The San Francisco call., 1910-07-08
MOTOR BIKE DOES
1900 Mile TRIP
Justin e. Gunnison Tours South
Half of State With Lit.
tie Expense

An interesting story of trip on Z
motorcycle Is told in letter to 10,
iolle. local agent for the Harley
Davidson machine. The writer, Justir
:. Gunnison, of this city, said:
Having just returned from a
very successful trip south on one
Of your machines, 1 thought I
Monld Hpea 70 write 1st g, you 5 Just these few few
along. AS you know, l had never
ridden motor bike until one
week before ! started on this trip,
so went little slow at first; l
hadn't been on the road long,
up like. the rest of them. and 1t
was not long before / had gotten
on to the mechanism of the ma
compared with other motor cycles.
/ believe / owe my successful trip
mostly to this simplicity of parts,
transmission, and so forth. / made
the trip down to San Bernardino in
seven gallons of gasoline. Some
wise hayseed told me to take a
shortcut Just before getting into
sanut san Lqs fn,, obispo panr: got lost for
tains. otherwise / would have
made the trip in much less time.
AS far as the machine was con-
cerned, I had no trouble at all.
L
done were to straighten the crank
and put in one spoke. 1 let the
machine. fall to one side. which
bent the crank and got stick in
my spokes and broke one. When
about IL miles from. San Bernar-
dino I got caught in the dark
without any carbide. 1 was TAX
ing chances on strange road and
hour ran into a sand drift and
took healthy tumble. bent my
crank so that it would not pass
the exhaust pipe. l managed to
get 1t started, however, and got
into San Bernardino at 1880 o'clock
that night.
On the return trip did not have
to pay cent for repairs. I left
Ventura on the second day out. |
was too early for gasoline SO I
thought could make Gaviota.
This was a distance of 10 miles
and my tank wasn't full. The re-
suit was that 1 had TO push the
machine four miles over rolling
of the day. Never again. After
that 1 bought gasoline at every
town whether I needed 1t or not.
At one little village. called New
berry Park, / bought what 1
thought was gasoline from little
boy. When / got 1t into the tank
the storekeeper showed up and
said 1t was distillate. He had no
gasoline, so i naQ TO make the
best of it. The distillate did the
work. | could see no difference in
the running of the machine. I ar
rived in Oakland at o'clock Sun
day afternoon.
/ attribute the success of my
trip mostly to the. belt. can not
see where a chain driven machine
could make some of the hills |
got over, especially just before get
ting into Santa Margarita. The
road was not steep. but very dusty
and rocky. OF course, l am not
claiming that I rode all the way
up this mountain. That would be
impossible. If you were to ride a
donkey up that hill you'd slide
off over his tail What I did do
in bad places was to put her on
the stand. start her, loosen the belt,
drop her off the stand with the
engine running free, gradually
tighten the belt until She took
hold; then when I had enough mo-
mentunl | would jump on and ride
until / had to do it over again.
I passed three or four chain driven
machines on my trip that were
pushing when / thought how easy
it would have been for me to get
a start where they were sweating.
I made the return trip in three
days The whole trip cost me only
324. including hotel bills, gaso- /,
line, repairs and six days camping
up in the San Bernardino noun
tains.
The trip taken by GunnisoH covered
more than 1900 miles.