The Historic Cannonball Endurance Run just finished a grueling coast-to-coast endurance race this last Sunday. The event is an antique motorcycle race that starts in Daytona Beach, Florida, and ends in Tacoma, Washington. It runs for 17 days and span across 3,938 miles.
Riders note that the race is hard enough for a modern bike, but it's a whole different story on an antique. The nearly 100 riders in the race were on bikes that range in age from 1907 to 1937. At the end of the trek only 32 of them managed to complete every mile of the journey, 24 of which managed to achieved a perfect score for making every checkpoint within the daily time limit.
"It's quite a challenge with all the elements and the weather," said Richard McMaken, one of the event's participants who was riding a 1915 Harley-Davidson. "Even on a little more modern bike, like a 1936, it is still a very old motorcycle."
There were a number of bikes that had to be overhauled on the trip, including Buck Carson's 1936 Harley RL, which blew an engine for the second time on the last leg of race, forcing Carson to push his bike to finish line to join with all other vintage cruisers.
"Whether you're a motorcycle fan or just like the old antique automobiles there's a lot of different technologies you're going to see that most people haven't seen for a long time," said Matt Klum from Hells Canyon Harley-Davidson. "There are people from Poland, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, all over the place that ship their bikes to Florida to make the trip up here."
As the cross-country race is grueling enough as it is, much less on an antique bike, riders undergoing similar treks will want to have the right gear. Whether it's getting the right full-face helmet for a long ride or ensuring gloves are good shape, riders need the right gear to stay safe.