Hamilton Museum

During a recent visit to the Phoenix Arizona area I had the privilege of visiting the Hamilton Museum. Quite a collection and surely some of the finest Triumph restorations in existence. Thanks to Mr. Hamilton for taking the time to show us around.

1912 Triumph Single

1927 Triumph Model W

1935 Triumph Model 2/1

1938 Triumph Speed Twin 5T (my personal favorite)

1947 Triumph T100 Tiger

1953 Triumph Thunderbird "Blackbird"

Shell Blue Sheen x2 1956 Trophybird foreground

T120C / T120TT Row

WWII Norton

Rare WWII 3HW Triumph Single

1961 Triumph T120C

1960 Triumph Bonneville

Bonneville Alley

Original paint 1959 Triumph T120 Bonneville

Honda CB550 flanked by Triumph triples

Bonneville Alley reversed

Stunning 1965 Triumph Bonneville

lots of 500's too

Ogle "breadbox" Trident & Vetter Hurricane

Perhaps (with a very sound argument) the very last Triumph to leave the production line

Red & Skippy Farwell

I was sent easily the coolest Seattle related photo in a long long time recently from a guy named Ernie. There's an incredibly cool story behind it too. As some may know I'm always stoked to find anything Red Farwell related. It would be a complete injustice not to leave the story in Ernie's own words:

 My Uncle, Tex Miller, was good friends with Red Farwell and took it hard when he died, as did a lot of people here in the area including the Tacoma Ducks MC Club and the Blue Barons too I think.  In the attached photo, Tex's son Randy Miller is sitting on his little bike with Red Farwell's son, Skippy, sitting on the back.  I think that is Red behind them.  Please keep your eye open for anything about Skippy, or if he is still with us.

The Ducks had a flat track between Tacoma and Puyallup back in the '50's where this was taken.  Randy and Skippy would ride their small, hand made motorcycles around the track at intermission.  Randy's bike is built around a Whizzer, 4 stoke flat head engine.  Great old photo anyway.

I couldn't agree more.

If anyone knows anything about Skippy's current status (living or deceased) Ernie would love to hear from you.

Seattle Dealer Decal

I have been building a photo collection of Seattle area dealer decals. Here's a new one, Aurora Cycle. It came on a Suzuki TS75 Bill Metteer brought home. Pretty cool.

BMX Takeover

From the Phoenix Supercross. Most of the freestyle BMX demo guys were staying at the same hotel as us. I love that all the pro freestyle BMX guys can now openly keep their bikes in their hotel rooms. I always had to sneak my bike up the back stairway when we traveled for races years ago. A team van/trailer loaded with bikes tends to draw the wrong sort of attention.

Ride365 Giveaway

Here's a tie in to my previous Ride365 post. You now have a chance to win a replica of one of the Ride365 factory Honda supported team bikes. Sign Up Here

Ride365

One of the aspects I was most excited about when we decided to relocate to Seattle was the chance to regularly attend a Supercross race. We made it to two races and then Seattle was dropped from the race schedule. When the 2016 schedule was announced (and Seattle was not on it) I naturally pouted like a toddler. Since my wife, well... rules, she made all the arrangements more than 6 months ago to attend the Phoenix race. We finally made that trip this weekend.

The trip and race was absolutely amazing but my favorite part happened right in the beginning. Shortly after landing we hopped a shuttle to the rental car facility at PHX. We shared the shuttle with a group of people that appeared to be affiliated with one of the teams. As we made small talk one of the guys mentioned being Team Manager for the Ride365 team. He was a super friendly guy and ultimately offered to take us through team trailer. When we arrived at the track for the pit party we took him up on it. He took us through the entire trailer (a pretty generous move given the rider effectively live on it and have their stuff strewn about). The shop facility in the trailer is pretty amazing. The amount of parts they carry is quite impressive too. The team campaigns two 250cc riders but the probably carry parts for 6 bikes. We deliberately didn't take too many pictures but these photos of similar rigs give you an idea what they are like.

The trailer tour and all the people involved were incredibly cool. It was a generous offer and my whole family very much enjoyed it. Ride365 is a team made up of two Western Region 250 class riders, Kyle Peters #40 and Chase Marquier #212. The team is backed by the Honda factory and team coach/mentor Motocross legend Guy Cooper.

Needless to say we are now diehard fans. Both riders had fantastic starts in Phoenix and both made the main. I typically don't care all that much about the 250 LCQ's but having a rider you are cheering for in one changes it a bit. It's going to be fun routing for a couple of riders that don't have all media support some of the other guys have.

Thanks for hospitality Dayton Daft et al. We'll be definitely routing for you!

Carl Williamson - 1957

Here's a little moral support for Flathead Rob. He is currently working on a motorcycle trailer built/owned by Forsberg Indian, an Indian dealer located in the Capitol Hill area in the 1940's. Rob, where's your boat windshield?

Carl Williamson - 1957

Forsberg Indian - 1946

I am absolutely obsessed with the dirt track pipes on Carl's bike. I'm still looking at ways to reproduce them.

Decay of Detroit

I was chatting with a former Detroit resident while waiting in line at at restaurant today. He was mentioning how dramatically Detroit is becoming a ghost town. Ironically I later got home and happened across this Weather Channel Secrets of Earth episode about how nature is reclaiming Detroit in an almost Chernobyl like fashion. It reminded me of the drone shot footage of the old Packard plant. If you didn't watch that footage when I posted it before I definite recommend checking it out.

These photos of the Packard plant and the Fisher Body plant shot by French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre from their book “The Ruins of Detroit“ give you a good feel for what the video is like.

Crocker Hot Rod

In addition to Crocker's turn key motorcycle offering customers could buy the hemi-head engines alone for use in projects like midget racers. Pictured above is a 1939 engine #106 in a WWII era rigid Triumph single frame.

The Crocker 61c.i. made 50 hp. The factory "Race Kit" offered for the dramatically lighter all alloy Triumph 500's made 42 hp. Just like today it's sometimes hard to say if this conversion was more about performance or shock value. It's still pretty cool and quite a feat to shoehorn all that Crocker into a Triumph single frame. The full story of this bike is told in Vincent in the Barn for the truly inquisitive. The bike was reportedly spotted under a porch in Colorado by a utility meter reader.

Leather

Another fine Triumph related piece from GeordieBiker.

Happy Day's Leather Tuscadero (played by Suzi Quatro). I remember thinking as a prepubescent kid that skin-tight one piece leather jumpsuits were a pretty wonderful invention.

 I'd forgotten Suzi was a bassist. See... I told you bassists could be sex symbols.

Crocker - Muroc Dry Lake

Crocker engineer Paul Bigsby with rider Sam Parriot at Muroc dry lake, 1940.

Scrub-a-Dub

This is easily the oddest image I've come across in quite a while. Obviously bikini bike washes are not what they used to be.