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| My art director, Bill Burke, arranged this portrait. Bill Burke photo |
This past weekend I went to the USCRA's Fall Giro, based in Tannersville, Pa. in the Poconos. I ran my '53 Moto Guzzi Airone Sport which, once again, seemed to be the oldest bike in the event. My friend Laurence Deguillme came with me an rode a Honda CA77 Dream.
We had a spot of bother getting there when my van died 11 miles short of the Delaware Water Gap in N.J. It seemed like the same symptoms as 5 days and 235 miles before when the van fuel pump failed on the way back from NJMP. We had the van towed to a service station in Bartonville, Pa., the town next to Tannersville and my brother and sister-in-law came and picked us up.
Sat. morning after the rider's meeting, I rode to the service station to meet the proprietor and explained the history of the van and get them started. I got back to HQ a little after my start time and started incurring penalty points. It was a beautiful day and combined quite brilliant fall colors with warm temperatures and a clear sky. What's not to like? We had a very good ride to the first check point where I called the service station and found that the fuel pump hadn't died this time, but a hose was kinked which presumable cause the pressure to rise and blow off another hose in the tank. They were replacing the kinked hose and putting the other hose back on and should have it done before they closed at 1p.
Lunch stop was back at the base hotel and, after checking in and running the agility test, I rode the 6.5 miles down to the service station, loaded the bike in the van and headed back to the hotel to start the afternoon section. However, I only got a couple of miles when the van died again. I called the service station back and luckily they hadn't left yet. The sent a flat bed and towed it back to the shop where the pulled the gas tank out again and found the hose had blown off again. This time they clamped the press fit hose on, but said they couldn't guarantee it.
All this meant the I didn't ride the afternoon section. Laurence had bike trouble almost immediately in the morning section and returned to the hotel He got it fixed enough that he was able to do the afternoon section so, between the two of us, we got the whole day's ride in.
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| Triumph Cub |
Sunday proved to be even warmer (in the 80's), but it seemed like it took longer to warm up. We had a very good route in the morning, although we took a wrong turn and added 14 miles to the 83 mile morning section. This mistake was on a really nice road, at least. I found the afternoon section a bit tedious as in was mostly on State Highways with a lot of traffic and little opportunity for passing. But, apparently this was because the route had to be changed at the last minute because of police activity in the manhunt for the accuse cop killer. The Airone didn't miss a beat over the event, though it did spew quite a lot of oil. Laurence's Ca77 however died again and he came in on the 'sag wagon'. We loaded up and headed home with our fingers crossed, but the hose clamp fix seemed to work and we made it back no problem.
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| Sunday morning pit stop with Bill Burke's NSU Max Special and my Moto Guzzi Airone Sport and Scott Rikert on the right. |
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| Another view of the pit stop with Gino's Cl175 Sloper and Scott's 250 Jawa California |
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| A Yetman CB77, a pretty rare item |
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| A Puch Twingle |
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| John Cooper's trick 250 Motobi with Ceriani road race forks and a 210mm Fontana 4LS front brake |
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| This was the overall winners mount. Each year he comes with a different tank badge. It's been Matchless and Ariel, and this year it was Puch. |
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| A 250 Benelli Barracuda |
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| A mid '60s Moto Morini 150 |
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| A beautiful 98cc Gilera |
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