Travels with Ernie: V7 850 USA coast-to-coast loop

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.18
Burns, Oregon to McMinnville, Oregon

Spirits are high today as it's the last significant day of riding for the event, with tomorrow being a short day's ride to the Oregon coast.


Dry River Canyon


Frank Westfall on his 1914 Henderson at a gas stop after he shooed away a stranger who wanted to livestream with him. Frank's got places to be!


Three Sisters mountains in the distance


Mt Washington


This stretch of Oregon has been really beautiful riding, nice roads that pass through a forest of giant Douglas Firs.



I caught Tim Burns at a gas stop and he mentioned that this area is his backyard and there's volcanic fields not far off this route that he recommends checking out sometime. Toward the end of the day's ride I passed by some very large vineyards.

Kelsey had let me know there'd be a Ferry on the route today, and this morning's mass text confirmed it and informed riders to have a few dollars on them. Though I'm not following the same route as the riders, I often end up on it, and I made it a point to look up the ferry they'd be taking and made my way to the Wheatland Ferry. The Wheatland Ferry is a cable ferry across the Willamette River and costs $2 for motorcycles. It was a steep grade down to the ferry and wet metal ramps, but the ferry ride itself was smooth. Getting off the ferry I let the vehicle in front of my get a ways up and then I just climbed off the ferry and up the incline with some speed.



The finish line for today's event is at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. The museum was easy to find as there's a Boeing 747 visible from the highway.


At the museum I helped set up the finish line flags and then I looked up aircraft flagging signals so I could use them to direct the antique bikes in. Frank was the first one in on his Henderson. I bought another Motorcycle TransAm shirt from Bryce at the merch table as it's been a while since I did laundry at a hotel and I'm out of clean shirts to wear. In the museum I picked up a fridge magnet and a postcard. Bryce has been picking up postcards along the trip to journal on so she lets me know when she finds good ones.

Replica of a Hiller Model 1031 Flying Platform. Not quite as cool as the Rotar and XPAK 400 that Ed Roth and George Barris came up with a decade later.


My Goose finally took me to see the Spruce Goose!
Hughes H-4 Hercules. Just an incredible aircraft to behold. Flown once, ran when parked! The museum also has a collection of Hughes Airlines and TWA items such as stewardess uniforms and tableware.


We were able to tour the plane, including the cargo hold. Here's the cockpit:


The parc fermé was located in the museum.


As I mentioned in an earlier post from Dale's Wheels Through Time, I love engine cutaways!

Though it was a bit off course for the route, this museum was a really great stop for the event as nearly everyone had mechanical interest in what was displayed, and quite a few riders and crew have a background in aerospace and aviation other than myself.

This 1944 Ford GPV (Jeep) has one of my favorite features on any vehicle, the headlight can be flipped up and adjusted as a spotlight or work lamp.



Spirit of St Louis replica


Earlier in the trip Davin "motogluten" Wirtanen of Biltwell messaged me saying he'd catch us at the museum and it was nice to finally meet him.


Connor and Sean doing the clean up dance - sliding pig mats on the floor to clean up oil that leaked from the motorcycles.


In the evening at the hotel parking lot Erik Bahl and Joe were working on Danger Dan's 1921 Harley magneto. He's been having ignition issues on and off the whole event and Erik is just the person to sort them out. He gave us all a great little course on magnetos. One of the issues was that resistor spark plug wires were being used, which don't play well with the mag. The next potential issue was that the mag was dusty inside from wear. Erik showed us how if you turn the mag by hand, you should feel some resistance, and that hand turning should be enough to fire the spark plugs. He explained that with the wasted spark ignition on these Harleys the polarity doesn't matter because the spark jumps from ground strap to center electrode on one plug and center electrode to ground strap on the other plug.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

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.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.20
Florence, Oregon to Portland, Oregon

Foggy Oregon coast in the morning


Olivier's Harley tucked in from the dew and some MotoQuest Adventures bikes in the background all the way from Alaska.



In the morning I made sure my dad had his ride sorted out, wished him luck on buying a truck to bring the Harley home with, said my goodbyes to him and others, and set off for Portland. I thought it was just foggy out, but did end up riding through some rain right off the bat. I normally fuel up at the end of the day so the bike will have a full tank the next morning, but this area of the coast didn't have a lot of gas stations so I didn't do that yesterday. Early in the ride I stopped to get gas and a station attendant walked up to me but then froze as I had already swiped my credit card and pulled the hose out to start filling the bike. He stared at me but didn't say anything. I realized the pump wasn't going to dispense fuel like normal as it had a vapor recovery nozzle, or as a friend in California calls it, the rubber foreskin. Luckily this wasn't my first rodeo, outside Oregon and California I've encountered them at Costco gas stations so I have carry an Aerostich "fuel card" in my handlebar bag, which is a piece of plastic that clips onto the nozzle and holds the rubber back so you don't have to hold it back with your hands. I was able to pump fuel after that, and the attendant wandered away. When I finished fueling and unclipped the card, the attendant returned to show me the piece of plastic they have for doing the same thing.

About an hour outside Portland I stopped for a late breakfast and fueled up again.
Ford T-bucket at the gas station


It was a pleasant ride into Portland and I was had good timing to see an Aerial Tram go by as I arrived. I arrived at Optimum Performance Motorsports and was surprised to see a lot of people and bikes out front. I looped around the block as they were blocking the entrance, and when I came back they were gone and I realized it was a demo day. The staff told me that it was an official Moto Guzzi demo day where they had the truck out with its fleet of demo bikes, not the shop's. I went over the issue of the leaky final drive and they said they'd take a look at it and see what could be done. They apparently have another shop in Seattle, and opened this one in Portland more recently, and are exclusively a Piaggio dealer. This was the first time I'd been to a shop that was just Piaggio, as Most Guzzi, Aprilia, and Vespa dealers I've been to seem to carry a large assortment of European and/or Japanese brands.


My Goose being rolled away


I had seen the new V7 Sport in Verde Legnano (green) at a dealership in Colorado, but this was my first time seeing it in Grigo Lario (gray) which I have mixed feelings about because I love the color on the tank, but I feel like it could do with being broken up a bit.


I do love the color on this Moto Guzzi Robin moped though


While waiting for one of the friends I'm visiting with to pick me up I grabbed some free (Guzzi content) snacks from the food tent that was set up for the demo day.


A California in Oregon, close enough.


I got set up in the guest room at my friends' house and then we attended two different parties that I had been made aware of in advance and happily accepted the invites to. Somehow my social battery sustained through both of them, and afterward I got a good nap in.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.21 - 2025.09.26
Portland, Oregon

I worked Monday through Thursday, but took Friday off to get a waterfall hike in.

Ma Bell! My teenage years were at the end of the phone phreaking era and I still have a special interest in telephony.




View from the summit of Mount Tabor


Hello Kitty themed Kawasaki Ninja at a boba tea shop


Genuine Stella. These Vespa clones were made by LML in India and sold by Scooterworks Chicago


After having just seen the Pan Am memorabilia at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum I was tempted to pick this up at a thrift store, but their prices for just about everything were high.


A tradition of the friends who hosted me is that we usually play board games when we get together. They had just returned from a trip to France where they visited Carcassonne, so we played Carcassonne and Matt won. I don't know that I've ever won a game of Carcassonne, but every time I play I feel like victory was almost mine. We also played Ingenious, and I won my first time playing it but it didn't have the same thrill as Carcassonne.
Here's a photo Matt took of Cité de Carcassonne, next to the board game artwork. Spot on.


Comedian Jenny Tian performing at Alberta Rose Theatre


Dillon, the Portland Pickles baseball team's mascot, at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's "After Dark: Pickle It!" event.


My favorite meal of the visit, at Jade Rabbit.


On Thursday, September 25th, I picked my Moto Guzzi V7 back up from the 18.6k mile (30k km) service. It also got a rear tire which was a bit premature but I figured I'd get it taken care of while the bike was already in for service, and it got the heated grips I ordered installed, though I'll remove them and reinstall them again after this trip as I don't like how the wires are routed and they didn't trim the left ridge off the throttle tube to slide the right grip on all the way so that bit of the throttle tube is exposed and not a great look on such a stylish motorcycle. They inspected the final drive and said there were no visible signs of damage to the seals and though the oil level was very low, they weren't able to reproduce the leak. I rode the bike just a few miles after picking it up, and unfortunately the leak was still there. Something to deal with when I get back home and can wait for parts from Italy.


War-ravaged Portland


Ice cream with my hosts


I told them that I wanted to do a waterfall hike during my visit, so on Friday Matt and I took off work and hiked Trail of Ten Falls at Silver Falls State Park. It was a pleasant 7.4 mile hike that didn't have too dramatic of elevation changes. Nine out of ten of the waterfalls were flowing.


Winter Falls was not flowing, so we improvised.


My hosts had joined me and my brother on a Route 66 trip in my 1962 Rambler American Custom station wagon years ago, so they associate me with antique cars and while walking around Portland they made it a point to steer me toward the old cars, trucks, and vans they frequently see. Another fun and common sighting were the cats. I don't know that I've ever been in an American city where I've seen so many seemingly domestic cats out and about.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.27
Portland, Oregon to Jerome, Idaho

It's Saturday now and I took Monday off working thinking it might take me three days to get home to Loveland, Colorado depending on how the weather goes at the Continental Divide, but I'm aiming for two days of riding.



I-84 along the Columbia River was beautiful, I wish I found a good scenic overlook to pull off at, but I did stop in Hood River which had a decent view of it from a park.


There were signs on the road for construction and rough bridge, but it was fine and hadn't been torn up yet. Signs for wind gusts and blowing dust, those checked out! I passed a group of at least six women bikers headed the same direction as me, just slower. A few of them were riding two-up and when I waved at them I got very energetic waves back.

Stopped in Pendleton, Oregon to grab lunch. There was a funny juxtaposition at the coffee shop I stopped at of a woman carrying a Louis Vuitton purse, but wearing Crocs. As I went about the ritual of wiping the final drive oil off the wheel and tire, I noticed that the larger of the two springs on my Hepco & Becker center stand broke and the stand was dropping. Bummer. I've only used that stand maybe twice so far as I'm not able to put the bike up on it on my own.


The bike was running different than before I dropped it off for service, so I unpacked my UpMap device, pulled the seat, and reflashed it as I think the ECU had been updated and lost the tune. I also noticed that even with the sidestand up and clutch lever pulled in, the bike will only start in Neutral and I can't remember if that was the case before or not, as most modern bikes I've ridden will start in gear so long as those two conditions are met.

Eastern Oregon


I got a laugh out of the bathroom tiles at a Jimmy Johns




I thought it was much darker out than it actually was and at a gas stop in Twin Falls, Idaho I realized it was just my visor coated in bugs. I called it a night nearby in Jerome, Idaho and asked at the front desk where would be a good place to park my motorcycle, ended up with prime sidewalk parking! It's always good to ask.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.28
Jerome, Idaho to Loveland, Colorado

I wanted to make it all the way home today, so I took the faster paced interstate route. It also looked like it would be the least risky in terms of weather conditions for crossing the Continental Divide.

1930s Ford pickup


The Wasatch Range coming out of Ogden, Utah





I ended up crossing the Continental Divide twice due to how it splits for the Great Divide Basin along I-80. Once at 6,930 ft, then again at 7,000 ft just west of Rawlins, Wyoming. Right after I cleared the divide I got gas and the weather looked stormy so I checked the radar and weather report. Just rain and wind, no snow or hail, so I continued on and rode through the cold rain.


It was dark by the time I made it into Colorado, and I was treated to a beautiful view of moonlight highlighting the silhouette of the mountains.


As I rode through peaks and valleys, the temperature changed dramatically from cool to warm and back again. Finally I arrived home and closed the loop on my coast to coast trip after 37 days away and 7,616 miles on the Goose.


Though the V7 isn't the ideal touring machine, it was moderately comfortable, but more importantly there was spirited fun. As usual, my favorite thing about being involved in a motorcycle event like this and traveling with a group was the people. I enjoyed the company of old friends, and I enjoyed making new friends.

Tomorrow I'll be back to work again, and Tuesday I'll call around to see if either of the two Moto Guzzi shops that are accessible to me have confidence in taking apart the final drive and replacing the seals.

Here is an incomplete track of the route I took, exported from my Garmin Zumo XT2. Unfortunately I didn't adjust the settings to keep the whole trip so its retention configuration eventually cleared out the beginning of the trip.


I hope y'all have enjoyed my ramblings and photos. I'll end the trip report with a favorite quote of mine from Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

[Pescatore]

Quote from: Dr. Enzo Toma on November 20, 2025, 11:57:16 PM2025.09.28


It was dark by the time I made it into Colorado, and I was treated to a beautiful view of moonlight highlighting the silhouette of the mountains.
[url=https://ibb.co/mVnDFJKQ]

Huh? Is that just the headlight? I don't see extra projectors on your bike.

Here is an incomplete track of the route I took, exported from my Garmin Zumo XT2. Unfortunately I didn't adjust the settings to keep the whole trip so its retention configuration eventually cleared out the beginning of the trip.


I hope y'all have enjoyed my ramblings and photos.
</quote>

Amazing journey. Thanks for sharing.