Oak Hill Classic

Last Sunday was the inaugural Oak Hill Classic vintage road rally in Durham, N.Y.  The weather was challenging, esp. for a inaugural event, with rain and cool temperatures.  Despite this, ten interesting bikes and riders showed up.  The oldest bike was a '63 R-27 BMW ridden by Gabrielle Isenbrand.

 The next oldest was my brother Doug's 64 400 Norton Electra.

Doug achieved excellent oil containment for a British bike with the help of a catch bottle.

The smallest bike was Cater Willey's 125 CZ which his friend Jan, who's from the Czech Republic, rode.  Carter rode his 150 MZ, which had to be the bike with the least mileage: 54 Km.s on the clock.

The 150 MZ with 54 Km. and the 125 CZ behind it.

My sister-in-law, Amy, rode her CL 350 Honda, for which Doug had found a new license plate.

And, Rob Sigond rode the CL 350's predecessor on the ride: a CL77 Honda.

I rode my '68 Suzuki TC200, which may have been the second lowest mileage bike on the ride: 626mi.

But perhaps the most interesting bike was Jake Herzog's 'Grossa': an Ossa Pioneer motor in a Greeves chassis.  This was Jake's first real ride on the bike and he said it worked very well, though he thought it could stand to be geared up and the 12V headlight bulb blew.

Greeves chassis, Ossa motor and Honda fuel tank

note the horn

I didn't get a photo of Jack Cole CA 160 Honda Dream or George Ellis' Honda CB500, the biggest bike on the ride.  George was the one who laid out the route with Rick Synder assisting.  Mike Shia brought a Guzzi Eldorado, but didn't ride.

Trailer Queen

It was an excellent route of mostly county roads with very little traffic and a total of almost 89 miles.  There was drizzle for most of the ride, but some hard rain in the middle.  When we got back to the Oak Hill Volunteer Fire Dept., we were serve an excellent lunch.

George was hoping for more older bikes.  Let hope we get better weather next year and the event gets off the ground.