The Grand Bay-Irvington Fall Festival (7 Oct, 2000)

We were asked by the festival organizers to provide some vintage motorcycles for the fall festival in St Elmo. Unfortunately, we only had been given a week's notice for this function. I emailed the club and asked if anyone was interested in riding out there.  I only received 2 yes replies. To make matters worse it rained all day Friday and Saturday dawned cold and overcast. Ever the optimist, I cranked my Bonneville and rode over to A&B Cycles, our appointed rendezvous, and waited to see who, if anyone would come. Joe Green showed up on his immaculate Cushman Eagle and soon Carlos and Alex Forte showed up on a 350cc Suzuki Rebel (neat 2-cycle twin from the 60's) and a /6 BMW.  We figured this constituted a quorum so we decided to go. By this time the clouds had burned off and it was warming up nicely. It turned out be perfect weather. Joe led the procession and the Eagle put-putted away at about 45 mph. When we got to the festival site at St Elmo we found that Mitchell Martin and Frank Ford were already there on a Honda super 90 and a Triumph 250 respectively. There were about 100 people milling around mostly eating Bar B Q and listening to some pretty decent country singers. Joe checked out the flea market while we checked out the food. Joe found a box of NOS champion spark plugs for the Cushman. The plugs are no longer made and apparently quite hard to come by. He bought a dozen for $5. The Bar B Q was good too. The bikes drew quite a crowd, especially the Eagle, which everybody had a personal story about. Art Conner (not a club member) buzzed the crowd in his auto-gyro which he had been flying at Irvington International airport. St Elmo makes for an almost perfect Old Bike ride. Its not too far and you don't have too drive too fast on highway 90.  Lets try to plan ahead and make a big showing next year.

Jim Downey

P.S. Sorry I didn't think to bring a camera.