Harley JDH Coast to Coast In USA?

[Buzz Kanter]

I feel honored to have participated in my second Motorcycle Cannonball and am amazed by the quality and skills of the riders on both events.

I am fortunate enough to own and ride a 1929 Harley JDH on this latest ride, and found out, about 2/3 of the way across that there had been a number of side bets about when my Two Cam would come apart and not go any further on this nearly 4,000 mile ride. I also was told by a few riders and motorcycle history buffs that this might have been the first time anyone has ever ridden a JDH coast to coast - something I never considered until I heard this.

Does anyone know if others have ridden a Two Cam JDH coast to coast before? I don't know but am now curious.

Congrats to all the Cannonball riders, wrenchs, support and staff on an amazine feat!

[RichO]

Two cam

I believe John Cameron and Lance Tidwell did in one of the earlier "Great Races" with their flexie flyers attached.

[4thcoast]

Buzz,


If they had side bets on you can you imagine what the odds were against the Wolfpack.

Mark

[sirhrmechanic]

Just my $0.02 here... but Harley Davidson would not be a company today if, decades ago, riders could not have depended on their bikes for things like coast-to-coast rides.

As an example, up until a few years ago, my friend Rod Rice still had the VL that he bought in 1940. He sold it not long before he passed on to an enthusiast in Va. (I wanted it badly, but would never ask him to sell it to me. I wanted to keep it in VT...). Rod had ridden that bike all over the country in over 65 years of ownership. In 1941 he rode from Vermont to Pensacola for Navy flight training. In December. Then back after flight training, still in Vt. winter. Then to NAS San Diego after post-training leave (across the country about as far as you can get... Vt. to San Diego in winter). In SD he parked the bike while shipboard as an aviator. He rode it back to Vermont at least twice after that.

Today, we think of any ride over 100 miles on an 'early' bike as a big accomplishment. When I take a vintage machine out for a 140 mile ride, I end it feeling like I just climbed Everest.

But back in the day, if a bike couldn't make a 250 mile day... 8 hours averaging just 30 MPH... the owner likely would have sold it as junk. I think even that kind of mileage is conservative had the roads been better. 250 miles is not a long distance.

I'd never bet against a guy like Buzz on a properly prepared machine. Coast to coast... 4000 miles comes to about 250 miles a day for 2 - 3 weeks. Some evening basic maintenance. A blast and not the easiest on the rider day after day, but it should not stress one of these machines. Unless the machine was prepared wrong.

Now a pre-14 bike... maybe a different story. But still HD would not have made it to the JD if their early bikes had not been reliable and capable of covering reasonable distances. For example, if you had one of the early HD postal contract bikes... would you not have had to cover at least 50 miles a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year? Heck, just in our paltry little east-coast 10,000 acres town, a postal worker can easily cover 50 miles in a day. So how reliable would a 5D have to be??? Rain, snow, dark of night and all that? The mail had to get through. And those singles were nowhere near as advanced as a JD.

Now all that said, back in pre-WW2 days, these bikes were not endurance machines. Most people did not look at distance riding the same way we do today (I ride 600 -700 mile days on modern bikes all the time.) Back then, lots of people never got further than 100 miles from their birthplace. Today's long commutes weren't really even possible or realistic in a car until, say, the Honda Civic/Accord of the early '80s made reliable daily transit more realistic. Possibly an exaggeration, but can you image a 90-mile round-trip commute (like my better half makes daily) in a Slant Six Valiant or a Ford Pinto? You would need an engine every year. So today's definition of long distance has changed some... but still HD could never have stayed in business if 'vintage' long distance riders ended up stranded or broken down on a mere coast-to-coast trip.

So I assert that if a JD-era bike could not do 2500 miles without some disaster... the HD brand never would have made it out of the 1920's much less the Depression!

Congrats, Buzz, and all the other folks who made the Cannonball. I'd really like to do that run sometime. I have a JD that I would not hesitate to take out of the garage tomorrow and ride across country. I wouldn't give it a second thought (then again, I now work on old cars for a living so I have a blase view of taking off in a vintage vehicle. With a cell phone and a credit card, I can fix anything en-route.) I just have to have the time to do it!

The Cannonball folks... awesome job everyone!!!! Hope to see some of you at the much-less-awe-inspiring Pewter Run this weekend!

Cheers,

Sirhr

[rwm]

both events.

I also was told by a few riders and motorcycle history buffs that this might have been the first time anyone has ever ridden a JDH coast to coast - something I never considered until I heard this.

Does anyone know if others have ridden a Two Cam JDH coast to coast before? I don't know but am now curious.

Congrats to all the Cannonball riders, wrenchs, support and staff on an amazine feat!

did you tell the history buffs about the half day spent in the chase truck?

[Buzz Kanter]

Just my $0.02 here... but Harley Davidson would not be a company today if, decades ago, riders could not have depended on their bikes for things like coast-to-coast rides.

As an example, up until a few years ago, my friend Rod Rice still had the VL that he bought in 1940. He sold it not long before he passed on to an enthusiast in Va. (I wanted it badly, but would never ask him to sell it to me. I wanted to keep it in VT...). Rod had ridden that bike all over the country in over 65 years of ownership. In 1941 he rode from Vermont to Pensacola for Navy flight training. In December. Then back after flight training, still in Vt. winter. Then to NAS San Diego after post-training leave (across the country about as far as you can get... Vt. to San Diego in winter). In SD he parked the bike while shipboard as an aviator. He rode it back to Vermont at least twice after that.

Today, we think of any ride over 100 miles on an 'early' bike as a big accomplishment. When I take a vintage machine out for a 140 mile ride, I end it feeling like I just climbed Everest.

But back in the day, if a bike couldn't make a 250 mile day... 8 hours averaging just 30 MPH... the owner likely would have sold it as junk. I think even that kind of mileage is conservative had the roads been better. 250 miles is not a long distance.

I'd never bet against a guy like Buzz on a properly prepared machine. Coast to coast... 4000 miles comes to about 250 miles a day for 2 - 3 weeks. Some evening basic maintenance. A blast and not the easiest on the rider day after day, but it should not stress one of these machines. Unless the machine was prepared wrong.

Now a pre-14 bike... maybe a different story. But still HD would not have made it to the JD if their early bikes had not been reliable and capable of covering reasonable distances. For example, if you had one of the early HD postal contract bikes... would you not have had to cover at least 50 miles a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year? Heck, just in our paltry little east-coast 10,000 acres town, a postal worker can easily cover 50 miles in a day. So how reliable would a 5D have to be??? Rain, snow, dark of night and all that? The mail had to get through. And those singles were nowhere near as advanced as a JD.

Now all that said, back in pre-WW2 days, these bikes were not endurance machines. Most people did not look at distance riding the same way we do today (I ride 600 -700 mile days on modern bikes all the time.) Back then, lots of people never got further than 100 miles from their birthplace. Today's long commutes weren't really even possible or realistic in a car until, say, the Honda Civic/Accord of the early '80s made reliable daily transit more realistic. Possibly an exaggeration, but can you image a 90-mile round-trip commute (like my better half makes daily) in a Slant Six Valiant or a Ford Pinto? You would need an engine every year. So today's definition of long distance has changed some... but still HD could never have stayed in business if 'vintage' long distance riders ended up stranded or broken down on a mere coast-to-coast trip.

So I assert that if a JD-era bike could not do 2500 miles without some disaster... the HD brand never would have made it out of the 1920's much less the Depression!

Congrats, Buzz, and all the other folks who made the Cannonball. I'd really like to do that run sometime. I have a JD that I would not hesitate to take out of the garage tomorrow and ride across country. I wouldn't give it a second thought (then again, I now work on old cars for a living so I have a blase view of taking off in a vintage vehicle. With a cell phone and a credit card, I can fix anything en-route.) I just have to have the time to do it!

The Cannonball folks... awesome job everyone!!!! Hope to see some of you at the much-less-awe-inspiring Pewter Run this weekend!

Cheers,

Sirhr

I was told most JDHs were either stripped down and raced on tracks, or hot rodded and raced on the streets. So it might make sense that none were ridden coast to coast. But I would like to hear more about John Cameron's rides.

[Buzz Kanter]

did you tell the history buffs about the half day spent in the chase truck?

Sure. It killed me to push the JDH into a chase truck on Stage 6 (I believe) I had been able to make all the miles up until then (including seizing and fixing the engine on day one). After filling up the gas tank at a no name gas pump (I was running on fumes) I rode a couple of miles before the bike starting bucking and running poorly. At first we figured it was electrical, so we messed with the ignition for a while. Then the carb. After almost two hours we figured it was something else and suspected it was water in the gas tank. No way I could make up for the lost two hours so I pushed it into the truck. That night we drained the gas tanks and the carb and got it running shortly afterward. I was able to coax the bike all the other miles before and after that incident.

[Lonnie]

An outstanding ride, Buzz. You should be quite proud.

[Tom Lovejoy]

I know some of John Camerons family, also some of Lances. Will ask next time I talk to em, just a guess - but I bet its be done several times atleast. Think the guys that had em back in the day, were real ridders. Think they would not hesitate to go for it. I thought you were in trouble that first day Buzz, you and the 2 cam did quite well. I would be proud of the performance.

[Buzz Kanter]

I know some of John Camerons family, also some of Lances. Will ask next time I talk to em, just a guess - but I bet its be done several times atleast. Think the guys that had em back in the day, were real ridders. Think they would not hesitate to go for it. I thought you were in trouble that first day Buzz, you and the 2 cam did quite well. I would be proud of the performance.

Thanks. It is an amazing machine and I am lucky to have such great friends who can help me make the most of the JDH.