2nd Annual Legends Ride Huge Success

By Will S. II

The Second Annual BIASD Legends ride took place Saturday, March 20th with huge success.  Even though there’s not much actual riding that takes place, this is quickly becoming a favorite ride with the group because of the amazing people we visit.  The idea is to visit  local legends of our hobby and get the E ticket tour of their shops…access that the average Joe just wouldn’t have.

With 12 vintage Brit bikes rolling, our first stop was Bruce Barker’s machine shop.  Bruce was a Triumph factory trained mechanic and wrenched on the racing triples at Daytona.  An amazing machinist that can make or fix anything, his small shop is packed with machinery.  It is all very clean, neat and organized, not a stray metal chip in sight.  Bruce and his wife Mary were very gracious hosts and laid out enough coffee, sodas and snacks for a small army!

 From there we rumbled over to the lunch stop, Fuddruckers.  With our cholesterol counts sufficiently taken up a few notches, we headed to Sonny Angel motorcycles.  Sonny has been in the same location since 1953 and has done it all, from road racing and running Vincent’s on the Salt Flats to wrenching and selling new Nortons.  His shop is absolutely filled to the rafters with old bikes and parts.  Everywhere you looked there was some motorcycle artifact to grab your attention.

Our last stop was Rob North Fabrications.  It’s impossible to read any history of Triumph Motorcycles without the name Rob North popping up.  As everyone knows, he designed and built the frames for the racing triples.  Rob’s shop is the polar opposite of Bruce’s shop but I bet Rob knows exactly where everything is.  As a special treat, Rob rolled out the 1971 Daytona winning BSA triple ridden by Dick Mann.  After a few minutes of fettling he started it for us and an amazing howl bellowed out of the open megaphone!  It’s not every day that you are deafened by such a great piece of racing history. 

 Everyone had a great time and it was nice to see 3 or 4 new faces.  Hopefully we will see them and everyone else on our next club ride, which is the John Mulrean Memorial Lakes ride May 1^st.