An honest question about new bikes on national road runs - what do you think?

[tfburke3]

Who really thinks of a 1991 motorcycle as an antique.
Perhaps the club should just change the name to "The Old motorcycle club",or change the rolling 35 year rule.
Only 9 more years and my twin cam qualifies.Its unrestored,original paint.
Tom

[joe fxs fxr]

Who really thinks of a 1991 motorcycle as an antique.
Perhaps the club should just change the name to "The Old motorcycle club",or change the rolling 35 year rule.
Only 9 more years and my twin cam qualifies.Its unrestored,original paint.
Tom

Yeah, my 98 Dyna in 7. It's all original, should be easy to get 100 points.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Who really thinks of a 1991 motorcycle as an antique.

Tom

To be frank; most of the public, the Federal and most state gov'ts, and most vintage vehicle clubs.

While we in the AMCA tend to think that anything from the 1960s is "too new" -- John Q Public generally sees anything with a "19" in the start of the year as old whether it is 1989 or 1939. If you ride either bike any appreciable distance - folks will be amazed.

This is why antique plates and antique insurance is generally offered starting at 25 years in the US. Grey market import rules are very lax starting at 25 years.

Our sister club in the UK, the VMCC, has been a 25 year rule club for decades.

The AMCA Exec Director keeps pushing the Antique Automobile Club of America - which has had a 25 year rule since the 1970s.

The AMCA is one of the few large scale clubs I know of where the rule for vehicles is 35 years, not 25 years.

All that said, the SUNBEAM Club in the UK is very clear about their cut off being 1940. It has no rolling rule -- it's a fixed year, period. Many make specific clubs have specific years too.

As has been stated in other threads; what it seems the AMCA needs is a chapter devoted to truly "veteran" motorcycles of the pre-1953 period.

That said, I want to make it clear I am not advocating for limiting nor expanding the cut off for AMCA. I simply like having the conversation and hearing other's perspectives. While I tend to ride mostly 1965-1972 machines on road runs; I've also had 1940s machines on them as well.

[Steve Slocombe]

Dear Chuck, I'm also a member of the VMCC and the Sunbeam Club in the UK, and the Ariel Club too. I have a 1914 Douglas for the London to Brighton Pioneer Run organised by the Sunbeam Club, but Club members are old and there are more pre-1915 bikes than riders now, so participation in the Pioneer Run has dwindled from about 300 to 130. The next Pioneer Run is Sunday 21 March 2027, a well-signposted 38 mile route over all paved roads. If that is on your bucket list let me know as loaner bikes are surely to be found. The Sunbeam Club was losing money on the run, so instituted the Pioneer Plus Run for 1915-30 bikes, same day and route but leaving one hour later, and I completed the second such run earlier this year on my 1929 Henderson. A report is in the European Chapter newsletter. The VMCC has a stable of loaner bikes and AMCA members can maybe borrow one for this or their big Banbury Run in June.

I do the VMCC road runs on my 1950 Sunbean S8 or 1954 Nimbus and the bikes fit in well. The VMCC membership is probably a bit older than the AMCA so it's mostly a bunch of old guys riding 1920s to 70s British bikes, with a few Japanese, Italian and American bikes welcomed. The VMCC was against Japanese bikes 20 years ago, so the VJMC was formed and grew quickly. The VJMC here has a 15 year age rule and maybe 5,000 members in the UK, coming up on half the VMCC.

Don't underestimate the difficulty of changing the cut-off year for the AMCA. Past President Pete Gagan tried years ago to bring us to 25 years in line with the VMCC and got nowhere. And think about judging problems with modern 'plastic bikes', and ask why Harley Evos (and soon Twin-Cams) should be considered antiques just because of their age. I'm also an old fart with a love for 1930s hand shift American bikes, but look at the judging results and it's all Classes 6,7,8 that members are interested in. Factionalism has brought down other Clubs so we need to be careful. The VMCC has geographical Sections like our Chapters, but also a Flat Tank section for fans of early bikes. Is there a model here that can keep our various interests together under the umbrella of our great club?

[gharper]

Great to hear from a number of members on this topic! Anyone from the board wish to chime in with something other than the "we need to be inclusive to all" platitudes?

[vph-d]

All it took to have the 65 year rule put in place was to have a member[s] complain to someone at the National level about how hard it was to ride an old bike on a Road Run. The national has an aversion to offending members for any reason and has for a long time.

The 65 year rule should be raised to 75 years at least, if not done away with entirely, as it offends more members than it accomodates.
vph-d

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Factionalism has brought down other Clubs so we need to be careful. The VMCC has geographical Sections like our Chapters, but also a Flat Tank section for fans of early bikes. Is there a model here that can keep our various interests together under the umbrella of our great club?

Very well said.

I am beginning to think the solution is a more robust "themed" chapter structure (and regional if there's enough interest) to bring the special interests together. Within the Badgers, we have folks who have banded together to specifically concentrate on servicars and other three-wheeled, slower bikes. It works very well and enhances our chapter without taking away a thing.

I also think that if we did have a structure that allowed for "flat tankers" or "tank shift" or "total loss" as the theme that it would help more enthusiasts explore these aspects of our hobby. For example, few people know how hard it is to actually ride a single speeder thumper. They look awesome -- but between that single speed and often level throttles - they are a wee bit challenging to ride under any circumstances.

In the auto world; to over come this sort of stuff, several museums and clubs offer regular fun classes to teach you how to operate older vehicles. The most popular ones around me involve learning how to drive a Model T. Most taking the courses have no prior experience with brass era or veteran era autos. They many never buy one -- but their enthusiasm cuts across all aspects of the auto hobby.

Imagine if we had the same across AMCA through chapters dedicated to this aspect of our motorbiking history?

Few people get into these truly older bikes unless someone inspires them . . .

Which brings me back to the original rant -- our road runs are a SPECTACLE of bikes. When we dilute that spectacle with modern bikes; it fulfills a social purpose for a single member, but it does not advance a collective mission to expose more people to vintage/antique/old bikes.