1968 Motorcycle Touring Ride To Daytona - 3-Page Vintage Article

Description

1968 Motorcycle Touring Ride To Daytona - 3-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine article.
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
shall stay these couriers
What we had in mind was a rerun of
last year's ride to Daytona, only
this time with such embellishments as
more bikes, bigger bikes, more exotic
bikes, and (naturally) more people And
New York being what it is in the dead of
winter, we found no want of volunteers
eager to get out of town. In fact, Gil
Brown, our West Coast ad man, was
even willing to come into town just for
the sheer satisfaction of leaving again It
was like Old Home Week on the high-
ways leading South—but more of that
later. First we had to get kitted up
Borrowing a motorcycle from a
distributor for the purpose of a published
road test is no great task—even when he
knows you might be ruthlessly honest
about the bike’s shortcomings. But try
borrowing it sometime when your
opener goes like this: “You see, we want
this bike to go 1400 miles through the
rain and slush and misery to glorious
Daytona. Of course we’ll have to men-
tion everything that went wrong because
that adds to the adventure, but this isn’t
any big feature article or anything. All
we want is a brand new machine, set up
for touring, and we’ll give it back to you
when we get there, if it goes the distance.
You’ll get a mention in the back of the
magazine.” Strong persuasion, we admit,
but the distributors probably figured
anybody who’d willingly ride 1400 miles
through the rain and sleet ought to have
a ride. Anyway, they delivered.
Our first two bikes were big tourers
already on hand for full-scale road tests,
the new BMW R 69 US and the latest
Harley-Davidson 74-cubic-inch Elec-
traGlide. We called Don Brown over at
BSA East and invited him to join the
ride. He must have glanced out the win-
dow at the then-20-degree weather, for
although he agreed, he allowed as how
he might have to cancel later on account
of “meetings.” Fortunately he did have a
1968 500cc single-carburetor
demonstrator for us to take. Our fourth
mount was to have been Floyd Clymer’s
newest rendition of the Munch Mam-
moth, the lOOOcc four-cylinder monster
that everyone wanted to try but no one
wanted to commit himself to for a full
1400 miles. As it turned out, production
difficulties in Germany held up delivery
until after our departure date. At Day-
tona we received a telegram informing
us that the Mammoth awaited our con-
vience in a Customs shed at Kennedy
Airport. We noted that as the weather
grew increasingly foul toward zero hour,
an increasing number “volunteered” to
stay behind for the Mammoth. Publisher
Jim Claar substituted his own BSA 650
Thunderbolt to silence the self- sacrificers.
We were not disappointed in getting a
sophisticated multi, however, for Big Ed
Labelle of Philadelphia yielded up his
MV-4 demonstrator for the trip The
glorious whine of that gear-driven
double-overhead-cam mechanism was to
be a lullaby to comfort us through the
many rainswept miles. Then the
Triumph Corp, of Towson. Md., offered
us an “experimental” 650cc Triumph
Trophy that bore various modifications
to the engine and running gear conjured
up by Service Manager Rod Coates. A
testimony to his skill, the Triumph was...
16432