The CB1100 Community Forum

The picture I posted at the start of this thread is of the 28th Infantry and was taken August 29, 1944. The Division lead the “Victory Day” parade celebrating the liberation of Paris.

From Wikipedia: “On 29 August, the U.S. Army's 28th Infantry Division, which had assembled in the Bois de Boulogne the previous night, paraded 24-abreast up the Avenue Hoche to the Arc de Triomphe, then down the Champs Élysées. Joyous crowds greeted the Americans as the entire division, men and vehicles, marched through Paris "on its way to assigned attack positions northeast of the French capital."”


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I've added a new piece of luggage for my trip to the CB1100 Rally. I believe Harry shipped this duffel bag home before he was shipped far away from home. I'm going to carry a few of his things with me to be photographed with his headstone.

I head out Thursday at 0500 Chicago time. Will visit war memorials in Hobart, IN, Harrod, OH, Chester, WV, and Sewicky, PA on Day 1. Will overnight at Neville Island/Pittsburgh, PA.

Friday is Harry's 100th Birthday. I will leave Pittsburgh 0700 or earlier and travel 250 miles to Arlington National Cemetery. I hope to arrive by 1 or 2 PM, proceed through security and do a bit of a ceremony graveside either on Facebook Live or via a video that I can send to my mom.

What a tribute and what a way to honor his memory. I admire your dedication to this quest MTC.

you are an awesome guy Sea!

Travel well, MTC.

It's going to be a big week for you. Ride safe and I look forward to seeing you bright and early Saturday. PM your Leesburg hotel info when you get a chance.

Thursday 9/3/2020
500+ miles over a 12 hour period that included 4 stops with Facebook Live broadcasts.


















I post this from my hotel on Neville Island on my phone at 0530. Will fill in more detail tonight, I hope.

I soon will be en route to Arlington National Cemetery. About 250 miles from here, I hope to be there early afternoon. Those on Facebook can watch my visit live by following this page. https://m.facebook.com/Roll-On-a-motorcy...097162774/

Those interested in my exact whereabouts can follow my trip at

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=...SQ7Ld-xiFQ


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Awesome. Ride safe Sea and see you tomorrow afternoon.

The following is the complete ride report for my trip from Chicago to Arlington, VA and then to the 2020 CB1100 Eastern Rally and back to Chicago. Part I repeats some of the comments made previously in this thread.

Part I

I carefully, reverently I suppose, slipped Harry's tri-folded burial flag into his mostly full duffel bag. This would serve as its berth as we travel traveled with me to the spot where it was presented to my grandmother from a grateful nation some 73 years prior.

Harry Watson was my mother's older and only sibling. They grew up together on Chicago's south side. The Watson kids didn't have much growing up, but they never went hungry or without shelter. My grandmother was a kind woman who stood about 5' tall and nearly as wide. Harry once humorously addressed a letter home from the Army to "Skinny" because she had gone on a diet and lost 5 pounds or so. My grandfather worked hard and did what he needed to do to provide for the household, but was pretty cold to his family and was not afraid to raise his voice toward his wife or his children (or grandchildren later in his life). Their home had love, but was not a loving home. I don't think that was unusual for working families of that era.

When the U.S. entered WWII, Harry attempted to enlist in the Navy, but was rejected due to "poor vision". A few months later he was drafted into the Army and ultimately found himself as a marksman in the infantry. I guess you need much better vision to fight at sea, maybe because the enemy is so much further away from you.


Harry was born on September 4, 1920 and died of wounds sustained in combat in a German base hospital February 1, 1945. My grandparents were notified that he was missing in action in February. They were notified that he had died in May. He was awarded a Bronze Star, but our family was not aware he had received this honor until the mid-1980s. Harry is a legend in our family. He was good friends with my father when they were kids which is how my father came to know my mom. My grandmother said I reminded her of him which I took as a great compliment. He is unquestionably my and my siblings' favorite uncle even though he died 4 years before the oldest of us was born -- this says a lot about him and a little about our uncles on our father's side.

Harry would have turned 100 years old on September 4, 2020. I decided last year and pre-Covid to ride my CB1100 to Arlington National Cemetery to pay my respects and to present him with the Bronze Star he never knew he received. When I informed my 97 year old mother of my plans, her response was, "Well, now I have reason to hang on until next September". I guess I pretty much had to make the trip after hearing that.


It was very late on Wednesday night when I finished packing. I'm not the quickest in getting geared up at ride time, but I've always had myself packed well in advance of a ride, especially a long trip like this one. Perhaps some trepidation about being away from work for more than a week (first time since my honeymoon) and being away from Cheryl for the longest stretch of time since before we were married lead to my procrastination. In any case, I was still staring at empty luggage at 10:00pm. I advise against completing your packing at midnight when your departure time is targeted for 5:30am.

Despite what you may have seen in motorcycle movies over the years, a WWII military-issue duffel bag were not designed to be motorcycle luggage. They are not waterproof. They do not have any tie-down loops. They are taller and narrower than most motorcycle soft luggage. Strapping it to my bike was akin to squeezing a balloon in the middle; I'd strap down one side and everything would shift to the other side. Eventually, I was able to secure Harry's duffel by looping its handle through a clip on my dry bag and crisscrossing my Rok Straps through the same handle and securing them to my rear rack. Worked out great for the trip, but figuring it out in the wee hours of the morning delayed my departure a bit. I kissed Cheryl, mounted up, and headed out at about 6:40 am.

September 3 and 4 would be tribute riding days in honor of Harry. I participate annually in a season-long fundraising ride called [url=https://www.tourofhonor.com/]"Tour of Honor" which identifies military and first-responder monuments in each state to visit as a sort of scavenger hunt. My rides on Thursday and Friday were to include visits to a Tour of Honor site in each state I crossed: Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania on Thursday; Virginia and Maryland on Friday. After discussion with my friend InHouseBob (or just "Bob" for the remainder of this narrative), it was decided that we would visit the Maryland site as part of our ride Saturday to the CB1100 Rally on Saturday.

I am not a very good motorcyclist. The guys I rode with at the Rally can tell you that, but they won't because they are too kind to do so. I'm not bad, though, and the 75,000 miles or so I have logged on a combination of two 2013 CB1100s does allow me to comment on this motorcycle from a position of some authority. This bike just goes. And goes. And goes. I hire out most of it, but I follow the maintenance schedule provided in the owner's and repair manuals. I wash it once or twice a summer and a little more frequently during the salty Chicago winters. That's about all I do to it and it just goes. Hot weather, cold weather; it just goes. 8 hour highway stretches at 80 miles an hour. Goes. Winter rides with single-digit temperatures. Goes. Better riders than I ever hope to be can comment on handling, braking, or power curves, but this bikes does everything I ask of it and it does it every single day.

My route for Thursday would take me across US30, some of which was part of the original Lincoln Highway, America's first cross-country highway. US30 skirts Chicago's southern city limits and heads east, with a little south, to Pittsburgh, my stop for Thursday evening. I could have picked up 30 sooner than I did, but that route is a pretty slow slog through Chicago's southern suburbs and doesn't really start moving at all until east of Valparaiso, Indiana. I-294/I-80 would be the faster way east from my house and there's an entry ramp about 5 minutes from my house. I was little nervous about the duffel back as I rolled on throttle on the ramp, but it seemed to be holding so I was officially off on my 10 Day adventure.

I have never had the difficulties with the wind at highway speeds that I have seen reported elsewhere on this forum and while I have made some seat improvements recently, I was fairly content with the stock seat for some 40,000+ miles of riding. I don't have a windshield or fairing. I do have a higher-than stock Daytona Cozy seat with a mesh seat cover from Sit & Fly that provides both cushion and airflow and which makes a difference much greater than it's $30 cost. Before you buy an aftermarket seat, consider trying a Sit & Fly seat cover. It may solve your problem, but if it doesn't, it probably will fit over the aftermarket seat you were going to buy anyway.

I-294/80 got me most of the way to Hobart, IN for my first memorial stop. This stop was at a "Spirit of the American Doughboy" statue, designed by sculptor Ernest Moore “Dick” Viquesney as a tribute to our soldiers who fought in WWI. There are roughly 140 such statues located all over the United States. A photo of my bike in front of this statue is included elsewhere in this thread.




I did a Facebook Live broadcast from each of the memorial stops I made on Thursday. My family back home and several friends were very supportive of my trip and I thought that they would like to learn about my stops and a few fun facts about Harry.

Fair warning for this and for all of the videos I will be posting here: I have a weird voice and I pace a lot. I also was more emotional than I thought I would be at each of these stops. I attribute my emotions to a combination of pride and remembering that most of the soldiers who defended freedom, fought tyranny and who are memorialized by statues and plaques (and headstones) were younger then than my own children are now -- I sometimes see my own son's eyes in statues like these.

You can view a recording of that broadcast here:

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Stopped at Bob Evans in ummmm Someplace, Indiana. I really do prefer finding local places to eat, especially for breakfast, but I was not altogether sure what Covid restrictions might be in place at eateries on my route and the Bob Evans "Dine In" sign drew me in. And besides, my riding friend, Laura, loves Bob Evans so we stop there often on our trips. Good food, friendly service, and priced reasonably. Not much to complain about. I had what I think is just about their biggest breakfast, bought Laura a Bob Evans t-shirt, and headed back to my bike. There was a couple standing next to their truck having a smoke in the parking lot. She came up to me and handed me a flyer for an ABATE bbq fundraiser in the area in mid-September. Even after I told her I was from Chicago (150 miles away), she kept telling me about how good the food is, how there were going to be multiple bands, etc. I finally smiled and said "You make it sound so inviting. I'll see what my schedule is like when I get home and probably will head back here for this." This seemed to placate her, we exchanged pleasantries, and I went on my way. I like to talk to people and motorcycling never fails to present opportunities to do what I like.






Not much to the route I took to Pittsburgh. As I said, US30 is pretty much of a straight line on the map from where I picked it up near Hobart, IN to were I would bed down for the night on Neville Island in Pittsburgh, PA. I did drop south of that line to visit the Tour of Honor site in Harrod, a tiny village in western Ohio. If you are in the area, you should stop here to see their Railroad Heritage Park/Veterans Memorial Park. It's pretty amazing that such a large park is in the center of such a small town.



Veterans Memorial Park had artifacts from nearly every war in which we were involved in the 20th and 21st Century and recognized every branch of service. It was quite impressive especially, again, because this was in a town so small you could wind up outside city limits depending on which side of the car you got out on.









Here's my video from Veterans Memorial Park:




Across Main Street, which by the way is a pretty grandiose name for any street in this town, is the Railroad Heritage Park. It has a 1905 Shay Train Engine, built in nearby Lima at the Lima Locomotive Works for the Tioga Lumber Company in West Virginia. There is also included is the attached tender and caboose along with a 100 year old lumber office building. I'm not a railroad buff, but this was pretty cool.








It's not just any town that has a "Pork Rind Heritage Festival Park Pavilion" much less one that you can reserve for private events!

Harrod was my favorite stop on Thursday, although as you will see, my Pennsylvania stop was pretty special for other reasons. As I think I have reached my pic allotments for this post, I will continue Part I in the next post.

I really solid post MTC. Very generous on your part. Thanks for sharing the ongoing stories of this motivating journey.