Cover Story – By Bill Hall 12 From the Corner of Veteran’s Drive and Patriot’s Way – By Bob “Bulldog” Ousley 14 NewsBytes – By Bill Bish

COVER STORY DRAGON CITY RESORT SUPPORTS THE BARE BONES MUSIC FESTIVAL

By Indian Rider Bill

The Bare Bones Music Festival, partnering with Dragon City Resort, are seriously kicking off the Labor Day weekend here in East, Tennessee. It all starts at the Dragon City Resort at the junction of TN72 and US129 in Maryville, TN with music, food, activities and the registration point for the Johnathan Cummings Benefit Ride to Lazy Acres Farms in Dandridge, TN. Johnathan Cummings, a young man who suffered a brain aneurysm which led to Locked-In-Syndrome, a condition in which a person can not move or verbally communicate, is receiving on-going and extensive care. Portions of the ride and concert proceeds will go towards his care. Additionally, a portion of the proceeds will go to the Blount County Rescue Squad to assist them with response/rescue of vehicle and motorcycle accidents on The Tail of The Dragon. The benefit ride registration is at 11am, with KSU at 1pm. The route will be roughly 65 miles from Dragon City up to Lazy Acres Farms, in Dandridge, TN. Lazy Acres Farms, the venue for the Bare Bones Music Festival, is a 40 acre organically grown and hand cultivated CBD farm in Dandridge. It also has 10 acres of shade trees and open space to accommodate the main stage as well as plenty of on-site camping. If you’re looking to sample some CBD goods and check out their processes, you’re in the right place. Real Knoxville Music Founder and President, Chris Lamb, helps manage and cultivate talent for the music fest and this year they’re delivering the big guns. Chris and his team have attracted some incredible talent over the last few years and this year is no exception. None other than the AC/DC Tribute band, Big Gun will be the festivals headline band along with Madman’s Diary and many others. Tickets for the ride, admission, lunch & two free beverages (beer or soft drinks) are $60 per person. If you just want to do the ride to support the cause, tickets are $25 for driver and passengers $5 each. Yes, that means all vehicles are welcome to join. And if you’d like to skip the ride and attend the festival, tickets are $40 for a weekend pass or $25 per day. Cash and electronic pay methods taken at Dragon City registration table. For more info, go to barebonesmusicfestival.com Dragon City Resort CEO, Mandy Sahf, purchased the old Dragon Pit Inn earlier this year and has been working overtime to get the inn and its adjoining restaurant, The Pit Stop, ready to serve the thousands of riders that visit The Dragon annually. There are ten completely renovated and updated rooms that come fully equipped with retro style refrigerators, mini convection ovens, a full compliment of dining ware, a coffee station, new bedding, upgraded lights, mini closets for your gear and shower robes to lounge in. Yes, I said robes to lounge in! This is definitely not your Grandfathers Inn anymore. It’s the new Dragon City Resort. The restaurant is nothing short of spectacular. Traditional items with a certain flare make it more than what you’d expect. More on the Pit Stop in a future issue, but for now just know the food is as good as everything else! Once the renovations were underway, Mandy purchased an additional 115 acres for immediate future development. Dragon City will soon take shape as a year-round destination vacation spot consisting of shops, additional restaurants, a brewery, expanded lodging (Tiny Cabins), tree house rentals, canoe/kayak rentals, RV/camping sites and there’s talk of a multi-functional track and ORV-dual sport trail system to accommodate a variety of vehicles. Dragon City has already established themselves as a motorcycle and car club meet-up venue by hosting Sunsets On The Dragon (cycles and car cruise-ins) every fourth Tuesday of the month, bike and hot rod nights, as well as multiple local fundraising events for veterans and other community based organizations. And if that’s not enough to interest you, Mandy has upped the ante with two axe throwing lanes, a dart throwing lane, shuffleboard and a foosball table. And just a few steps away, you’ll find the only patch and leather shop with on-site sewing on The Dragon. Dragon City is the new, Tail of The Dragon, place to be. Make plans to support this benefit ride and music festival. Thunder Roads Tennessee will see you there! #dragoncitytn #dragoncityresort #bare_bones_music_festival www.lazyacresfarms.com www.barebonesmusicfestival.com

Dear Fellow Veterans and Patriots:

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the U.S. began a Pacific campaign to stop the Japanese march. The U.S. had victories at Midway Island in June of 1942 and Guadalcanal from August of 1942 thru February of 1943 in the South Pacific. The plan was to then take the Marshall Islands, the Mariana Islands and then attack against Japan. The Gilbert Islands were a part of the advance on the Marshall Islands and the first target in the Central Pacific. The first island in the Gilbert Islands to be attacked was the Island of Betio in the Tarawa atoll more commonly known today as the battle of Tarawa. This was a 76-hour battle where the U.S. Marines suffered almost as many killed in action as the U.S. suffered during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign.

Captain Glen Walker of Lebanon, Tennessee, was one of those brave Marines who was killed on the island of Betio in November 1943. Remains identified at the time as Captain Walker were returned to his family and buried in 1946. The new Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) was organized about 2013 and a couple of years later made the decision to disinter unidentified remains from WWII era cemeteries and use modern DNA techniques to identify those who were not able to be identified during WWII and the Korean War. Remains disinterred from the Punch Bowl Military Cemetery in 2016 have now been identified as the remains of Captain Glen Walker. He will be returned to Nashville on July 22, 2021 and transported to Lebanon, Tennessee. The remains that were misidentified 75 years ago will be exhumed from Captain Walker’s family grave and sent to the DPAA laboratory in Hawaii for proper identification and Captain Walker will finally be honored by his family and reach his final resting place on July 24, 2021 in Lebanon, Tennessee. Captain Walker will receive a large motorcycle escort from the veteran and patriotic citizen biker community from Nashville to Lebanon and again for the procession to his burial. Welcome Home Captain Walker – You Are Not Forgotten!!

It is a wonderful thing that Captain Walker is coming home after the Covid lies we’ve been told by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the mis-information from China and the destructive and tyrannical restrictions from political tyrants are becoming known and America is finally getting back to some freedom and sanity. I hope you enjoyed the Music and Motorcycle Revival at Loretta Lynn’s in May. It was great to see a ton of beautiful motorcycles and bikers having a blast and not one mask in sight. It was a huge party; the music was awesome and so was the flat track racing. If only Captain Walker had been able to be there in person to enjoy the freedom he died to protect.

A couple of other things that deserve comment in the month of celebrating our Declaration of Independence. What a head spinner it is to celebrate our independence when our embarrassing pitiful President is letting his handlers do everything in their power to make us dependent on foreign nations for our basic needs. Gas prices are steadily climbing, war is in the wind with China, Russia and the Middle East. The parts system in our nation has been crushed. I took my bike to a Harley dealer for diagnosis. They found that my fuel pump was failing. They said they would love to fix it but they can’t get a fuel pump for my bike until September at the earliest. The dealer also told me they don’t have any tires in stock!! My wife couldn’t find bananas at the local grocery today and the shelves were not well stocked. Meanwhile the federal government of Marxists has thrown open the door to illegal aliens and is flowing them all across the nation as fast as they can. More George Soros funded Marxist anarchists are running for District Attorney positions across the country with full intent of punishing those who support the constitution and a free America. Murder is the new sport on the streets of our nation and Marxist politicians are keeping police from doing anything about it.

If you wanted to write a book a few years ago with a story line like what is going on today in our nation it would have been an interesting and ludicrous fiction. Today we’re living it and it gets worse by the day. If you aren’t registered to vote and standing up for freedom and our constitution you will regret it in the near future. These Marxists are slowly working up to throwing patriots in jail and the executions won’t be far behind. Marxists have done it every time they have pushed a coup and taken over a country. Just look what happened in Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Laos, Vietnam……… an on and on and on. It’s ongoing and we need to stand up or we’ll be road kill. Calling all white people racists is just a part of the Marxist’s divide and conquer strategy. No mistake – YOU are in their crosshairs!!!

Keep the faith. Thank a vet for the freedoms we still enjoy and support politicians who will bring back the ones we’ve lost. Fly the flag of the people and be proud you’re an American. Hug the families of those still missing because their quest for closure has not ended. Live the good life and ride for those who can’t. You can comment at bousle19@comcast.net - Bulldog

* My monthly column reflects my personal point of view and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Publishers of this magazine, but they, like me, acknowledge the sacrifices made for the privilege of Freedom of Speech, therefore, they gratefully let me rant. Thank you for reading my rants. Hope my opinions don’t offend anyone, but we all should be grateful for the right to have free opinions.

NCOM BIKER NEWSBYTES Compiled & Edited by Bill Bish, National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM)

SYNTHETIC FUEL COULD PARDON MOTORCYCLES FROM ELECTROCUTION With governments around the world establishing firm deadlines for eliminating gasoline-powered vehicles, the technology that has driven transportation for more than a century isn’t ready to go the way of the dinosaur just yet, and combustion engines may be given renewed hope with the advent of synthetic fuels that are nearly as green as going electric.

Synthetic petrol, diesel and aviation fuels are all the subject of heavyweight pilot projects and are gaining interest fast as they eliminate the CO2 emissions from transport without the need for end-users to switch to new tech, according to motorcyclenews.com.

“While biofuels already offset their emissions to an extent, synthetic fuel takes a more direct approach by stripping CO2 from the air and combining it with hydrogen to create a petrol replacement,” explains MCN. “By using wind, solar or hydro-electric to generate the electricity for the electrolysis, the process is sustainable, and while engines using the fuel still emit carbon, the same amount is reabsorbed in the fuel-making process.”

The idea of using electricity to create synthetic petrol and then to burn that fuel in combustion engines might seem wasteful but the benefits are also significant, reusing existing infrastructures and giving new life to billions of combustion engines rather than reducing them to scrap. With similar power density to normal petrol, synthetic fuels also mean you don’t need to lug vast batteries around.

Several synthetic fuel projects are underway, including investments by Porsche and BMW, and the World Rally Championship is due to use 100% sustainable fuel as soon as next year.

While many governments seem keen on switching from combustion tech to all-electric vehicles in order to achieve carbon neutrality, “synthetic fuel could mean that more than 100 years' worth of bikes have a future.”

MOTORCYCLE MANUFACTURERS STRUGGLE TO DELIVER NEW BIKES Like other manufacturers struggling with supply chain breakdowns, due in large part to the COVID-19 restrictions worldwide, motorcycle makers are coping with shortages of raw materials and parts and an unreliable global transportation system to fill showroom floors.

Complications from the pandemic have affected many of the logistics and production constraints, but bike firms are facing other challenges in getting motorcycles and parts to customers, including a global shortage of semiconductors, fluctuating demand, unpredictable sales and international trade tensions. Supply-chain disruptions, transportation bottlenecks and labor shortages are now pervasive throughout the motorcycle industry and many others. COVID’s butterfly effect on trade has also left empty shipping containers stranded in some parts of the world and a shortage of them where they’re needed, pushing up shipping costs and causing further delays.

One major manufacturer had complete motorcycles aboard the Ever Given, the cargo vessel that ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal shipping lanes, which was subsequently seized by the Egyptian government and remains officially impounded months later.

For consumers, a combination of increasing raw materials costs, shipping difficulties and problems securing parts could lead to price increases as firms battle to meet demand.

INITIAL HIGHWAY BILL CONTAINS MOTORCYCLE-FRIENDLY PROVISIONS The Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act (INVEST in America Act; H.R. 3684), a half-trillion-dollar surface transportation reauthorization bill that sets the funding and rules for various ongoing U.S. Department of Transportation programs, specifically highways, transit and rail, has passed initial muster including pro-motorcycle provisions.

On Thursday, June 10, The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 38-26 along mostly party lines to approve the massive funding measure, which includes three initiatives that would benefit motorcycle riders;

SEC. 3011: STOP MOTORCYCLE CHECKPOINT FUNDING, not only expands prohibitions on motorcycle-only checkpoints, but also prohibits law enforcement activities that “otherwise profile and stop motorcycle operators or motorcycle passengers using as a factor the clothing or mode of transportation of such operators or passengers.”

SEC. 3013: MOTORCYCLIST ADVISORY COUNCIL, reauthorizes the MAC to “advise the Secretary, the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration on transportation issues of concern to motorcyclists,” including “barrier design, road design, construction, and maintenance practices, and the architecture and implementation of intelligent transportation systems technologies.”

The entire 2021 highway bill will next be taken up by the House Ways and Means Committee before advancing to the full House floor.

OREGON GOVERNOR VETOES LANE-SPLITTING BILL Despite resounding bipartisan support, Oregon Governor Kate Brown (D) has officially vetoed Senate Bill 574, which would have allowed motorcyclists to travel between lanes of slow-moving traffic under certain conditions.

Gov. Brown sent a letter to the House and Senate on May 26 informing them of her decision to veto S.B. 574; “I have several concerns with the bill as currently drafted, particularly related to public safety and noncompliance,” Brown wrote in her veto message.

Under S.B. 574, motorcyclists would have been permitted to travel between lanes on multi-lane highways with a speed limit of at least 50 mph, but only when traffic had slowed to 10 mph or less on those roads. Motorcyclists riding between cars could travel no more than 10 mph faster than the flow of traffic.

Proponents said the bill was a compromise from past attempts to legalize lane splitting in Oregon and drew a distinction between the proposal and the law in California, where riders can travel in between cars at faster speeds.

Supportive motorcyclists testified in favor of the bill in droves, arguing the policy would help riders avoid being rear-ended in stopand-go traffic, and would help clear congestion. Many pointed to a study from the University of California, Berkeley, that concluded lane splitting can be safe under certain conditions.

California has long allowed lane splitting, and Montana recently passed a law similar to Oregon’s failed proposal. Utah now allows riders to “filter” through traffic stopped at an intersection, while Hawaii permits motorcyclists to utilize the shoulder when traffic is congested.

MOTO INDUSTRY REPORTS MOTORCYCLE SAFETY AT AN ALL-TIME LOW With industries leading the way into a newer, brighter, cleaner future for transport, a new report from Forbes released a series of studies carried out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demonstrating that fatality statistics have been fluxing in favor of automobiles and trending against motorcycle safety.

According to the studies cited, motorcycle fatalities have increased to 21.46 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven when measuring intel gathered between 2009 and 2018, meaning that motorcycle riders’ risk has been increased by 15-21% -- and equating to 22 times that of automobile drivers.

By contrast, automobile fatalities are at an all-time low, with 1.11 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven stated for the same time frame.

Data like this contributes to creating the Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessments (HARAs), used to determine Functional and Technical Safety Concepts, which guides design requirements for a new vehicle and in turn creates a safer product.

“Per a recent 2021 report prepared for Congress,” writes Forbes, “The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has urged NHTSA to address the design of motorcycles including the following: - requiring motorcycles to meet performance standards for passenger vehicle crash warning systems; - mandating that new motorcycles manufactured for on-road use come equipped with antilock braking systems; and - developing standards for stability control systems for on-road motorcycles.”

FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR NCOM CONVENTION IN DES MOINES With the 36th annual NCOM Convention in Des Moines, Iowa just weeks away, plan NOW to join with hundreds of like-minded biker’s rights activists from across the country, July 23-25, 2021 at the Holiday Inn Des Moines - Airport, located at 6111 Fleur Drive.

In addition to agenda items covering legal and legislative issues of concern to all riders, from helmet laws to lane-splitting to anti-profiling, this year’s Convention will feature a presentation on “The Demise of Gas-Powered Vehicles” by the NCOM Legislative Task Force.

Reserve your hotel room at (515) 287-2400, and mention NCOM for Special Room Rates.

Registration fees for the NCOM Convention are $85 including the Silver Spoke Awards Banquet on Saturday night, or $50 for the Convention only. For more information, or to pre-register, call the National Coalition of Motorcyclists at (800) 525-5355 or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.

QUOTABLE QUOTE: “When an old man dies, a library burns down.” ~ African proverb