It was very cold last night but I got a great night's sleep in my warm sleeping bag on my cot. Cuppa Joe (Joe Smith) had been up since 5:00 a.m. brewing his favourite coffee from Baton Rouge, LA, and like most of us, I was very happy to fill my mug and and enjoy morning conversation with people that I have never met before. We are all connected by our love of Norton motorcycles, most of them Commandos. So far I have met people from Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and one participant even rode his Commando from Atlanta, Georgia. It is a widely varied group but everyone is friendly and only to happy to sit and have a conversation, not always about Nortons, either.
Banners from the Washington Norton Owners' association and the Ontario (Canada) Norton Owners
The Wifi at this campground is glacially slow so, on Wednesday morning I hiked into a coffee shop in down Winthrop. The wi-fi was not much better there, but the coffee was good and I was able to complete an abbreviated blog entry from the previous day.
Not much was happening in the campsite except for checking out other Commandos and visiting so I took part of the time to detail and polish my Commando. Two days of rain left marks on the aluminum casings and the disk brake was a bright orange.
This morning many of the rally participants arrived with their Nortons. Some of them were beautifully maintained, with their original paint. One such machine was Mike Tyler's with gold metal flake paint. The painting done by Norton in the 1970s doesn't seem to be reproduceable now, so original paint is somewhat of a rarity.
Mike Tyler's gold metal flake Commando
One of the things I noticed as people arrived was the number of Toyota Tundras and Tacomas in which people were bringing their Commandos to the rally. In my small area of the campground, there were five Toyotas with several more scattered throughout the rest of the campground. It seems that there may be an affinity for Toyota pickup trucks by those who ride Nortons.
Toyotas lined up in the campsite
Downtown Winthrop
I hiked into downtown Winthrop so that I could use the wifi in a local coffee shop, but I discovered that internet speed was almost as slow as in the campground. I can see how the US government has allocated billions of dollars to improve rural access to high speed internet. The couple who camped next to me, Ann and Chuck Horton live in southwestern Colorado and they said that they have the same issues with their internet as well. It certainly has delayed my postings.
One of the regular attendees of previous rallies was Doug MacAdam, a fascinating character who loved Norton Commandos and who founded Colorado Norton Works which he sold to Matt Rambo before opening a restaurant which he later sold. Doug then moved to Baja Mexico where he continued to build one or two Commandos each year. When I first met him, was driving a retired hearse. He would pull the sliding table out, turn the handlebars down, put two Commandos on the table, then slide it into the hearse. A very effective way to load his motorcycles.
One evening I had the privilege of sitting and talking with him for at least an hour. As he sipped on his Five Roses whiskey, he expounded on his views of the importance effort, perseverance, and quality. He made sense and the quality of his motorcycle builds speaks to his commitment to those qualities. Sadly, Doug passed away this past spring. He was and will be sorely missed.
Doug MacAdam's first Commando build.
Spectacular paint
More great paint
A newer 961 Norton Commando
Canadian Army WWII Norton motorcycle
Butch Ambrosius much travelled customized Norton Commando
As I wandered taking photos, I came across Rich, a guy from Olympia, who camped beside Clint Campbell and me at the Elma Rally. In his campsite, he had a large cutout of Austin Powers that I first saw at the 2014 rally near Ashland, OR. Austin has weathered the ravages of time very well.
Rich's Austin Power's display
Bikes lined up at Colin Kelly's campsite
During the day many more people arrived at the rally with their motorcycles and as they settled in, they parked, set up their areas and brought their motorcycles out. I wandered around the campsites taking photos of the various motorcycles just because they looked so good. The above photos are some of the examples of the motorcycles that people brought. It is apparent that there were no 'trailer queens' at the rally. As good as the motorcycles looked, most, if not all were ridden on a regular basis.
I spent a good deal of time cleaning and polishing my motorcycle, because the the previous days of rain had stained the aluminum cases. It took some time, but I was able to clean everything up so that the bike looked like it should. I also came across Ken Davies, a Norton Atlas rider who lived quite close to me and his group, who had ridden in from Victoria, BC. The weather in the Washington and Rainy passes which reach an altitude of 1650 metres was wet and cold. They had the foresight to rent one of the tipis on site and seemed to have a comfortable setup. I was able to spend time with his group and they were a great bunch to hang out with.
Tomorrow, we will doing a group ride to Patros, Wa, on the Columbia River. Should be a great ride.
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