For my first blog, I decided to talk about my experiences riding motorcycles and how it all started. As a child of the 60’s I grew up in a small town where motorcycles were not a common thing to see on the streets. My two brothers and I learned at an early age to ride on a small street bike that somebody converted into an off-road bike by putting knobby tires on it. It wasn’t much to look at, but to me, it was the coolest thing! My grandparents owned a farm where we would ride for hours and hours on end trying to master the skills of riding off-road. My parents both rode motorcycles on the road as I was growing up. I was so infatuated with the idea of having a street bike of my own when the movie Easy Rider came out. My older brother and I went to see it at a drive-in and from there I was stuck on custom motorcycles, “Choppers”, as they call them.
Since Harley-Davidsons weren’t that common where I lived and the closest dealership was 30 miles away, I didn’t see many of them on the streets where I grew up. When I turned 18 I had the itch to build a custom chopper of my own. in the early seventies bikes like Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and others were dominating the market with the latest looks and styles to come out. Guys like me had their sights set on transforming those bikes that were so cool and so different from the standard look at that time.
My first Chopper was a Honda! I went all out when I built it with tons of Chrome extended front end, and candy blue paint job! It was a trophy winner, but it still wasn’t a Harley. Something about the Harley Mystique, that signature sound, and a long history of how their engine designs evolved without changing the standard V-Twin twin design sign they came out with over 100 years ago.
My first Harley was an old Shovelhead with an open Bell Drive, a hand shift, foot clutch, and was a kick-start start only. Needless to say my first summer with a Kickstart-only Harley was an experience in itself. But, once I mastered the technique of kickstarting a Harley, from then on I always made sure that any Harley I was building had a kickstart on it period. My friends that I grew up with in the seventies continued to ride Japanese-made motorcycles like the Kawasaki Ninja and all the other crotch rocket rockets.
I continued to ride a Harley and they would tease me and joke about how slow I was compared to their bikes. I always heard rumors like, “Don’t those things Shake themselves apart” or “They leak oil all the time” and all the other myths that came over time from people who didn’t know how to put them together properly or didn’t maintain them when it was time to be serviced. But, as time went on the Harley-Davidson evolved with an improvement in the motor that made them super low maintenance and upkeep, that motor was the Evo, or called The Evolution motor. From that design, Harley became a top competitor with other V-Twin designs by other companies. I have a passion for Harleys, but I have had a love for motorcycles of all makes since I was a kid. Those who ride a motorcycle and enjoy the freedom of the wind on your face and loving your trip from start to finish. Until next time, KEEP HER ON TWO WHEELS.
