(chal’enj) n. anything that calls for special effort

Copyright © 2023 by Bill James at The Shovel Shop, Austin, Texas

As noted in my last post, I became interested in adapting motorcycles for use by riders with disabilities after helping design and construct a shovelhead-powered trike for a quadriplegic rider disabled in a motorcycle crash.  However, I never anticipated a need for such adaptations for myself, but….

….Fate or Life or The Universe (the bastard) had other ideas.

😱😮😳😢😡🤬

In July of 2004 I fell 35’ from a billboard structure I was climbing.  I ended up with an open compound fracture of my right tibia and fibula – two breaks in each bone, with the jagged ends sticking up through the skin — and a left foot pulverized ‘to dust’ per the surgeon who attempted to repair it.  However, worst of all was the burst fracture of my L-4 vertebra.  Between the three injury sites – a perverse Trifecta of Pain, if you will – nothing south of my waist works the way it’s supposed to….

….and I mean nothing!  😡

I was hospitalized for twelve days that first time and underwent four surgeries, with numerous hospital stays and surgeries to come. I was still wheelchair-bound when they sent me home, and lived in a hospital bed set up in our living room for the rest of the summer.

I was in the wheelchair well into September, having physical therapy and additional surgeries, before I could graduate to crutches, and then a walker. I still remember what a rush it was (literally and figuratively) to finally stand unaided and kiss Jackie from above, for the first time since the fall. I had to sit right back down again, but that kiss was the start of me getting back on my feet.

And get back on my feet I did. One hundred and twenty days after my fall, I limped out to my driveway, kickstarted my old rigid-framed shovelhead and took it for a ride around the neighborhood.  Probably not my brightest move – I was still recovering from major surgeries including a spinal fusion at L-3-4-5 – but damn! did it feel good in the moment!  Look at the photos taken that day, and the shit-eating grin on my face.  After all I’d been through, it appeared I would still be able to ride my motorcycle.

As my recovery progressed, I took a few more rides on the shovel, but quickly learned that the geometry of my body had been permanently altered by the accident.  I’d spent decades sitting down in the bike, on a frame-mounted butt bucket LaPera saddle, but now that position caused almost immediate low-back pain, and sent referred pain down both legs.  Symptoms included spasms, sharp stabbing pain, throbbing pain, all manner of pain….

It was clear that I had to be seated with my hips above my knees, rather than below them; that flexion (being bent beyond 90° at the waist) was not my friend.

Thus began a series of experiments.  One of the benefits of working in a motorcycle shop like Bud’s was almost unlimited access to parts, so I could dabble on the cheap. 

First was a Softail solo saddle.  It was puffy enough that it almost raised me high enough off the frame.  However, it wasn’t enough, and my attempt at a rider backrest – a tiny sissybar backrest pad and a couple of stainless-steel struts from an old FL windshield – failed to do the job.

Next was a halfway measure, to see if a traditional OEM pogo stick might get it.  I borrowed a single bright red fatbob tank, a pogo stick and t-bar, and a funky old buddy seat I found in amongst the takeoffs and rejects in Bud’s shop.  This proved that a pogo stick could work, but only if I ran the optional OEM heavy-duty spring set, Harley part no. 51771-29

Bud tracked down a customer who had a brand-new set of the heavy-duty springs he would part with. Bud also gifted me a set of late-model flat-side fatbobs, which was a nice hit.  Unlike the original fatbobs found on knucks, pans and shovelheads, the flat-side bobs aren’t prone to cracking and leaking.  Nothing like a lapful of petrol at 60 MPH to put a damper on an otherwise pleasant ride! 😮

However, the way the flat-side bobs mount to the frame prevented us from using the traditional t-bar.  Instead, Harley Bob, one of Bud’s ace mechanics and welders, had to relocate the front mounting point for the t-bar, and then heat and bend my t-bar to make it fit.  I topped that off with a traditional OEM leather tractor seat saddle; the one Harley-Davidson had been using since 1923.  I actually bought it from the local Harley dealership, no less!

The result was one-of-a-kind, but it worked to get my hips above my knees, thus eliminating one problem, but now I had another. I generally dislike seeing a windshield on an unfaired bike, but my weakened back muscles could not withstand the buffeting of winds at highway speeds, so I crafted another rider backrest. This time, I took the back off an old industrial office chair and connecting it to the underside of the tractor seat, as seen below.  I cut some stiff-celled foam to fit, found an upholsterer to cover the thing in black leather to match the saddle, and pronounced it good.

And it was a good idea, if I say so myself. The backrest worked like a champ once I was up and rolling with my weight on the saddle, and I could have ridden all day with it like that. 

Unfortunately, the moment I stopped for any reason and shifted my weight to one foot or the other, those heavy-duty pogo stick springs forced the backrest into my already pained back.  It felt like a torture device the Spanish Inquisition might have appreciated. 

I finally admitted defeat, set the backrest aside and bolted on an FL windshield.  It worked, even if it did ruin the lines of my gorgeous, oh-so-simple shovelhead.

I later exchanged it for one that came off a Dyna Wide Glide, I think.  A slightly sleeker look, and that’s the way it looks today: pogo stick, tractor seat and Dyna windshield.

My BMW needed no such alterations.  It already put me in a riding position suitable to my limitations, and I’d already installed a windshield for touring purposes. 

However, I still wanted a Harley I could pack my wife on, so one Saturday I toddled off down to Bud’s to explore the possibility of a new frame for my shovelhead.  It would have hurt my heart to lose the rigid frame and, thankfully, I didn’t need to.

Instead, I came home with a 1987 FXRS.

The first thing I did was install an FXRP Police saddle, which accomplished on the FXRS the same thing the pogo stick did on the shovelhead:  got my hips above my knees.  The FXRS already had a windshield, so I was spared that expense. 

Instead, I just started stripping the FXRS of all the chrome and gold-accented doodads the previous owner had insisted on, and altering the bike to better fit my body.  Finally, I decided on a paint scheme I wanted, and spent months getting that accomplished. 

And there I was, a happy biker with three motorcycles suited for my disabilities:  my original OG shovelhead for hopping around town or solo road trips, the BMW for canyon carving, and the FXRS (now named The Banshee) for squiring my wife around in style.

I wish I could say we lived happily ever after, but….

….Fate or Life or The Universe (the bastard) had other ideas.

😱😮😳😢😡🤬

One of the many cruel tricks Fate or Life or The Universe (the bastard) played on me (and there have been many) is that the nerve damage at my spine causes all sorts of misfires in the lower half of my body.  I feel things I shouldn’t feel — sudden sharp pains, weird sensations like wetness on my leg, muscle spasms — and don’t feel things I should, like knowing when my bladder is full. 🤢 Ain’t that a gas?

And just so you know, I’m not sharing this because I want to. I just know there are other riders out there who have experienced (or, heavens forfend, will experience) some of what I’m going through. I wish someone had talked turkey to me post-accident, so I’m talking to y’all.

And you can ask questions, if you have any, about the bikes, the adaptations, or the medical shyte I’ve experienced in the nineteen years since my fall. All that experience should be good for something besides making me miserable…. 
 ….right? 
 Right?  🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyhoo….

Think of that channel through the center of each vertebra as a conduit, and the nerves as wires.  My surgeon said that when he got to my L-4 vertebra it was 80% occluded. With ‘spring-back’ — which means just what it sounds like — he reckons the L-4 channel (through which the cauda equina passes) was 100% occluded at the moment of impact. That explains why I felt the sharp pain in my back when I hit the ground, and also explains the problems I had post-surgery.

If the vertebra acts as a conduit, then a burst fracture is like a kink in that conduit, which crushes the wires inside.  At 100% occlusion, the insulation on those wires will be damaged, and as a result, electrical signals will go places they weren’t supposed to go.  Misfires.  Some are frustrating, some are humiliating, some are aggravating as hell, and most are just fucking painful. 

However, one of the first misfires I noticed began while I was still in the wheelchair after my initial surgeries.  Because I’d damaged both lower extremities so severely, I couldn’t weight-bear on my own, but the medicos wanted me up and moving about. 

The solution?  Working out in the physical therapy pool at the hospital.  The water would bear most of my weight, but I’d still be able to ‘walk’ and move around. 

As an aside, I was working out one day with a man about my age who had his hip replaced, and we got to talking about our injuries.  When I mentioned that I had fallen 35’ from a billboard, his eyes got big as saucers, and he said, ‘My father fell off a six-foot stepladder in his garage and died!’ 

Have I mentioned that Fate or Life or The Universe (whatever) is a bastard?  😡

Anyhoo, I was still working out in the pool when I learned that one of the many ‘gifts’ I’d been given in my accident was a trick knee, that would give way without warning and drop me where I stood.  In the pool, of course, this meant a sudden dunking and a faceful of highly chlorinated water.  Once I was out of the wheelchair, the results could be considerably worse.  I’d be strolling along, minding my own business, and suddenly I’m sprawled on the floor, or sidewalk, with skinned knees and palms.  What fun!

At first, it was mostly annoying and occasionally embarrassing, but over time the misfires to my knee became more and more frequent, to the point that I worried about my leg giving way as I sat at a red light on my bike, and me ending up with the bike on top of me, dependent on strangers to help me get back up again.

I do not like feeling that dependent on anyone.  It’s a whole thing with me.

I finally realized that I needed to do something to protect myself, and I thought ‘Hey, what about a trike?  After all, we’d built that one for Paul ‘way back when, and with Bud to help me I knew I could take my shovel and build a sharp-looking trike around it.

I started banking money with Bud, saving up for one of the rigid trike frames Paughco was manufacturing, but then Bud died and my money disappeared.  I was so heartsick over his death that I couldn’t even pursue it.  In fact, it took me a number of years to step back into what was left of Bud’s shop again, and by then it was in a different location and of a completely different world.  I recognized some of the fixtures – the classic old showcases Bud had scored when the original Harley shop on Guadalupe closed – and noticed the tribute to Bandido Craig, who I’d worked with when Bud was still alive, but everything else, including the people, was utterly alien to me.

However, that was later.  Once I’d recovered enough from Bud’s passing to begin thinking of triking the shovel again, I began selling a massive assortment of stuff I had accumulated over the years.  Most of it was through eBay, and for a while I was shipping motorcycle parts, manuals and moto-themed gewgaws all over the world.  I also sold books and pop culture collectibles, antiques, whatever….

….until I’d finally saved enough to order the Paughco frame I’d been dreaming of.

I rang Paughco, all confident and ready to talk turkey, only to be informed that Paughco no longer makes the frame I wanted.  This was after the pandemic, when the supply chain was in disarray, and Ian, the fellow I spoke with, told me they couldn’t get the tubing they needed, but it didn’t matter because they couldn’t hire enough qualified welders, either!  😮

And that raises a quick question:  Where is this ‘collapsed economy’ I hear so many people raving about?  Because I see a fuck-ton of ‘Help Wanted’ signs and adverts all around.  Paughco is obviously not the only concern experiencing staffing shortages, and low unemployment is one of the hallmarks of a healthy economy, right?

Just sayin’….

Anyhoo, with Paughco unable to provide the frame I wanted, I began searching all over for other options.  I was burning up the Googleplex looking for ‘trike frame’, ‘rigid trike frame’, ‘Harley trike frame’, et cetera. I found plenty of bolt-on swingarm trike kits to fit swingarm and Softail frames, and stretched and raked low-saddle rigid frames intended for radical ‘chopper’ builds, but no one was making the traditional rigid frame I wanted – the one like the photo from the Paughco catalog.

I finally found one outfit in The Netherlands that made the frame I wanted, a place called VG Classic Frames. He even used repop factory-styled castings for the headstock, et cetera, and had what looked like a seat post for the pogo stick, which would have made it ideal for my needs.  Sadly, despite numerous attempts, I could not get the shop owner to give me a price (or even a ballpark estimate) of what shipping to the U.S. might cost.

By now I was getting desperate to get back in the wind, so I gave up and I gave in, and I went shopping for a Harley-Davidson Freewheeler.  Of the late-model trikes on offer from the MoCo, the Freewheeler was closest to my idea of a motorcycle.  It was a little stripped down, a little meaner looking than the Tri-Glide, and quite a bit lighter.  It still weighs twice what my shovel does 😮 but that fiberglass taco box is heavy!

I found the bike I wanted at a stealership in Houston.  It was a 2016 FLRT Freewheeler in Black Quartz, with 4” unbaffled Cobra cones and a factory rider backrest and luggage rack.  I could have done without the backrest – thankfully, it’s removable with the push of a couple of tabs – and the luggage rack is actually kinda handy, but those straight pipes were fucking awful! 

It took the better part of a day of dicking around, but I got the price down to what I was willing to pay, and the deal was made.  The next Saturday I pulled my motorcycle trailer down to Houston and carted her home. 

For those not familiar, riding a trike (or a sidecar rig like the one I piloted in the ’80s) is completely different than riding a solo machine. For starters, countersteering will get a rider killed, because the trike reacts in a completely opposite manner to a solo when countersteered. Push out on the right handgrip while approaching a left-hand curve, and instead of gently leaning into and tracking through your curve, you will find yourself going hard to port before you can even grasp what’s happening! 

The test-ride I took in Houston was terrifying, so when I got the beast home, I knew I had to unlearn almost five decades of training and experience in order to ride her safely. Just resisting the instinct to countersteer when going into curves took all my concentration, at first.  
  
Then, since I’m not countersteering and leaning into curves the way I’m accustomed to do, the trike constantly felt as if it might tip over in turns, victim to centrifugal force. I had to gradually build up my confidence in curves, carefully going faster and faster as I gained a feeling for how the machine would handle and what it could handle.  
  
It was effectively like reliving my earliest days on a motorcycle. My first rides were just toodles around the neighborhood, but I slowly progressed to longer and longer excursions.

So, I am back in the wind, with my knees in the breeze, but wouldn’t you know? After months spent scouring the internet for the rigid shovel frame I originally sought, and asking everyone I could find for leads, et cetera, and finally committing to the 2016 Freewheeler, it was (and I swear I am not making this up) just two weeks later that a friend helped me reconnect with an old riding partner – a fellow I haven’t seen in over twenty years – who just happens to own a custom frame shop in Dallas. 😳

Have I mentioned that Fate or Life or The Universe (the bastard) has a perverted sense of humor and really shitty timing?  😡

Anyhoo, I did get to visit my old friend on a road trip that I’ll tell you about in an upcoming post, but in the meanwhile, my gimped-up ass is finally back in the wind where it belongs, and my old friend is scheming on a possible frame for my shovelhead!

Chal-lenge accepted! 😁