The world's first Triton, built by Rex McCandless during WW2 - a racing Triumph Tiger 100 motor in a Norton International racing chassis.  Note headlamp mask - required during wartime blackouts. (photo courtesy Dennis Quinlan, via VMCC Library)

Back in 2008, I wrote about the McCandless brothers' invention of the first modern swingarm motorcycle frame in 1944. Norton race chief Joe Craig took note of this radical new chassis, leading Norton to purchased the rights to the McCandless design in 1949. Geoff Duke debuted the McCandless-framed Norton in 1950 housing a factory Grand Prix racer, and sweet-handling design became known as the 'Featherbed'.

A mid-30's Norton International rigid frame was the gold standard of pre-War handling

Rex McCandless and his brother Cromie were an interesting pair, devoted to motorcycle engineering and racing, and changed the motorcycle industry forever without the need for an engineering degree.  Rex famously wrote,  "I never had any formal training. I came to believe that it stops people from thinking for themselves. I read many books on technical subjects, but always regarded that as second-hand knowledge. I did my best working in my own way."  It slipped my attention then, but it seems the McCandless brothers also seem to have invented the most iconic custom motorcycle of the cafe racer era - the Triton, a Norton/Triumph hybrid.

Rex McCandless (left) and Artie Bell, both on racing Triumph Tiger 100s in 1940.  Note swanky race transport behind them!

Rex McCandless tuned and raced his own motorcycles before WW2, first turning his attention to a new twin-cylinder Triumph Triumph Tiger 100 in 1940.  His home-tuned Tiger was was faster than the factory-tuned bronze-head Tiger 100 of his friend, Artie Bell (future Norton Works racer), and Rex won the Irish 500cc Road Race and Hillclimb championships that year.  While the motor was fast, the Triumph chassis made 'unreasonable demands of its rider'.  The story goes that McCandless began experimenting with weight distribution on the Triumph, and eventually designed his own frame, which became the Featherbed.  But it seems he tried a known better-handling chassis first for his Triumph motor, and installed the Tiger engine in a racing Norton International chassis.  He'd already proven his T100 engine faster than a racing Norton, but their chassis was the gold standard for handling.   Thus the first Triton was born during WW2, as evidenced by photos in the VMCC Library, passed along to me by Dennis Quinlan.

The 'Benial', McCandless' first chassis of his own design, a full cradle, double-loop, all-welded swingarm frame, with vertical rear dampers from a Citroen car

Thankfully for us, the Norton also didn't live up to McCandless' idea of what a frame could be!  He carried on experimenting;  "I had noticed that when I removed weight in the shape of a heavy steel mudguard and a headlight, that the bike steered a lot better. It made me think about things which swiveled when steering. I was in an area about which I knew nothing, but set-to to find out. It seemed obvious to me that the rigidity of the frame was of paramount importance. That the wheels would stay in line, in the direction the rider pointed the bicycle, regardless of whether it was cranked over for a corner, and to resist the bumps on the road attempting to deflect it. Of equal importance was that the wheels would stay in contact with the road. That may seem obvious, but fast motor cycles then bounced all over the place. I decided that soft springing, properly and consistently damped, was required."

Geoff Duke winning the first of many races on the Norton 'Featherbed' factory Manx racer, in 1950, on a frame hand-built by Rex McCandless

The first test-bed for Rex's ideas, built in 1944, was named the 'Benial' (Irish for 'beast'). It looked much like the double-loop, lugless frame used on the Gilera-Rondine watercooled dohc 4-cyl racer of the 1930's, but it had a proper swingarm at the back with vertical hydraulic shock absorbers (from a Citroen car). "The Benial was the best-handling bicycle I ever made." Using the ideas garnered from his experiments, McCandless first designed a bolt-on rear suspension kit for rigid-frame motorcycles,  which was tested publicly by the Irish grass-track racing team at Brands Hatch in 1946. Prior to the race, other riders looked askance at the rear suspension kits, but after the race, they clamored for them. Rex had no ambition to go into manufacturing, and sold the rights to the kit to Feridax, a well-known accessory maker.

A McCandless swingarm conversion on a 1937 Velocette Mk7 KTT - new life for an old racer!

McCandless knew his Benial had the best-handling frame in the industry, and approached Norton with a challenge, and the intention to sell his design. Norton's 'plunger' Garden Gate frame had a tendency to break, and handled like a camel.  Joe Craig made the frames heavier, to stop the breakages, but in McCandless' view, this showed an insufficient understanding of the stresses involved on the chassis, "...all they did was to fix together bits of tube and some lugs.." In 1949, he told Gilbert Smith, the Managing Director of Norton, "You are not Unapproachable, and you are not the World's Best Roadholder. I have a bicycle which is miles better!" The Norton brass set up a test on the Isle of Man, where a relative of Cromie McCandless' wife was Chief of Police. They closed the roads, "Artie Bell was on my bike, ultimately christened the Featherbed by Harold Daniell. Geoff Duke was on a Garden Gate and both had Works engines. Gilbert Smith, Joe Craig and I stood on the outside of the corner at Kate's Cottage. We could hear them coming from about the 33rd [milestone]. When Geoff came through Kate's he was needing all the road. Artie rode around the outside of him on full bore, miles an hour faster, and in total control. That night Gilbert Smith and I had a good skinful."

The prototype Featherbed Manx, built in late 1949, still with vertical rear shocks, likely sourced from an automobile

Further testing took place at Montlhery, with four riders (Artie Bell, Geoff Duke, Harold Daniell, and Johnny Lockett) going flat-out for two days. "We went through two engines, then the snow came on. The frame hadn't broken so we all went home." The debut of the new frame came at Blandford Camp, Dorset, in April 1950, with Geoff Duke aboard (below, winning that race). The string of successes which followed gave a new lease on life to a 20-year-old engine design, and Norton won 1-2-3 in the Senior and Junior TT's that year. Norton didn't have the facility to produce the Featherbed frame themselves, nor could Reynolds (the tubing manufacturer), so Rex brought his own jigs over from Ireland, and personally built the Works Norton frames from 1950-53.  The original jigs still exist - what a historic piece of scrap iron!

The immortal Rex McCandless

Shinya Kimura on his 1915 Indian twin, on a test run before its 4th Cannonball, as seen from the back of our 'wet plate van', my Sprinter with red 'safety' film on the window for our mobile darkroom.

It was history to be made, and 93 riders grasped the gauntlet; to be the first 100-year old vehicles of any sort to cross the United States.  Cars, planes, bicycles, rollers skates, whatever - the 2016 Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Rally, this year called the Race of the Century, would the be the first attempt to my knowledge for any Centurion vehicle to cross the country in an observed trial.  That claim was staked at the starter's banquet in the Golden Nugget hotel on September 9th in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during an oppressively hot and muggy late Summer week - 95 degrees and 90% humidity - the hotel having chiseled off it's 'Trump' name some years ago during a bankruptcy proceeding.

Trying to get a decent shot of the assembled 94 motorcycles on the Atlantic City boardwalk, just before the 10am start of the Cannonball.

It wasn't the only evidence of Trump, or bankruptcy, we'd encounter on our third trip over backroads America.  Three Cannonballs, this one likely to be my last, and for once totally bikeless, as my partner (with the bike) couldn't take the 3 weeks off this year.   My artistic and life partner Susan, after a crisis huddle, decided our MotoTintype project was too important to abandon, so we chose to follow the Cannonball as photographers, taking as many 'wet plate' photos as we could, and round out the hundreds of images we'd already shot on the prior 2 events, in order to make a book of the best images. Susan's brother Scott drove my Sprinter to NYC, and thus began another epic road trip.

...and the shot I was able to take, from the opposite direction from the official panorama of the start.

The Motorcycle Cannonball was initiated by Lonnie Isam Jr, as both an homage to the achievement of Erwin 'Cannonball' Baker's cross-country record breaking sprees in the early part of the 20th Century, and a challenge to the many owners of early motorcycles who didn't ride them all that much. Lonnie believed early machines were just as capable of crossing the country today - on paved roads rather than dirt tracks - as they were when new, and the first Cannonball was held in 2010, with a small cadre of riders on pre-1916 machines accepting the challenge.  That first year was notoriously difficult, and an admirably bonding experience.  Nobody had tried such an incredibly long ride - 3500 miles - on such old machinery, and nobody really knew what to expect, or how the bikes would hold up to riding and average 250 miles/day on a rigorous schedule.

Kurt Klokkenga, one of the 'motorcycle sweep' staff of the Cannonball, who were allowed to help repair machines en route without penalty.  I'm sure many stranded riders were grateful of their help!  Love his patina Panhead.

Not surprisingly, the tales of woe and late nights spent making repairs, every single night, made that 2010 event legendary.  Most of the original 45 riders vowed never to do it again, and kept their promise!  Some returned in 2012 though, especially as the rules were relaxed to include bikes up to 1930.  That allowed me to naively enter the 2012 Cannonball with my 1928-framed Velocette Mk4 KTT.  'The Mule' had been my reliable rally machine for 12 years, taking in 7 week-long Velocette rallies, covering 250-mile days with aplomb.  I'd already effectively double the Cannonball mileage on a similar daily schedule, so it seemed a plausible effort.

Beauty among the beasts!  Rider Steve DeCosa's daughters joined up (help with her name!?), and Buck Carson of Carson Classic Motors was happy to pose on the 1913 Warwick delivery tricycle ridden by his father Mike.

Readers of my 2012 Cannonball reports on TheVintagent.com know I had terrible problems with two replacement camshafts I installed, the first lasting about 20 miles total, and the second, installed after many hours modification at a machine shop, lasted only a further 1000 miles.  Those were blissful miles over the Rockies, I'll confess, but the truth was, the Cannonball defeated my preparation.  The Mule remains the only overhead-camshaft motorcycle to run the Cannonball, and several H-D riders suggested that a machine which couldn't be fixed with a hammer had no place on a run like the Cannonball.  Perhaps they're correct.

German engineering!  Thomas Trapp and Paul Jung found the front fender of this 1915 Harley-Davidson too long, and fouling the front wheel at speed, so they bobbed it!  Thomas is Europe's largest H-D dealer, from Frankfurt.

In 2014, I partnered with Revival Cycles to ride Bryan Bossier's 1933 Brough Superior 1150, which proved an absolutely remarkable machine, showing its heels daily to every other Cannonball machine, and cruising at a steady 65-70mph, even ridden two-up, with Susan on the back.  Our only 'competition' was the 1936 H-D Knuckleheads squeaking into the pre-1937 rules, but a day-long ride on a Knuck over the 11,000' Independence Pass in Colorado, with its endless hairpin turns, revealed there was no comparison between the pride of American engineering, and a cobbled-up masterpiece of British engineering.  Sorry dudes. (Read my 2014 ride report here)

We had plenty of visitor and day-trippers along for the ride, including Cannonball veteran and publisher Buzz Kanter of American Iron mag.

With no motorbike to concern us this year, Susan and I had an all-Sprinter Cannonball rally, and embraced the experience.  Following the same route as the riders, we were blessed with the endlessly beautiful and fascinating landscape of the United States.  The natural beauty of the East Coast forests, with their winding hills and hollows, lovely climbs were perfect motorcycle roads, dotted regularly with podunk villages and oddball eateries, brought a mix of awe at Nature and concern at Nurture.   Signs supporting a blustering demagogue were inevitably mixed with Confederate flags in Pennsylvania, a clear repudiation of both the policies and race of our current president, in parts of the country left far behind the technology-based prosperity of my native California.

Our 'wet plate' photo of 'Round the World' Doug Wothke's 1917 Douglas twin, brought along for spares, since it was too new for the Cannonball.

The start of this year's rally was hot and oppressive, with daily 95deg temps and 90% humidity.  Jumping in an out of the Sprinter to develop photographs was an experience in hydration management, a subject which became increasingly critical as the days rolled forward, regardless of our 'ride nurse' Vicki 'Spitfire' Sanfelipo handing out electrolite tablets like candy.  Make friends with Gatorade, she said, so we did, and wrung out our sweat-soaked clothing at night (I'll cover our wet plate adventure in a separate post).

Cris Sommer Simmons has ridden 'Effie', her 1915 Harley-Davidson, on 2 Cannonballs now, and it acquitted itself very well.

September 10th was a short ride of 158 miles through an endless series of New Jersey stoplights. The heat, and the constant stop-start, took a heavy toll on machinery and riders, and by the end of the day in York, Pennsylvania, 23 machines were hors de combat.  Some refused to start in the heat, some broke parts, some seized, and one burned to the ground. John Pfeifer had built an extra-capacity fuel tank for his 1916 Harley-Davidson, and the weight of a full tank pressed down onto the rear cylinder's rocker arm (atop the cylinder head on an F-head motor).  It only took 80 miles or so for the rocker to wear through the metal, fuel to spill onto the magneto, and a great ball of flame to erupt.  John watched his machine burn for 20 minutes before a fire truck arrived with a decent extinguisher.  The first day was the worst day overall, culling the field quickly, and serving notice this wasn't going to be an easy run.

Our wet plate of Brent Hansen and his 1913 Shaw motor bicycle, with a very long road before him.

On a bright note, Susan and I had a terrific meal at the Left Bank in York, the first of 3 excellent meals on our 17-day trip.  We tried our hardest to eat well, searching daily for the 'best restaurant in X', and finding lists online which invariably included chains like Jack in the Box. It's not difficult to draw conclusions about rural American culinary habits from this, and you'd be correct - America grows food for the world, but eats poorly in the very regions that food is grown.  But we'd discovered that a couple of times already, and brought a sufficient stock of coffee and wine from home!

A visit from the locals!  Atlantic city crew - the neighborhood '12 O'Clock Boys', although they sheepishly admitted they were 1 or 2 O'Clockers in reality, as a fully vertical wheelie is hard!

Rural Pennsylvania is a lovely place to ride through.  We stopped in Collinsville, PA, for some ice cream

Day 1: carnage.  The cylinder head on Dave Volnek's 1915 Indian blew out, but he had spares, and the bike was back on the road the next day.

Part of a strong German contingent, Andreas Kaindl rode his 1915 Henderson single-speeder, which he purchased from the Hockenheim Museum, and added a convincing faux-patina paint job.  This was Andy's 2nd Cannonball.

Frank Westfall on his 1912 Henderson, and Buck Carson on his 1914 BSA single belt-driver.

A gentleman's mount!  Kevin Waters has 'Beamed across America twice now, having ridden a '33 Sunbeam Model 9 the full distance in 2014.  His 1915 Sunbeam single was a lovely, and very early, example of the marque.

Trouble begins before the beginning! The 1913 Douglas of Steve Alexander gets a flat in the first 6 miles, at the staging area...

Doug Feinsod, a Cannonball veteran, and one of the 'Thor Losers', a 5-rider team of rare Thor v-twins

Many kind words and thoughts were directed to our friend Bill Buckingham, who was tragically killed 2 weeks before the Cannonball.  His usual #40 number plate was carried by a string of other riders, and '40' stickers adorned many bikes.  Godspeed, Bill

Shinya Kimura on his 1915 Indian twin, on a test run before its 4th Cannonball, as seen from the back of our 'wet plate van', my Sprinter with red safety film on the window for our mobile darkroom.

It was history to be made, and 94 riders grasped the gauntlet; to be the first 100-year old vehicles of any sort to cross the United States in a supervised trial.  Cars, planes, bicycles, rollers skates, whatever - the 2016 Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Rally, this year called the Race of the Century, would the be the first attempt to my knowledge for any Centurion vehicle to cross the country.  That claim was staked at the starter's banquet in the Golden Nugget hotel on September 9th in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during an oppressively hot and muggy late Summer week - 95 degrees and 90% humidity - the hotel having chiseled off it's 'Trump' name some years ago during a bankruptcy proceeding.

Trying to get a decent shot of the assembled 94 motorcycles on the Atlantic City boardwalk, just before the 10am start of the Cannonball.

It wasn't the only evidence of Trump, or bankruptcy, we'd encounter on our third trip over backroads America.  Three Cannonballs, this one likely to be my last, and for once totally bikeless, as my partner (with the bike) couldn't take the 3 weeks off this year.   My artistic and life partner Susan, after a crisis huddle, decided our MotoTintype project was too important to abandon, so we chose to follow the Cannonball as photographers, taking as many 'wet plate' photos as we could, and round out the hundreds of images we'd already shot on the prior 2 events, in order to make a book of the best images. Susan's brother Scott drove my Sprinter to NYC, and we flew out to begin another epic road trip.

...and the shot I was able to take, from the opposite direction from the official panorama of the start.

The Motorcycle Cannonball was initiated by Lonnie Isam Jr, as both an homage to the achievement of Erwin 'Cannonball' Baker's cross-country record breaking sprees in the early part of the 20th Century, and a challenge to the many owners of early motorcycles who didn't ride them all that much. Lonnie believed early machines were just as capable of crossing the country today - on paved roads rather than dirt tracks - as they were when new, and the first Cannonball was held in 2010, with a small cadre of riders on pre-1916 machines accepting the challenge.  That first year was notoriously difficult, and an admirable bonding experience.  Nobody had tried such an incredibly long ride - 3500 miles - on such old machinery, and nobody really knew what to expect, or how the bikes would hold up to riding an average of 250 miles/day on a rigorous schedule.

Kurt Klokkenga, one of the 'motorcycle sweep' staff of the Cannonball, who were allowed to help repair machines en route without penalty.  I'm sure many stranded riders were grateful of their help!  Love his patina Panhead.

Not surprisingly, the tales of woe and late nights spent making repairs, every single night, made that 2010 event legendary.  Most of the original 45 riders vowed never to do it again, and kept their promise!  Some returned in 2012 though, especially as the rules were relaxed to include bikes up to 1930.  That allowed me to naively enter the 2012 Cannonball with my 1928-framed Velocette Mk4 KTT.  'The Mule' had been my reliable rally machine for 12 years, taking in 7 week-long Velocette rallies, covering 250-mile days with aplomb.  I'd already effectively double the Cannonball mileage on a similar daily schedule, so it seemed a plausible effort.

Beauty among the beasts!  Rider Steve DeCosa's daughters joined up (help with her name!?), and Buck Carson of Carson Classic Motors was happy to pose on the 1913 Warwick delivery tricycle ridden by his father Mike.

Readers of my 2012 Cannonball reports on TheVintagent.com know I had terrible problems with two replacement camshafts I installed, the first lasting about 20 miles total, and the second, installed after many hours modification at a machine shop, lasted only a further 1000 miles.  Those were blissful miles over the Rockies, I'll confess, but the truth was, the Cannonball defeated my preparation.  The Mule remains the only overhead-camshaft motorcycle to run the Cannonball, and several H-D riders suggested that a machine which couldn't be fixed with a hammer had no place on a run like the Cannonball.  Perhaps they're correct.

German engineering!  Thomas Trapp and Paul Jung found the front fender of this 1915 Harley-Davidson too long, and fouling the front wheel at speed, so they bobbed it!  Thomas is Europe's largest H-D dealer, from Frankfurt.

In 2014, I partnered with Revival Cycles to ride Bryan Bossier's 1933 Brough Superior 1150, which proved an absolutely remarkable machine, showing its heels daily to every other Cannonball bike, and cruising at a steady 65-70mph, even ridden two-up with Susan on the back.  Our only 'competition' was the 1936 H-D Knuckleheads squeaking into the pre-1937 rules, but a day-long ride on a Knuck over the 11,000' Independence Pass in Colorado, with its endless hairpin turns, revealed there was no comparison between the pride of American engineering, and a cobbled-up masterpiece of British engineering.  Sorry dudes. (Read my 2014 ride report here)

We had plenty of visitors and day-trippers along for the ride, including Cannonball veteran and publisher Buzz Kanter of American Iron mag.

With no motorbike to concern us this year, Susan and I had an all-Sprinter Cannonball rally, and embraced the experience.  Following the same route as the riders, we were blessed with the endlessly beautiful and fascinating landscape of the United States.  The natural beauty of the East Coast forests, with their winding hills and hollows, lovely climbs were perfect motorcycle roads, dotted regularly with podunk villages and oddball eateries, brought a mix of awe at Nature and concern at Nurture.   Signs supporting a blustering demagogue were inevitably mixed with Confederate flags in Pennsylvania, a clear repudiation of both the policies and race of our current president, in parts of the country left far behind the technology-based prosperity of my native California.

Our 'wet plate' photo of 'Round the World' Doug Wothke's 1917 Douglas twin, brought along for spares, since it was too new for the Cannonball.

The start of this year's rally was hot and oppressively humid.  Jumping in an out of the Sprinter to develop photographs was an experience in hydration management, a subject which became increasingly critical as the days rolled forward, regardless of our 'ride nurse' Vicki 'Spitfire' Sanfelipo handing out electrolyte tablets like candy.  Make friends with Gatorade, she said, so we did, and wrung out our sweat-soaked clothing at night.  A few ignored her warning at their peril. (I'll cover our wet plate adventure in a separate post)

Cris Sommer Simmons has ridden 'Effie', her 1915 Harley-Davidson, on 2 Cannonballs now, and it acquitted itself very well.

September 10th was a short ride of 158 miles through an endless series of New Jersey stoplights. The heat, and the constant stop-start, took a heavy toll on machinery and riders, and by the end of the day in York, Pennsylvania, 23 machines were hors de combat.  Some refused to start in the heat, some broke parts, some seized, and one burned to the ground. John Pfeifer had built an extra-capacity fuel tank for his 1916 Harley-Davidson, and the weight of a full tank pressed down onto the rear cylinder's rocker arm (atop the cylinder head on an F-head motor).  It only took 80 miles or so for the rocker to wear through the metal, fuel to spill onto the magneto, and a great ball of flame to erupt.  John watched his machine burn for 20 minutes before a fire truck arrived with a decent extinguisher.  The first day was the worst day overall, culling the field quickly, and serving notice this wasn't going to be an easy run.

Our wet plate of Brent Hansen and his 1913 Shaw motor bicycle, with a very long road before him.

On a bright note, Susan and I had a terrific meal at the Left Bank in York, the first of 3 excellent meals on our 17-day trip.  We tried our hardest to eat well, searching daily for the 'best restaurant in X', and finding lists online which invariably included chains like Jack in the Box. It's not difficult to draw conclusions about rural American culinary habits from this, and you'd be correct - America grows food for the world, but eats poorly in the very regions that food is grown.  But we'd discovered that a couple of times already, and brought a sufficient stock of coffee and wine from home!

A visit from the locals!  Atlantic city crew - the neighborhood '12 O'Clock Boys', although they sheepishly admitted they were 1 or 2 O'Clockers in reality, as a fully vertical wheelie is hard!

Rural Pennsylvania is a lovely place to ride through.  We stopped in Collinsville, PA, for some ice cream

Day 1: carnage.  The cylinder head on Dave Volnek's 1915 Indian blew out, but he had spares, and the bike was back on the road the next day.

Part of a strong German contingent, Andreas Kaindl rode his 1915 Henderson single-speeder, which he purchased from the Hockenheim Museum, and added a convincing faux-patina paint job.  This was Andy's 2nd Cannonball.

Frank Westfall on his 1912 Henderson, and Buck Carson on his 1914 BSA single belt-driver.

A gentleman's mount!  Kevin Waters has 'Beamed across America twice now, having ridden a '33 Sunbeam Model 9 the full distance in 2014.  His 1915 Sunbeam single was a lovely, and very early, example of the marque.

Trouble begins before the beginning! The 1913 Douglas of Steve Alexander gets a flat in the first 6 miles, at the staging area...

Doug Feinsod, a Cannonball veteran, and one of the 'Thor Losers', a 5-rider team of rare Thor v-twins

Many kind words and thoughts were directed to our friend Bill Buckingham, who was tragically killed 2 weeks before the Cannonball.  His usual #40 number plate was carried by a string of other riders, and '40' stickers adorned many bikes.  Godspeed, Bill

Subscribe here to The Vintagent by email!  

Shinya Kimura on his 1915 Indian twin, on a test run before its 4th Cannonball, as seen from the back of our 'wet plate van', my Sprinter with red 'safety' film on the window for our mobile darkroom.

It was history to be made, and 94 riders grasped the gauntlet; to be the first 100-year old vehicles of any sort to cross the United States.  Cars, planes, bicycles, rollers skates, whatever - the 2016 Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Rally, this year called the Race of the Century, would the be the first attempt to my knowledge for any Centurion vehicle to cross the country.  That claim was staked at the starter's banquet in the Golden Nugget hotel on September 9th in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during an oppressively hot and muggy late Summer week - 95 degrees and 90% humidity - the hotel having chiseled off it's 'Trump' name some years ago during a bankruptcy proceeding.

Trying to get a decent shot of the assembled 94 motorcycles on the Atlantic City boardwalk, just before the 10am start of the Cannonball.

It wasn't the only evidence of Trump, or bankruptcy, we'd encounter on our third trip over backroads America.  Three Cannonballs, this one likely to be my last, and for once totally bikeless, as my partner (with the bike) couldn't take the 3 weeks off this year.   My artistic and life partner Susan, after a crisis huddle, decided our MotoTintype project was too important to abandon, so we chose to follow the Cannonball as photographers, taking as many 'wet plate' photos as we could, and round out the hundreds of images we'd already shot on the prior 2 events, in order to make a book of the best images. Susan's brother Scott drove my Sprinter to NYC, and thus began another epic road trip.

...and the shot I was able to take, from the opposite direction from the official panorama of the start.

The Motorcycle Cannonball was initiated by Lonnie Isam Jr, as both an homage to the achievement of Erwin 'Cannonball' Baker's cross-country record breaking sprees in the early part of the 20th Century, and a challenge to the many owners of early motorcycles who didn't ride them all that much. Lonnie believed early machines were just as capable of crossing the country today - on paved roads rather than dirt tracks - as they were when new, and the first Cannonball was held in 2010, with a small cadre of riders on pre-1916 machines accepting the challenge.  That first year was notoriously difficult, and an admirably bonding experience.  Nobody had tried such an incredibly long ride - 3500 miles - on such old machinery, and nobody really knew what to expect, or how the bikes would hold up to riding and average 250 miles/day on a rigorous schedule.

Kurt Klokkenga, one of the 'motorcycle sweep' staff of the Cannonball, who were allowed to help repair machines en route without penalty.  I'm sure many stranded riders were grateful of their help!  Love his patina Panhead.

Not surprisingly, the tales of woe and late nights spent making repairs, every single night, made that 2010 event legendary.  Most of the original 45 riders vowed never to do it again, and kept their promise!  Some returned in 2012 though, especially as the rules were relaxed to include bikes up to 1930.  That allowed me to naively enter the 2012 Cannonball with my 1928-framed Velocette Mk4 KTT.  'The Mule' had been my reliable rally machine for 12 years, taking in 7 week-long Velocette rallies, covering 250-mile days with aplomb.  I'd already effectively double the Cannonball mileage on a similar daily schedule, so it seemed a plausible effort.

Beauty among the beasts!  Alyson DeCosa and Buck Carson of Carson Classic Motors was happy to pose on the 1913 Warwick delivery tricycle ridden by his father Mike.

Readers of my 2012 Cannonball reports on TheVintagent.com know I had terrible problems with two replacement camshafts I installed, the first lasting about 20 miles total, and the second, installed after many hours modification at a machine shop, lasted only a further 1000 miles.  Those were blissful miles over the Rockies, I'll confess, but the truth was, the Cannonball defeated my preparation.  The Mule remains the only overhead-camshaft motorcycle to run the Cannonball, and several H-D riders suggested that a machine which couldn't be fixed with a hammer had no place on a run like the Cannonball.  Perhaps they're correct.

German engineering!  Thomas Trapp and Paul Jung found the front fender of this 1915 Harley-Davidson too long, and fouling the front wheel at speed, so they bobbed it!  Thomas is Europe's largest H-D dealer, from Frankfurt.

In 2014, I partnered with Revival Cycles to ride Bryan Bossier's 1933 Brough Superior 1150, which proved an absolutely remarkable machine, showing its heels daily to every other Cannonball machine, and cruising at a steady 65-70mph, even ridden two-up, with Susan on the back.  Our only 'competition' was the 1936 H-D Knuckleheads squeaking into the pre-1937 rules, but a day-long ride on a Knuck over the 11,000' Independence Pass in Colorado, with its endless hairpin turns, revealed there was no comparison between the pride of American engineering, and a cobbled-up masterpiece of British engineering.  Sorry dudes. (Read my 2014 ride report here)

We had plenty of visitor and day-trippers along for the ride, including Cannonball veteran and publisher Buzz Kanter of American Iron mag.

With no motorbike to concern us this year, Susan and I had an all-Sprinter Cannonball rally, and embraced the experience.  Following the same route as the riders, we were blessed with the endlessly beautiful and fascinating landscape of the United States.  The natural beauty of the East Coast forests, with their winding hills and hollows, lovely climbs were perfect motorcycle roads, dotted regularly with podunk villages and oddball eateries, brought a mix of awe at Nature and concern at Nurture.   Signs supporting a blustering demagogue were inevitably mixed with Confederate flags in Pennsylvania, a clear repudiation of both the policies and race of our current president, in parts of the country left far behind the technology-based prosperity of my native California.

Our 'wet plate' photo of 'Round the World' Doug Wothke's 1917 Douglas twin, brought along for spares, since it was too new for the Cannonball.

The start of this year's rally was hot and oppressive, with daily 95deg temps and 90% humidity.  Jumping in an out of the Sprinter to develop photographs was an experience in hydration management, a subject which became increasingly critical as the days rolled forward, regardless of our 'ride nurse' Vicki 'Spitfire' Sanfelipo handing out electrolite tablets like candy.  Make friends with Gatorade, she said, so we did, and wrung out our sweat-soaked clothing at night (I'll cover our wet plate adventure in a separate post).

Cris Sommer Simmons has ridden 'Effie', her 1915 Harley-Davidson, on 2 Cannonballs now, and it acquitted itself very well.

September 10th was a short ride of 158 miles through an endless series of New Jersey stoplights. The heat, and the constant stop-start, took a heavy toll on machinery and riders, and by the end of the day in York, Pennsylvania, 23 machines were hors de combat.  Some refused to start in the heat, some broke parts, some seized, and one burned to the ground. John Pfeifer had built an extra-capacity fuel tank for his 1916 Harley-Davidson, and the weight of a full tank pressed down onto the rear cylinder's rocker arm (atop the cylinder head on an F-head motor).  It only took 80 miles or so for the rocker to wear through the metal, fuel to spill onto the magneto, and a great ball of flame to erupt.  John watched his machine burn for 20 minutes before a fire truck arrived with a decent extinguisher.  The first day was the worst day overall, culling the field quickly, and serving notice this wasn't going to be an easy run.

Our wet plate of Brent Hansen and his 1913 Shaw motor bicycle, with a very long road before him.

On a bright note, Susan and I had a terrific meal at the Left Bank in York, the first of 3 excellent meals on our 17-day trip.  We tried our hardest to eat well, searching daily for the 'best restaurant in X', and finding lists online which invariably included chains like Jack in the Box. It's not difficult to draw conclusions about rural American culinary habits from this, and you'd be correct - America grows food for the world, but eats poorly in the very regions that food is grown.  But we'd discovered that a couple of times already, and brought a sufficient stock of coffee and wine from home!

A visit from the locals!  Atlantic city crew - the neighborhood '12 O'Clock Boys', although they sheepishly admitted they were 1 or 2 O'Clockers in reality, as a fully vertical wheelie is hard!

Rural Pennsylvania is a lovely place to ride through.  We stopped in Collinsville, PA, for some ice cream

Day 1: carnage.  The cylinder head on Dave Volnek's 1915 Indian blew out, but he had spares, and the bike was back on the road the next day.

Part of a strong German contingent, Andreas Kaindl rode his 1915 Henderson single-speeder, which he purchased from the Hockenheim Museum, and added a convincing faux-patina paint job.  This was Andy's 3rd Cannonball.

Frank Westfall on his 1912 Henderson, and Buck Carson on his 1914 BSA single belt-driver.

A gentleman's mount!  Kevin Waters has 'Beamed across America twice now, having ridden a '33 Sunbeam Model 9 the full distance in 2014.  His 1915 Sunbeam single was a lovely, and very early, example of the marque.

Trouble begins before the beginning! The 1913 Douglas of Steve Alexander gets a flat in the first 6 miles, at the staging area...

Doug Feinsod, a Cannonball veteran, and one of the 'Thor Losers', a 5-rider team of rare Thor v-twins

Many kind words and thoughts were directed to our friend Bill Buckingham, who was tragically killed 2 weeks before the Cannonball.  His usual #40 number plate was carried by a string of other riders, and '40' stickers adorned many bikes.  Godspeed, Bill