Adventures of This Guy
There's "this guy" down in California. I just hear about this stuff and report it.
It was 1974. I was living in South San Francisco. One Saturday afternoon I decided to ride my Panhead down to my friend Russ's in Sunnyvale to see his new FL, which he had just bought on auction from a local P.D. Rode my trusty pan down our hill and up to I-280, from which it was almost a straight shot down to Russ's. The sled had a 25-tooth countershaft sprocket and she was set up for speed. I was down there in what felt like 20 minutes or so.
We has some homebrew and checked out his scoot. He fired it up; it sounded nice. 'Clutch slips some, but it's alright', sez Russ. Yeah. Then who shows up but my pappy on his '72 FLH. Also this guy Arthur, on his green(!) Triumph rat-bike with a coffin gas tank. It's getting on towards evening when somebody sez, 'Hey, let's ride up to Redwood City to see Chuck!' So away we go.
We start out nice and easy, stayin' back with Russ on account of his slippin' clutch. We get onto Hwy 101, the Bayshore Freeway, headin' north. Then, out of nowhere... Braaaahhhm ZOOM! 'Ol Arthur flashes by in a high speed pass. My pappy decides to take off after him. About a minute later, I decide I'd better get on up there to see what's goin' on. Russ is left back there, nursing his clutch, at about 55 mph. Seeya Russ.
Well I get the pan up to about 92 mph 'indicated.' She gets about 88 mph at an indicated 75 mph due to the ratio between the 25-tooth countershaft sprocket and the 22-tooth stock unit, so we're really haulin' ass. I catch up to my pappy after a few minutes. I pull her out of burner, bleed off some speed, and slide in beside him. We cruise along for a while at what seems like a pretty sane speed, 85 mph or so, occasionally switching lanes as traffic conditions dictate. At one brief instant of all this craziness we sort of whipped around a big truck to get into the slow lane, which was the only really open lane. It was good.
I decided to slow down and let Russ catch up. My pappy kept on going. I
went quite slow, and eventually I saw Russ's headlight, as now it was fully dark. Russ pulled up alongside and I shouted over, 'Hey Russ, man, this is ALL RIGHT!' I was really having a good time. Russ, however, looked a little worried about something, and he shouted, 'Hey, man, the COPS are AFTER YOU GUYS!!' I replied, 'Aw man, there ain't no cops around here! Let's go!'
Once we got to Chuck's place, Russ told me the deal. He said a California Highway Patrol (CHP) made him pull over, told him to stay there, then took off after us! It just happened that when we dipped around that truck we were right at the turnoff for the Dumbarton Bridge, and the CHP must've figured that we were bailing off the freeway, so he bailed after us. Only thing was, we were completely oblivious! We didn't bail! We just putted merrily on! When all this sunk in, I decided that we'd take the back streets back to wherever it was we were going next.
Chuck told us that we really should take it easy. 'OK!' I said as I slid the handshift into first, grabbed some throttle and let off the suicide clutch and burned a big patch of rubber down his SIDEWALK!
Next time, boys and girls, I'll tell you about the time "this guy" was at Pat and Ray's on Fruitvale in East Oakland and how he got out of there just before the helicopters came!
There's "this guy" down in California. I just hear about this stuff and report it.
It was 1974. I was living in South San Francisco. One Saturday afternoon I decided to ride my Panhead down to my friend Russ's in Sunnyvale to see his new FL, which he had just bought on auction from a local P.D. Rode my trusty pan down our hill and up to I-280, from which it was almost a straight shot down to Russ's. The sled had a 25-tooth countershaft sprocket and she was set up for speed. I was down there in what felt like 20 minutes or so.
We has some homebrew and checked out his scoot. He fired it up; it sounded nice. 'Clutch slips some, but it's alright', sez Russ. Yeah. Then who shows up but my pappy on his '72 FLH. Also this guy Arthur, on his green(!) Triumph rat-bike with a coffin gas tank. It's getting on towards evening when somebody sez, 'Hey, let's ride up to Redwood City to see Chuck!' So away we go.
We start out nice and easy, stayin' back with Russ on account of his slippin' clutch. We get onto Hwy 101, the Bayshore Freeway, headin' north. Then, out of nowhere... Braaaahhhm ZOOM! 'Ol Arthur flashes by in a high speed pass. My pappy decides to take off after him. About a minute later, I decide I'd better get on up there to see what's goin' on. Russ is left back there, nursing his clutch, at about 55 mph. Seeya Russ.
Well I get the pan up to about 92 mph 'indicated.' She gets about 88 mph at an indicated 75 mph due to the ratio between the 25-tooth countershaft sprocket and the 22-tooth stock unit, so we're really haulin' ass. I catch up to my pappy after a few minutes. I pull her out of burner, bleed off some speed, and slide in beside him. We cruise along for a while at what seems like a pretty sane speed, 85 mph or so, occasionally switching lanes as traffic conditions dictate. At one brief instant of all this craziness we sort of whipped around a big truck to get into the slow lane, which was the only really open lane. It was good.
I decided to slow down and let Russ catch up. My pappy kept on going. I
went quite slow, and eventually I saw Russ's headlight, as now it was fully dark. Russ pulled up alongside and I shouted over, 'Hey Russ, man, this is ALL RIGHT!' I was really having a good time. Russ, however, looked a little worried about something, and he shouted, 'Hey, man, the COPS are AFTER YOU GUYS!!' I replied, 'Aw man, there ain't no cops around here! Let's go!'
Once we got to Chuck's place, Russ told me the deal. He said a California Highway Patrol (CHP) made him pull over, told him to stay there, then took off after us! It just happened that when we dipped around that truck we were right at the turnoff for the Dumbarton Bridge, and the CHP must've figured that we were bailing off the freeway, so he bailed after us. Only thing was, we were completely oblivious! We didn't bail! We just putted merrily on! When all this sunk in, I decided that we'd take the back streets back to wherever it was we were going next.
Chuck told us that we really should take it easy. 'OK!' I said as I slid the handshift into first, grabbed some throttle and let off the suicide clutch and burned a big patch of rubber down his SIDEWALK!
Next time, boys and girls, I'll tell you about the time "this guy" was at Pat and Ray's on Fruitvale in East Oakland and how he got out of there just before the helicopters came!