From 1920 through 1924, Ace motorcycles were built in a ... - WebRing

Joe Stephan – Ace Mechanic Copyright © 2000 by Joe Stephan
“We used to…that was the first thing that he tried out—when I put those tires on—that was
the first thing they tried out, to see if it held a hundred and twenty-five pounds. They really
blew them up tight!”
“Did you ever bust one?” Doc asked. “Did you ever bust one testing it?”
“No.” Joe said matter-of-factly.
“They never broke?” Doc was clearly surprised.
“No.” Joe insisted.
“On the rims you mounted,” Doug posed a new question to Joe. “Was there a blue stripe on
those rims do you remember?”
“Was there a blue stripe here?” Doc was pointing to a rim. “A blue stripe to match the main
color?”
“No, they were flat…they were more…they were clincher type.” Apparently Joe didn’t
understand what they were asking.
“Yeah, this is clincher,” Doc assured him. “But you don’t recall if the rims wore a stripe here?
In some of the pictures, it looks like there was a painted stripe on the rim. Do you recall at
all?”
“No. I can’t say that I remember that. But we were so particular; I even called his attention to
the spokes. I said, ‘You make sure that none of those spokes are coming out.”
“Into the tube?” Doc asked.
“In to…because it had a flap on there.” Joe went on. “The tube was inside, and then it had a
flap on there. And that flap had to inside of that rim. Or otherwise it wasn’t put on there right.
That there is why I was so particular about putting them on for them.”
“So that the tube wouldn’t rub right on the ends of the spoke nipples?”
“Yeah well, it hit the nipple.”
“They used that on the drop centers too.”
“You talk about something real fancy.” Joe seemed to wound down, not being able to think of
anything else to say on the subject.
Title Race
“Do you know what happened up there…at Charlie Cole’s place?” Joe remembered another
story. “Well he got into an argument with the Indian dealer. He got in trouble with that Indian
dealer up there. They had an argument of some kind.”
“Fritz?” Doug asked. “With Horace Fritz? Or R.B.?”
“Cole said that, ‘We could be any Indian motorcycle around.’ The Indian dealer up there had
a real nice shop—a nice business there. A nice store—everything nice. They bet house for
house. He said, ‘If I beat you, I’ll take your place over.’ They mixed it up about who was
going to be the winner.
“What could Charlie do but call us; call the factory. He told them, ‘You better get a machine
ready because we’re going to race; house for house.’ Whoever would win would take the
Indian—. If Cole would beat the… If the Ace would beat the Indian motorcycle up there,
Cole would have his place and the Indian guy would have to move into… Well, Charlie Cole
only had one building there, one store if you remember. He didn’t have an elaborate place.”
“It was a tiny little shop.” Doug offered.
“He sold a hell of a lot of Ace motorcycles for us.” Joe went on, not really hearing Doug. “So
he called up and he said that he was in trouble and that he was going to have to race him.
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