This morning we woke up to thunderstorms. It was very dreary and I was a little bummed as the folks at Dreyer Honda had planned on a vintage bike show for our visit. I had figured that no one would be there in this weather.

After Mike started his day in his normal fashion, he looked up the weather to see what was in store for us. There was a storm cell right over us and it looked like there would be a small window of clearing at about 10:30 or so. We waited until the rain stopped to leave Eric’s house for our short 12-mile ride to the dealership. When we got to Dreyer’s Honda we met with Missy, Mike and Jr. Dreyer. The dealership is the oldest Honda dealer in the United States. We got a nice little tour of the Honda store and saw some very nice memorabilia of “Pops” Dreyer detailing the history of the shop. In 1959, the dealership started with six bikes, 2 C100 Supercub 50’s, 2 CA71 Dream 250’s 2 CA92 Benly touring 125’s. At first, Pops Dreyer did not want to take the 125’s because they were too small and he thought that would not have enough power, but the folks from Honda made him ride one. When he came back from his first ride he was not impressed but was told that he had to rev the bike up as it had a redline of 11,000. After his second ride, he came back satisfied that the bikes would sell.

Then we were pointed to the area where the bike show was to be held. To our surprise, there was a great turnout! It seems that the rain and stormy weather is not a deterrent to folks coming out in the Mid-west! There were folks from as far as Michigan showing their bikes. Brian Capps from the dealership organized the event and did a great job. Brian lived in the New England area and was a road racer back in the 80’s when I lived out there. We chatted about the “old” Loudon racetrack and he brought back many memories from those great days.

Mike Dreyer came over and talked to us about the days when the CB77 SuperHawk was in production. He remembered days that he came home after school and set them up from the crate and also told us that in those days he wanted a BSA but his mom told him that he had to have a white SuperHawk so he would be seen when he was riding.

There was plenty of food and drinks available for everyone. And when the food started to get low, they just made more! Barbie and Terrie did a great job of keeping everyone filled with goodies to eat.

We met a bunch of great folks from the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club as well as folks from The Honda Riders Club. James Townsend, the Director of the VJMC was on hand and talked about Vintage Days at Mid-Ohio with Mike. After reading about us in a magazine Scott Timoff came down to the dealership from Michigan and brought a very rare 1967 Honda CP450 Police bike. It has been said that only 25 of these bikes were brought to the USA! He gave a brief demonstration of the machine in operation, which included a mechanical rear wheel driven siren.

Ellis Holman brought a nearly perfect 1968 CL175 and won the Peoples Choice bike show and Jim Meyers also had a 1976 GL1000 LTD there on display.

Bud Osmond came by after riding with us from Litchfield on yesterdays journey. Today he had his grandsons Andy and Matthew Kelley with him and we talked about the ride yesterday. He told me that he got a few pictures of Mike and I riding and we talked about what it looked like from behind us as we drafted each other along the highway. Bud asked to sit on my bike for a picture. I got a shot with his camera and then took a couple with mine. I did a little work on the digital picture in Photoshop and tried to mimic the scene of Bud on his CB77 in 1964 and now on mine 40 years later. We may change in many ways over the years but our love for motorcycles never leaves us!

At the end of the day, we handed out Posters, Hats and Pro Honda travel packs to folks. We then said our goodbyes and headed back to Eric's for an evening of relaxation.

We rode a short 25 miles to the dealer and back to Eric’s house which takes us to a total of 2779 accumulated miles for the trip. 

Tomorrow, we will do some maintenance and again try our hand at laundry. We will post again Sunday night.

Till then...