Hollywood Happening 2012

Our day at the Hollywood Happening was a pleasant one.

The weekend was supposed to be a wash out, and it did start out that way. Friday was rain, but the rally still rode. Saturday started with rain, and by 11 am it started to clear up. The forecast was calling for more rain by 4 pm so I got ready and headed out the door for Gowanda while it was dry.

Those of you not familiar with Western New York weather, you get used to sudden changes. The lakes can add watter to the air and make it rain or it can suck the moisture out of the air and keep us dry, all in a seconds notice. If you live here you know what I mean. You can not plan your day or weekend around what the weather forecaster says.

Our ride out to Gowanda was a bit uneventful. The rain stopped, but the winds picked up over 20 miles an hour. Usually not a big deal but having new tires that I had very little time on did put a little fun into it.

We pulled into Gowanda and like usual the main street was blocked off with bike parking only. To my surprise a side street was also blocked off for the "Star Boys" to do their stunts down. When we got there, not many bikes had arrived. It was about noon. Carrie and I walked down the side walks and visited the booths and vendors. Eventually we wandered over to watch the "Star Boys". Carrie likes watching them do their stunts.

I didn't get a lot of good pictures because I was taking it easy. Carrie got a few better ones but I don't have the patients to download hers too.

In the center of this old town is an old theater, The Hollywood Theater. I don't know all the dates and facts, but it is well over 100 years old with a lot of history. As a kid growing up I had seen a few films there, and remember the last film I watched there with my dad at about 17 called Medicine Man. Shortly after it was condemned as unsafe because parts of the ceiling were falling.

About 14 years ago someone got the idea of raising money to fix the place up and with the help of the local bikers, started the Harley Happening. Live bands, boothes, vendors, bike rides and even celebrities like Willie G showed up to sign jackets for raffles.

This went on for awhile, but eventually Harley didn't want to sponsor this event any more so it became The Hollywood Happening as the organizers were not allowed to use the Harley name any more.

A couple of years ago, the town of Gowanda had a massive flood that covered main street in a few feet of water. The theater was in several feet of water and it destroyed a lot of the work that had been done to it over the past years.

This event still draws about the same amount of people as it ever did. Even though it rained for the rally, people rode. Even though it was forecast to rain all weekend, people came. http://www.gowandahollywoodhappening.com/

Here are some pictures of the theater.

Entering the theater I saw my high school art teacher Mrs. Dye, and she honestly remembered me. I was impressed because I had not seen her in 19 years (and 40 ponds ago).

I ran into a few others that I knew (I went to high school in Gowanda and then moved to Hamburg a few years after graduation).

We walked around and then to the back street, where most of the action is. This is where the beer tent is, the food vendors along with the normal vendors you see pawning off their normal wears. Also back there was a display for the Eden Chopper Class. For those that do not know, we are lucky to have a local school that teaches high school kids how to work on and customize motorcycles. I wish we had that when I was in school. http://edenchopperclass.com/ Check out the link to see some of the cool bikes these kids built.

After walking awhile we found a bench out by the main street and bike watched. Guys and gals were riding their bikes up and down the street. By this time the street was full of bikes.

When we decided to go,  and since it didn't start raining, we took some back roads and headed out over the Indian Reservation to Sunset Beach in Irving. It was still windy so we had the place to ourselves.

We took our time, but eventually made it home just before dark. Netflix had delivered a movie so we curled up on the couch and took it easy for the rest of the night, because come tomorrow it was back to our normal grind.

New Tires

I need a new set of tires to pass my inspection this year. I have a pair of Dunlops that I put about 2500 miles on last year. I am not sure how many miles the previous owner put on them.

I figured it would cost less if I take the wheels off myself, that way I wouldn't have to pay someone an hour in labor to take them off. I used my new Harbor Freight motorcycle jack (I had a coupon from a motorcycle magazine and got mine for under $60). When I had it up where I wanted it I used three tie downs. Two tie downs I used on the handle bars to keep the front stable and one strap across the back. The jack has nice rings welded to it so you can strap the bike to the jack.

The front wheel was easy to take off. Remove the large axle nut, loosen the two Allen screws on the other fork and the axle is ready to be removed. I removed the four bolts to the front brakes and wrapped the calipers in old shirts so they didn't scratch anything. When the brakes were out of the way I marked the wheel spacers R and L and then removed the axle by tapping it out. The wheel is off.

The rear wheel took a little more work. I had to remove the left lower rear shock bolt to get the chrome axle cover off. The right side of my bike doesn't have one, yet. I removed the E-clip and then the large axle bolt and the right tension adjuster. To tap the axle I had to remove the muffler. Once the muffler was removed I also removed the belt guards. Those are easy, they are not held on by much.

I needed to support the rear wheel when tapping the rear axle out. The brake caliper is mounted to the axle bolt so that will need to slide off of the swing arm when it is off of the axle bolt. I bungee corded it to the rear shock. I used a metal rod to tap the axle the rest of the way. When the axle was out I could take the belt off of the wheel sprocket and roll the wheel out.

For the tire I did a Little research on 1130cc.com. I was able to find a few recommendations for the Avon Cobra tire and even some recommendations on where it would be cheapest. Unfortunately I missed a $40 rebate offer by a month. I went to http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/ and then compared a few other sites for price. Rocky had the best offer so that's what I went with.

I took the wheels to Hamburg Honda where they mounted and balanced them for me. Unfortunately they added some ugly weights to the front rim. I may have to look into options for that.

I wont go into detail about reinstalling the wheels as it was just the reverse of taking them off.

I pumped the brakes when I got the bike outside. The front had good pressure but the back brakes needed to be pumped several times before having good pressure. When I took the first low speed ride the rear brake didn't work well at first but soon it was back to normal.

The first long ride I noticed a big change. It was a very windy day so balancing the bike under 5 miles an hour took a bit more work (the old back tire had a flat worn on it, I could balance for a long time). I noticed the corning improvement right away. I had a few miles on the Dunlops and even when they were fairly new they did not cut corners like the Avons. I noticed that I was riding around corners at about 4 miles an hour faster with the new tires with lest lean and effort. I went with the Avons for their cornering and they corner great. If I were going for more of a cruising tire I would have tried the Metzelers. The Metzelers are a wider tire with less crown from what I have read.

In all I am very happy with my new tires. I was surprised with how much of an improvement in cornering these tires provided. Removing and installing the wheels myself saved me at least $100. Now I just need to learn how to mount and balance the tires....