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

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Joe Stephan – Ace Mechanic Copyright © 2000 by Joe Stephan Zoomer Pipes “When I first went to work there, they gave me an Ace…for seventy-five dollars. They told me, ‘Instead of you riding that Harley.’ I had a short-coupled Harley and a Reading Standard. He told me to pick up this one at the Ace agency on Market Street. It was at 5 th and Market. “I went over there and, sure enough, there was the Ace over there. They already told them that I was coming over to buy that Ace. I got it for seventy-five dollars. It had the old-time gears in the transmission that used to holler like hell. Finally I put spiral gears in it to quiet it down. It was a nice running job. “I was the first one to have one of those kinds of mufflers on like this here.” Joe indicated Charlie Cole’s machine. “The zoomer pipes?” Doug asked. “I had that put on myself. They got that idea from me.” “Oh yeah! The zoomer pipe was your idea?” “Yeah, that was my idea.” “What about the handle bars? You said something on that too.” “Not the handle bars. I wasn’t too hot on the handlebars. I would like the handlebars a little bit different. But that was Mr. Henderson’s idea.” “They look like English bars.” “Yeah, English bars…like on English cycles.” Joe’s voice trailed off. Doug’s Collection “Charlie’s bike is really tremendous! It’s…I call it my Henderson eater. It’s really powerful…better than my ’21. I don’t know what he did—” “Is that so! How many of them motorcycles have you got?” “I’ve got four Aces. I have these two and I have two more in parts.” “My my! They’re now…let’s see…1920. The one I had was made in 1921.” “I have a twenty-one. This photograph’s my twenty-one.” “That’s a twenty-one? This is the kind I paid seventy-five dollars for.” “And that’s pokey compared to this.” Doug indicated Charlie Cole’s machine nearby. “Oh yeah. This has got a lot of ginger! Did you do anything to the motor?” “I have never been inside to see what he’s done to it. He’s got to have done something because it comes on so fast and so strong that it’s really—. I don’t even ride this anymore because I have so much fun on his…this one.” “Yeah, that’s a good one. It’s got a lot of smoke. Oh…we had lots of—” “But ah…it used to be pretty. Back in 1958 that thing looked like a new motorcycle. I have pictures—” “Do you know what I told Mr. Henderson? I told Mr. Henderson, I said, ‘When I ride mine I get a sore neck over here.’ Don’t you know they redesigned that fork! You know, where the… Give me that book here again.” “Which one? The picture?” Doug handed him the book. “This here,” Joe said pointing to the forks. “Why, he redesigned that; made that a little bit longer.” “Because I know they lengthened this, the spring fork, a little bit too.” 05/22/00 Preliminary Draft Page 32 of 43
Joe Stephan – Ace Mechanic Copyright © 2000 by Joe Stephan “Don’t you know, that thing rode real nice. It took away my—. Mr. Henderson was a real hot designer. No kidding!” “I swear that Charlie put a block of wood in the spring fork because I can’t get it to budge. It doesn’t move! “Doesn’t move at all,” Joe agreed. “I’ve never torn it apart. I just ride it. I ride all over the place. Back home, I’ll go into three different counties. I’d be gone all day, riding around.” “Well now, you’re riding around with a motorcycle that was made in…let’s see…in nineteen twenty—. That’s a—” “That’s a twenty-three.” “That’s pretty good, huh?” Joe was proud, I think, that an Ace was still being driven on the rode after all of these years. “Yeah. This is the bike when Charlie and Red ran the six-days trial in nineteen twenty-three.” “Oh yeah? I remember that!” “That’s the bike!” “That’s the bike he used?” “That’s why the number plates are on the front. I found the number plates down in Charlie’s basement.” “I was supposed to go on that,” Joe said about the 1923 Six-Days Trial. “But, we had too much work to do at the factory; they couldn’t let me go.” After the Record “Red told me that they were working on XP-5; with four carburetors.” “On the Ace?” “Yeah. And ah—” “We had one there with two—. We had a manifold made with two carburetors on it but that didn’t work out.” “Well, he told me that they hand one…Maldwyn Jones was working on it with them to make four special, small bore, Schebler carburetors that had—.” “On there?” “Roy Artley and Red were going to run this thing. It was supposed to be an estimated…they wanted to average a hundred miles an hour on it…to do a cross-continental record run on it.” Factory Track “We had people that used to come there from China…oh, from Yugoslavia—. We had them from all over the world. We made them ride that track. Every one that came over there wanted to ride that track. When they saw that it was not me or Charlie—. What was his name…the fellow that was the tester? If he were on the machine, they’d stay there at their work. If it were somebody else, they’d scram because we lost a couple Aces there. “The fellows would come over there and try to ride it. It was a pretty good track; you had to be a good driver to drive that track. Some of them would hit the parts department; they’d run like hell. Everybody ran out of there.” “This is a picture of Red—up in New York. It was raining that day and the track was real greasy. It was a scrambles track. We’re out in this Ace sidecar; he’s going faster than—at this point, Red’s eighty years old and he’s going faster around the track than anybody else!” 05/22/00 Preliminary Draft Page 33 of 43
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