popes O.H.V.

[Barry Brown]

Hey Lonnie, Getting back to your original paint twin Merkel racer. Are you sure Milby Jones owned this? and rode it at Davenport? that would be news to me!

[c.o.]

Not to detract from your question Barry but I just saw this video clip of a Flying Merkel that was seen in Paris, Ont. this year. Do you know the machine?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HxzHoAoA5E

[Barry Brown]

Yes I know the bike well. It is a REPOP. It belongs to Loui Bari of Ontario. One of his sons was given the engine so he packed it up and sent it to Lonnie who built a bike around it using his original as a template. Nice job. He had it at the Toronto bike show last weekend. Weather has been mild here so far this winter.

[jurassic]

hi barry,i just spoke to mr. cole about the merkel ,and you are right.it was owned and ridden by bob clifton.bob discovered the bike in the upstairs storage room of a chevy dealership in virginia . that was in the 60's and at that time the owner was the son of the original owner who was a merkel dealer and racer.a mr. suttle.it took bob till 1985 to acquire the bike.i'm not sure why i had milby's name in my head all these years.unfortunatly i'm not sure if the bike survived the hurricane last year.several were damaged or destroyed when the roof collapsed. as to the bari's merkel,thanks cory for posting that.i hadn't seen the bike finished.i only built the frame on the bike.it looks like adam did an amazing job on the bike.one of the nicest i have seen.the frame is quite a bit different than the clifton bike ,because of the larger engine.

[Barry Brown]

Lonnie, I remember the auction when EJ bought the bike. Did you know I sold EJ his first antique bike! a nice running 1928 Henderson, back around 1980. I am glad to hear he is still kicking, say hello for me . As far as Milby goes I was a good friend and I knew he had no connection with that Merkel. Of course Milby had a great collection too including that killer big base Indian 8 valve engine that Jim Dennie added a repop chassis to. Milby was about 6"3" or more and 250 pounds and at 70 plus I could not imagine him riding a boardtrack Merkel!
Cheers, Barry
PS I mailed out your Flxi sidecar spring yesterday so hopefully customs won't delay it for too long!

[c.o.]

Lonnie, I just stumbled upon the video prior to Barry's post. I'm glad he asked the question. We got another good bike story out of it!

[c.o.]

Funny thing about that Merkel. I see it everywhere now! I stopped tonight for fuel and thought I'd take a cruise by the magazine rack for a look see. I'm usually disappointed, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed Flying Merkel written on the cover of a magazine called "Motorcycle Mojo". I thumbed through the pages and there it was. I don't normally buy this type of magazine, but the Merkel sold me. It sure took a long time to acquire that motor!

[jurassic]

[c.o.]

Awesome!!!! Now Lonnie, your not going to tell me you just took that pic are ya? If you did I'm jealous with the lack of snow and all!!

[Michael.Voice]

Lonnie, you have the types of projects many of us could only dream of...

Michael

[Tom Lovejoy]

I beat Jurassic has some fascinating stories of finding those machines too, I would guess. Really neat machines, as was said dream machines for most of us.

[1914THOR]

Pope & Jefferson

What a great thread! Vince's machine is quite amazing. So are all the various Pope ohv's. The early bikes really take us back in time. Also, Dick, your knowledge base of the PEM is unreal.

[c.o.]

A clip from Monterey with one of them thar Jeffersons...... It's been awhile since this thread was active..... I'm wondering if Dick has any updates?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcsssUNcbTo&feature=related

[pem]

Hi Corey, unfortunetly nothing new on the Jefferson's. I have put together all my info on the Comet and hope to get it all written down. While I was doing that I came across an article where they talked about the "Advance" motorcycle. I had completely forgotten about it.
Another Milwaukee made motorcycle pre-teens. I know of no known photo or other information but they talked about it in a couple of newspaper articles. Believe it was a single. Herb knew the names of the people responsible for it but that's about all we know. The guy is an encyclopedia. If anybody knows anything please post.

Dick

[c.o.]

Thanks for the update Dick. I hope we something in print on the Comet one of these days. An Advance you say? It looks like there's some more digging to do.........