The rarest of rare vintage motorcycles, these decades-old machines are challenging to start and difficult to ride. Yet they are becoming more expensive to purchase despite — and some say because of — the down economy.

For years, ultra-obscure bikes such as a 1936 Crocker Twin or a 1907 Curtiss V-8 were collected by a small handful of moneyed gearheads. They had such deep appreciation for the unique designs and temperaments of these machines that they'd willingly use their shins as heat guards, repurpose their feet as brake shoes and consider it a deal to pay tens of thousands of dollars to experience such evolutionary technology.

Now, they're paying six figures. And the price increases are happening even as the market for new motorcycles is tanking.

More collectors are getting into the market and driving up prices for rare motorcycles, many of which have doubled or tripled in value in as many years. They're fueled by a sputtering stock market that has investors putting their money into hard goods, a weak dollar that's drawing European buyers and vintage car collectors who see historic bikes as a significantly less expensive fulfillment of their multimillion-dollar desires for ancient pistons and camshafts.

“Good machines have been performing well over the last few years, and prices are still on the ascent,” said Mark Osborne, head of the motorcycle and motorcars division at Bonhams & Butterfields. The English auction house is offering about 70 vintage motorcycles at this weekend's Quail Motorcycle Gathering in Carmel, Calif. The event will offer an additional 115 bikes for show on the lawns of the Quail Lodge.

Osborne noted that the most expensive bike ever auctioned through Bonhams — a $383,400 supercharged Vincent Black Shadow — was sold in October, just as the worldwide economy was diving.

“We put it down to the fact that people like to buy something that they can touch, smell and enjoy,” he said. “They can get out and use these things. It's not like paper held in a bank that's sort of disappearing on a daily basis.”

This weekend's show is the two-wheeler version of a car show called The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, which takes place in August. It's the first of two esteemed car-centric events that are branching into bikes for the first time in their long and rarefied histories. In August, the Pebble Beach Concours will also include motorcycles for the first time in the event's 59 years.

“I've been with the Concours almost 25 years, and I don't think there's been a year that's gone by that somebody hasn't requested a motorcycle class,” said Sandra Kasky Button, chairwoman of the Pebble Beach event. “We've always resisted the pressure and stayed focused on cars. It really is time.”

The market for new motorcycles is down 30% so far this year, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council. And sales of high-production vintage bikes such as Harley-Davidson Panheads from the '50s, '60s-era Triumph Bonnevilles and '70s Honda CB750s have softened along with the economy.

But the market for motorcycle manufacturers of the long-ago, lesser-known and mostly defunct variety has seen dramatic increases. Prices for Crocker, a Los Angeles-based marque from the '30s that's known to have produced a mere 39 bikes, have quadrupled in the last five years. Others that are bringing top dollar include the British manufacturer Vincent, original-condition bikes from pre-World War II American manufacturers and anything with a racing pedigree.

The 1957 Manx Norton ridden to victory by Brit Derek Minter is expected to fetch as much as $100,000 this weekend. The Vincent “Gunga Din” crashed in defeat by racer George Brown in 1948 could bring more than $200,000 at Pebble Beach.

“The factory race bikes, these seem to be the bikes that get people's attention and seem to draw the most amount of money right now,” said Jeff Ray, executive director of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Ala.

The museum, which owns 1,100 motorcycles, is on the hunt for more but is waiting for the market to settle.

“There's a saying in collecting motorcycles: 'You never pay too much, you just buy too soon.' If a 1915 Harley-Davidson twin was offered 10 years ago at $150,000, people would have thrown rocks at the guy and told him he'd lost his mind. Well, one just sold for $165,000 in January,” Ray said. “We're putting our hands in our pockets and standing on the sidelines and watching.”

Don Whalen, a collector in Monrovia, is taking a similar stance.

“My partner and I used to buy 10 to 12 bikes a year,” said Whalen, 63, who for the last 40 years has been collecting primarily pre-1920 motorcycles from the dozens of American manufacturers that existed at that time. “Now we buy two or three or one, if it's an important one.”

Of the 160 bikes in Whalen's collection, about 30 came from Otis Chandler, the former Los Angeles Times publisher who was an avid motorcyclist and collector of exceedingly rare, high-end motorcycles. After his death in 2006, the auction of his dozens-strong collection provided momentum to a market that was already gaining speed.

The current craze has its seeds in the Guggenheim's Art of the Motorcycle show that toured the world in the late '90s. Showcasing hundreds of bikes from motorcycling's history, the exhibit broadened the public's view of a sport that, at the time, was dominated by Harley-Davidson cruisers and Japanese sport bikes.

The Art of the Motorcycle was also the inspiration for Legend of the Motorcycle, an annual showcase and auction of premium vintage bikes that started in 2006. The event further raised the profile of exotic, two-wheeled machines that founder Jared Zaugg said have been “giving men instant sex appeal since 1869.”

My name is SSgt KC Sanger. I just wanted to write and say thanks for a great website. The little time I get on a computer over here in Iraq is spent checking out your site. I have been going to this site every week for the last 3 years. When I get back to LeJeune next year I am looking forward to getting a membership to the cantina and catching up on the news. Anyway, I thought I might share the story of my trip this past year to Sturgis.

I am originally from a small town in SD called Redfield, which is about five hours from Sturgis. In May, a couple of my buddies and I decided to make the ride to Sturgis since we were going to be in the middle east for a year and wouldn't be able to ride. As the day to leave approached, they started making excuses, and one by one my group dwindled.

Finally the day arrived, and I called the only riding partner I had left and he said that he couldn't make it. Not wanting to miss the trip and having made plans to meet my brother, who was hauling his bike up from Cali, I rushed home from work and strapped the small bag packed with tools, oil and one change of clothes, to my short back fender. I strapped on my pistol and leather jacket, taped my directions to my tank and rolled out of Jacksonville,NC on my own.

About 40 miles out, as I pulled onto I40, the sunshine turned to rain. It was a very wet ride all the way into W Virginia. It finally stopped raining about 10:00, and I pulled into a truckstop to catch a couple hrs of sleep on a bench. I woke up the next morning to a light mist and rode a couple miles down the road to a waffle house for a cup of strong coffee and a quick bite to eat.

As I pulled back onto the road, the rain started falling again and continued until I rolled into KY. As soon as I crossed the state line I pulled my soggy ass over for gas and asked about the helmet laws. FINALLY!!!! The rest of the trip with no brain bucket. I got about another three hours in the saddle before the rain started again. As I pulled back onto the road after a gas stop, I rolled up to speed and looked down at my directions and the wind caught my glasses, promptly removing them from my head. I didn’t pack another pair. I pulled off onto the side of the road and walked back looking for pieces. I found most of what was left, about a mile back, picked up the pieces and rode to an overpass to escape the fresh patch of rain and taped them back together. About time that I slogged into upper corner of Iowa the rain stopped and out came the sun. A hundred-and-five friggen degrees!! I was about an hour from Sioux Falls, so I stopped for some gas and water and jumped back on the road. I stopped at the local Harley shop in SF to meet my brother and pick up a new pair of glasses, and I gotta tell ya, it turned out to be the worst eighty bucks I've ever spent. Those glasses were worthless!

We pulled onto the road once again for the five hour ride to Redfield to visit with my old man. Once we got there we took a couple days to rest our bodies, well, my body anyway, and catch up since that was my first time home in three years. During that time I went on a couple rides with my dad so he could get used to the bike he had borrowed from a buddie. He made the final run to the badlands with my brother and I.

From there the rest of the way to Sturgis was terrific. We only got to spend two days in town due to my brother’s Miramar schedule for pre-deployment training.Just an hour outside of Sturgis on our way back, the lack of rain and high heat started a good number of fires, one of which was flailing across the road we were traveling. We went back a mile to a 3 or 4-mile gravel road to reach the next hiway. That “short” bit of gravel turned into 32 miles of VERY loose gravel. After that, the rest of the way into Redfield went well.

The rest of the trip back to NC went down like cold beer on a warm day. I would not have missed it for anything. I met lots of great people and made some lifelong friends as well as getting to ride with my old man and brother. I am going to miss out this year due to being deployed, but won’t miss out again.

All in all, I clocked about five thousand miles on throughout the whole trip and had a great time. I'm looking forward to getting back and joining the Cantina and getting myself a Bandit’s Bedroll.

–KC

Editor's Note:Jared is the youngest employee on the US Avon Tyre staff. Enjoy his youthful inspiration. –Bandit

I remember a particular enlightening time in my life. It contained quite possibly my single greatest act of stupidity, and ended up teaching me more than I will probably ever be able to really put into words.  I was riding too fast on icy roads and lost control of my motorcycle, then highsided into a telephone pole.  I blacked out at first, when the bike skidded, but I remember waking up as I hit the ground on my back, unable to breath or move.  A lot of things happened after that.

I ended up in the hospital with a titanium rod in my left leg where just a femur had been the day before, and an incision running the entire length of my torso that looked poorly stapled back together.  The doctor had cut me open to put all my organs back to where they should have been, sew my lacerated liver back together, and cleaned up all the internal bleeding that had occurred in the meantime.

I almost died, and the creepy thing is that I didn’t even know it until after the fact.  I turned and looked at my girl friend when I woke up.  She didn’t know whether to cry or smile, and neither did I.  I smiled.  She cried. I will never forget waking up and not recognizing my own body.  I will never forget having more tubes and hoses running in and out of me than I cared to count.  Water to this day still tastes like it never did before, because I couldn’t drink anything for a week. 

The crash had bruised my stomach and intestines to the point where they would not function, their contents pumped through a tube that ran up my throat and out my nose, green and black and bloody.  Just like the urine in the bag below my bed.  Drinking without a functioning digestive system will wear a hole in your stomach.  So I couldn’t drink, anything.  My friends would swab my mouth with a damp sponge.  I couldn’t eat for a week either.  

I will never to this day, almost 4 years later, let a meal go to waste.  Everything still tastes good to me. Doesn’t matter what it is or how poorly it is prepared, It all tastes good.I keep wondering what all this did to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever really been the same since.  I just wonder where my place is in this life.  I struggle all the time.  I sometimes feel as though maybe to my friends, family, and loved ones, I am a bit like an animal.  You pet it and feed it and are generally nice to it, but you never really let it all the way in.  There seems to be something violent about me.  The way I take life.  The way I struggle to control it and not let it take control of me.

I think that’s maybe why I ride.  There is some connection maybe between the act of riding and the way my life always seems to play out.  The bike has definitely changed for me over the past years. What it means to me and what place it holds in my life.  It was at first an outlet for my aggression and compensation for a lack of self-confidence. Almost something evil.  I would be cool and cover it up by saying something like “I ride to live.” I didn't have any idea what the hell I was spewing out.  I was angry. Pure and simple.  But it’s funny.  I think I get it now.

Now I ride for the pure and simple pleasure of it. I catch myself actually living my own lie.   Not to live, but to remind me to appreciate why I live.  To remind me that I DO live.  The sheer violence of the whole experience of riding,  the asphalt shredding below you, the wind that pushes and thrashes to fill all void,  the power of explosions tamed and tuned into something more precise than a razor's edge driving your foreword, the orchestra of intake and exhaust and valves and gears and chain and resonation; all serve as reminders that death, the end, is always just four inches below your toes. 

On the bike, you break free of the box.  The world outside isn’t just a part of another movie you see through the box of a window like the boring part of a film you’d like to fast foreword through.  NO. You are in it.  You are a part of it.  You feel it, smell it, play with it, make your peace with it.

Life can be like the road at night.  There are the bright spots, were the road is illuminated by streetlights.  You'll fly around a corner and the lamp light catches the fog just so, and the entire world is bathed in gold.  Everything around you is beautiful.  The world glows.  But you can never stop in one place.  There is always change. 

Then sometimes you roll into a dark spot where you are away from the streetlights and all is bleek around you.  Your only proof that you are moving are the two lines on your left and right ticking away like the hands of a clock, constant and unstoppable.  But no matter how dark it gets, you can always be sure that there is another street light, another bright place, somewhere on the road ahead just waiting for you to reach it.  You just can’t stop.  And as long as you don’t, you’ll always make it to the next bright place.  

When you’re in these darkest places, you can always look up.  Up there are the most beautiful stars you will ever see.  I looked up tonight and I saw Orion so bright it was like he was painted on the sky above me.  I saw this with nothing between me and him but my own eyes, the air I was breathing, and space.  No windows, no shields, no filters.  Just me. You can’t tell if the tears are from the beauty of it all, the thoughts that enter your head at times like this, or from the wind stinging your eyes. I can’t take all the credit.  I have my helmet on.  A helmet is a lot like your family.  It protects the most important part and always does its best to keep the outside world from hurting you.  And without my gear on I'd freeze.  Friends are like that.  They help protect you as well and keep you warm when you need it.  Without any of these things I wouldn't be able to be here. Thank you all.

I guess I don’t know where I really meant to go when I started this.  It’s really just all the thoughts that I had to get out of my head while I was riding home tonight.  This life keeps me confused most of the time.  I try to make a feeble attempt at times to figure it out by throwing my thoughts onto a piece of paper and seeing if they make sense but it always seems like I've forgotten something, just bringing up more questions.

I have so much to learn and it frustrates me. I don’t want another moment to go to waste.   I don’t want to miss anything.  I don’t want any of it to go to waste.And just like that, the thoughts leave your head like a corner on the road behind you.  Still leaning through the corner, you twist the throttle and grab another gear and take enough moments to savor the sound of the engine.  She sings her song of potential violence, repeating her own serenity prayer. In your mind you hum along with her.This beats driving a car anyday.

“A couple of your brothers, I think, but I don’t know ‘em,” Jill said.

She poured two more gin and tonics and put them on the bar in front of Chick and Igor.

Bear, a bulky man with a hairy face, came through the door first and Beaner Bob, a smallish Hispanic looking dude followed him. Beaner stepped lightly and took in the whole scene with one long glance. Bear didn’t seem to see anything. His head was bowed and his shoulders slumped.

“What’s up, Bear?” Chick asked. “You look kind of sheepish.”

“El Jefe’s mad at him,” Bob answered for him. “Caught him in the clubhouse with a nineteen year old chick.”

“So?” Chick responded.

“So, she’s the sheriff’s daughter,” Beaner answered with a chuckle.

Igor grunted. It was a quirk he had: involuntary grunts. When something was funny or caught his attention, Igor would grunt. Sometimes if you told him a joke or a funny story, he’d grab you by the shoulders with both hands, look you in the face, and grunted. He was a big guy and if he got carried away, he could knock you around some during a grunting fit.

This time he just grunted and said, “Watch out for that chick. She’s willing, but Mongo don’t want any of us around her. That includes brothers from other chapters; especially you nomads.”

“Dig ‘em, Chick,” Bear said, “When Mongo gets here he’s gonna be pissed at you ‘cause you’re a nomad too.”

Chick looked at Beaner Bob. Bob looked back and said, “Not me, hermano. El Jefe, me gusta.”

“He went out the back window when Mongo came in the front door,” Bear explained. “Mongo didn’t know he was there. His bike was out back, of course. He rolled down the hill and didn’t pop the clutch till he was out of earshot.”

Beaner Bob was as dependable a brother as any biker could hope for. It’s just that if there is a problem he can’t help with, he doesn’t stick around to get caught up in it. As Beaner explains it, he’s from Columbia and if he gets in too much trouble in the U.S. the feds will send him back to Columbia. He says he’s got good reasons for not wanting to go back there for a while.

Bear sat down at the bar next to Igor and Bob sat down next to Bear.

“Give us a couple of beers,” Bear said to Jill.

“Cooler’s broke, bro,” Igor said. “Beer’s hot, but Jill got a couple of bags of ice from the gas station so we’re having cocktails.”

“Then give me what they’re having,” Bear said to Jill. “Igor’ll pay.”

Igor grunted so Bear said, “It’s your town, your bar, I’m a guest so you buy. Besides, you know if the cooler worked, I’d have a beer and be happy with it.”

Igor nodded to Jill and Jill looked to Beaner Bob who said he’d have a beer. “I don’t care if it’s hot.”

Jill was busy with the bar’s other regulars for a while so the bikers nursed their drinks and told each other heroic lies.

After a while, everyone heard the noise of a pack of Harleys. Most of them had straight pipes. Chick stood up and walked to where he could see the road.

“Here come the bros. Looks like most of ‘em are packing old ladies. I wondered where they were. The meeting ended an hour ‘an a half ago,” Chick said as he sat down at the bar again.

Mongo was the first one through the door and as he headed for a table in the middle of the room, he pointed at Chick and said, “I’m pissed at you, Chick.”

Igor grunted once and Chick looked at his drink. When Mongo sat down, Beaner Bob walked over and set an iced coke on the table. Jill looked over from a table in the corner. Her expression was full of anger, but the anger drained quickly. She couldn’t let these guys get away with serving themselves or the night would end up a wipe-out for the bar. As she took her place behind the bar again, Jill stopped in front of Beaner Bob and said, “Stay on your side of the bar or you’re 86’ed out of here for the weekend.”

Bob looked across the bar earnestly and said, “Lo siento, La Bonita.”

Jill looked hard at Beaner to see if he was putting her on, and she decided he wasn’t. She moved down the bar to Igor and asked what Bob had said.

“I don’t speak Columbian,” Igor said as he slid his glass across the counter.

With her eyes she pointed at Chick’s glass and Igor grunted so she filled both glasses and took the ten dollar bill Igor put on the bar. But before she took the bill, Chick said, “I’m sorry, beautiful one.”

Jill just stared at him so Chick added, “Beaner Bob said, ‘I’m sorry, beautiful one.’”

Jill looked at Beaner Bob who wasn’t paying any attention to Jill or Chick, and said, “He’s from Columbia, right? So why do you call him, Beaner. I thought Beaners were Mexicans.”

Chick shrugged and said, “Most of the brothers probably think Columbia’s in Mexico. He talks like a Mexican so we call him Beaner Bob. What do you call a Columbian biker anyway? His real name is Roberto.”

Jill looked at Igor and said, “Bartemptress, La Bonita, why don’t you bring these Nomads around more often? They seem to have a lot of class.”

Just then, Mongo stepped up to the bar between Igor and Bear and said to Jill, “They got class all right. They can party too and fight. These three guys can clear out a cowboy bar in Rawlings, Wyoming, but then they’re gone down the road leaving the shit for someone else to deal with. And see that shot glass Jill? What these three guys spend here tonight won’t fill that glass.

“I was on the road with Bear one time. I know he had a hundred bucks in his pocket. We stopped at a little casino in Nevada where you get an all you can eat breakfast for three bucks. I ordered up. Bear wanted water. I went through the line and came back to the table to eat. The waitress looked hard at Bear, but he didn’t even smell my food. The waitress went back to work. When the family at the table next to us left, Bear reached over, took sausages off one plate, hash browns off another, dumped ‘em on a pancake from a third plate, covered the whole mess with a half eaten waffle and ate the weird sandwich before the waitress came by again.

And speaking of glitches, what’s up with the jukebox? There’s no power to it, or something.”

Jill said, “It’s broke too, Mongo. Cooler’s broke, the jukebox is broken, and you tell me these good looking’ guys are tightwads who cause trouble wherever they go. Seems like everything sucks right now, but the jukebox does work, sort of. Come on, I’ll show ya.”

Jill put Igor’s money in the cash register and filled glasses for a couple of regulars who were shooting pool. Then she took Mongo over to the jukebox and showed him that he cold queue up ten songs at a time, but she warned him that if anyone put coins in the machine, it would jam up.

“The repair man will be here tomorrow, but I’ll put you in charge of the juke box tonight so you guys can have some tunes,” Jill said before she went back to the bar where she was pretty busy until Kate came in at 9:00. After that, things ran pretty well for a while. The bikers mixed with the locals because this was a shared saloon. Sometimes one of the local guys tried to get chesty with a non-biker, but one of the bros told him to be cool. Everyone was drinking except Mongo, who had quit two years ago, but no one was drinking very fast because mixed drinks were $4.50 each. There was one real straight looking guy sitting at the end of the bar near the door. He was drinking slowly, working on some papers, and ignoring everyone, so they ignored him.

At about 10:30, Clean Steve came in with a bug buff looking guy. They walked over to Mongo’s table and Mongo said, “What’s up, Clean?”

Clean Steve said. “This is Larry, Mongo. He’s state arm wrestling champion. He’s gonna be in a tournament on TV next weekend.”

Larry looked at Mongo, who is a real bug guy, and said, “Wanna arm wrestle?” Mongo could see that Steve and Larry had been drinking somewhere else.

Mongo laughed. “No, man. I don’t want to arm wrestle, but make yourself at home. Don’t mess with the jukebox, though. If you want to hear something, tell me and I’ll put it on for ya.”

With that, Larry walked over to the jukebox, looked over the selection, pulled some coins out of his pocket and started to put them into the coin slot. Igor saw what was going on, elbowed Chick, and grunted. Mongo swung around to see what Igor was looking at. When he saw that Larry was about to screw the jukebox up, he knocked his chair over getting out of it. In a couple of big steps Mongo had his hand on Larry’s shoulder.

“What are you doing? I just told you not to put any change in the jukebox.” Mongo said in a cool voice that carried the message that he wasn’t used to being ignored.

Even though Mongo didn’t raise his voice, most of the people in the bar had turned an eye on Mongo and Larry. The noise of the chair being knocked over caught the attention of some, but that wasn’t much of an interruption in a noisy bar. It was the sensitivity of the bikers that alerted them to the problem. These guys can be drunk enough to fall off a bar stool and still be sensitive to almost any sign of trouble. Not everyone noticed the potential trouble though. Jill was talking to the guy at the end of the bar that was working on his papers and neither of them noticed anything.

Larry turned to face Mongo. He didn’t look impressed. Larry was a big guy. Not as big as Mongo, but Mongo carried some of his weight as fat while Larry looked to be mostly muscle.

When Mongo let go of his shoulder, Larry turned around to put his change into the jukebox. Mongo grabbed Larry by the shoulder again, swung him around, and hit him so hard that Larry’s feet came off the floor and back he went over the table behind him. As he came down, he caught the back edge of the table so that the table went with him as he crashed to the floor. That made enough noise to grab everyones’ attention. Jill looked up and the straight looking guy she was talking turned around on his stool.

Mongo looked down at Larry and said, “I told ya not to mess with the jukebox.”

Igor put his hand on Chick’s shoulder and grunted three times.

Clean Steve, who was just racking up the balls for a game of pool with Beaner Bob, walked over to the end of the bar and hit the guy who was sitting there square in the face.

Bear looked down the bar and said, “What’d ya do that for, Clean?”

Clean Steve answered, “He looked like a friend of Mongo’s.”

Igor grunted three more times, grabbed Chick by the shoulders, looked him straight in the face, and said, “He looked like Mongo’s friend.”

After that, Igor grunted and laughed until he lost his balance and pulled Chick with him as he fell to the floor. Lying on the floor, still holding Chick by the shoulders, and looking straight in his face, Igor said again, “He looked like Mongo’s friend.”

With that, Chick broke into fits of laughter himself.

With the commotion, some of the others in the bar saw the chance to settle scores. Ronnie elbowed one of the citizen bikers who was standing behind him, and broke his nose. As the guy put his hand over a broken nose, Ronnie turned and said, “Watch out! You bug me, man, you always bug me.”

One of the old ladies went to a checkout girl from the Thriftway, slapped her in the face, and said, “Stay away from my old man.”

Steamer saw the whole thing, but when his old lady turned around, he made sure he was looking somewhere else.

Knuckles sucker punched Flats, but he swung high and hit him in the cheek instead of the jaw. Flats turned and hit Knuckles hard in the chest, so hard that Knuckles sat down hugging himself and said, “Well, shame on me this time, Bro.”

“Yeah, shame on you,” Flats said.

Those guys have had a beef with each other so long that they forget what it’s about. They can’t really settle it because the club imposes a $250 fine for fighting with a brother. Besides that, neither of them wants to take it so far that they won’t get over it.

With the bar scene threatening to turn into a riot, no one but Bear noticed that the guy Clean hit was getting up off the floor; or that he had a gun. Bear reached across the bar and took an empty pitcher by the handle. He’d noticed before that they were glass pitchers and not plastic. It’s by noticing things like that, that nomads manage to keep on keeping on in bars and at parties all over the country.

With barely a move, Bear sent the pitcher sailing down the bar and into the side of the head of the guy with the gun. At almost the same instant, Beaner Bob swung a pool cue around and up so that he caught the same guy just behind the wrist. There was a loud snap, but it wasn’t the pool cue breaking. It was the guy’s forearm.

Just then, the sheriff and a deputy came through the front door and another deputy came through the side door. Everyone stopped moving. There was nowhere to go. The sheriff knew all the club men except the nomads.

Igor sat up and stopped laughing. The sheriff looked to Mongo and said, “You guys know the drill. Hands on your heads and up against that wall.” He pointed to the wall away from the bar, the doors, and the windows.

“Go get some zip ties, Jim,” he told one of the deputies. “You all right?” he asked the guy who was sitting on the floor holding his broken arm.

“They broke my arm. I guess I’ll be alright, though.”

As the deputies finished cuffing everyone, they began ferrying them to the jail, three at a time in the back of the squad cars.

“There’s gonna be some trouble for this, Mongo,” the sheriff said as he watched the last of the bikers go.

The sheriff nodded toward the guy with the broken arm. Two paramedics were attending to him. “That guy is Treasury Department. He came down to talk to us about some counterfeit twenties being passed around. I told him we’d pick him up here when we got done with some things. I didn’t even think you guys might be in here tonight. That was my fault, the rest is yours.”

Mongo said, “That’s great news, sheriff, really great news.”

Mongo started out the door and as he passed Jill, she whispered, “The nomads didn’t start this one.”

Mongo looked at her and said, “Yeah, I guess not. Did they spend any money?”

Jill nodded toward a shot glass next to the cash register. There were two quarters and four ones stuffed in it.

As the last of the bikers were put in the back of the squad cars, Beaner Bob watched from out on the lake. He’d ducked out behind the deputy who came in the side door just as the deputy came though the doorway. At the end of the dock behind the bar, he’d found a rowboat with oars in it. He felt bad about ducking out, but what good would it do to stay and get arrested?

A little while after the squad car left, the wreckers arrived to haul the bikes off. Beaner was glad he’d taken the time to push his scooter behind the dumpster.

Beaner tried to figure a way to get comfortable in the small boat. He moved a couple of fishing poles and a tackle box. Then he noticed a small cooler. In it he found an apple, a sandwich, and two cans. It was too dark to tell if they were cans of pop or beer. He opened one. It was orange soda, but the second can was beer. The sandwich was tuna fish; the apple was spongy so he threw it in the lake. The beer was good and cold, the first cold beer of the long night.

A half hour after the last taillights left the bar’s parking lot, Beaner rowed back to the dock, tied the boat up where he’d found it, walked up the steps at the end of the dock and found Jill sitting on an empty keg in the shadows.

“Hi, Roberto,” she said. “Where you headin’?”

“Memphis, I guess. I know some people there I haven’t seen in a while,” Beaner answered.

“Think I could go with? They’ll want me to testify if there are any trials after tonight and I don’t want to do that. Besides a good bartender can get work anywhere.”

Beaner gave Jill a long look and said, “I bet she can. Especially if she’s a real go ahead bartemptress like you. Got any stuff to bring?”

Jill tugged at the bag hanging on her should. “Just this. I know how to travel light. I’ve got money too.”

Beaner rolled his bike out, started it, and said, “Hop on, La Bonita.”

As soon as Jill settled on the seat, Beaner said, “Vaminos!” and let out the clutch. Three lights later, all green, they were on the highway headed out of Lake Town.

Jill leaned forward and said into Beaner’s ear, “We’re goin’ west. Memphis is south.”

Beaner cocked his head around a little and said, “How ‘bout Salt Lake City? I didn’t know why you were askin’ where I’m goin’ so I said, Memphis. Salt Lake’s cool, though. That all right with you? Be there in a couple of days if we jam, a little longer if we take our time.”

Jill wrapped her arms around Beaner, squeezed, and said, “Let’s take our time, then.”

A pre-300 shot showing the new Steed Muscle Bike with a 280 Metzeler.

We're just about ready to debut our new Steed Musclebike, “Sintaur”model motorcycle with the new Avon 300 Tyre. Steeds started this project last April with our brand new proprietary Monoglide chassis. We've been running proprietary frames on our bikes for over six years with fitment for the AVON 180/200 tires and a monoshock design under the seat. It's time to jump into the big tire race, and we found ourselves a little behind. Re-tooling frame jigs is no easy task, and the tires kept getting bigger and bigger, literally, by the month. So last year I decided to do a little research before we spent the dough to fixture-up a fat-tire Monoglide platform. With a little help from Bandit at http://www.bikernet.com, we got the inside track last year that Avon was in the process of tooling up for a massive 300mm tire.

I contacted Larry Hoppe, who heads up the Sales and Marketing for Avon in the U.S. He assisted us with advanced tire specifications, so we could fixture-up to produce an updated Monoglide chassis that would accept this giant performance gripper long before we actually had our hands on one. Finally, Steeds was privileged to get one of only a handful of prototype 300 tires in Mid December. Now we're ready to roll out our first Steed Machine next week in Anaheim, California at the NAMM show. Then it's off to Ohio for the V-Twin expo with the first of our bar-raising, 300 bikes.

There seems to be a bunch of confusion about tires; who, what, when and where's don't get asked very often regarding tires. Bandit and I felt that this would be a good opportunity to ask Larry about the meat of the matter, and here's what he had to say:

JC: First off Larry, how did you get involved with AVON Tyre company, and what is your personal history in the motorcycle market?

LH: I have been heading up the sales and marketing efforts for Avon in North America since 1985. Prior to that, Avon tires were one of my favorite product lines I represented through distributors to Dealers in the North Western States. How much further do you want to go back? I am age sensitive. Prior to forming my Marketing firm in 1977, I was a very lucky student, working his way through college buying and selling motorcycles. Of all the bikes I have owned, I miss my Indian '41-Four the most. It was old enough to be my father by the way.

JC: Why the goofy spelling of “Tyre” in the company name?

LH: Nearly every English speaking country spells tire with a 'Y'. Well, except one. So who's goofy? In the world of 'Global Corporate Identity' consistency on how to spell your name is kind of an issue, especially to the Vice President of Communications. We are an American owned company, but the Avon brand has its deepest roots in England.

JC: What makes a motorcycle tire different than automotive tires?

LH: You gotta be kidding? OK, I'll answer.One has a rounded tread arc; the other has a flat tread surface. Guess which one is which!

JC: Why are motorcycle tires more expensive than automotive tires?

LH:This is a good question. As a consumer, I appreciate good value. I also believe that cheap is seldom better. But the laws of economics and manufacturing efficiency are the main reasons motorcycle tires are generally priced higher. It is probably true in most cases that bike tires require a more intensive research and development regimen than passenger car tires. Simplistically, they need to operate in a straight up position (like a car), as well as at high lean angles (not like cars). Now I could go into plies, angles, Kevlar belts, Variable Belt Density, compounding etc, and how these all play a part in the bikes handling and performance.

But easiest for all to understand is this: Cooper Tire builds more passenger tires in a day than we sell motorcycle tires in a year. In automotive tire production, it is a highly automated process whereby they set up the production line with all the chosen tooling for a particular size. They then flip the switch, and let 'em run forty thousand or so tires as they fill rail cars of a mile long train. When they turn off the switch, they usually have to shut down the line for a few days to make all the tooling changes for a new size or type run.

Motorcycle tires, on the other hand are often produced in batches of around a 1000 tires, sometimes 3000. But typically, bike tire manufacturing is far less automated, and more hand-built because the quantities do not allow us to shut down the production line for days to change a size or model. We can change motorcycle tire model production in hours and run 1000 of this, then a 1000 of that. We are highly efficient at producing small runs, then quickly changing out molds and tooling for another run. But the 'Quick Change' scenario means less automation, more hand labor, lower quantities, and higher unit cost.

JC: What makes AVON Tyres different/better than other motorcycle tire brands?

LH: How much time do you have? I have been practicing my sales pitch for over 20 years and could probably ramble on for hours. But seriously, I believe a big part of Avon's popularity over the years is due, in large part, to the lack of Original Equipment influence.

Tire manufacturers are willing to sell to OEM motorcycle manufacturers at cost, and sometimes even below their cost. Harley certainly puts tremendous pricing pressure on their suppliers, so the supplier needs to keep the cost of the product down with less features and benefits. And why would a tire manufacturer sell below cost??? Because they believe the bike purchaser will replace his tires with the same original brand, and the Bike manufacturer agrees to recommend only the Original Equip tire as a trade off for cheap prices (there is that word again!).

JC: I believe in the motto 'Cheap is never good, and good is never cheap'. That's how we've survived in this business since '89. Something has to give, if you start cutting price, and that's normally the product's quality. I don't know many people who want to put cheap rubber under their motorcycle, when it's their ass that is on the line at 85 MPH.

LH: Avon does not play this game. Consumers buy our tires as a matter of choice because they want improved handling, better wet-grip, stability on rain grooves, or that sure footed feeling in high-speed sweepers. Perhaps they purchase Avon for the Fat Tire Fashion. But in the end they choose AVON because they want a better product. Whether we use Kevlar belts instead of steel or fiberglass, or we use special silica compounds for better grip. AVON can afford to put more into our tires because we are not under the Original Equipment pricing pressures.

JC: OK, now for the questions that a lot of people are afraid to ask. Why do they use inches for the wheel diameter and then millimeters for the width and sidewall height? Who's the jack-ass that sets these standards for describing tire sizes?

LH: Millimeters for width, and inches for diameter still baffles me to this day. It is absolutely ridiculous. It sure as hell wasn't Einstein that developed this system. Perhaps it was a compromise between the German, French and English, as the Brits were big tyre producers and not metric back then. The Brits got to keep diameter standards in inches, and the French and Germans were elated to keep width in mm. Besides can you imagine having 20 differing diameter standards varying by 10 mm instead of 5 or 6 diameter standards varying by one fraction of an inch?

JC: Well at least we English speaking people got a few consolations in the tire size department. We're doing our best to resist the metric bolts on our American bikes, but we just can't get too far away from the millimeters on the tires and batteries.

But I digress. Let be get back to the questions.What is a 'speed rating', and who came up with the whole lettering system? Please fill us in.

LH: Tire speed creates heat. Load under use creates heat. Strap your Snap-On toolbox (and your wife, too, if you want) on the buddy seat and I guarantee the tire will run warmer. I can also guarantee you that it will run a lot warmer at 70MPH than 35MPH. Consequently, it is customary for a tire load ratings to drop as the speed rating increases. It is possible for us to build an H-speed rated tire at say 961 pound

Steed model comparing a stock 130 tire to the new Venom 300 Avon.

JC: When did this whole big motorcycle tire phenomenon start?

LH: How old are you?

JC: Here's a clue; I made it out of high school at the height of disco, but I never owned a leisure suit! How about you?

LH: I remember back in the early '70s selling wide rims with spoke kits so you could lace a 15-inch rim to your hub and mount a wide car tire. OK, wide by then and their standards. I think they may have been VW tires, as in super beetle. I remember back in the late '80s when Donnie Smith (Minneapolis, MN), wrote an article about how to fit a 150/80-16 Avon on a stock bike. It just barely cleared the fender, swingarm and belts with his adaptors.

In 1995 we adapted a 180/55-16, and by 1997 this was expanding to 200/55-18s. Since a new wheel was necessary to accommodate the fatties, the diameter increase was preferable to show off the new wheel designs. Guys like you and Arlen Ness finally had something new to build around; an AVON Tire!

It was a break-through by early 1998; we spaced an existing mold to make the biggest m/c tire in the world, a 230/60-15. It was actually a modified 170 X 15 mold that was cut in half, widened, and voila… the 'Fat Freddie' was born.

JC: That wasn't the most pleasing looking tire, but it was big.

LH: I agree! That tire, on its own, was not all that attractive. We got the factory to build this tire because it was far less expensive than a new mold. Before embarking on a new tire size, the factory always wants to know what the application is.

In that case, the tire fit NOTHING! But the bikes that were being designed around this fat rear tire were incredible.

In 2002, the 250/40-18 VENOM was announced, again the biggest bike tire ever. Along with it came a 120/70-21 front, wider than the previous 90/90-21s. AND, in 2004, and soon to be available, is another record breaker the 300/35-18 VENOM. So, there you have it.

The widest m/c tire used in 1972 was about 130mm wide, used on both Harleys and Sochiro Hondas CB 750-K2 had a 120. Up until a couple years ago, that was still the norm for a Harley, but everything has been expanding.

JC: Are there any performance advantages to wider street motorcycle tires?

LH: Yes there are advantages. Race bikes have gone from 130s 30 years ago to 220s today. The biggest advantage of course is a larger contact patch. But let's be realistic. Most of the bikes being artistically created around our fat tires are sculpted most for beauty and style. But if they ever start an AVON 300 V-Twin racing class, we will definitely see evolution first hand.

JC: Do you foresee a tire size that will be the maximum girth for a street motorcycle?

LH: Personally, I would think the 300mm width is a nice stopping point. But the consumer, designer, builder will determine that, and Avon shall continue our 120 year history of responding to the market demands.

JC: How much time does it take to develop a new size tire?

LH: Once the market research has taken place and the decision to order mold and manufacturing equipment has been made, it's usually developed within nine months or a year. Market research, in this case, is quite easy as there is no market. They fit nothing. It is also much quicker to add a size to an existing product range and tread pattern, rather than having to design an all new pattern.

New Steed Muscle bike with 300 Avon and paint. You'll see the entire new model come together on Bikernet.

JC: Do you think it's a fad or is it here to stay?

LH: Yes, it is a fad. Yes it is about style. Yes, it is here to stay. You can say the same thing about 'Choppers'. I haven't met anyone who says they would like to buy a skinny tire kit. And I can't imagine anyone who doesn't agree that the fat tire bikes look way better.

Sure, the 300 may be overboard for some, but they can still go with 200 or 250. Thanks to a few gutsy moves by Avon, and all the loyal customers, friends, and associates like Steeds who have helped promote these trends, bikers now have choices!

JC:Larry thanks for all the breaking news, and the prototype 300 for our new Steed bike. We'll have these new Sintaur Monoglides up in production for March delivery to dealers. Judging by the reaction I've got from people who have seen this monster at our shop, you've got a hit-record on your hands. I hope you can keep up with the demand.

John at Steed Musclebike
http://www.musclebikes.com

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