~another motorcycle museum fire~

[JoJo357]

Hello, lousy news...
Top Mountain Motorcycle Museum went up in flames, with 250+ Vintage Motorcycles & 10 Automobiles--completely lost?

https://youtu.be/XT5tavyYyXk
https://youtu.be/Rqf3qqYPhnw

*M.A.D.*

[pisten-bully]

Lousy news is right, bummer. No expert here, but when I viewed the first video, even though I was looking I didn't see any sprinklers in the ceiling (doesn't mean they were missing.)

[rickgeo]

Brethren.
That's Pretty Sad ,Looked liLike A Beautiful Setting For A Museum

Rick Stambaugh, # 2472

[Ka3acmah]

They had no fire suppression system. All wood building, codes are different in other countries. Insurance claim will be huge.

[craig (DE)]

Devastating fire and a tremendous loss.

[steuerm]

I can’t understand why this post only has 148 views.

[frichie68]

I can’t understand why this post only has 148 views.

It was posted multiple times on Facebook on the AMCA page and probably all other pages pertaining to motorcycles,
I've seen the photos 20 or more times on various pages.

[BoschZEV]

I can’t understand why this post only has 148 views.

Unfortunately, the AMCA forum only gets about a half-dozen new posts per day, so very few people are even reading what's posted here, let alone responding. The forum needs more posts to get more readers, but it needs more readers to get more posts.

It would be very interesting to know the statistics, and whether the readership increased, decreased, or stayed the same after the recent change to the software. If posts are at such a low level when everyone is trapped at home with the time to log in, what will happen once we're all vaccinated and free to leave the house?

[exeric]

I've been dumbfounded by the lack of participation by our AMCA members, particularly the older, knowledgeable, and long-time members.. They profess a love of old motorcycles but do nothing to promote the club, or share their knowledge of the rare, and unique antique motorcycles that I predict will follow them to the grave. You would have thought the AMCA forum would have been born again without the competition of the CAIMAG forum, but I guess people would rather gossip on facebook.

[frichie68]

All these years I've been bellyaching about no "like" button, now we have a "like" button & I've liked many photos & comments. But it looks like the "likes" don't register. Each subject or page shows the number of responses, views & likes:
views16 responses
236 views
0 likes
But every one shows "0 likes"! Dammit, I want my likes liked!

[Steve Swan]

I've been dumbfounded by the lack of participation by our AMCA members, particularly the older, knowledgeable, and long-time members.. They profess a love of old motorcycles but do nothing to promote the club, or share their knowledge of the rare, and unique antique motorcycles that I predict will follow them to the grave. You would have thought the AMCA forum would have been born again without the competition of the CAIMAG forum, but I guess people would rather gossip on facebook.

In the past i carried an antipathy for facebook. To this day, i don't see creating a twitter and whatever hose other accounts are. i formed a facebook account probably close to 10 years ago, got annoyed with it, deactivated it for 3-4 years. When i got my first '27 JD, i depended heavily on the Yahoo group Dan Margolien created sometime around 2005-ish or so. Whilst this forum was very helpful, Dan's forum was equally helpful, without both information sources i couldn't have learned all that i did nor kept my project moving steadily forward within the 4 years it took to finish the project.

About 2 years ago, upon my discovery of JD Facebook site, i experienced some pretty strong conflicting emotions as JD Yahoo was still alive, albeit feeble participation; finding that JD f.book site, it made immediate sense why participation had died off on Dan's site. Reluctantly, i joined the JD f.book site and diplomatically tried raising a stink about "why would you put this facebook site up and not support the yahoo site. i soon realized that trying to make a stink was like shoveling sit in a tide with a pitchfork.

No doubt there are a regrettably a lot of folks are on that site that don't belong to AMCA for whatever the reason. JD Facebook has 3,306 members. It is a place where live, daily, active and vibrant communication takes place world wide. In my 2 years, i read no egotistical remarks, no sarcasm, no belittling. Without exception the JD facebook boys take their machines very seriously, are always willing to help, sell parts, trade parts and give parts to fellow enthusiasts. The level of expertise and experience shared is found nowhere else. In my opinion, the reason a site like JD facebook thrives is because the "membership" is interested in IoE H-D twins and nothing else; the sites primary purpose is to keep IoE bikes running and on the road. The thing that AMCA forum has working against it is that AMCA is inclusive of ALL motorcycles older than 35 years.

Supporting my observation that "niche specific" is what creates the active participation on teh JD Facebook site is for the same reason there is a Linkert facebook site and a Schebler facebook site.

In the case of my Frank build on this forum, realistically, the amount of participation and comments on my build was limited to a faithful very few. i am not saying this to be critical nor am i personalizing the lack of attention there was to my build, it just simply is a fact, not dissimilar to the sky is blue and coal is black.

All this being said, i will close by saying that my experience with JD facebook is that it is NOT a place for gossip or keyboard Commandos nor smart remarks; that behavior simply does not exist in te 2+ years i've been participating on JD facebook. Please take these words from someone who had a genuine antipathy for facebook I post infrequently on my personal facebook, and i mostly lurk on the Linkert and Schebler sites. so i guess what i am saying is where my mind was formerly closed on anything about facebook, i learned a valuable lesson about having contempt before investigation.

[frichie68]

Well spoken, Steve. I think the JD page is more professional than other Harley Harley dedicated pages on FB where there seems to be a lot of know-it-alls & angry folks looking to argue & put down other people's work.

[JTR249]

I agree with all of you. I created the Group for Indian verticals with Mike Love's advice and thought that would help develop some parts research that I wanted to complete. Nothing yet and if I had to guess, I would say Facebook being more common and active today, is the reason. Maybe people don't want to save the extra logins or just get lazy. I don't know. Pete Sink keeps encouraging me to write the book on verticals, though there is still much to learn and organize before that ever happens. Feedback here would be valuable from the specialist stand-point, though people have different responsibilities and everyone isn't in the same situation. Jim Preussner's wife is not in good health or I'm sure he could answer virtually every question I have.
I have still not heard from the steel society on the vertical trademark issue, though will share what I discover when they contact me. I have also taken the issue to the State Department of Massachusetts, Records and Archives to assist. Nothing yet.
I appreciate what members have shared with me up to this point. You can't really demand feed-back or involvement if people choose not to communicate or share their knowledge. That is an odd situation, I agree. Why would you join if you don't get involved?
We can only be accountable to and for ourselves here. The bikes I chose to begin with were not that well-managed during production or well-liked after they were out there. That may be part of the problem as well. Still, it is an interesting idea to bring something back, to make it functional and sometimes look better than originally made.
One valuable resource that is outside the AMCA domain, though related is the online archive of Virtualindian.org, an older site that has much information on Indian motorcycle restoration. It is still a veritable wealth of technical information that is rewarding just to read here and there for what existed and what has been done by other people. I also found a few items there on the verticals. Well, Pete Sink just began another Road Warrior restoration even though he told me several months ago he is retired. I don't think he would mind me sharing the attached photo of his late stage restoration. He always does good work. All the members I speak to are an inspiration and offer encouragement not to give up. There will always be set-backs and challenges in the restoration of vintage bikes. Overcoming the challenge and learning from the process will make us more effective members and better at restoration.
There was a saying in Indian motorcycle history, "Old Indians never die." In that spirit, we carry on the tradition of attempting to go further and to restore according to a standard equal to or better than when the bike was built.
Time will tell.
-JR
36450

[frichie68]

Thanks for posting, JR, nice looking Indian.
My first effort at adding a photo-easier said than done. This the only photo of the first bike to have my name on the title, 51 Chief, photo taken in 1959. At that time, the bike was not an "antique" but the seat was already rotted & the chrome piece on the fender was broken. Saddlebags were rock-hard-reason for the one-only photo is that was difficult to get my 35mm camera out & back in. I paid $75 for it, sold it a year later for the same. Bike had a huge megaphone "muffler" with a Snuff-or-Not that slowly rotated giving a Wow-Wow-Wow effect as the detent was missing.
51 chief.JPG

[JTR249]

That's a good photo in a different sense. I remember reading about Mike Breeding's first Chief he bought for about the same. I wish I could be that lucky and find a 1946 Chief under five grand.
I want to get the verticals done first, then we'll see.
-JR