Cycle-liner trivia

[swamp fox]

Ok, since we just had the 35 aniv. of Woodstock, what kind of music was played in the Cycle-liner when it was on the road? Did Doug let the young guns play rock & roll?

Robert Manucy
72 Berkshire
72 Six Day

[Doug Wilford]

Maybe, but I don't remember any radios in any of the the cycle liners.  You need the input from some of the passengers (THe Kids).
[8D]

[swamp fox]

Hi Doug,
Just a silly thought after my road trip to VMD. Ya'll would have had 8 track players back then, instead of cd's or dvd's. Man times have changed.

Robert Manucy
72 Berkshire
72 Six Day

[tmc3c]

After resto'ing my 250 now on to bigger and better things!! Bring on the CYCLE-LINER !! I was wanting a e-350 but the bus might be better!! Does anybody know where it is? Or does the Sheriff already own it ?? just joking Ron!! But I bet you know where it is don't you!![][]

Thomas Carmichael

[TGTech]

Last I knew, it was headed to Sugar Ridge Auto Salvage. It's chassis had seen too much of the norther winters and the resultant salt. The engine was taken out and put in the trailer hauling bus that was chopped to make room for Hi Point Trailers on its deck. That bus still resides behing Jeff's house, next to JP's., though it isn't in very good shape either.

As for music, we listened to the music of the times in rock and roll. I think that we only had one "country boy" on the bus, and that was Danny Young, and even he listened to "our" music.

Dane

[firstturn]

Dane,
  The trailer hauling bus was the same design right?
  Don't worry Thomas the Penton boys keep that bus in view 24 hours a day.  I did case I mean look the site over.


Ron Carbaugh

[tmc3c]

How about some history on the bus? Who drove,what the insides looked like, funny stories, and how many bikes did it haul.

Thomas Carmichael

[firstturn]

Thomas,
  Besure to ask Dane how they changed drivers.  If that bus could talk...........

Ron Carbaugh

[Steve Minor]

You talk about 8 track tape players?......I remember 4 track and even better......I remember an optional 45 rpm record players on new cars.

Man, am I showing my age!

1977 400 GS6 Original Owner
1977 125 GS6 Project
1978 400 MC5 Project

[firstturn]

Steve,
  The record player you are talking about was a option that Ford played around with for a while.  My Father, who is and will always be a machinest, just could not picture how the cushioning system would work where the record wouldn't skip.  He use to subscribe to Popular Mechanics and was just waiting for a article to come out on how the system was designed.  I really thought you were only 39 years old and/or at least you still ride fast.

Ron Carbaugh

[Steve Minor]

Ron....39 and fast? Thanks for the compliment! Wish it were true.

....My motto is "The older I get, the faster I was"....


1977 400 GS6 Original Owner
1977 125 GS6 Project
1978 400 MC5 Project

[TGTech]

This Cycleliner thread has vast possibilites, and I'm wondering where I should start. In all honesty, I think I should defer to Doug, because he was a driver before the rest of us were and he may have a better idea of how we came to come by them.

I do know that they (there were actually three of them: the "Husky bus", the Cycleliner, and the Hi Point bus) originally were designed and built for the United States Postal service for use in Texas. Since the State is so big, the Postal Service decided to employ these buses as mobile post offices. They were completely equipped with everything that a post office had, to pick up, sort, and deliver mail. They had a "route" so to speak, and ran the route 24/7 as I understand.

Because they were built for the Government, sort of, they were built to the hilt, and as such, did some things very right, but others, at least for our use, almost totally wrong. The engines were of course, diesel, and had a rather uncommon configuration. It was a six cylinder engine, but instead of the pistons going up and down, they went sideways. The crankshaft was on the left side of the engine and the cylinders on the right. Cummins designated the engine an NHH220, the second "H" in the model number, meaning horizontal. The engine was mounted midships in the bus, and becuse it was under the structure, working on it was always a challenge. The engine had plenty of power to move the thing over the highway at 70 mph with no trouble, as long as you were on flat ground, like much of Texas is. That was one of the good things.

On the down side, if you traveled at that speed for very long, you could almost guarantee that you would spit off tires. See, like I said, this was built for the Government, and as such, it was built very solidly. And in transportation, solid translates to heavy. And heavy, means that you weren't supposed to drive it very fast. The brakes left a lot to be desired and the tires at that time, weren't really meant to hustle down the road at those kinds of speeds, especially fully loaded. In fact, I think that with a full load of team bikes, the thing was technically overloaded. Since this wasn't technically a commercial vehicle, we almost never went over a scale, so that wasn't a problem. However, the tires were, so we pretty much drove it at about 60 to 65 mph. Keep in mind, this was still in the era of the double nickle speed limit, so we were pushing it anyway.

The tire problems sort of came to an end, when we put a new set of Michelin radials on the bus. Maybe the French haven't contributed a whole lot to technology, but those certainly were the cat's meow compared to anything we'd had before.

The next problem with trying to maintain a steady speed, was encountered whenever you would hit hills of any degree. Remember, most of Texas, is fairly flat, compared to the areas where they held the events we went to. Because it wasn't designed to handle mountains, it only had a 5 speed transmission, and one with rather goofy gear ratios at that. This led to the "go fast down one hill so you can make it up the next one" with out having to drop down to a painfully slow pace. This too, probably contributed to the  tire problems.

Jack and I had some truck driving experience with the over the road tractors that Penton Imports owned, and one of them, the 1970 Ford, had an NH220 engine in it with a 10 speed transmission, and all during the life of the Cycleliner, we toyed with the idea of converting it to that kind of transmission, but for one reason or another, we never did it. The 10 speed unit, would have given us the kind of gear selection that we neede for the mountains, but then we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun racing cars down the  mountains.

The buses didn't have power steering, but the steering system design didn't make for difficult steering while over the road. When moving it around the pits, it could be a handful, but since we were a bunch of young, strapping lads, we couldn't very well complain.

The Cycleliner had a fuel tank that held about 80 gallons, and at about 8 miles per gallon, that meant that you didn't have to stop for fuel very often. This of course, meant that you'd probably doing driver changes between fuel stops. Since it took so long to get the "bus" wound up or stopped, it made sense to figure out how to change drivers on the fly. Since this was in the days before there were cruise control on diesel vehicles, the manufacturers would put a throttle stop in trucks. What we'd do to change drivers, was to pull on the throttle stop so you could maintain your 60 MPH speed, and then the driver would step out of the seat and stand beside it, while holding onto the steering wheel and paying attention to the road. The next driver would then plop his butt into the seat and take over the operations. Everybody that rode on "the bus" learned this tactic, and probably executed it numerous times.

Over the years, we put a small refrigerator and a toilet in the bus, so those long streches over the road, weren't hunger frought or bladder testers. This was far from a luxury coach, but it certainly did the trick.

The sleeping arrangements were also pretty spartan, though as tired as we got going from place to place, nobody complained. (much) Over the years, the "'Liner" got outfitted two different times, and frankly, I can't remember much about the first version. The second version had sleeping arrangements for about 5 people, fairly comfortably, though I can remember trips where we had up to 8 people along.

I'll close here, with one final thought. When we started this whole thing, I can never remember thinking about how cool we'd be traveling in this thing to the races. It was all about effeciency. We'd be able to haul a whole bunch of people to one race, pretty cheaply. In hindsight, I guess it was pretty cool and certainly a trend setting move.

Dane

[tmc3c]

Dane ,How many bikes did it haul ? And what did you do with the fuel for the bike's ? Did You have to clean the bikes after a race before loading ? Any spare bikes etc...

Thomas Carmichael

[TGTech]

Thomas,

   I really can't remember how many bikes it could haul, because I can't remember ever not having enough room. We did some very creative packing from time to time, but we always managed to get everything in. I'd have to say that 8 to 10 bikes was about normal.

   We used standard issue G.I. cans for our gas most of the time, and we had a rack that would hold 12 cans, I think. Our Uncle Ted was a master of creation when it came to things like that, so even though we were just learning, we had a real creator helping us.

   We didn't usually wash the bike before loading them, because the floor of the bus was rubber, and a little mud or water wouldn't hurt it. I can remember pressure washing it out a couple of times, but usually, we just swept it out.

   There was a partition that kept the flotsam and jetsam of the motorcycles, separate from the "living" quarters, but it had a door in it that allowed passage from the front to the back.

   The ramp that we used, was a folding affair, that is similar to what you find on some of the rental truck that you see today. We had it set up, so we could access either the rear door, which was an over head affair or the side doors, which were double swing open models.

   We didn't have any spare machines with us, but we did keep some spare parts, the kinds that you normally would break in the course of an event.

Dane

[Doug Wilford]

As Dane said we got these Post Office buses from Texas, and I am sure JR Horn and Ted Penton had something to do with that.   The price was right for one and John and Ted thought about a discount for three, well we got three.   Two to use and one for spare parts.   The first cycle liner was gutted and an over head door was installed in the rear.  A slide in ramp passage was made, exhaust pipe re-routed to come out the top left rear corner.   Inside we put in two bunks front right and to be able to get Motor Home license plates we added all the needed (for the state) luxuries like a refrigerator, portapotty a sink (parts washer) even a small Coleman stove. All three buses eventually got the same makeover except with modifications. Most all of that luxury items came out to put in a small work shop bench, with parts bins, torches, vise and enough tools to rebuild an engine or motorcycle.   Later a large water tank was installed with a pressure washer to wash bikes and people after muddy races, if the bikes weren't to dirty we would load them up and then wash them all Monday night after work.  The fuel cans as Dane said were 5 gallon "Jerry" cans, color coded for what fuel they contained, Diesel,(green) Two Stroke,(Red)or Cleaning Solvent (Blue).   The ground clearance of the bus and the engine location were not very condusive to ease of maintenance and on occasion things needed fixed.    There was only one time in a few hundred thousand miles that I ever had to go over a scale and that was with the Husky Liner during the Trans Am series, in Mississippi and I was about three Bikes to heavy   #600 after some discussion I was allowed to turn around and get out of MS and go around, of course we were headed to Texas so it was a giant Detour, well kind of anyhow.   At that time I think there were 8 bikes and 6 people with luggage and riding gear.  No potty and the Swedes learned to not throw away any Gator aid bottles.   Again as Dane said the fuel tank was large enough to go 1000 miles without stopping, and I was accused of being a sadist for lack of potty stops.