King Croesus: Austin, Texas

There was at least one positive thing about the last blown head gasket. It had blown between cylinder one and two, opposed to between three and four the other time. Thus, it was most likely the gaskets itself, and not the head or the block. Further, the only gasket left was the old used Russian gasket so if this held up we would knew what was going on.

And it held up. We drove from Louisiana and to Austin without any issues. We had a night in Huston before we reached Austin. Austin is not only the capital of Texas, it’s also for sure the cultural capital with a lot of famous musicians and bands, the home of the Texan blues rock, besides it got a good biker scene. Not to mention people attacking tax offices with airplanes.

We met up with Alan Stulberg and his neighbor Bill when we arrived Thursday, both very much into motorcycles. That weekend they had planned a ride up in the hillside of Texas and offered us to tag along. They set us up with a Triumph Trophy and a Guzzi T3, and rode around the entire weekend and stayed over in Leaky.

After the weekend we went to Oklahoma together with Alan and his friend Doug Hector to look at Doug’s impressive collection of small bikes with emphasis on the Italian sausage bikes. We saw only a fraction of the collection, but still it was the biggest collection of Italian bikes I’ve ever seen.

Back in Austin we hung out for a few more days, and went to a hotrod show. Our last stunt was a slide show at Lovejoyce, the major biker hang out in town. The crowd donated quite some money, but it’s unknown if it was to make sure we had gas money enough to leave or if it was because they really liked it.

When we finally left Austin after two weeks we had made a lot of new friends, and it’s for sure a town I’ll be back to some day.

Tormod

Neil had left us a message that we could stay at his place. I didn't get to give him much notice, but he took it very sporty and housed us for the night. One of the many great guys helping us out.

A giant thing tribute to Sam Houston manliness, the so called boner monument

As soon as my bed at Allans place in Austin were set up Margo and Laura jumped in. Not many people could stand all the cruelty coming my way.

Eddie, the concoursed man

On the Moto Guzzi Le Mans you can take off the fueltank if you wanna re-fill it. Really cool feature if you run out of gas far from a gas station and you're too lazy to carry the entire bike.

The owner of this bar in Leaky wanted us to drive into his bar. Got no idea why, but I suddenly regreted that I was not on the Nimbus that pour out both gas and oil faster than BP ever could. Instead I was on an oiltight Triumph, which is sort of an oxymoron for us that are old enough to remember the Triumphs from the fifties.

CJ, Cagiva-Jeff lend me he's Cagiva, nice bike to ride, almost like a mongolian horse, but much more rigid frame.

Eddie is practicing his expertize.

The Davis family-desease, both Jeff and his brother Chris wore out their tires on the trip. Such a rough crowd.

Guggenheim, Fessenheim, Wunderbar, Grossen-schwans or some german-named place in Texas where a lot of bikers met. Ah, Lukenbach was the name...

It turned out that I was the reincarnated Steve McQueen as soon as I got on a Triumph scrambler.

From the Congregation Street in Austin during the Hot Rod Show. This car had worn out oil rings so it smoked terribly much, should have been banned to drive this into town.

Nice ass #1

Nice ass #2

Alan, Margo and Wild Bill Twitchel.

Probably genious marketing.

Lovejoys in Autin, good hangout where we had one of the best slide shows since Chinggis Khan

Alan and Doug.

Nicole won the Miss Charm Prize at lovejoys!

From Dougs collection

Italian bike with facecam. "What's that?" I asked. The owner said "It's something that the cam is on the face of the engine, or something like that, I think" Yeah, I think it might be something about the cam is on the face of the engine. Anyway an insane design.