Tag Archives: motorcycle

Tale of the Cobra

  This is another example of stories that sort of fall in one’s lap. A small group of us were riding some mountain roads in Tennessee and North Carolina last fall and we pulled into a rest area on the Cherohala Skyway. We were only there a few minutes when a beautiful silver Cobra pulled in and parked.  We talked to the man and woman who got out of the car, and this is the story that resulted.

     Before we got to the Tail of the Dragon last weekend, we spent some quality time on the Cherohala Skyway, which winds its way through almost 40 miles of Tennessee and North Carolina back country. 

   At one point, Scott led us off the road and onto a scenic overlook, where we spent a little time taking pictures. While we were there, a really beautiful silver Cobra came in and parked near us. A middle-aged couple got out. 

  The woman headed for the rest room, and Scott approached the man and asked him about the car, specifically whether it was an original Cobra or a reproduction. The man said it was built from a kit.

   “I don’t own it, but I helped build it,” the man said.  “It belongs to the lady.”

   The fellow went on to tell us that the woman’s husband had purchased the kit, but he soon was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and had to stop the construction project before it had really begun.

   “I was a friend of his,” the man said. “When Don got sick, 40 friends got together and we all pitched in and finished the car.”

   ImageThe car was completed in 2009. The owner, Don “Vorcy” Voorhis, got a chance to drive it. He died just three months after it was completed.

   The driver said that the woman, Cheryl Voorhis, didn’t drive the car, but every once in a while she liked to take a ride in it, so he would go over and they would get the car out of the garage and take it for a spin.

   A beautiful car, and a beautiful story.

   If you would like to see a step-by-step report on the build process for this car, visit:

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/353157/index.html

Travel writing; A motorcycle trip up the Pacific Coast Highway

 

I’ve done a fair amount of travel writing over the years, some of it in such motorcycle magazines as American Iron and Easy Rider. This story was written for a motorcycle club blog after a beautiful 600-mile bike ride up the Pacific Coast Highway. Note the byline change — any writing I’ve done for motorcycle publications has been under my “Bill Frederick” bylines. Bikers who know me wouldn’t know who Arthur Frederick was.

By BILL FREDERICK

Back in the 1980s, Beth and I went out to Santa Barbara, Calif. to visit my mother and her husband. We borrowed their Dodge camper van and drove it up to San Francisco via the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a beautiful trip, and I’ve always wanted to do it again on a motorcycle. But I just don’t ever get out that way, and riding my bike from Florida to California seems less and less appealing as I get older.

But, this year, my uncle Bernard died. He lived in Fortuna, Calif., way up the coast in redwood country. I have a big crowd of first cousins on the West Coast, people I have only seen a few times in my life, and some of them decided to put together a memorial service so the family could celebrate Bernard’s life together. Things came together for me this time, and I was able to get away and spend a few days in California.

“So,” I thought to myself, “why not fly to San Francisco, rent a bike, and make the final leg of the trip by motorcycle?”

This meant a ride up Highway One, the part of the Pacific Coast Highway that starts just north of San Francisco and ends around 250 miles to the north in Fort Bragg. And just because Highway One comes to an end, that doesn’t mean the great riding and beautiful scenery stops. A quick jog to the west on Rte. 20 comes out at Rte. 101, the Redwood Highway. Another 120 miles to the north gets me to Fortuna, Uncle Bernard’s hometown.

I booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express in South San Francisco, just north of the San Francisco airport and just a few steps from Dudley Perkins Harley-Davidson. Once my plane landed and I got to the motel, I just walked over to Dudley Perkins and did up the paperwork for my rental Harley, which I was to pick up first thing the next day.

Great guys at Dudley Perkins, and they made it all very easy. My HOG membership provided me a $10 per day discount on the sizable $150 per day rental fee; they told me that as a returning customer, the next time I rent from Dudley Perkins means another $10 per day off the rental.

Next morning, I made my way back to Dudley Perkins to pick up my 2013 Road Glide, an exact doppleganger of my own Road Glide, right down to the black paint. I did a couple of tight laps around the Dudley Perkins parking lot to demonstrate that I could ride, and then I was off toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

The bike was familiar and comfortable, but I did quickly realize how the changes I had made to my own bike made it much more comfortable than this rental. My bike has two-inch pullback bars, which allows me to sit up straighter, and highway pegs so I can stretch out my legs.

Also, mechanic Bill Billings had talked me into a different brand of transmission oil that makes shifting silky-smooth, nothing like the clunky bangs that accompanied every shift on the rent-a-bike.

Continue reading →