Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE F red "Iron Man" Ham was an early off-road racer, but became best known as a record-breaking long-distance rider of the 1930s. In 1936, Ham briefly revived interest in the almost-forgotten Three-Flag Record by riding from Canada to Mexico in just over 28 hours. A year later, Ham's 24-hour solo record of 1,825 miles set on the Mu- roc Dry Lake (now part of Edwards Air Force Base) in 1937 spurred sales of Harley-Davidson's newly designed EL-model, better known as the Knuck- lehead, and helped the company break out of the Depression sales slump. Ham was born in Naarden, Holland, June 22, 1908. He was raised on a family ranch in South Africa before he moved to America in 1930. Ham settled in Southern California and immediately took up motorcycling. He became a member of the Pasadena Motorcycle Club, which was known for promoting many of Southern California's most prestigious races. One of those races was the Big Bear Run, which dated to the early 1920s and was one of the earliest off-road motorcycle races in the country. Ham won the prestigious Big Bear Endurance Run in 1933 aboard a Harley-Davidson. He de- fended his victory in 1934, an event considered the most difficult Big Bear Run in the history of the race. Ham loved riding his motorcycles. He was seem- ingly in perpetual motion. Many people believed he became a motorcycle police officer so he could ride more. He once put his wife on a train to Chicago to visit relatives. When she stepped off the train in Chicago, Ham was there to greet her, having ridden from Los Angeles to Chicago just for the fun of it. The legendary Cannonball Baker made the Three-Flag Endurance Run popular in the 1910s. In 1915, Baker rode from Canada to Mexico in just over 81 hours. That started a slew of imitators who reset the mark throughout the 1910s and early 1920s. By the mid-1920s, the AMA no longer rec- ognized the record because it required running at illegal speeds over public roads and the Three- Flag was forgotten. Ham revived the idea in 1936. He organized dealers all along the West Coast to assist him with fueling along the route. Legendary engine man Bill Graves prepared a 1935 Harley- Davidson 74-inch knucklehead for the run. Ham took his time riding from Los Angeles to the starting point at the border town of Blaine, Washington. He studied the roads and mapped out the best route. He began the record attempt by getting his route card stamped by Canadian border officials from Blaine at 3 a.m. on August 30. He was chased by rain in the early hours of the morning, dodged police in Oregon, battled 100-degree heat in California's Central Valley and insect swarms at night. Along the route Ham got so far ahead of schedule that his checkers franti- IRON MAN HAM P126 Fred Ham loved to break long-distance speed records.

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