Riding Into History
RIDING INTO HISTORY
A magnificent gathering of old bikes at America's oldest city
PETER EGAN
"Is that a Norton anti-virus T-shirt?" a woman asked me in the elevator of the World Golf Village Renaissance Hotel near St. Augustine, Florida.
I glanced briefly down at the lettering across my chest. I was wearing a black Norton T-shirt and a tuxedo with motorcycle boots, returning to my room at the end of Saturday night's formal Biker's Ball. Norton anti-virus? I guess this is what happens when you mix motorcyclists and golfers. It's not an explosive combination, like liquid oxygen and hydrogen peroxide, but more of a non-reactive compound, like gravel and wood chips. Or leather and plaid. You put them together in a laboratory beaker and nothing happens. "No," I explained. "Norton is the name of a British motorcycle."
"Ab," the woman said, clutch ing her husband's arm. "You're with the motorcycle people." Her husband looked at my shirt and smiled tolerantly. They both glowed with good will and smelled faintly of scotch. So did I. When we got off the elevator, I said to Barb, "I wish to God someone really would invent a Norton anti-virus. Then I wouldn't be tempted to buy that black-and-gold `73 Commando we saw at the show today."
But then this was a place at which you might need a whole battery of inoculations. You could also use shots to protect you from old BMWs, Hondas, Vincents and even the occa sional Ner-a-Car. It was, you see, the seventh annual Riding into History, a motorcycle con cours d'elegance put on jointly by the Atlantic Beach Vintage Motorcycle Club and the BMW Owners Club of Northeast Florida. It's an event that started
modestly enough back in 2000 but then snowballed into a gen uine happening on the calendar. This affair-which doubles as a fund-raiser to fight breast can cer-has gotten Very Big. Nevertheless, they inexplica bly invited yours truly to show up this year as keynote speaker and Grand Marshal. At last, a rank befitting of my noble nature. Having achieved only a grade of SP/4 in the Army, I felt some sort of promo tion was long overdue. Usually, I don't agree to do this kind of thing because I dread public speaking, but this time I caved in because a) I can't think of a single good friend who hasn't had a brush with cancer; and b) I can gaze slack-jawed at old motorcycles almost indefinitely. It also helped that this year's theme was "The Landmark Motorcycles of Japan." I've owned about 25 Japanese motorcycles over the past 40 years, so there was a high level of This is Your Life factor involved. So Barb and I boarded a plane for Florida and soon found ourselves as guests in the lovely home of Bill and Valerie Robinson, two of the event organizers, who live on the St. Johns River. Bill has about nine motorcycles in the garage and lent us his new BMW R1200GS for a Friday group ride. We motored down shady tunnels of trees hung with Spanish moss, past the stately old homes along the St. Johns and back up the Intracoastal Waterway. It was like riding through a Tennessee Williams screenplay. We came back through the jungle, with no ’gator fatalities, but one close encounter of the deer kind. We honked at clusters of buzzards feasting on animals less fortunate than ourselves. Flatter, too.
In talking to other riders at lunch I discovered that northeast Florida is a fair beehive of motorcycle activity. This is somewhat surprising in an area that, while it has some nice tropical scenery and winding roads, is not exactly Glacier National Park for the sinuous grandeur of its highways. Florida towns with the word “Mount” in their names are only inches above sea level, and Kenyans seldom train there so they can run in the Olympics.
There are mitigating factors, however: You can ride all year; Daytona is nearby; some of the best mountain roads in America are within easy vacation range; and last, Florida is full of small airport communities, where planes and bikes share big hangars. Airplane and motorcycle lust seem to go together, and it seemed that half the people I talked to were pilots. It’s the old Romantic Contraption gene in full flower.
Which is probably why the event drew 305 concours entrants and raised approximately $35,000 for charity this year (3000 spectators showed up and paid $10 each to get in). One local collector, Jack Wells, brought 25 bikes to the show. So you’ve got a hotbed of motorcycling, but the show location didn’t hurt much, either.
Motorcycle meets are often staged in large grassy fields where you soon succumb to sunstroke and collapse beneath the nearest tree, if there is one. (“Just leave me here with a canteen and a single bullet...”) But not at World Golf Village.
This place has a shaded brick promenade that circles a small lake, with trees, arches and vine arbors, all flanked by small shops. The bikes are parked radially, and you can stroll in the shade, taking in the motorcycles one at a time. Barb and I did about three laps, and it was like walking your way around a large Kodak Carousel slide projector (remember those?) one picture at a time.
And among my favorite Kodachromes were several CB400F Hondas and Norton Commandos, not to mention a Bultaco Metralla, the odd Brough Superior, several Velocettes and more beautifully restored vintage BMWs than I’ve ever seen in one place.
Best bike name at meet? An Abingdon King Dick. There were also vintage bicycles and even a Cushman scooter, the first two-wheeler upon which I ever rode as a passenger. Best of Show went to a magnificently unrestored 1911 Pierce 4, owned by Ray Morton.
That evening there was the Biker’s Ball, where you were supposed to mix formalwear with motorcycle gear-hence my elegant black Norton T-shirt under the tux. I gave my little speech to a crowd of about 250 people at dinner, and Barb pointed at her watch just about the time people started stabbing themselves with dinner forks, so casualties were remarkably low.
On Sunday morning, we had a breakfast run into the heart of old St. Augustine, famous as the oldest continuously inhabited city in North America (est. 1565) and as the stomping grounds of Juan Ponce de Leon, who was searching for the Fountain of Youth but apparently failed, as we couldn’t find his name in the St. Augustine phone book.
Actually, he was killed by Indians, who often got testy when strangers waded ashore and announced, “I claim these
lands for the King of Spain.” Having just paid off my mortgage, I know how they felt.
As it turns out, we didn’t find the Fountain of Youth, either, but I got to go back in time by riding Bill Robinson’s pearl-white 1982 Honda CBX. I’d forgotten what a smooth, powerful and comfortable bike it is. Barb and I rode around the old Spanish fortress, the Castillo de San Marcos, in St. Augustine, listening to the muted howl of that big Six echo off the walls, and it all came back to me. Riding into History, indeed.
Norton anti-virus?
Sure, I’ll take a shot of that. And give me a dose of CBX anti-virus, if you’ve got any.
That’s the trouble with these fund-raisers. They may help cure cancer, but they don’t do a thing to quench the fevers of old-bike disease. St. Augustine is the latest hot zone.
