Stage 1: Sault Ste Marie, MI to Traverse City, MI. 184 miles
The first official stage of the event today can definitely be classified as the quintessential Motorcycle Cannonball experience. When arriving at the start line this morning, our ‘28 was backfiring and popping in a manner highly unusual for the normal operation. Regardless, Nikki Hancock and I set off for southern trails with my good friend Shane Masters and his 1925 Indian Big Chief; No doubt about it, we rode hard all day.
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Beautiful scenery along the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, as well as many farms and homesteads. Throughout the day the backfiring and popping we were hearing became worse and I incorrectly attributed it to the carburetor mixture being too lean, which spurred me to richen it up on the fly..
At mile 167, the front cylinder of our engine finally let the cat out of the bag and clued us in on a large crack along the front side. Being a one piece cylinder and head with no head gasket, there aren’t many options for repair. Knowing we were only a few short miles from the finish, the three of us decided to nurse it to the finish line. Four miles from the day’s finish line, the front cylinder became more of a problem and Shane and I decided to go ahead and pull the front spark plug wire off to prevent burning a hole in the piston.
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Upon arrival, it turned out that Shane, Nikki and I were the first bikes to arrive
(more than two and a half hours early) to the finish line, but as the afternoon was a public viewing of the race we couldn’t move the motorcycles until almost 6 pm (some four hours later). In order to save time, Shane, Nikki and I went ahead and started disassembling the bike in the parking lot to the point where the motor could be pulled out.
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Thanks to the official sweep truck, our 28 was delivered to our host hotel where Art Frank, Ben Brown and I had the motor out in 15 minutes. The night then took a turn for legendary when #124 Randy Samz loaned us a replacement ‘28 front cylinder and a new piston that matched. With a quick parking lot valve job, cylinder hone and the combined efforts of Art, Ben, Shane, Nikki, Mike Bruso, Jacob Martin, Juergen Ullrich, Vinnie Grasser, Panhead Pat, and so many others, we put the engine back together and dropped it back in the frame. With a group effort to jam it all back together and throw in a replacement clutch, “QuaranTina” fired back up shortly before 2am.
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Tomorrow (actually just under 6 hours from this post), we tackle Stage 2 from Traverse City to Battle Creek, MI. Long live the Cannonball—it’s better than any dramatized television show out there.
