Springtime Norton and Africa Twin Showdown

[KsTeveM]

So, it’s springtime, seems appropriate to get out with some not so spring chickens on older bikes and ride pavement….with my late model Africa Twin on knobbies. Wait, that makes no sense actually.

Well it’s happening regardless. I got invited to hang out with the NTNOA crew, North Texas Norton Owners Association. One of my coworkers has been a member since 1883 or something like that. These guys have an annual run to Leakey and do the normal shenanigans that revolve around motorcycle foolery…..ride a little, gawk a little, eat a little, drink a lot. Sounds kind of unhealthy……and familiar, I’m in!! Rolling that way now with the Lil Red Express. Hoping we don’t have to endure rain the entire time, I know we need it, just selfish. More to come later, now yall get back to work!!

 

[Windmill]

 

[William Wolfen]

I'd love to get a good close look at that Africa Twin someday. I've never actually seen one in person.

 

[Windmill]

Like to see inside of Lil Red Express if you get a chance.

 

[KsTeveM]

Touchdown. The club rented out the entire Leakey Inn. I’ve never stayed here, I like new scenes. This one is an old one, some of the buildings here are the originals from 1929.

A guy named Charles Price and his wife Missouri, pronounced Missoura, built up quite a business here at that time. The old timers called this spot Cedar Hill, I suppose people have been sneezing in this spot for decades . Missoura was well known for her hand dipped sour ice cream and homemade waffle cones. The crème for her ice cream was delivered in Model Ts, hauled across six low water crossings from Sabinal to Uvalde by way of Silver Mine Pass (never thought about that pass having a name, dummy me). I obviously don’t know this lady, but I’m liking her more and more anyhow. Couple pics as we found the digs today:

And there is a mosulium on site, they died the same year!!

My ugly mug

I have a bit of history in this area. My wife’s grandparents lived in Leakey back in the day, he was the principal at the high school and deacon at the Baptist church. My wife spent many summers here, doing mostly chores, with the payoff being walking down to the Frio in the afternoon from their house in town. In my life as a child, I was across the great divide those same summers hanging out on the Nueces for our family vacations. So we both have a thing for this part of the world. Pic of me in the Nueces with my sisters, late 70s.

I was programmed from an early age, no Disney Land, it was 4wds, bikes and tent camping. My Chevy Luv attempting to get to the swimming hole on the Nueces, I was in high school. My brother-in-law helping somehow in the bed,

Couple years later, my wife and I on our honeymoon in the Reagan Wells area, between Concan and Uvalde the way the crow flies. Is that cool or what?

In my mid 20s I started going back as an “adult” to the Nueces when you could still do some pretty fun 4wd stuff along the river. It was outlawed around 2003 by locals forming a coalition, “killing fish eggs” was the campaign. Now there are 5x the fish in that river and they are 10’ long. Or maybe that is complete crap and nothing has changed, other than less fun. Me in my beloved ‘69 blazer in the Nueces late 90s somewhere in the Montel area.

The past 15 years, I came up this way frequently helping with an offroad park northwest of Leakey. Pic of me in my Toyota Truggy last spring on that property.

Recent years I started crisscrossing every public dirt road on my bike. I suppose this general area has been meaningful for many people/families and represents good times, I absolutely love it “up” here. With that sentiment in mind, I noticed I have a spring in my step today!!! Made me think of Travis Tritt’s song, It’s a great day to be alive…..the lesser known 4th verse is It’s a great day to be drinking beer…….pic of my trailer on site:

These guys will be riding mostly Triumphs, Nortons, BSAs etc., but I don’t have one of those. I plan on riding my AT to chase the brit bikes one day (ride sweep , then maybe ride on my own on more adv type stuff the other day? Rain dependent. My buddy that invited me, Scot, he had a pretty sweet late model Thruxton, but it rides no more. Luckily he still does.

Been trying to talk him into a scrambler so he can ride dirt with me…..and still look cool with his club? He pretends he can’t hear me. Here is a picture of him on this trip, I want you to have a visual of someone hardheaded pretending they can’t hear me when I suggest bikes that are for sale. Can you still claim deafness when you get a text from me with links to Craigslist or TWT with bikes for sale, weekly? It’s honest work.

He is going to borrow a bike from one of the club masters for this run. I brought my 500 for…..dang it I don’t know what for. But when I was packing up I saw him look over at me, didn’t seem right to the leave the little fella behind.

Wow, overwhelmed at the rigs and bikes rolling in. You get a few pics now….I have to digest all this appropriately….and the beer. Cold is smooth, smooth is cold.

Today was mostly about settling in and old friends visiting and reliving the glory days. I think I’m going down to the well tonight, and I’m gonna drink till I get my fill. And hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it, but I probably will. Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory yeah. Well time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of…..Glory Days, well they’ll pass you buy in the wink of a young girl’s eye, Glory Days.

 

[KsTeveM]

Several folks seemed to have a touch of the temporary flu this morning. Things aren’t as festive as last night, but they are still progressing, slowly. So, Norton Motorcycles. I had to ask myself, self what do you know about them? Absolutely nothing, other than I liked the penmanship of the way the name is done, well done whoever you were. Well, if you are reading this, soon enough we might both know a little. James Norton, known as “Pa”, started making parts for the two wheel trade in 1898. In 1902 the very first Norton, the Energette, was produced with a Swiss 143cc single engine. And the kickstand was made better than the current KTM dirt bikes.

In 1907, our bike ancestors had to start racing them, of course they did! And….Norton won the first Isle of Man race that year.

By 1914, they were doing pretty well and Norton and his daughter Ethel redesigned the logo. Well done Ethel and James!! After 1916, every tank from then on had the cool logo.

Pa passed away in 1925 but the brand and heritage obviously kept going and Norton’s became known as the best in the business and won a crap load of Grand Prix and Isle of Man races between 1930 and 1937 (and remember at the same time, here in Texas, Model Ts were delivering crème to Leakey). Then the war changed things, they produced 100,000 motorcycles to support Allied troops between 1937 and 1945. Look at this 1944ish model….daddy like!!

They kind of lost that time and then had to take back up in their production/technology. Norton was the first company to do several things, getting away from rigid rear frames, they made the “featherbed frame”in 1953 using a swingarm setup….then everybody else copied it for years. They were building SOHC and DOHC when others were just push rod engines. More racing heritage and eventually they made the first production super bike in 1967, the Commando. Read a lot about how Norton and Triumph were battling out the HP game and learning how to mitigate vibrations as the pistons grew larger. They should have redesigned their engines to be more jap like, but they couldn’t afford it and had to make due with their older engine designs. Norton created isolastic suspension to help and mounted the engine at an angle to help with the vibes being in line with the drivetrain ….I still don’t know squat about Norton’s really, but I know this, the below pic is cool, looks like art!!

Then they made this model, it was called the 007.

Just kidding, it was the John Player Norton and at the time it was the fastest production bike in the world, beating out Triumph and Honda. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking into the demise of the brand/production, but there were hard times, companies changing hands, consolidation in the early 70s (NVT Norton Villiers Triumph), and basically old ways and old school bikes couldn’t compete with modern, better, cheaper, faster production business models…last Norton was produced in 1975ish. Triumph’s ties with Norton can be seen several times in history when they tried to revive the Norton name. And it seems they have come up again in the racing world in recent decades. 2020—TVS Motor Company acquired what is left of Norton Motorcycles and intends to build luxury hand crafted motorcycles. Not sure where this is headed….strange times we live in to be old schoolers. This weekend I’m looking forward to learning more and appreciating these bikes from across the pond that were built in a better time?

 

[KsTeveM]

I was curious to see what kind of helmet comms these guys were going to have riding these old bikes. It was mostly no comms, these guys like to hear the roar I think….and foot pegs dragging.

 

[KsTeveM]

Anybody still have Silver Mine Pass on their brains? Well I do, so if you are reading this, you do as well now. Around the 1700s the mine got its name from the Spaniards. How come it isn’t Spainards? Near the mine in the Concan area, there is still remnants of a structure made by 30 men under the leadership of James Bowie. That’s right, Bowie knife makin, Alamo hero’n Bowie!! Dadgum, glad my brain wouldn’t let go of the pass name. In 1831 while working on this mine, Bowie’s men held back an attack of Comanches in a fierce all day battle. The hero of the fight was Bowie’s slave, “Black Jim Bowie”, who risked his life by leaving to get water for his guys. Ok, now forget you read that, it had slave in the historic account and Bowie must have been a total piece of crap…..or you can…..Remember the Alamo.

It was time to draw a line in the sand and see who was going to do some dirt riding today. One person certainly crossed the line, stop it, you know who. I thought it would be just me. But ended up being seven of us non Norton Triumph traitors!

Wonder what we can get into?

I kept thinking about that line that was crossed. I’m known for that, the line, not the thinking. And then my brain wouldn’t let go of it, I was remembering something. Finally hit me…..quote from a book……”I didn’t see no line Gus.” Ahhh, that was a good one, anybody know what I’m taking about?

It’s good dirt, bitter sweet. I thoroughly enjoy the scenery, wish we had more dirt.

Some fun little water crossings.

It is a little warm, one weird guy decided to take off his boots and just get in the river. I think his name was Steve.

And this guy later thought the same thing and decided to lay his bike down in a river crossing. It wasn’t due to it being slippery and operator error or anything like that.

We had some good riding, then back on the ol pavement .

 

[CrosbyDave]

Awesome pics and recap

Thanks for taking us along

 

[William Wolfen]

Some of the creek shots look really similar to a county road I rode back at the beginning of the month.

 

[KsTeveM]

These guys are a bit crazy, I am liking them. Check this out. In 2021 a group of them did a Cannonball Run ride consisting of 3700 miles on varying year “flat side” Nortons, from 1915 to 1924. Below is a pic of one of the bikes used.

Starting point was Portland Maine, end point South Padre. They knew the start and end points for each day and needed to average 270 miles each day. They got old school road book directions for each day the morning of. The goal was to ride this unassisted, support vehicles were not to help riders. They referred to the official truck/trailer tracking behind them as the Grim Sweeper, ha ha. Took them 17 days. Sounds like these can cruise comfortably at 45mph. Mad respect for these guys grinding out those miles. I will have to think twice when I complain riding either one of my cushy bikes. Too late, I remember complaining today when my butt started hurting after three and half minutes riding out of Leakey.

So these guys seem to be more civilized. Here is a pic of the Norton club president.

Ok ok, that was unfair, he was hit by a buzzard at some significant speed two days ago. Full face helmet and still got him, broke the visor etc.

They did an intelligent field repair. All better.

 

[KsTeveM]

Beer was flowing. Smiles abundant.

 

[KsTeveM]

Looky what happened here…..awwwwww yeaaaah. Someone got out of the stable to play.

The odd couple got out there again. Scot saddled up for the first time since the thruxton crash last November. He was apprehensive….and I put him on the big red pig. I thought it would help if I made things worse and made him do dirt on top of it.

And I wanted to add even more angst with water crossings.

Annnnd, some long slimy ones seemed even better.

But in the end, it’s just a big dirt bike and his spidy senses took over.

Took a little break to cool off.

We did the three sisters and some decent dirt. All is well in the world.

It’s official, he’s an African Queen. Or quite possibly a future scrambled scrambler.

 

[KsTeveM]

Back at HQ. Put some steaks down, of course they were better than @misterk steaks!!

Hello, am I coming in clear?

 

[Tigerkf]

UGH! Why Steve why???

 

[KsTeveM]

 

[KsTeveM]

Like to see inside of Lil Red Express if you get a chance.

Hey there, decent thread here on my trailer. Happy trailering!!

 

[Windmill]

Hey there, decent thread here on my trailer. Happy trailering!!

I am in the slow process of a Cargo trailer build. I like your interesting way of writing and story telling.

 

[KsTeveM]

I like your interesting way of writing and story telling.

Oh boy, what a relief, you went easy on me. Thank you kindly! I am sure some of my silliness is not received well or just not understood. Might be my age or my limited intelligence. In any case, I will continue to age, limit my intelligence and write as much as I can about my rides.

 

[KsTeveM]

Isn't this a pretty bike?

And one of the bikes there had this hand painted on the tank. The artist was there, he looked like a 200 year old Jack Sparrow. I was too scared to take a pic of him, he didn't ride, just hung out with the haul truck, like never left it. Interesting bikes, interesting people.

Of all the bikes at the Norton Triumph Rally, this was my favorite. Go figure.

 

[Tigerkf]

Steve,
You and all your fun can just go to.......!

Remember the Alamo!

 

[TNC]

Oh boy, what a relief, you went easy on me. Thank you kindly! I am sure some of my silliness is not received well or just not understood. Might be my age or my limited intelligence. In any case, I will continue to age, limit my intelligence and write as much as I can about my rides.

Baloney Steve!...Oh, I'm not calling you "Baloney Steve"...especially in light of your frequent steak pics. I'm saying that your writing is never silly or outlandish. It's good stuff every time, and it pairs with great riding and camping adventures always worthy of a read.

Hey...on these Triumph guys, I'm suspicious. I'd think at least one real Triumph guy would show up on a triple.

Great story telling, Steve.

 

[KsTeveM]

There were a few triples, I didn’t get any pics. But I know they were triples, cause I asked someone else “how come that bike sounds like a normal motorcycle and a lawn mower at the same time” . The sound reminded me of a story my Dad told me when they wanted to sound cool loping through the Pig Stand in their “hot rods” in the 60s, he would pull a plug wire around the corner, then roll through all cool like he had a big cam. I have my own pitiful story, high school time frame I jumped out of my 1979 Luv truck to run in the house and get something, came back out and thought I’d thrown a rod. Forgot Van Halen 1984 cassette was in and left all the way up. When I went inside, it flipped sides and was playing the beginning of Hot For The Teacher. Drummer was making a sound like a hot rod with a cam, but Luvs with 4cyl don’t sound like that!! I just knew I’d blown the motor, then sweetly the song kicked off!!

And some more baloney….

 

[TNC]

Steve...Pig Stand? I'm originally from San Antonio and cruised the Pig Stand at Rigsby and W.W. White Blvd. in the late 60's. Did it in a '57 Chevy 210, 2dr post with a 409 replacing the original 283. It had no need to disconnect a plug wire to mimic a big cam...LOL! Somehow I never ended up in jail or got a ticket in that beast...but not for lack of trying.

And nice pic of the baloney.

 

[KsTeveM]

Same Pig Stand, my Dad grew up in the Rigsby/WW White area, off Longview to be exact. He would have killed for your car. Only name I remember him saying that terrorized that area with a ‘57 was Marvin DeReese. They were more early to mid 60s with their hot roddin. My Dad would have been in a ‘46 Plymouth doing the best he could with what he had. I guess the weak link was the tranny, he said he kept a spare one next to the carport!! He paid my uncle a dime for each glass pack/pipe he polished under the car