2025.09.19
McMinnville, Oregon to Florence, Oregon
Today is the 16th day and final stage of the 2025 Motorcycle TransAmerican endurance run, which will end at Heceta Head Lighthouse.
At breakfast I was about to butter a biscuit when I realized it was moldy. I warned a guy who had just taken his out of the toaster, but he went on to eat it anyway. I checked the basket and they were all moldy so I dumped the rest. It seems I keep encountering strange people at hotel continental breakfasts. I rode back over to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum with my dad and we hung out there a bit in the parking lot as the other riders unloaded their motorcycles from trailers and got them ready for the day. The starting time for today is an hour later than it has been, and everyone had grown accustomed to the schedule, so there was a lot of time to kill in the parking lot at the museum. The museum wasn't open to use their restrooms, but I take a water pill in the morning so I ended up taking a hike on a game trail into the woods to take a leak. The campus for the museum is quite large and backs up to the South Yamhill River.
Kat was the first to leave as she's the only rider left in the single cylinder class.
Tim Burns' 1925 Harley-Davidson JD hot rod engine had locked up, so he went home, picked up his 1928 Harley JDH (twin cam), and returned with that bike to finish the event on. The JDH engines are higher performance than the JD ones, but this one is also hot rodded and an 80 inch stroker build.
My dad's 1925 Harley JE is still moving along but last night he noticed what sounded like a bearing whine. He thinks it's coming from the transmission, but we weren't able to isolate it. The gear box oil level was fine and he checks that every night, so he gave it eight pumps of grease at the zerk fitting and hoped for the best. This transmission is a major improvement from the iteration that he ran in the 2023 Motorcycle Cannonball as it has a kind of fork on the top for the gear selections, similar to a shift gate. That part has made it much easier to shift and it's saved my teeth from clenching each time I would hear the bike grind gears on a shift.
Connor, in his Buc-ee's beaver suit, helping Danger Dan with carb issues this morning.
The ride along the Oregon Coast was incredibly foggy. My first glimpses of the ocean were when riding over bridges, as most of the rest of the ride there wasn't enough visibility to see the ocean, only hear it. I'm missing my Pinlock setup as it was also cold so I had to keep wiping my visor, and my face ended up wet with it cracked open. I passed by a Tsunami Hazard Zone sign and thought it was some kind of joke since it was next to a paddlecraft shop, but then I saw more of them and realized they were legit. My first time seeing that particular signage.
Just before the lighthouse I saw Sean Jackson and Kevin O'Neal pulled off at an overlook, where they would flag down the event riders to stop so they could stage all the antique bikes to ride to the finish line as a group.
When I arrived at the Heceta Head Lighthouse Kelsey had me grab a parking spot next to her van. She wasn't able to get a permit for the antique bikes to park on the sidewalk or to close off parking spaces for them, so the plan was to just try to grab parking spots as people left and be polite about it.
Wohoo, the Pacific Ocean!
I left my keys with one of the guys shuffling cars around, and me and Bryce hiked up to the lighthouse since we didn't expect the bikes in right away. The trail up to the lighthouse was marked as the Oregon Coast Trail, so I guess I'll have to come back some other time and hike the remaining four hundred something miles of it. We heard sea lions barking in the distance, but couldn't get a glimpse of them. It seemed like they were tucked into a rocky alcove.
Heceta Head Lighthouse
There was a gift shop by the lighthouse so I picked up a postcard, then we headed back down to the parking lot. I listened for the antique motorcycles to arrive and when they did we shuffled vehicles around to make space for them.
The two battery setup on my dad's JE finally paid off as Tim Burns' JDH had its battery die on the short day's ride, so my dad lent Tim one of his batteries and filled the void with a roll of duct tape.
At the beginning of the event Kelsey handed out jars for folks to collect water from the Atlantic Ocean. Here's my dad pouring out a bit of the Atlantic into the Pacific.
Sameuele got off his bike and ran right into the ocean with his crew member Zappa following with less enthusiasm.
There was a lot of hugging, even of soaking wet Samuele.
Me, Bryce, and Kevin.
The antique motorcycles and their riders.
Danger Dan's 1921 Harley-Davidson JD had made it to the finish line but then wouldn't start again to ride a single mile more. After a few failed attempts and push starting it, they loaded it up to haul to the hotel.
At the hotel my dad and I grabbed a quick meal to hold us over until the banquet dinner, and he started to try to figure out his plan to get himself and his motorcycle home, not by riding it.
The banquet dinner was exceptional, especially the dessert spread.
Kelsey handed out trophies, with the winner of the event being Mike Butts on his 1913 Henderson. There were "True Grit" awards that went to Bill Page who missed some miles on his 1925 Harley J with the sidecar, but still had it running every day, Norm Berg who was late to leave many mornings doing last minute repairs on his 1925 JD, but still managed to get all his miles, and the Kiyo's Garage team, as Kiyo and Kat struggled with cylinder damage on the Excelsior, and lack of power on the Thor single.
The trophies were made by Kevin and they were 3D printed steel that was heated and then bronzed. Competition Distributing use that same metal additive manufacturing to make some of their reproduction parts, such as frame castings. Bill Page announced that he would be organizing an event for 1930s-1960s motorcycles to do a long distance loop route through the Smokies in 2026. I was very excited to hear this as I had bought a 1952 Nimbus Type-C to run in a similar style of event, the 2025 Cross Country Chase, but that event didn't happen. Now I have motivation to go through that bike and get it ready for long distance touring. My brother has been working on a 1938 Harley-Davidson ULH that he was also putting together for that event, so there's a chance that him, my dad, and I will all participate in the Loop event.
When the awards and speeches wrapped up, I exchanged goodbyes with people, knowing it might be another year, two years, or more until I see some of them at another event, while I may encounter others sooner. We were a bit skeptical about how this inaugural event would go, but it went great, better than expected. Since there were less participants than other events my dad has done in the past, it was also more personal and we got to know people a lot better, though there was less mechanical carnage and serious rebuilds to observe in the "pits" each night. There were a lot of new friends made on this event, I learned quite a bit, especially from Erik Bahl, and I had a blast getting to ride motorcycles across this beautiful country with my dad again. My dad made all his miles and completed the event with a perfect score on the 1925 Harley-Davidson JE. He's been saying that the J engine (61 cubic inch) is sometimes lacking in power, but he thinks that lesser power output resulted in it not having enough power to do much damage to itself of the bike compared to the JD engine (74 cubic inch). This JE engine build ran great and went through far less consumables (oil, spark plugs) than the JD engine did. I had helped assemble the gear box, but my brother did all the research and work to blueprint it, so once the bike is home again my dad will pull the gear box and go through it again with my brother.
My dad loaded his bike into Tim Burns' trailer with the JDH that he would take to his home workshop later tonight. Tim invited folks to come stop by his shop while they're in the area, so my dad will get a ride over there with Pat and Monica tomorrow, stay a night or two, and figure out his plan to get home. I helped him look up used trucks for sale on Craigslist and they're a lot nicer and cheaper than in Chicago, so that's a promising option. I'll ride to Portland tomorrow, drop the Goose off for service and a rear tire, have the final drive leak looked at, and spend a week visiting with friends and working remotely before setting off back to Colorado.
