Motorcycle Cannonball makes cross-country stop in Clarksville

Around 80 riders and their antique motorcycles are making the 3,800-mile trip across the country as part of the Motorcycle Cannonball.

By Lee Erwin September 12, 2023 12:45 pm

Clarksville NowThe Motorcycle Cannonball makes a stop at Appleton Harley- Davidson in Clarksville on 3,800-mile coast-to-coast trip across America on Sep. 11, 2023. (Lee Erwin)

CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The Motorcycle Cannonball made a stop at Appleton Harley-Davidson in Clarksville Monday on its 3,800-mile cross-country journey from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Oceanside, California.

Around 80 antique motorcycles, along with riders, are part of the 17-day event, which organizers are calling the most difficult antique endurance run in the world, especially with bikes that were manufactured 1n the 1940s, 1930s or earlier.

The Motorcycle Cannonball makes a stop at Appleton Harley- Davidson in Clarksville on 3,800-mile coast-to-coast trip across America on Sep. 11, 2023. (Lee Erwin)

Director of Operations for the Motorcycle Cannonball, Jason Sims, said this is the 14^th year of the coast-to-coast event which takes place every two years, and their last visit to Clarksville was in 2014. The riders spent the night in Clarksville before heading to Cape Girardeau, Missouri on Tuesday.

“It’s to show people that these machines can make it across the country, it’s really a rolling museum. We’re trying to bring history to the people and let them see stuff that they might not even see in a museum. Really, it’s a true test of man and machine and that’s what it’s about,” Sims said.

One of the riders traveling across America by motorcycle, Andrew Babister, is from England and said he is carrying on the family tradition. “My father-in-law did the Motorcycle Cannonball in 2014 and 2016, and I was supposed to do it in 2018 but I couldn’t because my son was born,” Babister said.

Babister said that five years had passed by, and he was doing it now on the same bike his father-in-law rode in the 2014 Cannonball trip. The motorcycle Babister was riding is a Rudge-Whitworth, an English bike that hasn’t been made since the 1940s when the company ended production.

Another rider, Ed Contreras, traveled to Virginia to be part of the trip and said he is going home because he lives about 20 miles from finish line in Oceanside, California.

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