Ride Texas Review

Texas is a big place. In fact, there is 261,797 square miles of it. Texas is second in size only to Alaska. It is also home to a lot of Texans and is second largest in population behind only California. As of 2004 Texas has 303,176 miles of public roads. Motorcyclists make up 2.5 percent of all licensed drivers in the state of Texas. This equates to nearly 4000,000 motorcyclists on Texas roadways. So, why not have our very own Texas and Southwest specific motorcycle riding magazine? Well we do, and it is a very informative one as well.

I had seen Ride Texas displayed in the better magazine racks for sale, but had never bought one or read one, until recently. A few months ago I was reading on a great forum called Two Wheeled Texans and ran across a thread simply titled, “Ride Texas Magazine”. The title piqued my curiosity and so I clicked the link and entered the thread.

The author of this thread was Pooh Bear, a local rider from San Antonio. He posted the question, “Does anyone recommend this for subscription?” along with a link to the Ride Texas magazine website. I quoted and commented to a reply made by weekend warrior, another Texan from Lubbock, and added that I’d like to peruse an issue also.

I was surprised when humanrace, who rides out of Bryan Texas, quoted me and offered to send me a couple copies of Ride Texas. I shot off an email accepting the hospitality of the offer and a short time later two magazines arrived in the mail. On top of that, one of them was the much coveted March 2009 Top 10 Best in Texas Readers Choice Awards issue.

Ride Texas is not a new magazine; in fact they have been in publication for over ten years since founded in 1999 as TEXMOTO. Their claim to fame is being the first and only motorcycle-interest publication in Texas at that time. Since its inception they have won numerous journalism awards, including those for photography, writing, graphic design and layout. They have also been featured in a lot of other media as well.

Pick up a copy of Ride Texas magazine, or RTM for short, and the first farkle that catches your eyes are the breath taking, glossily detailed, photos. From the front cover to the ads in the back there is a lot of candy for the eye to see. You can tell that this is a quality magazine by how well it is put together. From the organization of the content to the layout of the pages, everything is tastefully done.

The front covers of RTM tactfully catch the reader’s attention giving up tantalizing hints of the wealth of information to be found between its pages. I found all the content to be relative to motorcycling in and around The Lone Star State. In fact, some of the information unearthed inside these magazines would be relative to anyone traveling in Texas whether they were on two wheels or more.

The contents of each RTM is mapped out on the first couple pages, page two and page four. From there you can jump to which ever article grabs your front tire or, you can just read them front to back. The editor, Valerie Asensio, usually starts the articles out with one of her own in the section entitled ONWARD. Valerie gives a warm invitation in the classic letter from the editor style for the readers/riders to not only enjoy the articles but to participate by riding to the destinations outlined in RTM.

Along with Onward there are several other sections that are in every edition of RTM. BEING THERE by Gene McCalmont was one of my favorites. Gene writes of his many life and motorcycle related experiences. I really like Genes writing style. He writes honestly and truthfully despite how humorous or embarrassing it may be. Gene also authors the section called AFTER THE RIDE subtitled Good life guide, where he espouses about the finer things in life to enjoy when the riding is done.

The (Almost) TRUE STORIES section is really quite funny. RTM also has the standard LETTERS section where they print subscribers letters and comments. The RTM INSIDE section has all the News and updates. On top of all the core magazine content they have the FEATURES section.

The FEATURES part of the magazine is where different writers will document there travels to different destinations in and around the great state of Texas. They document the travel rout as well as the sites to see along the way. Sometimes they will detail the planning of the ride, traveling tips, and give various contacts or resources used. At the destinations they not only describe places to see and stuff to do but also give you lodging choices. Another great feature is the list of great places to grab a bite to eat. It is also interesting to read about the different people they meet along the way like the owners or workers at the many places they stop in.

A lot of the rides are planned around the almost endless events in and around the great state of Texas. Rallies, parks, scenery, nature, concerts, festivals, fairs, sporting events, shows, rodeos, exhibits, and cook offs, are all destinations that that wind up inside the covers of RTM. Lastly, or maybe more importantly, RTM has included easy TEAR & GO maps of each trip that you can remove and take along on your own ride with you.

If you live in, travel in, or ride in Texas I definitely think it is worth it to subscribe to Ride Texas. The articles are all relevant and well written. The magazine is very well rounded and is also filled with local advertising. In the Top 10 BEST IN TEXAS Readers Choice Awards issue I was elated to see that the V-Star 1100 made it onto the Top 10 Best Bikes list at number six, I’m just slightly biased because I ride one. My only complaint is that RTM is only published bimonthly, but hey, they make it worth the wait.

Ride on,
Torch

CS1 Norton

Another nice picture from the web. "Uncle Ned" on his CS1 Norton. This is the engine that preceeded the better known OHC engine that was designed by Carrol and Craig. The timing cover resembles a cricket bat, hence the name. The cricket bat name has been used since the 1970s only and many people therefore prefer to identify the engine by the name of the designer, Moore. It was a very good design from the start, winning TT races untill Moore redesigned the cylinder heads, which apparently caused overheating and did little for the performance .

This Norton must be of 1929/1930 vintage; it looks very sporty, with the open exhaust, no lights and the chrome plated tanks and mudguards. It already has the "triple-stay" frame. Motorcycle evolution went very fast at the end of the 1920s; no more than a year went by between the 16H flat tank Nortons from the previous blogs and this racer leaving the Norton factory.

Aunt Molly, the family dog and a 16H

Just a picture I took from the net; a very nice and original 16H Norton. It looks like a 1927/1928 model as it has the larger front break and the more substantial Druid-type front forks. Nice dress, by the way!

And a few weeks later I was contacted by bill who told me the following:

Date: Thur, 30 Apr 2009

Hi John,

The woman in the photo is my aunt. She is Molly O'Shea who later married Jim Buffini. They emigrated to Australia not long after the war. The whereabouts of the 16H is unknown. The photo was taken at Killegar farm. Located about 10 miles outside Dublin. The farm still exists.

Bill

The only detail still missing: what's the name of the dog?!

Norton in Japan

One of the best virtues of The Web is that you make friends from all over the world. Daisuke, living in Japan, contacted me a few days ago with questions regarding an oil pump (see the previous blog entry). It turns out that Daisuke is heavily involved in old motorbikes, owning a WLC/WLA Harley, an early Bonneville and best of all, a flat-tank Norton. It's a 1928 16H model in quite original condition by the look of it.

For the rest, there seems to be very little difference between grown up man around the world playing with old motorbikes. His workshop looks as nice as can be and when given the chance we all would own a WWII fighter plane like the Zero behind Daisuke. Only yesterday I considered how nice it would be to buy a Spitfire!

Oilpumps

Norton fitted several types of automatic oilpumps to their engines with total-loss lubrication. Best and Lloyd pumps of the type "Mark II" (top) and "Mark IV" (bottom, with the sight window) were used; the latter was introduced in 1928 and fitted to many 1928-1929 Nortons. These pumps were made of a zinc-like metal called Mazac, also known as monkey-metal. It's fine when left alone, but overtighten a nut or screw and it breaks, and even worse, it's very difficult to repair. The "Mark V" (not shown) was introduced in 1930 and also had a sight window but was much smaller and made from aluminium. Norton never fitted Pilgrim pumps. By 1931, all these bolt-on gearpumps were displaced by the internal Norton gearpump and dry-sump lubrication.

Should you find yourself with a broken pump, there is a modern fix. You can send your broken pump to A2C2M in France (thanks, Daisuke!); they will fit your old pump's internals in a brand new body made from modern alloy stuff. It will set you back approximately 330 euro including postage.

Have a Spring Fling

Have a spring fling, spring time maintenance that is. Get your spring time maintenance done in time for summer riding. My Mistress was rapidly coming up on her 30,000 mile birthday. I purchased her used and was not sure when the oil had last been changed. I did know she had V-Twin Mobile One 20W-50 pulsing through her veins. I also new her front and rear brakes were about gone. Lastly, I wanted to change the final gear oil.

Spring time temperatures in Texas are like a runaway roller coaster. I have probably zipped out the quilted liner of my FMC leather jacket over a half dozen times, only to have to zip it back in a few days later. This last Saturday, yesterday as I’m writing this, I had to work a half day and it was going to be warm in the afternoon so I zipped it out once again. Now they are talking about a possible freeze next week. Any way, my plan was to ride over to Bikers Bay after work and pick up the supplies I needed for the motorcycle maintenance that needed to be done. Some was overdue to be done like the brakes and some was just coming due by mileage.

Friday night I had surfed over to the V-Star 1100 Riders Knowledge Base and printed out a list of supplies. They have a nice list of compatible oil filters and I have a Jardine ORK, (Oil Relocation Kit). I also printed out the specs on the rear differential fluid. I had already called Bikers Bay a couple of weeks previously to make sure they had the brake pads in stock and they did had the EBC brand for my bike in stock.

I left work around 1:00 pm and headed to Bikers Bay. I did not wear my Street & Steel chaps that morning because it was supposed to warm up and I had no room in my saddlebags to store them because I had some old uniform pants and shirts to take back to the store I worked at previously, I had recently been promoted and transferred. It was borderline too hot out for a leather jacket but tolerable once you got moving down the road.

Bikers Bay had three bikes parked out front in their bike only parking section and I slipped into a spot next to a vintage looking sportster type bike, stashed my helmet and put on a black, blue, and silver colored Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 baseball cap to cover up my helmet hair and went inside. I grabbed four quarts of AMSOIL 20W-50, one quart of AMSOIL Severe Gear 75w-110 gear lubricant and went to the checkout counter. I’ll not get involved in the great oil debate here.

At the checkout counter I asked for an oil filter and front and rear brake pads. The salesperson asked if my V-Star was dual front brakes to which I replied yes. He brought everything over and I did not recognize the oil filter brand and it did not appear to be the correct size. I informed him I had a Jardine ORK and got my oil filter chart out. I asked what brands they stocked and one was HIFLOFILTRO. The HIFLO HF303 was on my list, so I chose it and proceeded to the painful part of checking out. I had to extend the buckles on my Custom Classics Saddlebags to the longer length to get everything inside. That completed I headed to the store I used to work at to drop off some old uniforms. It’s not a long ride, maybe five miles or so. Taking off from the last stop sign before I get to my destination I start hearing a tapping type sound from my bike. I let go of the throttle and listened intently worried that it might be an engine noise. The sound continues and slows down with the bike so I revved the V-Twin 1100 a couple of times just to make sure it’s not the motor. I sped up a bit and it seemed to increase with the speed of the bike and it was coming from the front. I then started to think that I had procrastinated to long on these brake pads.

I made it to the store and unloaded my cargo from my passenger side saddle bag and stowed my leather jacket in its place. Then I visually inspected both front rotors and both sets of pads. They looked extremely low. I let it cool off while I went and visited my old coworkers. After a short visit I timidly took off and headed on the short ride home. I rode her home like an old lady, slow and cautiously, well as slow as you can go on the freeway. Fortunately, I live just a few exits down. I made it home fine with no troubles, parked the bike in the garage to cool off and went inside to nap.

Attempted nap over, hard to do sitting up on the living room couch with a grandson toddler over, I headed to the garage. I backed the V-Star into the driveway leaving the front forks unlocked. I located the correct Allen Wrench and removed the two bolts holding the right front brake caliper in place. I removed the old pads noting that there was hardly any brake pad left. I could not have waited any longer.

Next I removed the front brake master cylinder cover and used a straw to slowly remove brake fluid to lower the level of the fluid. This would make room for the fluid that would come back up into the reservoir as I pushed the caliper pistons back inside the calipers. Note that I did not suck on the straw, I just put the straw into the fluid and used my thumb to cover the top of the straw and then removed my thumb when I put the straw into the empty beer can I was using to catch the old brake fluid. I just invented a new reason to drink beer.

Next, I put one of the old brake pads back on the caliper on top of the dual pistons and used a C-Clamp to evenly push the pistons back into the caliper, carefully using a piece of cardboard to protect the front side of the caliper. I installed the new pads into the caliper and installed the caliper back in place. The caliper bolts still had a nice thick layer of clean grease on them so they did not need any more lubrication. I repeated this procedure for the left side and noticed a shiny spot at the top of the inner pad where the metal backing plate had just started to rub against the rotor and was probably what was causing the rotational clicking type sound I had heard on my ride earlier. Lastly, I topped off the brake fluid reservoir and reinstalled the cover. After a couple pulls on the front brake lever I could feel the front pads seat and the lever now grabbed a lot further out.

Fronts completed, I went to the back and removed the two bolts holding the rear caliper in place. I had to work the rear caliper a bit to get it off the rotor and out a little where I could work on it. Removing the pads is a little bit trickier on the rear caliper because there are pins that hold the pads in place inside the caliper. First I spread the piston in by forcing a large screwdriver between the pads and applied slight prying pressure. The next step was to remove the rear plastic caliper cover by pressing down on one side and pulling up while I rocked it back and forth until it slid off.

Once the plastic cover is off the top or back of the caliper you now have access to remove the cotter pins or clip as the Repair Pro Manual calls them. These clips hold the brake pad pins, pads, and pad spring in place. Once the clips are off the pins slide out and the pads and spring come right off. The rear brake pads were worn down as bad as the fronts. I pushed both the pistons back into the caliper and reinstalled everything in reverse order. The rear brake fluid reservoir was about half down so I did not have to remove any fluid. After the new brake pads were installed it took a little finagling to get the caliper back on because of the brake pads clearance to the rotor, but it finally went. After everything was completed I reached over and depressed the rear brake pedal a couple of times and like the front felt the pads seat and the pedal grab higher up now. Now it was time to change the final gear oil. I located a 17mm socket and a drain pan. I could not get the ratchet with socket to fit in behind the Kuryakyn Chrome Phantom Rear End Cover to get to the fill bolt out and I could not locate a 17mm wrench so I had to remove the cover first. With the cover removed I then removed the fill bolt and then the drain bolt from the bottom of the final drive gear housing. I cleaned the drain bolt thoroughly and let the old gear lube drain all the way before reinstalling. Then I filled the final gear housing using a small funnel with the AMSOIL Severe Gear 75w-110 I had purchased at Bikers Bay. When full I reinstalled the fill bolt and the Kuryakyn cover.

I wanted to change the engine oil next. I removed the 17mm engine oil drain plug after re positioning my drain pan and standing the bike more upright using a brick under the kickstand. While that drained, I hand twisted the chrome Jardine Oil Relocation Kits chrome oil filter cover with oil filter inside off the remotely mounted position on the front of the bikes from down tubes. I located a small Allen Wrench that fit the three Allen head set screws that secure the oil filter inside and loosened them to remove the old engine oil filter. To my amazement, it was the exact same filter, HIFLO HF303 that I had purchased to replace it with. I cleaned out the chrome filter cover and installed the new filter inside carefully tightening the three Allen set screws evenly. Then I reinstalled the chrome housing and filter on the remote mounting fixture. I reinstalled the drain plug and filled the crankcase with three quarts of the AMSOIL 20W-50.

While I was there, I tightened the ORKs fittings because they had appeared to have been leaking slightly. I found it interesting that I was working on a metric bike and the Jardine ORK used American sized fittings which required another trip back to the tool box. After that I started the engine and let it warm up. Then I checked the oil level sight glass and then topped the engine oil level off with about another half of a quart. As soon as that was done, I got summoned in for diner.

Dinner over, I went out to put away all the tools and then take my Mistress out for a road test. She was purring like a kitten and stopped easily and with less effort on the brake lever and pedal. There was no more strange sound when moving. I think someone with medium mechanical ability can perform all these services by himself and save money on paying someone else to do it for you. Do not procrastinate when it comes to repairs or maintenance, there is too much at stake. Next weekend I hope to pamper her with a good bubble bath.

Ride on,
Torch

A Triumph TT Model twinport Victor Horsman 498 cc 1927,

Guestwriter:
Hans van Gorsel

The Triumph TT Model twinport Victor Horsman 498 cc 1927

History:

After WWI, Triumph's prosperity was founded on the bread-and-butter Model P sidevalve and its many derivatives, but the firm had not abandoned the sports roadster market entirely and introduced the four-valve Ricardo model in 1921. The first production models arrived in 1922, and although Rudge went on to make a success of their four-valve designs, Triumph's did not last into the 1930s, being dropped at the end of 1927 in favour of a new two-valve design. Developed and raced at Brooklands by Victor Horsman, Triumph' new 498cc two-valve engine debuted in the Type TT in 1927, replacing the four-valve Ricardo as the Coventry firm's top-of-the-range sports roadster. A privately entered example ridden by Triumph agent Tommy Simister finished third in the Isle of Man Senior TT in 1927, and this stylish twin-port model remained a fixture of the Triumph range until 1931. This Triumph TT Model had been off the road (apparently because of a defective gearbox bearing) for some 40 years before being acquired by the vendor and totally restored in 1976. Following its sympathetic rebuild, this machine has been campaigned at a number of Scottish rallies, proving popular with judges and spectators alike. Reported as possesssing a surprising performance for its age, the machine was offered with restoration invoices and Swansea V5 registration document.

(Bron: Artfact)

In aanloop naar een nieuw seizoen hierbij een korte impressie

van de stand van zaken aan de jullie welbekende Veldlaan te Groenekan.

De Horsman deed vorig al een poging Lex, die zelf ook in bezit is van een chemisch fabriekje

van de firma HD uit de vooroorlogse periode, te vergiftigen in een heftige spurt !
Het was wel veel snelheid maar ook veel rook en dat beloofde niet veel goeds.

Aangezien de bak sowieso een ramp was
werd besloten het geheel toch maar een serieus aan te pakken.

De bak ligt nu in “good old England “bij een paar jongens die zich “Veteran Triumph Co. “noemen en er worden o.a. nieuwe “dogs “aan de tandwielen gelast. Iam die de klus doet vond
Het knap dat met die bak überhaupt gereden was, het was ook niet eenvoudig zoals de Kent gangers zich wel herinneren. Het blok ging ook uit elkaar, de zuiger zag er echt beroerd uit
En er was een zuigerveer gebroken, vandaar dat gerook en die “stank”.

Het geheel ligt nu bij Mannessen en er wordt naargeestig naar een zuiger gezocht,

als er niks gevonden wordt kunnen er altijd nog 4 gemaakt worden voor 1000 Euro !

Big end is gelukkig goed dus met een beetje mazzel komt Horsman mei/juni weer op de weg.

Een horsman zonder bak en blok

is wel makkelijk te verplaatsen

maar verder ook geen gezicht.

Triumph 5S (single) 500 cc 1939

Om de tijd te doden heb ik mij maar weer eens op de 1939 5 S gestort ( 500 ZK ) , toch ook wel een leuk ding, en wil hier in principe mee naar Cadzand.

Groet en tot rij's !

Guestwriter Hans van Gorsel

Motoring George Spauwen

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