The Work Begins

After making some calls and getting signed up for the Cannonball that starts next Sept. 10th, I have tons of work to do.
The first thing was to get some new tubes and tires for the bike. I'm not sure HOW old those tires were, but they had to go. My very supportive husband Pat and I started working on the bike back in November. We ordered new tubes and tires on December 2nd. We also went down to the auto parts and picked up two 6 volt batteries. ( One for my '34 Harley-Davidson VD, more on that later) The plan is to get the '15 up and running enough so that I can practice riding it here in Hawaii before shipping it off to the mainland to a real mechanic named Steve Huntzinger in California. Steve will go over the entire motorcycle to make sure it will be at it's best. I was invited to join a "team" of 7 other riders. Some of our team members are making some of the allowed alterations to make the bikes safer and road worthy for such a long trip. The rules being that the motor and transmission parts must be original or rebuilt original. We may add newer lights, better brakes and wheels, etc... safety is a real concern, as many of these early motorcycles didn't even have electric headlights. That didn't start until 1915, my model, the 11-J.

While waiting for the tubes and tires to come in, we jacked up the bike... had to hang it from the ceiling in our shop to get the rear wheel off. It was a bit of a pain, but we got it off okay.