THE TURNING POINT BIKERNET WEEKLY NEWS for July 18th, 2024

The News is brought to you by our crew of active contributors: Sam Burns, Barry Green, Laura, Bob T., El Waggs, the Redhead, J.J. Solari, Bill May and the rest of the gang.

Hey,

Do you ever have one of those weeks? It started out sorta glum, like nothing was going as planned. I started to write this on Tuesday.

I won’t touch on a couple of items. They will be covered in the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum News.

Monday was a blur of negativity. I have an adage about bad days. You need to learn when to step back and take a break. But on the other-hand I met an old Biker on Main Street. He was a friend of Ray Wheeler, and I ran into Tate in Bonneville. We were shooting the shit and he offered to help with Emporium projects. I took him up on it and Monday (supposed to be my day off) we packed the 5-Ball van with heavy shit and we headed to Bandit’s Emporium on Main.

He was game for more, so we made another trip. The Emporium began to take shape. I had to install the final backing for the inside dragon and paint it. I made multiple trips to ACE hardware. I painted and patched like crazy.

Got a text, “Meet me at the Emporium at 8:00 a.m. I did and Tim from Flat Earth studios waited to check out the location for the art on the front of the building. He also delivered the modified art for the inside.

Panhead John volunteer to help. He came over Tuesday, while I worked with Legendary Electric on the lighting for the front of the building. I then discovered bad lights on the back around the garage. They ran into technical difficulties over the front door and shifted to the garage out back. We will have new motion detecting lights, plus improved wiring in the garage. I’m going to owe these guys a small fortune.

John and I mounted the art on the inside of the building wrong and had to switch two panels. Then he pointed out the error of my construction ways and we straightened out our crate and barn wood displays. We bolted down the barnwood shelves.

Then a guy from AT&T showed up. They mistakenly mounted a WiFi booster tree on my roof. It took some chasing, but I finally got the answer, “Wrong building.” The 3-man crew returned and set to straightening it out. There were three massive blocks on the roof where the NCOM guys once anchored a hot air balloon. They had to go.

The AT&T crew came with a long reach crane apparatus. They owed me one, and I asked if they could remove the blocks. I had already muscled four slightly smaller ones off the roof successfully. The boss said he would and 45 minutes late said, “They’re too heavy.”

That did it. We were challenged. Two mid 70s old farts climbed up on the roof with an old beer keg trolley. We loaded one at a time and tossed them off the roof. Bada Bing.

I climbed tall ladders all day touching up the front of the building for Tim and then on the roof several times. Next, we need to handle some grouting efforts and touch up the top of the stone facia.

In all cases this week, we looked for options and then good shit started to happen.

Let’s hit the news:

The Bikernet Weekly News is sponsored in part by companies who also dig Freedom including: Cycle Source Magazine, the MRF, Iron Trader News, ChopperTown, BorntoRide.com and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

 

 

UTAH HARLEY DEALERSHIPS GET SUED–Allegedly Installed Illegal Exhausts

Why not do the illegal exhaust installation via home-based mechanics or DIY?

A group of Harley-Davidson dealerships in Utah has got a federal judge who ruled that a lawsuit can move forward against them for installing aftermarket exhausts without catalytic converters.

The case boils down to Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the case’s plaintiff and environmental nonprofit, had accused a slew of Harley-Davidson dealerships around the Salt Lake area of EPA violations, as well as noise violations.

They contend that these dealerships had either installed aftermarket exhausts without catalytic converters or removed said catalytic converters, thus allowing the modified motorcycles to spew more pollution and noise.

The U.S. District Judge David Barlow decided that only the EPA violations portion of the case would proceed, with the nonprofit having enough evidence to make a compelling case. The group’s request for a preliminary injunction against those dealerships, as well as the noise violation, however, were struck down.

The original lawsuit is from 2022 and targeted four dealerships around the Salt Lake area all owned by the same LLC.

Utah has become somewhat of a battleground of EPA violations in recent years, including coal-rolling diesel trucks, despite the state government’s anti-environmental stances.

Referred Sources: https://www.rideapart.com

–Wayfarer

 

 

HOT NEW BUFFALO CHIP LEGENDS RIDE NEWS—New Location!

Belle Fourche Welcomes Legends Riders to Historic Town

The Sturgis Buffalo Chip Legends Ride presented by Progressive is carving a new path for 2024. The City of Belle Fourche and Tri-State Museum are rolling out the red carpet to welcome Legends Riders this year as the ride’s starting point. After gathering to enjoy the town, the Ride will leave from the Center of the Nation Monument adjacent to the Museum then head east along scenic highway 212. Riders will enjoy a fresh view of seldom seen geographic features in the Black Hills on the kind or open roads they came to the Black Hills to explore.

Once at the Buffalo Chip, a reception in the Gardens, exclusive tour of Motorcycles as Art and the anticipated auction await. Plus dinner, celebrity meet & greets and Aaron Lewis on the main stage!

Rally riders may be less familiar with Belle Fourche than some other Black Hills towns that boast more but make no mistake: Belle Fourche is entrenched in western history and folklore. Colorful characters the likes of Calamity Jane, Seth Bollock, Teddy Roosevelt and an assortment of cowhands, pioneers and fortune-hunters strolled Saloon Street and pushed open the swinging doors. In fact, the legendary Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and their Hole in the Wall Gang perpetrated their first bank heist in Belle. Poorly planned, they got away with less than $100 and one of them, who fell off his horse on the way out of town, was later caught hiding in the saloon privy!

On the commerce side, Belle Fourche became one of the most important livestock shipping points in the world thanks to Seth Bullock, who enticed the railroad into Belle with free right-of-way across his property in the late 1880s. As the story goes, Bullock’s cowboys roped and dragged the courthouse several miles to get it closer to Belle, where the track was being laid! And Belle’s Center of the Nation wool shipping warehouse remains one of the largest in the country.

On the day of the Legends Ride, Monday, August 5, riders can check in at ride registration in front of the Tri-State Museum starting at 10:30 a.m. and stage their bikes for the ride. Then there’s time to enjoy the Museum’s displays of western life in South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming along with viewing displays from Legend Ride sponsors and getting advice on spending time in town from the Chamber of Commerce. There are western stores, antique emporiums and yes, some of those saloons still welcome characters.

Dignitary interviews start at 1:30, followed by a press conference and group photo around the Center of the Nation Monument. Then it’s kickstands up at 3:00 and off to the Chip for a jam-packed evening of Rally fun, reserved for Legends Riders only.

Rider contributions benefit the Special Olympics South Dakota Rapid City Flame and Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame.

See more and reserve at: https://www.buffalochip.com/legendsride/the-event/

 

INDIAN MOTORCYCLE ACTION— Factory Rider Tyler O’Hara Pilots S&S Indian FTR to Victory, Maintains SuperHooligan Championship Points Lead

Two-Time Defending SuperHooligan Champion Tyler O’Hara Secures First and Third Place, Following Bar-to-Bar Action at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

Featuring two race winners, multiple lap leaders, and bar-to-bar action, the third stop of the 2024 SuperHooligan National Championship (SHNC) at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca proved nothing short of exhilarating. In the front of the pack is two-time defending SuperHooligan Champion Tyler O’Hara, who earned his first win of the 2024 season and maintained the series points lead following the doubleheader.

Race 1 featured fierce competition among multiple riders from start to finish. In a shortened six-lap race, O’Hara piloted his S&S Indian FTR to victory. In the final lap, O’Hara fell one spot as the pack of five riders made their way through the iconic corkscrew, though O’Hara stayed on the gas and was successful in making one final pass through turn 11, racing his FTR down the final stretch and past the checkered flag.

“This win couldn’t have come at a better time,” said O’Hara. “With a hometown audience, at this point in the season, a win is exactly what we needed to stay atop the leaderboard and push for another championship. Thank you to the entire S&S and Indian Motorcycle team, as the team had the FTR dialed in to near perfection.”

Through six races, O’Hara has 110 points and an eight-point lead in the championship standings. MotoAmerica’s SHNC will continue at Mid-Ohio August 16-18 and conclude at Circuit of the Americas September 13-15.

A special thanks to Indian Motorcycle Racing sponsors: S&S®, Progressive Insurance®, Mission® Foods, Parts Unlimited, Drag Specialties® and Performance Finance. For more information on Indian Motorcycle Racing, visit IndianMotorcycle.com and follow along on Facebook, X and Instagram.

 

BREAKING NEWS–Tell Congress to Pass Resolution to Stop EPA Regulation Mandating EV’s

In response to the EPA’s recently finalized tailpipe emissions standards for Model Years 2027 to 2032, which require automakers to ramp up electric vehicle sales to comply, U.S. Representative John James (R-MI) and U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) introduced Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions, H.J. Res. 136 and S.J. Res. 75, to overturn the regulation. SEMA strongly supports these CRA resolutions, which require a majority vote in the Senate and House to pass.

Under the EPA’s tailpipe emissions standards, up to 83% of new vehicles sold by 2032 could be forms of electric vehicles. Congress must pass this CRA resolution to stop the EPA’s regulatory overreach, allow consumers to have the freedom to purchase the vehicle that works best for their families, and prevent vehicle manufacturers from being forced to meet unrealistic mandates driven by the most aggressive light-duty emissions regulations in U.S. history.

–SEMA