Motorcycle Cannonball 2018 — Falling in Love with Vintage Iron
Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. On a motorcycle built in 1928 or earlier. Across the entire United States. That is the Motorcycle Cannonball — and it is the best entertainment I can imagine.
2018 was the year I started Virginia City Motorcycle Company. It was also the year I started watching the Cannonball, and I have been watching it every single year since. I am absolutely in love with these bikes. There is something about pre-1928 iron — the lines, the engineering, the sheer audacity of riding one across a continent — that gets under your skin and stays there.
What Is the Motorcycle Cannonball?
The Motorcycle Cannonball is a transcontinental endurance run held every two years, open exclusively to motorcycles manufactured in 1928 or earlier. No modern machines. No fuel injection, no electronic ignition, no creature comforts of any kind. Just century-old iron, mechanical ingenuity, and riders willing to trust their lives to engines that predate the Interstate Highway System by decades.
The 2018 edition ran coast to coast — Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon — covering thousands of miles across America on vintage machines that most people would consider museum pieces. Except these aren't museum pieces. They're running, they're racing, and they're being pushed hard every single day of the run.
The Machines
123 riders lined up at the start. The bikes they brought were spectacular — vintage Harley-Davidsons, Hendersons, Triumphs, and Indians, all built before 1929, all restored and prepared to cover thousands of miles of American road. Every one of them is a rolling piece of history. The craftsmanship, the patina, the mechanical simplicity of engines from that era — there is nothing like it in the modern world.
Henderson motorcycles alone are worth the price of admission. Built in Detroit and Chicago from 1912 to 1931, the Henderson four-cylinder was one of the most advanced motorcycles of its era — smooth, powerful, and elegant in a way that modern bikes rarely achieve. Seeing one running hard across America in 2018 is something that stops you cold.
Stage 3 — Across New York
When I first wrote about the 2018 Cannonball, the riders were on Stage 3, working their way across New York. The run is broken into daily stages, with riders covering set distances each day and stopping at designated checkpoints. Mechanical breakdowns are part of the deal — you fix what breaks on the side of the road with period-appropriate tools and ingenuity, or you don't finish. That's the Cannonball.
The question that hangs over the entire run from day one: how many of the 123 starters will make it to Portland, Oregon? Attrition is real. Engines fail. Frames crack. Parts that haven't been manufactured in ninety years are hard to replace on a Tuesday in rural Ohio. The riders who finish are a special breed.
Too Bad They Don't Come Through Nevada
My one complaint about the 2018 route: they didn't come across Nevada. The Cannonball finishing up just a few days before Street Vibrations on September 23rd made it feel like a missed opportunity — imagine those vintage machines rolling through Reno during Street Vibrations week. The collision of old iron and the biggest motorcycle rally in the region would have been something to see.
Maybe someday the route brings them through the Silver State. Until then, I'll keep watching from here and dreaming about it.
Why the Cannonball Matters to VCMCo.
I started VCMCo. in 2018 — the same year I discovered the Cannonball — and the two things are connected in my mind. The brand is built on vintage motorcycle culture, on heritage and history, on the idea that the old ways of doing things had a beauty and a soul that deserves to be celebrated. The Cannonball embodies all of that. These riders aren't just racing — they're keeping something alive that could easily be lost. They're proving that machines built a century ago still have something to say.
That's the spirit VCMCo. is built on. And that's why I'll be watching the Cannonball every year for as long as they run it.