It was a dark and stormy night.

The weather guessers were telling us to expect a nice, sunny day for our trip to the Friday the 13th celebrations in Port Dover. This was going to be an extra special event for us as June 13 was also my grand-niece's 1st birthday, which she (and her mom and dad) had travelled from the UK to celebrate in true PD13 style.

It was going to be a quick turnaround from Ottawa so we trailered the bike to my brother’s place in Waterloo on Thursday, intending to get an early start Friday morning. Right. Friday morning dawned (or would have if not for the black clouds) with the crashing of thunder and drumming of a torrential downpour. Sunny indeed. It looked like we were going to be rained out, or at least very wet by the time we arrived in Port Dover.

We gave it some time and fortunately the rain stopped by about 8:30, but the cloud cover remained with us all day. Which really isn’t a bad thing when you’re spending several hours wandering about in the open. Getting a later start than planned, we hit the road, along with thousands of other bikers. (Click image to see video.)



With the requisite Tim Horton’s stops for coffees and the traffic congestion through neighbouring towns, we arrived about 11:30, to be greeted by the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen there. Early estimates put the numbers somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 people swarming this small town whose entire population struggles to pass 6,000 people on any given day. Perhaps the surge in attendance was due to the fact that this is the last summer PD13 until July 2018 – 4 years down the road – but whatever the reason it was a struggle sometimes just to walk around the town.

We connected with the rest of the family who had driven down and proceeded to enjoy the sights and sounds typical of any biker rally (although the 1-year-old wasn’t too keen on all the open exhausts blatting at high decibel levels). Four hours later, souvenir t-shirts in hand and memory cards full of photos, we made our way back to where we’d parked the bikes and headed home – mission accomplished.

Here are a few of the many images that caught my eye.

A day at the auction.

As the search for the perfect (read: cheap, in immaculate condition) tractor continues I am presented with lots of interesting diversions, generally called farm auctions!
Often it’s an entire household being sold off due to death or illness and box upon box of bric-a-brac must be gotten through before the auctioneer gets to the good stuff. And so I wait while tin cans of assorted screws and nails go for $0.50 and ‘slightly used’ china sets fetch a buck or two from locals trying to stock their tables for the weekend flea markets. By mid afternoon all the fleamarketers have loaded up and I am left with a few dozen others looking for deals on used tools, shop equipment, farm machinery, and so on.  While everything eventually sells, not everything is worth what someone will pay for it in the heat of a bidding war, so having a budget and sticking to it is key.
Saturday was another auction day, but this one was different. The local feed store has an annual consignment auction mainly targeted at farm machinery and this year’s listing included numerous tractors, old and new, including one that would meet my needs perfectly and which should be at about the right price point (at least that’s what I hoped).
Although advertised as a farm machinery auction, the very first item I saw when I walked onto the property was a 1945 Indian Chief, fully restored.

The story was that the owner had it from new and had just recently finished a ground-up restoration when failing health forced him into a retirement home, and the sale of his pride and joy.
It was absolutely beautiful, and would be coming up for auction in about 4 hours – at the same time as the tractors. So I wandered around, checked out the specific tractor I had my eye on (I confirmed it was exactly what I was looking for), and took a few more photos.

This 1921 Autotractor was a first for me. Apparently after the First World War tractors were hard to come by and so people would convert old cars into passable farm equipment by cutting them off just behind the engine and bolting on a rear end with massive steel wheels to till the fields and otherwise drag stuff around. There were even companies that sold nothing but these back-end bolt-on kits.

This one was particular fascinating because it looked like it hadn’t had anything done to it since the 20’s, yet started right up and idled nice and smooth. It had a homebuilt governor made from old Model “A” connecting rods with a 90-degree twist in them, a bit of chain, and a Rube Goldberg’ish linkage that worked. Also note the gas tank – the plastic jug with the hose in it sitting on the rear bed. I was ready to bid on it just as an historical curiosity, especially since it went for (what seemed me) an amazingly low price of $2500. I never did determine if the couple sitting in front of it were the owners, but they sure could have been.

A couple of other nicely refurbished vintage tractors that had their own appeal were a 1953 Ford Jubilee and a 1940’ish Ford 9N with steel wheels. Imagine driving that down the highway!

Each went for less than $4,000. Fortunately (or unfortunately) none of those met my requirements, else I could have spent a LOT of money that day.
And my tractor?

Let’s just say I had the misfortune to choose the one piece of equipment that had 2 deep-pocketed and very competitive buyers interested. Within seconds the bidding had far exceeded my budget and, I expect, the actual value of the machine.
Perhaps next time I’ll get lucky. 
Disappointment aside it was a great day just hanging around the auction, watching the proceedings, looking at heavy equipment, and getting a bit dirty and greasy in the process.
And, if you’re still reading this and are curious, the Indian sold to a collector in Peterborough for the princely sum of $18,000 – a helluva deal I think.

The things people do.

I am in awe of those few souls who can take an idea and turn it into something fantastic. Personally I lack the imagination, skill, and, frankly, the patience to do something like this, which makes it all the more amazing to me that someone has.
Some time ago I blogged about John Britten’s homebuilt racer and now another amazingly talented individual has come to my attention.
I first read about Bob Horn and his recumbent racer here at The Kneeslider.  Interest piqued I then checked out his blog.

It turns out Bob has been working on this bike for the better part of 6 years now, 4 of which were in construction. His shop – a garden shed. His crew – himself only. Total cost - about $1.00 a day.

Good on ‘ya Bob, and continued good luck getting those lap times down.

First ride of 2014

It seems I’ve been waiting forever(!) to post this. I won’t comment further on the weather this year as it seems everyone north of Orlando has enjoyed the same crappy spring and there really is nothing more to be said about that.
Suffice it to say that in the last 5 years my latest (until now) first ride was April 13 (5 weeks ago), and the earliest was March 18 (two months ago).
But today the weather and my schedule cooperated just long enough for me to take a not-so-quick trip to Timmie’s for a coffee and a doughnut. The nearest Tim Horton’s is about 35 kilometres away but that’s really too close to enjoy much two-wheel time. So instead I went the l-o-n-g way round and posted a nice first ride distance of 130 kilometres.
A Tim’s coffee never tasted so good.

And even more wheels

If there’s one thing the big storm of 2012 taught me (aside from the fact that I am not nearly as indestructible as I once believed) is that to do anything in the country you need either horses or horsepower.
Horses and I do not get along – if you think machinery repair bills are excessive, just call a vet. Besides having a ‘pet’ that outweighs me by a factor of 6 to 1, eats 50 lbs of feed a day, and deposits the leftovers all over the yard in steaming piles isn’t all that appealing.
It’s down to horsepower then. Until now I have made do with begging friends and hiring locals to drag out broken trees and stumps, grade my driveway, plow our road, and generally help with the grunt work – of which there seems to be no end. But when I added up all those costs I realised that had I made an investment into a tractor and a few attachments 7 years ago when we moved here, it would have been paid for by now.
As my father-in-law used to say (I think it was a rough English translation of an old German saying), “too soon old, too late smart”. But not too, too late as I have now embarked on “The Great Tractor Hunt”.
With my limited budget there are few options, and all involve 40-year-old-plus machines. Like any piece of old machinery some will have been better maintained than others, and some will be outstanding. Since tractors hold their value so well there is little to tell about the condition by the price, and the physical appearance can also be very misleading (farmers aren’t generally big on repairing dents or rust). So there is lots of driving around, looking, listening, and kicking tires involved, hoping to find that gem among all the worn out and just plain tired machines on the market. Fortunately I have some very knowledgeable friends – farmers and mechanics who have been around tractors their entire lives – to help me find what I need. 
With a bit of luck the search won’t take too long.