My first love was a Harley

(and a lifestyle I grew to respect)
By: Biker Bob

   The Biker folklore and the legend of the biker life-style have always intrigued me, since I first discovered it back when it was still growing.  It was around 1963, I was a young teen and an old black and white movie would pop-up late nights on one of those new fangled VHF stations in the Bay Area.  The movie was of coarse The Wild One.  I wasn’t so intrigued by its star, Marlon Brando, nor by his Triumph motorcycle, but more by the effect of the bike club’s sheer numbers and the camaraderie of the guys (one of whom would grow up to be Dick Van Dyke’s next door neighbor).  As much fun as riding a motorcycle would be, the excitement in that movies’ first scene of dozens of bikes rolling down a highway is what sold me.  I had to get a motorcycle, leather jacket and a bunch of like-minded friends.  The folklore was born more in the movie than in fact, but I loved it.
   Sure, I had a hard time finding a motorcycle suitable for a thirteen year-old (more importantly, suitable to his scrutinizing parents) or even a harder time finding one single, like-minded friend among my buddies from up-scale Palo Alto, who wanted to ride a Harley when the Beach Boys hadn’t sang about riding a motorcycle yet.  But I found an old bomber jacket at the Army Surplus and the dream was on.  It took a couple of years but eventually, the Beach Boys sang about everything from surfing and hot roding to riding a little Honda.  If the Beach Boys were into Hondas, I guess the greasy haired singers; Dion and the Belmonts or the Righteous Brothers must have been into Harleys.  Anyway, in the summer of 1965, I got my first little motorcycle, but it wasn’t a Harley.
   Most of my generation wanted one of those Hondas you meet the nicest people on, (although I still dreamed of the one bike that made no such promise).  A friend had a Honda Cub that was a beat-up, ragged, clutch-less, 50CC wonder.  He needed some cash so I gave him $50 for it.  Soon, me and a few buddies were cruizin the Boulevard.  Mostly the Boulevard was all I could cruise because the 50cc motor wasn’t legal to take on the freeway, and was dangerously gutless on the Expressway.  I had a ways to go to be that Wild Harley guy.
   I even rode past the Harley dealership once in awhile on Monterey Road in San Jose.  I would peer longingly through the windows.  On one of those times, a challenge from one of my Honda crew pushed me towards that foreboding place.
   It was dark with a serious looking bearded thugs lurking about.  We were sure they were killers, muggers and thieves, as tough at least as Lee Marvin (the protagonist) in the Wild One movie, (he road a real Harley).
I bravely stepped inside the pirates’ hangout expecting to get thrown out like a kid sneaking into a strip club.  But it was 1966 and I thought I was ready, I was 16, almost a man…but I found it hard to move once I entered.  I didn’t want to go near the counter because a scary old dude with blackened, greasy skin was leaning against it and didn’t look like he intended on making any space for me.  But, I did notice a bulletin board of hand written notes and grabbed one.  It advertised a basket case, a 1943, 45-inch Flathead Harley Davidson for sale.
   I expected my father to say absolutely “no” as my mother quickly did, him being a buttoned-down, tailored-made and neck-tied businessman.  My father was no Ward Cleaver.  He was a strict man, war hero and the kind of guy who you’d want around if the world was coming to an end, but not if you wanted to discuss your infatuation with Annette and her, uh physical development.  Likewise, if you were a boy trying to be a man and thought somehow an old, not running motorcycle could make-up that difference, he wasn’t the guy to ask for his opinion on the matter..  I knew there was no way he’d let me have that Harley.  Then in a shock more surprising than Cassius Clay knocking Sonny Liston down in their first fight, my father smiled and said, “I had an Indian when I was your age.  Let’s go take a look…”
  I was totally surprised.  I think he agreed knowing that I was not mechanically inclined and the key phrase in the bike’s description was “basket case”.  That meant it was torn down in parts and would require re-assembly and some serious wrenching.
  We drove to Fremont, crossing the Dumbarton Bridge into the then blue collar neighborhoods of the East Bay.  Back in the sixties, this bridge was close to the water level on the East end and big blocks of salt often blew up across the lanes of traffic. A blustery day added a new type of threat to the biker; flying salt balls…really.
   The address given was a house in a working-class neighborhood.  The garage door was open and as we pulled up in Dad’s brand new Impala, we saw bike parts hanging from the ceiling, mounted to the walls and all around the greasy floor.  There were three chopped Harleys in the driveway, (a couple panheads and a knuckle) and a few more in the garage.  Three unshaven, long haired men in Levi vests (back then, they wore Levi vests over leather jackets, but the vest were actually jackets with the sleeves cut off) looked at me menacingly, but said nothing as we climbed out of the new car with the paper license plate.
   Some of these guys had a club name on the back of their jackets, but I couldn’t read them because they all stopped what they were doing when we pulled up and turned to face us.  My dad was in his suit, and I looked maybe twelve, freckled and pimply faced and about five foot nuthin if I stood real straight.
  My dream of being a tough guy didn’t include showing up at a place like this with my father who looked like someone’s attorney.  The Harley shop was nothing compared to this private garage.  There were no weapons visible (except a rusty machete hanging on the wall between a tear-drop gas tank and a hula-hoop) and I wasn’t sure if the garage smell was gun powder or transmission fluid.  But still, I approached (not because I was brave, but because I was with my father and he could stop a bullet, or so I thought).
   But to my surprise the Bikers were nice and polite and I caught my first whiff of this strange biker life style.  Even back in ’66 it was true, maybe more then, than today.  Because we were kind and respectful to them they were the same to us, even these scary looking guys.  They had nothing to prove and had no chips on their shoulders, they knew who they were and needed to impress no one.  I wanted to be them.
  To our surprise, John, the owner of the bike and the house, offered to put it in riding condition, at least good enough to get back to Palo Alto if I would pay him $500, cash and give him two days to do it.  My father showed his moxie by arguing the price down to $250 cash and all he had to do was make it drivable.  Even in 1966 that was a good deal.  But it was my first Harley problem.  Who could drive the thing home?  I wanted to learn to ride this big ol’ bike with a stick shift and foot clutch, but it was intimidating.  I needed to learn in a slow, controlled environment, not crossing the windy Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge.
   I think my father expected me to ask him how to get it home, or he had already decided we would hire a truck, but then a new hero emerged.  My older brother, Bill, a high school senior (who rode a Vespa and was a nerd of nerds) suggested I approach a classmate of his named Dave.  (Please note, the hero was Dave, not my brother).
   Dave owned a Harley of his own and he would happily drive my bike home if I would pay for the head light he needed for his old pan head.  It was a deal.  In fact we found not only a headlight but also some other parts he needed for sale in John’s garage.
   Things started out well, John had the bike ready, sort of.  But we hit a snag when the shift lever came off the bike in Dave’s hand as we approached the bridge.  He could have stumbled a bit and had an accident or pulled over and just given up, but Dave didn’t even appear worried as he slowed and stopped on the bridge.  We were in the Impala following him and as we pulled up I jumped out of the car thinking we would have to get a big truck to tow the bike home.  But Dave, maybe all of 18 years of age coolly asked, “Got any vice-grips?” which to me was as cool as Steve McQueen jumping a barbed wire fence.
   My Dad had thought ahead and brought several tools and offered up a couple of sizes of vice grips.  Dave chose the tool like Paladin chose a gun.  Dave clamped the vice-grips on to the shifter linkage and we were off again, and I decided this must be why they called it a suicide shift.
   Dave was a young version of what would one day become legion, the self taught Harley mechanic, a sort of bike-geek that would rather “wrench” than anything else.  These early-on techies would alter motorcycles to look and run the way they wanted.  And if they couldn’t modify the parts of the existing bike to meet their needs they would design and construct their own parts.  They would end up with a cut-up and re-designed motorcycle.  They called these bikes “Choppers” because they in fact chopped them up to get a streamlined, simple and faster version.  Years later Harley would copy many of their innovations.  I was going to ride one too.
   Dave and a friend of his called Caruso, helped me work on the Harley Davidson mostly because of their fascination with those old bikes, not because they were working towards a merit badge.  I don’t think they cared for me much, but both seriously loved that sorry excuse for a motorcycle.  And I gotta be honest, they didn’t help me work on the bike, I helped them, sort of.  I fetched parts, or gave my opinion on what would look best, usually being careful not to disagree.  I designed some parts out of cardboard and we would get a metal shop to copy them in sheet metal then have a platter chrome them.  During these days the bike was in pieces.
   On one lonely Saturday, I stripped every part, cable and wire off the frame.  I wanted the frame painted a fresh shiny black and decided I could do it myself, why not? I’d painted several Revelles.  I hung the frame from a backyard clothes line and spray painted it with a can.  Unfortunately, I forgot to mark where the wires went.  I think Caruso was a bit miffed.  How could I not think to tag the points where the wires were connected?  Coarse, in that same year, I think I also forgot to do homework, to zip up my fly and tell Nancy Cushing I had a huge crush on her (although I suspect she knew this).  Caruso got over being “miffed” in minutes and rewired the bike without a manual, trained mechanic’s advice or an error.  He sure was good at that kind of work.
   I thought Dave and Caruso were one –of-a-kind freaks but actually I would continue to meet and be amazed by others of their ilk over the next 40 years.  Their innovations did and will continue to drive the design of motorcycles.  And not only did these guys help set the bar on motorcycle art but also in part, on the life style of the U.S. biker.
   Though tough, these guys weren’t mean.  Dave and Caruso helped without reward and seemed happy to do so.  Much like the older guy John who first sold me the bike, Dave and Caruso put on no airs, treated everyone respectfully who treated them with respect and honestly didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought of their life style, clothing or rides.  They were the beginning of what their own generation would later embrace as the last true cowboy.  But at that point in my life my thoughts weren’t quite so lofty.  All I cared about was riding my Harley…I didn’t realize how much their help and fair way of being would be so unique.  I thought everyone was like that, silly me.  That Biker lifestyle even back then refused to pretend or to even take advantage.  They could have been the bad guys the press and movies wanted us to believe they were, but they just weren’t.  The biggest difference between them and the rest of society was they refused to perpetuate that false political correctness we are so burdened with today.
So that’s what my first experience with a Harley was all about and my first experience with men who lived and teenagers who would grow up to live the Biker lifestyle. I must have enjoyed the experience, because its forty years later and I’m still riding.
Ride Safe.

Biker Bob