below, but I strolled up the road a ways with an individual I shall call Bob.
Speaking of Bob, normally I harbored little envy of others, but this fellow was possesed of an ability so unique and endowed with such possibilities that I envied him shamelessly. You know what he could do? He could hold his eyes wide open and, without distorting his features, roll his eyeballs so far back nothing but pure white showed. It was the most satisfyingly hideous sight imaginable.
Anyliow, as I started to say, we walked up the road to where we came on a deep spot of sand at the outlet of a culvert. It could have been mental telepathy or merely the parallel workings of minds with nothing better to do, but simultaneously we started digging a trench to bury Bob up to the neck with his face toward the highway. Then I crawled up over the bank behind some tall weeds, and we waited for a client.
One appeared, directly, in the person of the driver of a Model “T” Ford touring car. This guy was cruising along, with a straw skimmer tilted on the back of his head, treating his family to a spring Sunday outing. I don’t believe the family saw what lay there in the sand, but our driver glanced over just in time to see the apparently detached head with those wide, white staring eyes turned to him. The reaction was all we could have desired. The customer leaped as though stung by a hornet, and his skimmer catapulted into the back seat. After a few convulsive gyrations he regained some control and stood not on the order of his departure, but pulled both ears down on old Henry to blare off down the highway as though that gruesome head was leering over his shoulder. We often wondered what report he ever made, and to whom. Sometimes it bothers me—a little.
You may be wondering if enough riders arrived at the scene of the rally to make the planning worthwhile. Well, there was a majority which traveled sedately and purposefully to indulge in the recreation. These arrived. And the minority of speed merchants attracted by the plank ride or balloon bust usually made it too. And it was worth it as there was always the ride home through the cool evening, with frequent coffee stops to rinse the flavor of fresh spring bugs from the mouth, to exhult over a victory in a speed duel, or bemoan the fact some old rattletrap-looking heap could cream a new factory eighty. There would be a time to regret drilling one hole too many in a connecting rod, or meditate on why a flywheel should part in four pie-shaped wedges, taking crankcases, pistons and barrels along with it. Oh, well, one could always lay plans for a more formidable or reliable creation for the next run. [Ö]
