You work your job and, if lucky, grab a pension at retirement and then the rest of your life is before you—but what do you do? Well, if you are anything like the Texas dynamo known as Rebecca Cunningham, you dive full force into Round 2 of life! In August 2015, Rebecca suffered a devastating injury after leaving Sturgis Bike Week; somewhere in Wyoming she went ass over teakettle and came dangerously close to losing her leg. A couple hospitals, ambulance, and helicopter ride later, she found herself in Denver for several weeks while an excellent hospital staff ensured her leg was saved. Visually at this point, the leg is pretty gnarly to look at, but she walks, and she is back in the saddle riding coast-to-coast. First, she rode along with the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge from California to New York, documenting the journey along the way as a shooter and editor, then she headed back home to Texas to catch up with her kids and grandbabies. After a couple weeks’ downtime, she was saddling up again to head to Atlantic City for the start of the Motorcycle Cannonball Coast to Coast Vintage Motorcycle Race (MotorcycleCannonball.com) and shot and edited until they were almost north of Texas when she peeled off to ride down to Houston for a few hours to participate in the second birthday of her twin grandbabies. Then she headed northwest to catch back up with the Cannonball as it was in the Four Corners area en route to the finish line in Southern California. For y’all up in the Northeast that receive this edition of THUNDER PRESS and read the missives of yours truly here in Dallas, you may be wondering what the big deal is about this little pit stop. Well, Rebecca’s visit to her grandbabies for just a few hours was about a 1,400-mile detour on her motorcycle and that, my friends, is friggin’ dedication by a grandmother!… Also on the Cannonball was motorcycle welder Mike Kordash from Dallas who did some heavy frame work on the vintage 1915 BSA bike ridden by Buck Carson of Carson Classic Motors and Museum just north of Houston (CarsonClassicMotors.com). Mike personally hand delivered the frame from his shop and was with the Carson crew for weeks leading up to and through the Cannonball where he lent a much-needed helping hand whenever possible in true Texas fashion… And lest we overlook Robert Filla who somehow manages to find time to fashion some amazing leather crafts in his Houston workshop when he’s not being Editor-at-Large for this publication, he handmade some of the most beautiful saddlebags I have ever seen for John Pfeifer’s 1916 H-D that rode in the Cannonball. Tragically, the rocker arm broke on the bike and a pushrod punctured the gas tank which sent the bike blazing by the side of the road so it was unable to complete the journey. John and the front forks survived; fate was not so kind to the rest of the bike or those gorgeous saddlebags (facebook.com/PrestigeLeatherWorks)… Rick Fairless and the crew at Strokers Dallas had a rocking good time on September 17 when the Baddest Bagger tour stopped for their annual event and top prize went to Wenton Walker’s 2016 Street Glide.
