AMCA Europe Meet, Raalte, NL
Growing Older, Getting Better
The trick to growing old is this: change nothing. Don’t go about fiddling with things, just leave ’em alone, just give ’em the loving care they need, and take ’em out for a spin every once in a while. Looking good at the age of 90 or 95 or even 100 isn’t a problem at all. If you’re a bike :)
Proof this year, as in every year in May was the AMCA’s (Antique Motorcycle Club of America) European meet in Raalte, The Netherlands. Plenty of beauties were on hand, provided by manufacturers such as ACE, Harley-Davidson, Henderson, Flying Merkel, Indian, Pope, Reading Standard, Yale and more. This year, apart from the rigorous adherence to stock condition, the paint also had to be stock factory issue to score top points. Several racers from way back when had brought their still original paint jobs, complete with proudly worn battle scars. No better way to illustrate this year’s motto: "original paint".
AMCA members and friends of historic murdersickles
from 24 nations, even from the USA and Japan met in the American Motorcycle Museum, and were greeted by the best selection of world-class historic machines to be found a long way round. The AMCA’s COD Keith Kizer, USA, was rendered speechless by the bikes the club members had dragged from their garages to bring to Raalte. From a German perspective the highlight was the appropriately named "Black Pearl", the only known Harley of this type to be imported into Germany in 1936.
Beauty usually lies in the eyes of the beholder.
In Raalte it’s the AMCA judges* eyes to behold (and judge). The nerve wrecking process of awarding points according to the AMCA points system started at 9 am sharp on the Saturday. Every machine starts at 100 points, and for every irregularity there will be points subtracted. A non period, non stock washer will set you back 0,5 points for example. Still, the 10 best bikes were doing exceptionally well. If you now start thinking about that old Panhead rotting away in your garden shed, think twice, ’cos returning it to former stock glory might be tricky :) But, who’s to know. The AMCA with their knowledgable brand specialists are there to help out members in all matters regarding restorations of valuable classics. Expensive errors and disappointments can be avoided if you ask them before investing a lot of work. (*including our man Paul "The Cyclery" Jung)
Part of that work is just finding the right parts,
and this is where Raalte really shines: the swap meet. Not only did they have a new record number of vendors, the quantity and quality of the parts offered was at the usual high level too. Even the visitors from the States agreed that the pre war parts selection was in a class of its own. Many smiling buyers were seen carrying their loot away to their vehicles. And there was the English family who had traded in their small daughter for an IOE H-D engine :) Well, not really, she had to give her seat in her pushchair though. The happy dad had her on his arm, smiling. Don’t say this hobby isn’t family friendly :)
