Motorcyclepedia

Last June I visited the Motorcyclepedia Museum in Newburgh, New York with my friends from the Central Jersey Motorcycle Club.  The museum had opened back in April and this was our first visit to the museum.  The non-profit museum in the town of Newburgh is housed in a former Miron Home Center and has 2 floors covering about 85,000 square feet.  There are over 350 motorcycles on display and about 100 of them are Indians.  I was equally amazed by the quantity and the quality of the motorcycles on the various galleries.

My trusty Kawasaki Concours (Goldie)

We had a large group, about 20 riders, we met for breakfast and then made a beeline to the museum with no stops.  I didn't have a chance to take any photos along the trip.  Some of the club members that showed up for the ride.

From the outside it's hard to believe such a building houses so many valuable motorcycles and the sign hardly shows it, a little sign in front of the building.

Once you get inside, it's a whole different story, you are surrounded by all kinds of motorcycles that go back all the way to the 19th century, remember, we are in the 21st century, hard to believe.

I'm a big Google user but was always annoyed when viewing pictures because they would open one at a time.  With the advent of Google Plus, which I encourage everyone to join and friend me there, they have updated the way pictures are displayed, now you can see all the pictures in a post at the same time and in full size when you click on any photo.

I will be making various posts since I have so many pictures, there's no point in taking pictures if no one sees them so without further ado here is the first batch, enjoy.

Who doesn't remember "Easy Rider", the 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper?  There's a nice collection of choppers from various Hollywood movies.

The 60's and 70's were crazy, you gotta love the trikes from the era.  These pictures were taken with my old camera with a special fisheye adapter, excuse the distortion.

I had to have a little fun, this mini chopper that looks like it was made by the guys at OCC (Orange County Choppers) was the only motorcycle we could sit on, I took advantage of it.

My Favourite Five

My friend Roger and fellow blogger from Auckland, New Zealand, recently posted a challenge on his blog  “All Things Rogey!” for us to post the 5 favorites pictures of 2011.
The rules are:

Post your five favourite photos of 2011.  Tell us why you like them.  It could just be you like the pic or it could be more personal or of great meaning to you.  The only rule is that you have to have been the one who took them, and there must be at least one of you

I take a lot of pictures but I decided to post pictures that have a special meaning to me in 2011, not necessarily good pictures, just special.   It was difficult to select the 5 photos but here are mine and why they are special to me.
In order of occurrence.

This one is special because in 2011 I celebrated my 50th birthday.  It was super special because I was able to celebrate with high school friends I hadn't seen in 26 years. My friend Mario on the left also celebrated his birthday, 49th, 9 days before me. We left NY on a cruise to the Caribbean on his birthday and had my party 9 days later as we left the Caribbean on the return trip.  My wife surprised me with this special dinner in one of the gourmet restaurants on the ship, she even managed to get authorization to decorate the corner table in the restaurant.

This one is special because my son turned 21 and we were able to have our first beer together.  He is attending college and I'm sure it was not the first beer he had but at least it was the first beer I paid for and he was legally allowed to have it.

My beautiful daughter graduated middle school and is now in high school, I'm getting old...
She's an adorable young lady but still dad's girl.  To see her in the red gown accepting the diploma was very special.

My first adventure off-road on my new Yamaha Super Ténéré.  As you all know I waited a long time for this bike and I bought it exactly for these kind of roads.  It was only a short ride off-road to test the capabilities of the traction control and ABS but it was nevertheless special to me.  I just love this photo. I plan on going to Alaska with this bike and have lots of plans for the future.

Technically I took this picture since I was alone and put the camera on top of a wooden pole I saw on the side of the road.  Timer counts, doesn't it?  I just love this photo because it represents what I love most, the spirit of adventure, not knowing what's around the corner.  I'm always prepared to discover new things and places and I hope the future will allow me to do lots of adventures.  Now if I could convince my wife to get an adventure bike too, life would be perfect.

Wendover Will

Since I have been talking about giants signs on the road I am including one giant that probably not many people know.  His name is Wendover Will.
I came upon this giant in 2010 during my cross country trip.  I had left my brother at the BMW dealer in Salt Lake City and had done the 121 miles to Wendover by myself with a stop at the Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway.  It was one of the highlights of my trip, the Salt Flats had been a dream visit since childhood when my dad had shown pictures of the famous Blue Bird land speed record cars.

After arriving in Wendover I crossed the state line in the center of town, Utah/Nevada and was immediately struck by the size of the cowboy in the center of West Wendover, the two towns are separated by the state line.

Info from Wikipedia:


Wendover Will was named after the town of Wendover and William Smith, who founded the Stateline Casino. The 63 foot (19 m)-tall sign was intended to draw travelers in from US Highways 40 and 50, later known as Interstate 80. The sign includes 1,184 feet (361 m) of neon tubing.


When the Stateline Casino changed ownership, the sign was donated to West Wendover. The town spent approximately $200,000 to restore the sign; the restoration was done by The Young Electric Sign Company. Wendover Will was moved to Wendover Boulevard in the town's center


Wendover Will was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the "World's Largest Mechanical Cowboy"

I had nothing else to do but wait for my brother to arrive.  I parked the bike in front of Wendover Will and walked to a nearby casino to get a drink and reprieve from the heat.
You can read the blog for that day here

Muffler Man II

I had to revisit the "Muffler Man" blog entry because two readers, "BeemerGirl" and my friend Wayne mentioned that he looked like "Alfred E. Neuman", the fictional mascot and cover boy of Mad Magazine. Wiki here.   After a little research, here's the background of Muffler Man. Wiki here.

According to Roadside America website, they're big. they're scary and there are hundreds of them.  The site has a page on the "origin of the species" that you can read more here.
Apparently, in 1999, Steve Dashew stumbled onto the site, he was the owner of International Fiberglass, the company that turned out thousands of commercial statues in the 1960s and 70s.  International Fiberglass took a single statue mold created for a cafe and parlayed it into a roadside industry.  Roadside America interviewed Steve which you can read here.
The first figure was a Paul Bunyan, done for the PB Cafe on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona in about 1962. Most of the statues were derivatives of that one mold. You can find more info on this site

There was Miss Uniroyal, in bikini and dressed version.

The Alfred E. Neumans, "Happy Half-wits", which apparently one is/was in Seaside Heights and held the Paul Bunyan axe, I have to take a ride there to see if he's still standing, and the one I saw in Jackson.

They were also made for various other establishments.  Here's two common ones, the "Indian Brave" in Bemidji, MN and "Salsa Muffler Man", Malibu, CA.

During my research I ran into Roadside Architecture website which has lots of information on Paul Bunyan Muffler Man and on giants of the road including the huge gorilla at Mighty Joe's Gas Grill & Deli in Shamong, NJ which I have run into a few times. I don't have a picture of my bike in front of him.
Visit Roadside Architecture website here if you interested in getting pictures of your bike in front of a giant, they are found all over across the country.

Mighty Joe's

Now it's time for you to go out and post a picture of your bike in front of a giant, leave a comment here with a link to your post.

List of sites mentioned:
Wikipedia - Alfred E. Neuman link
Wikipedia - Muffler Man link
Wikipedia - Paul Bunyan link
Roadside America - Origins of the species link
Roadside Architecture - list of giants of the road link
Ratrun - You will find a pretty big list of Muffler Man on this link

Muffler Man

A few months ago I was reading Fuzzygalore's blog when I saw a post about a Muffler Man she had found in California.  "Fuzzygalore's blog entry"
It wasn't the first time she had mentioned Muffler Man and in another post she had mentioned Paul Bunyan. The guy looked familiar and it piqued my interest to find out more.  I knew I had run into a Paul Bunyan on my cross country trip but had no idea what he represented.  I wasn't born in the US but always had great interest in American history, it was time to find out, you can read more here: "Paul Bunyan Wiki"
After looking through my trip archive I found out I had run into Paul Bunyan and his animal companion, Babe the Blue Ox, in Trees of Mystery, a roadside attraction in Klamath, California.  "Map location"
"My blog entry"

Paul Bunyan in Klamath

According to Wikipedia "the first figure was a Paul Bunyan character designed to hold his axe and then derivatives of that figure were widely used to hold full-sized car mufflers, tires, or other items promoting various roadside businesses"

Fuzzygalore had also mentioned there used to be one close to where I live near the Six Flags Great Adventure park in Jackson, New Jersey.

Well, it's Friday, a balmy 55 degrees, time for a road trip and find out if the "Muffler Man" is still there.  Turns out he is there but no longer holds anything, I'm not even sure why he's there or what he advertised in the past.  He is located a block away from the entrance to the Great Adventure park in a fenced in area all by himself.  He is all alone but still showed a smile.

Since the gate was open I rode my bike in and parked in front of the 20 foot Muffler Man just for perspective, the fella is pretty big.

And then for fun I put him on my bike, he was looking at my bike with interest and that's the least I could do to help the lonely Muffler Man.

I left the place and headed to my mom's home a few miles down the road for some coffee and cookies, she's always happy to see me and always has a bag of Milano cookies waiting for me, today she had the Mint Milano's, if you haven't tried them you should, they are super delicious.
Here's an artistic view of the Muffler Man taken with my phone and created with "Camera360", a camera application for Android.

"Muffler Man on Wikipedia"

Trax Luggage

I finally received the luggage rack that had been on back order for a few weeks.   There had been some problems with the initial batch and after some concerns by customers the company decided to modify the rack.  I had seen the SW-Motech TraX bags for the first time mounted on a Super Ténéré in Australia on the ADV Rider forums and immediately fell in love with the look.

I first saw them in standard aluminum color but after I saw them in black powder coated aluminum I knew I wanted them for my bike.  From the beginning I had pictured my Super Ténéré in full black guise and the TraX panniers would suit the Super Ténéré with the rugged look and continue with the dark theme.

The Super Ténéré has the exhaust muffler on the left side and it's of considerable size due to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements, which sets noise emissions standards for motorcycle exhaust systems.  The luggage system has to take the muffler into account and that requires the panniers to be of different size to maintain symmetry.  The left pannier is 37 Liters and the right side is 45 Liters.

I added the top bag which is 38 Liters and allows for the storage of my helmet.  I will be adding helmet locks to the sides of the top Altrider rack so that on long trips when the panniers are loaded I will still be able to safely secure my helmet to the bike.  It's one of those convenience things that come handy when you have to park the bike in dubious places.

All the locks on the panniers and the racks are keyed the same.  The panniers can be easily removed by unlocking one lock that locks the pannier to the rack.  The racks can also be easily removed by turning quarter turn screws and unlocking the Anti Theft Protection lock.  On shorter rides I might just want the top pannier for convenience and the bike looks much better without the side racks installed.  On other bikes the racks stay with the bike regardless if you carrying the panniers or not.

The three panniers came with soft bags that fit inside to facilitate carrying stuff off the bike. SW-Motech offers add-on soft bags that compliment the panniers and can be strapped to the top of the side panniers to increase storage space.
Overall the TraX system offers a lot for the price.  Lots of storage, sturdiness as proven by many that have traveled around the world and the looks to compliment the Super Ténéré.
Spring can't come fast enough, it's going to be a painful winter.