Vintage Pics of the Day

[Jarek]

Great photos, I need to spend more time here!!!!

Something from me:
Witold Rychter - a well-known figure in Polish motorcycling before World War 2.
He wrote an interesting book about those times " Moje dwa I cztery kółka " , probably only in Polish

[JoJo357]

*M.A.D.*

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"Give me the recipe for the secret egg salad sandwich''. ''No~never, we'd rather die first''.
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[BigLakeBob]

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[EricOlson]

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This is a picture of Lu Magri, wife of Sacramento Harley dealership owner and racer Armando Magri. Picture is from 1938. Here is the counterpart picture with Armando on the bike.

Armando Magri on his knucklehead, 1938, photo by Lu Magri.jpg

[RichO]

Eric, Check out the rubber oil lines with clamps and the rubber fuel line that drops down by the timer to the carb. Magri was ahead of his time in mods. I wish he was here so I could ask him about that. I miss him and Ernie. Rich

[ChiefTwoKicks]

Yea, and while checking things out, Rich... have a look at the rear tire wear !! and what is that on the upper rear frame leg ? a tire pimp ? He's a long ways from a tire shop. ay least where the pic was taken next to that sign !!

Magri and wife are nearly a hundred miles from his Sacramento dealership, I'd be thinking (likely, praying) about that worn out tire all the way back to the shop. ...and if thats a tire pump, you're right... Magri was way ahead of his time. maybe he was actually trying to see how many miles he could get on his rear tire !!

Roger C2K

[RichO]

Roger, Long time no see old friend. Yes,I noticed the rear tire was bald as a drag slick. Did you notice the air pump was affixed by good old friction tape? Hope to see you on a road run out here this coming year. i'm getting close to my last. Regards, Rich Fort Sutter P.S. Armando was one of our 12 founding members.

[Jarek]

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[JoJo357]

*M.A.D.*

https://www.newsreview.com/sacrament...ast-ride/6393/ ----> Dandy little article.

Armando on Dot's Iron at Daytona Beach.

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[1939wl]

Great pictures of Armando, and Lu.
Love that 39'

[ChiefTwoKicks]

a really fantastic story, thanks JoJo !! C2K

[BigLakeBob]

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[EricOlson]

Eric, Check out the rubber oil lines with clamps and the rubber fuel line that drops down by the timer to the carb. Magri was ahead of his time in mods. I wish he was here so I could ask him about that. I miss him and Ernie. Rich

Hey Rich, I bet a lot of his mods were learned through experience and well tested. Like when he and his buddies rode their bikes down the Rubicon. Crazy! I know this thread is for pictures, but the story is worth reading. Armando lived a hell of a life!

Riding the Rubicon Canyon on Harleys. We Did That!
from the Autobiography of Armando Magri

This…was one of the dumbest things I ever did on a motorcycle, but I had accomplices. I had heard tales about an abandoned 19th century stage coach road that went through the Rubicon River Canyon, from Lake Tahoe through Wentworth Springs, Georgetown, Auburn and on into Sacramento. One story related how a Dodge truck was the last vehicle to attempt this hazardous road.

It was 1940 and I was still working for Murray. I had a yearning to try this road on a motorcycle. One summer day I gathered five of my friends and told them about my idea to ride down the canyon. Along with me were Earl Axtell, Bud Ernst, Bill Burns, George Holmes and Ken Unden, who my son is named after. We were all riding 61 cubic inch Harleys, which weighed 535 pounds. None of us had the slightest idea what we were getting into.

We stopped at the Pack Station at Wentworth Springs, to ask the mountain packer about the conditions in the canyon. He advised us to forget it. Just a few weeks earlier he had to take pack horses in to retrieve a stranded BSA motorcycle. The engine was ruined from going over the large granite rocks.

The old man told us to walk over to the edge of the canyon and take a good look down. “That in itself will be enough to make you change your minds,” he said, adding that only one vehicle had made the journey in modern times. It was a specially built one-ton Marmon Harrington truck with high clearance and four-wheel drive.

Being smart-asses, we didn’t even bother to look down at the canyon. We took off, against the old man’s advice. Within a few hundred yards, we began to understand what he was talking about. The years and weather had taken its toll on this road.

Being an adventurous group, we decided to push on. That was a good word for it too. Push we did. The further in we got, the more hazardous the boulders became. There were stretches where we had to lift each bike over rocks and deep ditches. The distance to the bottom of the canyon was only three miles from Wentworth Springs, not that far. But before we reached that point we had smashed exhaust pipes, broken brake rods, scratched our paint jobs and damaged other parts on the bikes from scraping them against the rocks.

George and Bill had little riding experience of this sort. We had to ride their bikes across some tough stretches, then go back for our own. Once we reached Rubicon Springs, we took a much-needed rest. Earl had some smashed cookies in his saddle bag. Once we started up the other side, it wasn’t as hazardous, but still difficult.

A half-mile in we came across an abandoned 1925 Cadillac with chains around the rear tires. Later we would learn that this car had come in a week earlier, and slid off the road. It had fresh gasoline in it, so we used door stripping for a siphon and helped ourselves.

We came out of the canyon at Camp Richardson, along the shore of Lake Tahoe. It was almost dark. From there, we rode to Homewood, where Ken’s father-in-law had a cabin. After making dinner, we all stretched out on the living room floor, a bunch of smart-asses, totally pooped out.

All told, it was the dumbest thing we ever did on bikes. The only thing we accomplished were bragging rights, which came in handy one day.

After World War II, a great many surplus Jeeps were sold at public auctions. That began a “Jeepers” craze. For many years Jeepers would come to Rubicon Canyon for a big jamboree.

In the late 1970s, I was talking to some of the guys over at S and H 4-Wheel shop, across the street from our dealership. We got into quite a discussion about the Rubicon Canyon. When I told them about our trip in


1940 they snickered. They thought I was spreading it on pretty thick. So, I said, “Hang tight and I’ll be right back.”

When I returned, I asked them if there was an old Cadillac near Rubicon Springs, and they began to look at one another. “Of course,” one said. “Who would ever try to pull that thing out?”

“Well then, take a look at this photograph,” I said. It was a photo Earl took of Kenny siphoning gas out of that old thing, with two of our Harleys parked on the background.

There was no further snickering.

And a few pictures of the trip, just to stay true to the thread. Thanks to Armando's son Ken for making all this info available to the world.

Knuckleheads on Knuckleheads, 1940.jpg

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Taking gas from the Cadillac
Kenny taking gas from the abandoned Cadillac at the bottom of Rubicon Canyon, 1940..jpg

We made it!.jpg

[Jerry Wieland]

Hey Rich, I bet a lot of his mods were learned through experience and well tested. Like when he and his buddies rode their bikes down the Rubicon. Crazy! I know this thread is for pictures, but the story is worth reading. Armando lived a hell of a life!

Riding the Rubicon Canyon on Harleys. We Did That!
from the Autobiography of Armando Magri

This…was one of the dumbest things I ever did on a motorcycle, but I had accomplices. I had heard tales about an abandoned 19th century stage coach road that went through the Rubicon River Canyon, from Lake Tahoe through Wentworth Springs, Georgetown, Auburn and on into Sacramento. One story related how a Dodge truck was the last vehicle to attempt this hazardous road.

It was 1940 and I was still working for Murray. I had a yearning to try this road on a motorcycle. One summer day I gathered five of my friends and told them about my idea to ride down the canyon. Along with me were Earl Axtell, Bud Ernst, Bill Burns, George Holmes and Ken Unden, who my son is named after. We were all riding 61 cubic inch Harleys, which weighed 535 pounds. None of us had the slightest idea what we were getting into.

We stopped at the Pack Station at Wentworth Springs, to ask the mountain packer about the conditions in the canyon. He advised us to forget it. Just a few weeks earlier he had to take pack horses in to retrieve a stranded BSA motorcycle. The engine was ruined from going over the large granite rocks.

The old man told us to walk over to the edge of the canyon and take a good look down. “That in itself will be enough to make you change your minds,” he said, adding that only one vehicle had made the journey in modern times. It was a specially built one-ton Marmon Harrington truck with high clearance and four-wheel drive.

Being smart-asses, we didn’t even bother to look down at the canyon. We took off, against the old man’s advice. Within a few hundred yards, we began to understand what he was talking about. The years and weather had taken its toll on this road.

Being an adventurous group, we decided to push on. That was a good word for it too. Push we did. The further in we got, the more hazardous the boulders became. There were stretches where we had to lift each bike over rocks and deep ditches. The distance to the bottom of the canyon was only three miles from Wentworth Springs, not that far. But before we reached that point we had smashed exhaust pipes, broken brake rods, scratched our paint jobs and damaged other parts on the bikes from scraping them against the rocks.

George and Bill had little riding experience of this sort. We had to ride their bikes across some tough stretches, then go back for our own. Once we reached Rubicon Springs, we took a much-needed rest. Earl had some smashed cookies in his saddle bag. Once we started up the other side, it wasn’t as hazardous, but still difficult.

A half-mile in we came across an abandoned 1925 Cadillac with chains around the rear tires. Later we would learn that this car had come in a week earlier, and slid off the road. It had fresh gasoline in it, so we used door stripping for a siphon and helped ourselves.

We came out of the canyon at Camp Richardson, along the shore of Lake Tahoe. It was almost dark. From there, we rode to Homewood, where Ken’s father-in-law had a cabin. After making dinner, we all stretched out on the living room floor, a bunch of smart-asses, totally pooped out.

All told, it was the dumbest thing we ever did on bikes. The only thing we accomplished were bragging rights, which came in handy one day.

After World War II, a great many surplus Jeeps were sold at public auctions. That began a “Jeepers” craze. For many years Jeepers would come to Rubicon Canyon for a big jamboree.

In the late 1970s, I was talking to some of the guys over at S and H 4-Wheel shop, across the street from our dealership. We got into quite a discussion about the Rubicon Canyon. When I told them about our trip in


1940 they snickered. They thought I was spreading it on pretty thick. So, I said, “Hang tight and I’ll be right back.”

When I returned, I asked them if there was an old Cadillac near Rubicon Springs, and they began to look at one another. “Of course,” one said. “Who would ever try to pull that thing out?”

“Well then, take a look at this photograph,” I said. It was a photo Earl took of Kenny siphoning gas out of that old thing, with two of our Harleys parked on the background.

There was no further snickering.

And a few pictures of the trip, just to stay true to the thread. Thanks to Armando's son Ken for making all this info available to the world.

Knuckleheads on Knuckleheads, 1940.jpg

98482650_877608852724030_3774724745023455232_o.jpg

99072055_877608966057352_8193572195058843648_o.jpg

Taking gas from the Cadillac
Kenny taking gas from the abandoned Cadillac at the bottom of Rubicon Canyon, 1940..jpg

We made it!.jpg

There - now the kick starter is on the right side. image_40829.jpg

[rustynutz]

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