Thread: The Spyder Slays a Dragon

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Made it back from our road trip to Tennessee and Georgia. We had a really good time and the car did mostly good. However, there was some bad and little downright ugly. As usual, I’ll break this into several posts.

First, the good stuff. This was a weeklong trip that took us first to a little town in Tennessee named Townsend. This is near Pigeon Forge. Since we weren’t much interested in the tourist trap stuff in PF, we opted to stay out of the hustle and traffic. Nearly everything we wanted to do was easily accessed from Townsend and we spent two days there.

On the trip up, I surprised my wife with a stop in Fort Payne, Alabama at the Alabama country music group museum. She is a country music fan and had mentioned that she would like to stop one of these days. Well, that was now and she was genuinely surprised, I think.



I planned the trip in 150–160-mile fuel stop “legs” and that was just about right before needing to stretch our legs. We had a nice steak at the steak house that was within walking distance from our hotel in Townsend.

Our first day of activities was a long one and we managed to cram several things into it and got a neat bonus that I wasn’t expecting. We made about a 225-mile loop that took us along the river road in Wears Valley over to 441. This highway runs over the mountain to Cherokee, NC, but we turned off on the Blue Ridge Parkway just before Cherokee. Here is the car at the Newfound Gap overlook near the top of the mountain. It’s all down hill from here!



We got off the Blue Ridge near Maggie Valley, NC and visited the Wheels Through Time antique motorcycle museum. This museum is a must see for anyone with even a passing interest in old two-wheeled iron. There are around 300 motorcycles there and nearly every one of them runs. Some are restored and some are “as found” but preserved. The staff cranks them up at times for visitors to hear. Some are even regularly ridden. There used to be a show called” What’s in the Barn” that featured the original museums owner Dale Walksler and his son Matt. Sadly, Dale has passed away, but Matt still runs the place and carries on his father’s legacy. I have visited many times over the years and always stop in when I’m in the area. Every time I’m there, I find something new. I have had conversations with both Dale and Matt and found them to be very personable folks that are passionate about preserving running examples of old American iron.

As an example. I once read an article about a fellow that rode a 1912 Henderson 4-cylinder motorcycle around the world in 1912. He was the first person known to accomplish this feat. On my next visit to the museum, I ran into Matt and asked if they had a 1912 Henderson. He said they didn’t have a 1912, but they had a 1913 which was exactly the same. He led me to it, talked about it for a while and then asked if I wanted to hear it run. Of course, I said yes. He proceeded to fire it up, but frowned and said it was running bad. He told me to wait while he went in the back. When he returned, he had a new set of sparkplugs and a wrench and proceeded to change the plugs right on the spot. After that, the old bike quite literally purred like a kitten. Super smooth. That’s the kind of place it is. No velvet ropes. It even has that wonderful smell of old motorcycles if you know what I mean. Gas, oil, and rubber. Perfume to a gear head.

This is that very same 1913 Henderson, except now it’s on a pedestal. Still runs though.



That Henderson four-cylinder engine eventually morphed, after a lot of improvements, into the vaunted Indian Four, like this one. My grandfather was said to have had one of these with a sidecar. He had polio in one leg as a child and so the side hack was required, but I still have a hard time figuring out just how he operated the tank-shift transmission, the foot clutch and foot brake given his bad leg. It would be a “bucket list” item for me to own one of these. That will most likely never happen, but I can dream!



Not everything at the museum is two wheeled. They cranked this dirt track car while I was there but didn’t get to it in time to record it.





This is the Traub motorcycle that was found sealed up in a walled-off room in a Chicago brownstone that was being demolished. It is the only example known to exist and almost nothing is known about it or its origin. It has been dated to the teens by some of the equipment that it has. It is speculated to be some kind of prototype that was never in production. According to the museum staff, it would easily have been the most advanced motorcycle of its day. At least a decade or more advanced than anything by any other American manufacturer, maybe even the world. Doesn’t look extraordinary compared to the other bikes in the museum but has very advanced features compared to its contemporaries. Was once owned by Steve McQueen and his stuntman. That alone makes it cool in my book. It runs.



For the last several years, they have been raffling off an antique motorcycle every year to raise funds for the museum. The giveaway bikes are usually built on-site and are always very cool bikes. This is this year’s candidate, which I believe is a 1937 Knucklehead bobber. I bought some tickets, but just consider it my donation to help keep this marvelous place going. I would probably pass out if I actually won but would be one happy man for sure. Who wouldn’t be?



This Harley race bike sits just inside the entrance to the museum.