Antique Tourer

Steve Johnston's 1947 Indian Chief still gets around, and around, and around...

by Bill Andrews

Some might think antique motorcycles belong in a museum. Others may treat them like fine china, which sees the light of day only on special occasions. Then there's Steve Johnston. He takes his vintage bikes out for regular rides -- long rides.

Johnston is a modern day adventurer on an antique stallion. Most recently he rode his pristine 1947 Indian Chief from Pennsylvania to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, in Pickerington, Ohio. From the museum, he will eventually make his way to his sailboat in Florida.

Naturally, Johnston doesn't think anything of riding his vintage bikes.

"That's what they're for," he says.

"Some say you can either have a rider, or a correct one," he said, making note of the difference between a bike that's ridden regularly and looks it, and a machine that looks like it did when it rolled off the assembly line. "I totally disagree with that. I figure you can ride it as much as you want, you just fix what breaks and keep going."

Johnston makes the Florida-to-Pennsylvania commute every year between homes. On this trip, he rode up from Florida knowing he needed to rebuild the Indian's top-end. No big deal. He did the work in Etters before heading over to Pickerington for his break-in run.

Riding a 50-year-old-plus machine long distance requires a special kind of dedication and challenge.

"Everything that can go wrong, eventually does," Johnston says. To prepare for that eventuality, he built an extra luggage rack on top of the rear fender.

"Had to," he says, "the saddlebags are filled with tools, spare parts, and oil."

Johnston says some of the more difficult problems have included a bent exhaust valve, a burnt valve, and a shifter fork that fell into the transmission. Needless to say, a cell phone is just another of Johnston's tools.

Not surprisingly, speeds are somewhat limited. "It'll go 80-85mph, but you kill the top-end to do it," says Johnston. "I keep my highway speed to about 55mph."

 "That's not to say that these bikes are unreliable," Johnston adds, "I usually get across the country and back without a problem."

Though Johnston has gone on some 30 or 40 major trips, he has only had to tow a bike home twice. "There's a lot of maintenance in riding an old bike," he says. "But if you stay on top of things, there's no reason you can't ride them as much as you want."

Johnston recalls another rally where he was hoping to get the award for the longest distance ridden to an Antique Motorcycle Club of America meet. On this occasion, he had logged 3,600 miles to get to Lake Tahoe, but was beat by two other Indians riders that had 50 and 100 miles more than him. Still, Johnston was impressed, "Between our three Indians, we had ridden 11,000 miles to make that rally."

By the end of this trip, Johnston figures he'll have about 4,000 miles since the rebuild. "I usually get about 8,000 miles out of a top-end," he says.

If you ask Johnston about making upgrades to make life easier on the road, he just laughs. 

"If I wanted a bike with a 12-volt system, I'd buy a new Harley."

© 2001, Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum