Biker - longtime Harley guy and Known Associate of Bud's Motorcycle Shop for over 35 years - but also an author, songwriter, artist, photographer, avid reader and music fan, and rabid collector of books, music, art and ANYTHING related to motorcycles!
A few weeks back, I wrote a lengthy piece about David Mann, the artist and illustrator who spent four decades chronicling the biker life for Chopperspublisher Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth and, later, for Easyriders, the most enduring rag ever published by and for bikers, until new owners ran it into the weeds…. 🤬
….but Rest in Peace, Dave Mann, and R.I.P. the originalEasyriders and its late editor Lou Kimzey, who is the closest thing my writing career ever got to a mentor. What commercial success I’ve had (and granted, I never tried to make writing my primary occupation) is due to Lou Kimzey’s kind words.
Anyhoo, at Dave Mann’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/davidmannstore) a post recently appeared featuring a particularly dark and gritty image, even for Dave Mann, who did dark and gritty better than anyone. It was used as an illustration for an essay about violence between motorcycle clubs. Half the essay’s text appeared on the page over Dave’s artwork…. but the other half? 🤷♀️ Even though it says ‘Continued from page 41,’ the jump was actually to page 41. Mr. Kimzey and the boys ran a loose ship back in the day, and errors were to be expected. 😏
But me and my fellow Mann fans didn’t care about to or from; we just wanted to see the rest of the damned article!
I hate being left hanging like that, so I went and found a copy of that issue (April 1977) and got what radio personality Paul Harvey used to call ‘….the rest of the story.’ It was just another half-page, but it was the conclusion of a powerful essay, especially in those grim days when ‘gang warfare’ was decimating motorcycle club rosters and drawing heat on everyone who rode, patched or not, Me, I spent more than one afternoon looking down the barrel of a lawman’s gun because our home team was going tit-for-tat with other clubs over Goddess knows what. 🙄
F’rinstance:
The man who died apparently crawled into a van parked near our campsite and bled out as LEOs searched for perpetrators and victims. Of course, those guys all had the good sense to split, if they were physically able, long before the po-po made their appearance. We, on the other hand, were not so smart. We were held at the racetrack for hours under the blazing sun until the cops were satisfied they’d found everything they were going to find. Then they began pointing rifles and shotguns at us, screaming at us to get our bikes moving and get out the gates NOW! or have them impounded and spend the night in jail. The scramble to get several hundred pissed-off bikers out the narrow gates of that racetrack – many of them stoned and/or drunk as Cooter Brown after hours of waiting – might have been farcical if not for the dead body, the wounded, and the ranks of angry LEOs, many on horseback and all a-bristle with long guns. As if that weren’t enough, when my crew reached the gates, most announced they were going to ride into Houston and continue partying! 😳 I’d had enough of East Texas, so me and another fellow – a stranger – partnered up for the long ride back to Austin. Good thing for him, too, since his headlight went out before we reached the Montgomery County line. I rode beside him the rest of the way back to Austin, the little seven-inch sealed beam on my shovelhead the only light to advise oncoming motorists of our presence! And of course, there was retaliation, as seen in this undated clipping circa 1989, following several bombings of rival club members’ homes. and vehicles.
Sadly, although the Nordic and Canadian Wars have died down, and wholesale slaughter a la Laughlin and Twin Peaks is no longer the rule of the day, there are still too many dust-ups like Porter, too many barroom brawls and killings, and retaliatory strikes, and revenge for those retaliatory strikes, and paybacks and drive-bys and so on and so on…. ad nauseam.
Maybe someday this bullshit really will be past.
Finally, here is the artwork as it first appeared on Dave Mann’s easel. George Christie, former President of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club’s Ventura, California, charter, and now an accomplished author and podcaster, owns the original painting, and offers prints for sale through his website at http://www.georgechristie.com/. I wouldn’t mind owning one, just for its value as documentation of our history as bikers, but I wouldn’t want it hanging on my wall with my numerous prints of more serene works by David Uhl, James Guçwa, Norman Bean, Amanda Zito, et alia…. and that’s assuming Jackie didn’t brain me for even thinking about displaying that violent imagery in our home! 😁
Since I’ve written about my collection, and art in general, I think my next entry might be a tour of MMMoMMA, also known as ‘My Miniature Museum of Modern Motorcycle Art.’ Maybe I’ll start with my visit to the actual MOMA in New York, and its exhibit of automotive and motorcycle art, and follow the trail through motorcycle museums at Anamosa, Iowa, and Maggie Valley, North Carolina, all the way back to Austin, home of the aforementioned and as-yet-not-world-renowned MMMoMMA. Watch this space! 😎
A sneak peek at part of My Miniature Museum of Modern Motorcycle Art, located on the banks of scenic Little Walnut Creek in beautiful downtown Northeast Austin…. Texas, that is. 🤠
😎
P.S.: I thought y’all might be interested in two other facts about the incident at Porter, cited above.
First, while violence did erupt between two rival motorcycle clubs, it had been a gentlemanly fistfight – a good old-fashioned punch-up, as the Brits call it – until the security guard hired by the event promoter allegedly waded into the crowd of brawling bikers, pulled his sidearm and fired a couple of rounds in the air. It always worked in the movies, right? However, in Porter, on hearing gunfire, the brawlers simply assumed the fight had escalated. Weapons were produced, shots fired, and, well…. you know the rest.
Second, about those 1988 arrests referenced in the sentencing article: Those arrests took place on April 30, 1988; five years to the day from the incident at Porter, but also the very day the Motorcyclists’ Rights Organization I was a state officer with had scheduled a statewide Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Rally. We had ambitiously slated massive gatherings in Amarillo and Galveston, and at the State Capital in Austin, to press for better awareness of motorcyclists in traffic and improved rider education. We hoped, of course, to make a good impression on the press – rarely kind to us during our legislative efforts – and perhaps convince the motoring public at large that we were just fun-loving motorcyclists, and not an existential threat to their safety.
How far do you suppose that pipedream got when we had to share our coverage on the evening news with reports of mass arrests, bombings, shootouts and the like? To this day, I wonder if the cops didn’t time those arrests for that day, just so they could upstage our event! 😒
As some of you know, I have long been a proponent of women riding their own bikes, so I pay attention to articles like the one posted below. Karan Andrea would have been an interesting person in her own right, for her determination and accomplishments, but she also had the good sense to fall in love with another 1974 Shovelhead, which makes her my sister…. or sister-in-law, at least. 😏
Karan wrote:
Riding, Wrenching, & Empowerment
Antique Motorcycle Club of America Riveters Chapter founder Karan Andrea brought a vintage Harley back to life, despite all odds
Note: per the Riveter Chapter’s website, they will host a run to Berea, Kentucky May 30 – June 2, 2023. Visit them at https://www.riveterchapter.com/ for more info.
Despite three years of struggling to learn to ride well, I never gave up. Today, I am the master of my 1974 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead, which I can not only ride, but wrench on. This photo was taken at the Shovelhead Reunion in Milwaukee last June by Mark Garcia, Big Machine Photography.
AMCA Riveter Founder’s Herstory
I started riding motorcycles in 2011 when I was 45 years old. Prior to that, I hadn’t been around bikes all that much. I never rode dirt bikes and didn’t have a parent or relative who rode. When I was 19 years old, I dated a guy for a minute who had a Yamaha Virago. I rode with him a few times and loved it! But after we broke up, I didn’t have the opportunity to ride a motorcycle again for 25 years.
At that point, I had a friend who had a motorcycle who was going through a rough patch in life. The only solace he had was riding, but he had a hard time getting himself to leave the house to go for a ride. I started asking him to take me for rides. I’d cover the gas, and we’d ride for hours.
After a while, he said, ‘You know, if you like riding that much, why don’t you get your license and get your own bike. That way, you don’t have to date some asshole in order to ride.’ My answer was, ‘I can do that?’ It never occurred to me that I could learn to ride a motorcycle. I had no idea how one learned to ride, but in some part of my mind I think I assumed that if you were a dude, you just automatically knew how, so of course I did not know how. I didn’t know any women who rode, although that wasn’t a huge factor because I’ve always done things that were non-traditional for a woman.
Learning to Ride a Motorcycle
My friend told me about a motorcycle class for beginners, and I went for it. I was a nervous wreck. I have no idea how I passed the riding evaluation, but I did it. There I was, an endorsed rider with no friggin’ clue how to ride a motorcycle. This is not a shortcoming of the class at all. The beginner’s class teaches you how to operate a motorcycle and teaches you the basics of safety, but we never went beyond the parking lot.
The only way to learn to ride a motorcycle, is to ride a motorcycle. Karan, meet anxiety, anxiety, Karan. The next three years were a struggle. I bought the wrong bike, was getting (no) help from the wrong person, and I just never felt comfortable riding. But I wanted to ride so badly, that I refused to give up.
When I left a damaging relationship in 2018, I was left with a 1974 Harley-Davidson FLH Shovelhead in my garage that was the most terrifying beast I had ever faced. That motorcycle needed a lot of work. It was barely ridable as it sat, and even after I conquered my fear and rode it, it was a physically exhausting—but strangely exhilarating—adventure. Along with needing major motor, clutch, transmission, and fork work, the bike needed to be completely rewired. Wrenching still intimidates me even though I will do it, but wiring… I was pretty sure I could do that.
Quite a few people told me I was crazy and that I would get frustrated and end up hauling it to a shop for them to finish. They said I didn’t know what I was doing, and I would screw it up and would never finish the job. My answer was, “So what? I’m gonna try.”
In winter of 2018, I screwed up the nerve to rewire this beast
Overcoming Obstacles
I did get some help (although it was the wrong help) and I built up some confidence. I taught myself how to read an electrical diagram and learned to trust my instincts with the bike, people, and myself. I finally finished the rewire job and took the Shovel on its first journey. I did a 1,000-mile trip, fixed a few things along the way, and never felt more in control of myself and my bike.
Again, people told me I was crazy to travel on this old motorcycle. What was I going to do if it broke down? My answer was always the same, “I will figure it out.” My second trip on the Shovelhead was 2,000 miles. During both trips the bike had minor problems, but I got some fabulous stories out of it, and I was forming a bond with that old Harley that I had never had with any other vehicle I have ever owned.
Nothing about riding or wrenching has come easily. I am grateful to the short list of people who have been so generous with information, advice, parts, and encouragement. I am also grateful to the longer list of people who tried to derail me, who said I’d never succeed, who tried to sabotage my efforts. Because in the end, I have shown myself who I am.
The first word I ever read as a child was SHELL. When I saw this aging service station during a motorcycle trip in 2019, I whipped around and went back for a photo. This is either in northern Kentucky or southern OhioIn 2021 Ernie Barkman crafted this seat rail for me and the Shovelhead’s official name became Atomic Shovel.I have graduated to hacking up other people’s motorcycles. This was another parking lot repair in 2021 on fellow vintage motorcycle rider Marjorie Kleiman’s Harley-Davidson FXR. Photo by Marjorie Kleiman.
As I read Karan’s article, I found two lines that really spoke to me, because they so perfectly mirror my own feelings. First, Karan wrote that, after teaching herself to rebuild and rewire the bike, she:
‘…took the Shovel on its first journey. I did a 1,000-mile trip, fixed a few things along the way, and never felt more in control of myself and my bike.’
That sense of competence and control Karan cites – the sensation I get from knowing my Shovelhead inside and out – is so precious to me. I’m pleased to know it is to her, as well.
She follows that by saying:
‘Again, people told me I was crazy to travel on this old motorcycle. What was I going to do if it broke down? My answer was always the same, “I will figure it out.” My second trip on the Shovelhead was 2,000 miles. During both trips the bike had minor problems, but I got some fabulous stories out of it, and I was forming a bond with that old Harley that I had never had with any other vehicle I have ever owned.’
The bond Karan mentions is why I still get loquacious AF about my Shovelhead after all these years. See previous post, f’rinstance. What can I say? 🤷♀️ The Bitch is in my blood, and my blood, sweat and tears are in hers. 😁
Thank you, Karan Andrea and Women Riders Now for sharing that essay with us. Sláinte!
When I was maybe seven or eight the boy next door came home from college on a toaster-tank BMW, and was giving the neighbor kids rides around the block. I begged and pleaded with my Mom – ‘PleaseI’llbecarefulI’llhangontightPleasecanIgoCanIgoPleaseI’llbecarefulPlease….’ – until she finally gave in. Yay! 😁👍
Gene and I were halfway around the block when I got this thought, like a crystal-clear voice in my head, that said ‘I’m going to HAVE one of these someday!’ The moment was so profound that, forty years later, I was able to take my wife to that exact spot and say ‘There! That’s where it all began!’ 🤷♀️
Right about there is where that lightning bolt inspiration struck me!
We were not allowed to have motorcycles when we were kids; not even minibikes, which were all the rage at the time. The closest I got to the chopper of my dreams was some plastic modelling kits and a Sting-Ray bicycle.
Not my Sting-Ray – this one is listed on eBay for $1200 😳 – but this is the color and year I had.
Of course, on the sly I rode anything with a motor – minibike, moped, dirtbike, whatever – whenever anyone was dumb enough to let me, but that wasn’t often. We lived in a ‘nice’ suburban town, and actual bikers were hard to find. The boy next door and Steve down the street, who had a BSA, were the only people I knew with real motorcycles, and they were **never** dumb enough to let me near the controls! 😆
As noted in previous posts, I spent my teen years drinking and drugging – a lot and very badly – and it wasn’t until I put all that aside, at the age of 21, that I could get serious about putting together the money for my first motorcycle. It took a year of sobriety to clean up my rather messy financial history, and working two jobs while going to school full-time on the GI Bill, but I finally got together the down-payment. With that in hand I got the nod from the credit union to begin shopping. Yay again! 😁👍
I toddled off to the Harley-Davidson dealership – I already knew I wanted a Harley – but the guy there was such a jackass that I turned around and walked out. Smart move, because half a block up the street I saw a Harley for sale in a used car lot. It was black, low, lean and mean, one of the prettiest things I’d ever seen, and looked like it might be everything I ever wanted.
I could not have been more right.
I called this biker I’d met in sobriety – a lawyer, of all things, who built choppers! – and asked him to come look at the bike with me. He came down and we went over the bike together. It was a 1974 Harley-Davidson Superglide FX with a 74 cubic inch shovelhead motor, a kickstarter (no electric start then or now) and disc brakes fore and aft. After he took it for a test ride (I did not yet have my motorcycle license) Wayne gave it the thumbs-up, and the deal was done. I completed the paperwork at the credit union, conveniently located just around the corner from the used-car lot, and spent a near-sleepless night as keyed up as a kid at Christmas.
The next day – April 11th, 1979 – I threw my leg over my very first Harley for the very first time. That’s right: Forty-four years ago today I answered the call I heard that long-ago afternoon, on the back of Gene Graf’s BMW. After years of wishing and wanting and dreaming about it, I finally HAD me one of those things! 😎
And forty-four years later, I still have that same motorcycle. I’ve had a few others along the way, but that one is my ride-or-die keeper. She (for she is a girl, make no mistake) is no longer black, and not as low or quite as lean as she was (neither am I, for that matter 😏 ) but she is still the prettiest thing I have ever seen. She’s still gorgeous, and righteous, and I still love her dearly.
Sad to say, a series of unfortunate events (primarily a disabling OTJ accident) have kept me off my one true love (machine division) for several years, but I still harbor a hope that we may still find a way to be together again.
However, in the meanwhile, and with the support of my one true love (human division) I have secured a different bike, better suited to my disabilities. She’s big and fat and shiny and loud, and so new-fangled and complicated I dare not touch most of her more intimate components, but I’ve already had my hands on her, a little bit, doing little fix-its and adjustments, and once that happens love is sure to follow. She’ll never displace my shovelhead – seriously, what could? – but I have a good feeling about her. 🥰
My new-to-me 2016 Harley-Davidson Freewheeler. Now all I have to do is unlearn forty-four years of training, practice and instinct I’ve accumulated riding a two-wheeler, and learn the proper handling of a three-wheeler. For those who don’t know: it’s a very different style of riding!
So, Happy Anniversary to my 1974 Harley-Davidson FX 1200 Superglide – my beloved shovelhead – and thank you, thank you, thank you for all the years of joy and adventure you brought me. Let’s go for forty-four more, eh? 😁
Yes, sir, that’s my baby. No, sir, I don’t mean ‘maybe.’ Yes, sir, that’s my baby now!
And don’t you go getting jealous of the new kid. She’s just here to help. 🤣
‘Art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man’ – – Martha Graham, Dancer and Choreographer – –
The very first article I ever published appeared in Easyriders, the groundbreaking magazine which was at once the LIFE, Saturday Evening Post and Reader’s Digest of the outlaw biker set. I wrote about tattoo removal – a topic I thought some readers might find interesting – after an encounter with a dermatologist at a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Hastings, Nebraska, who told me about a then-new technique for obliterating unwanted tattoos via laser. I won’t bore you with the details – the information is all woefully outdated anyway – but I ended my piece with the words
‘These days, even art is not eternal.’
However, barring catastrophic circumstances like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, where – in addition to thousands of lives, including my cousin Eddie – an estimated $110 million worth of art was destroyed, or the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of The Buddhas of Bamiyan, art really is eternal….
….and even those pieces lost or destroyed live on in memory.
….and all this to say ‘Hey! I got some cool stuff to show ya!’
An advert for prints of Dave Mann’s earliest posters. Chopperspublisher Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth was a wily self-promoter with a sharp eye for moneymaking opportunities. He had no problem exploiting the talents of young artists like Mann, and continued to make bank off Mann’s work long after Mann left his stable.
IN THE BEGINNING….
I don’t know who first attempted to paint or draw images of the biker life, but Dave Mann was certainly a pioneer. After selling some early paintings of biker life to Choppers magazine founder Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth (creator of the iconic ‘Rat Fink’ and a number of radically customized cars and motorcycles), Mann join the El Forastero Motorcycle Club (forastero is ‘stranger’ or ‘foreigner’ in Spanish) as a charter member of the club’s Kansas City MO chapter.
Hollywood Run was the painting Dave Mann’s friend and club brother Tiny showed to Choppers publisher Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth. Roth recognized Mann’s potential, quickly bought up as many of the artist’s paintings as he could, and turned them into a profitable line of posters.Another of Dave Mann’s early paintings for Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth features a wild desert party populated by outlaw bikers from numerous extant motorcycle clubs of the day.Dave Mann in 1970, aboard the panhead chopper he purchased from Hells Angels member Buzzard. BTW, Buzzard appears in Bill Ray’s book of photographs – Hells Angels of Berdoo ’65: Inside the Mother Charter (NYC, 2010, Bill Ray/Blurb) – and is mentioned in Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal work of ‘gonzo journalism’: Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (NYC, 1967, Random House)
In 1971 Mann answered an advert for a ‘motorcycle artist’, discovered in the back pages of a new biker magazine called Easyriders, and spent the remainder of his working life as in-house artist for the publication. His first centerfold painting for Easyriders appeared in October, 1971, and Mann reportedly produced artwork – centerfold paintings, story illustrations and adverts – for every issue from that first to his retirement in 2003, shortly before he passed away. His final piece, Sunset, appeared in the May 2004 issue.
One last toke for the road. Titled ‘Frisco Nights‘, this was Dave Mann’s first-ever centerfold for Easyriders. It appeared in the magazine’s third issue, in October, 1971. Mann reportedly created art for every issue between this and his final piece (below) published in May, 2004, along with additional illustrations for other magazines, book publishers, friends and collectors. That’s a hard-working artist!.
Sunset, May 2004 was Mann’s last original piece for Easyriders.
REPRESENT!
His earliest works were primitive – a cross between illustration and caricature – but as he gained experience Mann’s work took on a style reminiscent of the American painter Edward Hopper, who is best known for his iconic Nighthawks(1942). Look at the figures in Hopper’s work, and compare them to Mann’s. I certainly see the influence.
Edward Hopper The Nighthawks(1942)David Mann Midnight Run(June, 1972)Edward Hopper Summer Evening (1947)David Mann Pick-Up (Want Some Candy?)January 1974 Edward Hopper Gas (1940)David Mann Gas Stop (1967)
More than technique or style, however, Hopper and Mann shared the desire to illustrate and elevate the prosaic, the quotidian, the mundane everyday doings of regular people historically overlooked by representational artists. For Hopper it might be patrons seated in a late-night diner – an apparent oasis of light and warmth in an otherwise dreary cityscape – sharing space and yet isolated from one another, silent, bored. For Mann it could be the streetwalker ignoring her john to watch the more attractive, more enticing biker cruise by on his radical panhead chopper. Hopper might present a sweet moment between a young couple on a dark summer evening – you can almost hear the crickets singing – while Mann’s swain straddles a raked and stretched shovelhead as he chats up the object of his affections on a crisp autumn afternoon….
You get the point.
The Dilemma (September 1976) is one of my favorite Mann paintings of all time; I even have a small print of it framed above my office door. Dave’s attention to the minute details of this road-weary ‘rat’ panhead and rider is mind-boggling. Note the cracked and taped-together taillight lens, chipped paint on the fuel tank, mismatched tool bags strapped to the front forks and oil drips on the pavement below. Look at the rider’s military tattoos, too; his ragged cut-off vest, heavy engineer boots and greasy Levi’s, doubled up for added protection. Then there’s the quiet humor of the scene – a hot hippie hitchhiker headed to that Haven of Hedonism, San Francisco, and the biker with no place to put her! Sadly, this actually happened to my partner and I on our way to Sturgis. Our bikes were laden with camping gear, and we had no room to pick up two hitchhiking honeys we encountered just south of Oklahoma City! 😒 My rigid 1974 shovelhead and T.R.’s rigid jockey-shift ‘73 shovelhead chopper on the first Friday of August, 1982, packed and ready for the run to Sturgis.The Dilemma and the design for my Shovel Shop t-shirts. In the hall, vintage adverts for the Famous James motorcycles. See my post below about the marque, its history and my history with it.
And by ‘centerfold’ I merely refer to the fact that Mann’s work appeared in the center pages of each issue, where it could be removed (as so many of us did) and turned into a poster. Although many of his paintings included idealized images of women, his purpose was to document our lives as bikers, not provide masturbation motivation for horny teenagers!
STRAIGHT ON FOR YOU!
One perspective Mann relied on was full frontal….
….from his earliest efforts. This is Pacific Coast Highway Run, 1964Easyriders Video #43 cover artEasyriders Video #40 cover artEasyriders Video #29 cover artEasyriders Bikes & Babes Video cover artWinter Ride, date unknownA Cold Winter Ride, story illustration from Easyriders January 1990Excelsior-Henderson, October 1998First Ride of the Year, January 1993Helmet Protest, January 1996, highlighted a political position dear to most bikers’ hearts: the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a helmet when we ride. Even many of us who wear helmets by choice still believe the decision should be ours alone, and not left some government bureaucrat who has never ridden a motorcycle in his life. Mann revisited this theme over and over again through the years. This piece also shows his ability to capture complex objects like motorcycles at different angles in the same painting.Inside Pass appeared in BIKER, July 2000. Dave was as skilled in painting automobiles as he was motorcycles, and capturing the action of two moving vehicles pitted in a wheel-to-wheel race.Run to the Wall , date unknown. Many bikers are military veterans, and believe no service member should be left behind, so the cause of POWs and MIAs affects us deeply.In Memory of Lt. Col. ‘Smilin’ Jack Potter, U.S.A.F. is a loving tribute to Jacquie’s father.Even in self-portraiture: Dave Mann with Jacquie
Here is another of my favorites, a classic piece by Dave Mann:
Another favorite Mann painting. I’m unsure of the title – it may be First Ride of Spring – but I love the way it captures one of the happier moments in a biker’s life: hauling ass up a scenic road with his woman tucked in behind. I used this as inspiration for my own piece, seen below: a t-shirt design I created for the Motorcycle Rights Organization ABATE of Texas back in 1989.
My design as it appeared on t-shirts. This artwork predates the introduction of computers into my artistic toolkit, so please be kind. The central image was all done by hand, and the lettering created letter by letter, line by line with Letraset ® rub-on letters. Much to my surprise Letraset fonts are still available! 😱
Mann returned to that theme many times in his career.
Coming at You, April 1975It even inspired this homage by artist Shawn Dickinson, titled Wild and Wolfy
….as did Mann’s ‘Pacific Coast Highway Run’.
Werewolves on Wheels, Shawn’s tribute to Dave Mann’s Pacific Coast Highway Run….….and the original: Pacific Coast Highway Run, date unknown
Another favorite was the reverse: the motorcycle moving in a straight line away from the viewer. He used both angles to great effect.
Mann’s follow-up to Coming at You appeared in a Jammers Handbook. Mann’s attention to detail extended even to the smallest things, like the oil spatter up this passenger’s left shoulder, excess lubricant slung off the rear drive chain at speed. You could always spot a biker chick by those chain tracks, and you could tell if she was packin’ on a Big Twin or Sporty by which shoulder was marked. I pissed off more than one woman passenger when their nicest tops ended up ruined that way! 🤷♀️
Carnival, September 1987. Note the graffiti at right.Snow What appeared in BIKER, February 2003FREEDOM was a fundraising poster for some friends in Cleveland.Storm Jammin’ appeared in EasyridersMarch 1989 and again in BIKER in October 2005. This one gets me because I took a soggy ride like this, from Austin to East Texas, to lay to rest a friend who died too soon…. as if there were any other kind. 😒
THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES
Mann’s technical abilities as an artist are undeniable but, as clearly demonstrated here, for those of us who ride it was Mann’s ability to illustrate the everyday aspects of our lives as bikers which so endeared him to us. He captured the emotional element – the ‘inner landscape’ Ms. Graham referenced in her quote – in painting after painting.. It might be two bikers blasting down an L.A. freeway, beards and club colors flapping in the wind, as one passes a joint to the other.
Hollyweed, November 1976. Note the altered ‘Hollywood’ sign high above the highway.
It might be a biker on his low, lean, radically stretched chopper, glaring balefully at the cop writing out a traffic ticket.
Busted, December 1974. Damn cops ruin everything, don’t they?
It might be a woman frustrated and angry because her old man, the insensitive prick, just passed a beer joint when she desperately needed a potty break….
Hey, What About….! December 1982.
….or another one of my favorites. showing a woman curled up against her man’s back, safe and secure and sleepy after a weekend of riding and camping out under the stars, while he steers his radical chopper back to the brightly-lit city in the distance.
Homeward Bound, January 1975
One of Dave Mann’s most iconic images has been stolen and reproduced on everything from t-shirts and coffee mugs to wall tapestries, area rugs and more. In ‘Ghost Rider’ Mann equates the hard-riding biker at the foreground to the hard-riding ghostly cowboy keeping pace with him. Some of the later reproductions went the politically correct route of erasing the SS lightning bolts Mann’s biker has on his fuel tank….
….and that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother post! 😎
Ghost Rider, November 1983. Unofficial (read: stolen, ripped off, plagiarized) iterations of the image, on tapestries, t-shirts, et cetera, excised the SS lightning bolts from the fuel tank in a lame attempt at political correctness. If you see the Ghost Rider without lightning bolts you’re looking at a fake.
Mann covered breakdowns and break-ups, club life and solo riders, sleek choppers and road-warrior rat bikes, and brought to each painting the same skill and dedication to detail. He was our Frederic Remington, and we loved him for it.
Another favorite. Anyone who rides very long at all has been in a similar situation….
Middle of Nowhere, June 1981
….but try to make the best of it! 😆
Beer Run, July, 1978. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it!😁
BREAKING DOWN AND CRACKING UP!
Paul Simon once sang ‘Everything put together sooner or later falls apart,’ and that’s as true of motorcycles as anything else. In numerous paintings, Dave Mann captured the frustration and helplessness of that instant when your machine fails, and you realize there’s nothing you can do about it except sit and wait, or go for help.
Broken Primary Belt, October 1981.I’ve been here! 😡 Primary Belt, January 2002.
In the early ’80s, on a ride through the Central Texas Hill Country southwest of Austin, I stripped the teeth off my primary drive belt while pulling up a steep hill. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. It grieved me to interrupt my friends’ ride that way, but I was stuck.
BTW, that was one of the very few times my shovelhead rode home in the back of a truck.
One of the reasons I have always been psychotic about building my bikes to be bulletproof, and making sure I can fix all but the worst breakdowns with tools and spare parts in my road kit is because I cannot stand to be that helpless, hapless rider stranded beside the road. I’d rather have people depend on me than have to impose on friends or, worse still, depend on the kindness of strangers.
In this instance, when I got the bike home and went to replace the wasted primary belt, I learned that I couldn’t have replaced the belt by the side of the road even if I’d had a spare belt with me; that the inner primary cover (which can’t be removed without an impact wrench and clutch-hub puller) wouldn’t let me take the belt off the engine pulley! Since I had the inner primary cover off anyway, I took the opportunity to grind down the bosses on the inner primary so that I couldtake the belt off without removing the inner primary. That’s just how I roll! 😁
As an aside: I will never understand why some riders get angrywhen I mention tool kits and roadside repairs in that context. Seems to me everyone is better off if I can fix the problem by the side of the road and get on with the ride, rather than be forced to wait for a wrecker or a buddy with a trailer to come fetch me. Still, I’ve had riders – every one of them the sort I call ‘Born Again Bikers’ – get absolutely incensed at the notion that I am capable in that regard, as if my competence was – dare I say it? – a challenge to their manhood…. 🙄
And that’s a whole ‘nother post, too! 😏
Oh, look! There I am making a minor repair to my shovelhead while on a run to the annual ‘Blow-In’ at Jim’s Motorcycle Shop in Axtell. Because I had the know-how and tools to accomplish that task, our group ride was not interrupted. Fifteen minutes of wrench twiddling, a quick test-ride, and then me and my date and my gaggle of buddies were back out on the road again! 😎Lucky… or not. Broken Belt Bummer, March 1988.That kind of breakage happens often enough that it showed up in at least three of Dave Mann paintings, and in addition to my own adventure, I’ve seen it happen right in front of my eyes. Dog Breath, a good ol’ boy from Tennessee who worked with me at Bud’s, broke a belt on the street in front of the shop, trying to hotrod his shovelhead. Don’t see good ol’ steel chain doing something like that, do ya? 😆 Or do ya? Check out the next painting.
Of course, it could be worse. You could be well and truly fucked, like this poor couple….
Fuckin’ Rain! Thunderstruck! September, 1982. I have seen smaller images of this painting for years, and noticed the rain and the woman retrieving the broken drive chain. It wasn’t until I discovered a larger image on the Dave Mann Facebook page (link at bottom of column) that I spotted the broken spokes on the rear wheel. If that doesn’t make you want to flip off the sky gods nothing will!
BIKER’S CODE
However, if you’re lucky enough to break down while riding with others, the Biker’s Code says ‘No biker left behind.’ By hook or crook or boot or rope, you’re both getting home.
This is titled Dark Roadside Repairs (April 1982) but it’s obvious to anyone who wrenches on bikes (or has ridden long enough to run out of gas) that the guy on the green bike (with a small Sportster tank) has run out of gas, and the guy on the black bike (with the larger-capacity fat bob tanks) has dropped his fuel line and is draining petrol into a beer can salvaged out of the ditch, to get the guy on the green bike to the next service station. I have done that, and had it done for me, so I made the task a lot simpler by running a single tank held in place with a big rubber band. I could just remove the rubber band, take the fuel line loose, lift the tank off my bike and give the other guy all the fuel he’d need. No muss, no fuss, no scrounging for ‘clean enough’ beer cans or bottles in roadside ditches!Sunrise Sunday Morning, Texas Panhandle, June 30, 1991
And if all else fails….
Push Home, November, 1978
Another scene most riders will recognize (or cringe from): the bike that just…. Will. Not. Start! I’ve never owned a Sportster, but I started my share during my years of working at Bud’s. I’ve also been that pissed at my shovel, when it’s been particularly coldblooded and cantankerous. Fortunately for me, those instances have been few and far between….
….and the next sound you hear will be me knockin’ on wood! 😱
Damn Sporty!February, 1979Won’t Start, May 1979Kickin’ the Bitch, Bee Caves, Texas, circa 1982
Sadly, our machines aren’t the only things that betray us.
You can feel the rider’s frustration at the cager who recklessly or maliciously ran him off the road, then drove off and left him. This appeared in January 1986, as a story illustration.
Bikers are all too familiar with the cager who seems to have it in for us. Popular wisdom advises riders Don’t ride as if they can’t see you; ride as if they’re aiming for you! Unfortunately, I know from bitter experience that sometimes they actually are aiming for us!
This is the 1987 FXRS I spent two years rebuilding and adapting to my disabilities. I added the finishing touches to her on a Friday afternoon. Two days later, on a beautiful sunlit Sunday in late October, Jackie and I were riding on a narrow two-lane road east of Taylor, Texas, when a kid in a pickup going the opposite direction decided to pass a slower-moving automobile. He crossed the double-yellow line, looked me right in the eye and kept on coming. Then he drove away, leaving us for dead. 🤬 Fortunately, neither of us were badly injured, but the bike was totaled. FMTT! I got to enjoy my new-to-me FXRS for less than forty-eight hours before it was snatched away from me! Forty-eight fucking hours! Damn, I was pissed!Still am, in fact!
But if one of the bastards gets you, what can you do but heal as best you can, and dream of getting back in the wind where you belong.
Medicating a Broken Leg, October 1976
If you’ve ever built a motorcycle, you’ll recognize the anguished look on this fellow’s face, as he watches his freshly painted fuel tank head for a collision with the garage floor.
Oh, Shit! 1974
Mayhaps he needs a helper. Maybe a curvaceous blonde? Someone half-naked, perhaps? Yeah, that’ll do the trick! 😆
In Mann’s art, women are primarily placed in secondary roles as backrests, bike washers, beer fetchers and sexual conquests. In Mann’s world, women rarely ride their own. In fact, of the hundreds of paintings Mann produced, I’ve only found a baker’s dozen thus far depicting women riders. However, to his credit, man or woman, when he painted them he brought the same skills, artistic integrity and vision to bear.
Big Bertha, December 1976, A woman on her own bike was still something of a novelty to a lot of bikers in the ’70s, even though women have been active in motorcycling from the very beginning. Look up the Van Buren sisters, or Effie and Avis Hotchkiss, for starters. Bertha, Dragon Ladies MCRide Hard, Die Fast, 1968Devil Dolls MC in BIKER(March, 2001) is a real-life ‘outlaw’ club for women.I Just Don’t Give Up, July 1999, was a story illustration. She’s riding a Servicar with a homemade taco box on the back. 45″ Servicars and solo rides were a popular choice for women riders back in the ’60s and ’70s – I dated a woman who rode a 45″ solo in the early ’80s – but nowadays women ride anything the boys can ride, from high-tech high-speed sportbikes by the Japanese and European marques to full-dress Harleys and Indians.Jesus Chrysler, April 1998His and Hers, July 1987. Sportsters for the girls and Big Twins for the boys, with matching paint jobs. The boys are quite amused that they’ve got the women packing all the gear So much for chivalry, huh?Solo Flight, a story illustration from Easyriders, November 1999. Coincidentally, November 1999 is when my solo flight ended! 😁Merry Christmas, Babe! This appeared in BIKER, December, 1999. Technically, the woman is not riding the bike, but she is receiving one as a Christmas gift. I think we can safely assume she’ll be riding as soon as the snow melts, and she gets some leather on over that lacy lingerie! 😏L’alibi, March 1997. Mann’s wife, Jacquie, made frequent appearances in her husband’s work for Easyriders. She’s shown here at the controls of a hot pink Evo constructed in Pro-Street Style.Easyriders Video #13 cover artWild Women Don’t Worry, Wild Women Don’t Sing the Blues! I have no idea what the actual title is, but every time I see this painting that old tune by the late folk-blues singer Judy Roderick comes to mind.…….and Wild Women will look good on the cover of an Easyriders tattoo video!
Finally, what could be finer than doing something you love, like riding, and looking over to see the person you most love in this world enjoying the same thing?
Sunday Morning, July 1979.
I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON!
One of the downsides of biker life is the occasional brush with the law.
Noise Infraction, September 1977.
I’ve gotten a couple of these over the years. One was right after I’d installed brand new mufflers on my bike! Turns out I was riding my motorcycle in that trooper’s personal ‘No Biker Zone’. I’ve learned there are a lot of those in this state. 🙄 I’ve come to see ‘too loud’ tickets as a sort of ‘road-use tax’; nothing to do but pay the piper.
My best road dog learned that the hard way. We were jamming through West Texas enroute to the Four Corners region when we were tagged by a state trooper near Sweetwater, Texas. On a busy Interstate Highway packed full of noisy highballing tractor-trailers and speeding cagers, he spotted us coming the opposite direction, doubled back and pulled us over. He actually claimed he could hear our exhausts over the noise of the semis and pickup trucks, despite the fact that my exhaust system was in excellent condition, and my partner’s was almost new. The trooper ignored the modified pickup that blasted past us as we stood there (leaving us all with tinnitus) and wrote us both tickets for ‘exhaust too loud.’
The first time I received a ‘too loud’ ticket, over a decade earlier, I was incensed because, as it happened, my mufflers were brand-new at the time. How could this asshole write me a ticket? I went so far as to call the Attorney General’s office, to see if this was even legal, and was told the law leaves ‘too loud’ to the discretion of the officer making the traffic stop. How can you argue against that in a court of law? You can’t, so I paid up, and gained the ‘road-use tax’ perspective.
In the Sweetwater incident, I paid my fine before we left the jurisdiction. I am scrupulous about such things, because I never want to give a cop an excuse, like an unpaid traffic ticket, to pull me off my bike. If they want me they’re gonna have to make something up!
However, my partner, who had never been through this, was overcome with righteous indignation, and swore he’d fight this outrage. Sure enough, when we got back from our week on the road, he had his motorcycle inspected, gathered all pertinent documentation, closed his clinic for two days and hied himself out to Sweetwater to wage war against injustice.
The upshot? He lost two days out of his practice, the cost of travel to Sweetwater and overnight accommodations, and had to pay a fine and ‘court costs’ amounting to more than three times what I’d paid the day I got the ticket. I refrained from saying ‘I told you so,‘ but I did tell him so! 😆 As I said: nothing to do but pay the piper and get on down the road.
A final note: I mentioned the Sweetwater stop to my attorney at the time, who specialized in motorcycle-related law, and he said ‘Oh, that was Trooper _______.’ Apparently, the fellow who stopped us was renowned statewide for his hatred of bikers. 🤷♀️ Whatcha gonna do?
Welcome to Daytona Ticket in IRON HORSE, June, 1981
We’ve all had close calls like this one, too.
Nobody Talks, Everybody Walks, September 1981Run Heat, July 1975.In the early ’80s I was part of a pack of about forty motorcycles enroute to a party at Lake Buchanan when we got jacked up by a battalion of LEOs of every stripe. Every cop in the county must have been there! We had local yokels, county mounties, smokies, probably a dogcatcher or two, all drawing down on us with shotguns and automatic rifles!It was a nice day for a ride with friends until the po-po came ’round. They ran us through the mill – license, tags, VINs, warrantless searches – and came up with exactly one warrant, for an unpaid traffic ticket. Out of forty of us, they got to arrest one! I guess we weren’t the roving band of criminal kingpins they thought we’d be! 😂
But sometimes the heat is more than just an inconvenient traffic stop or speeding ticket. Too many bikers have wasted years inside prison walls, and Mann showed their lives, as well.
Bum Beef illustrated a short story in Easyriders. FWIW, I never saw a prisoner’s toilet looking that nasty. In my experience, most cons keep their houses spotless, and especially their toilets.Prison Memoriesillustrated another short story, about a convict who watches a young dirt-biker tearing up the fields outside the barred windows of his cell, and how the boy inspires him. One way that Easyriders stood out from all the other motorcycle magazines was with its publication of short fiction by a number of talented authors. Larry ‘Rabbit’ Cole was a particular favorite, as was Jody Via. I take great pride in the fact that, in addition to my first article, Easyridersalso published the first short story I ever sold!😁Sadly, Dave Mann did not create the illustration for it. What a feather in my cap that would have been!
On a brighter note, here Mann captures the joy on a rider’s face as he clears those gates. The first things he sees are his girl, a bottle of Jack, and his prized shovelhead chop. As an added bonus: Dave Mann and Jacquie stand at far right, ready to welcome him back to the world.
Prison Release, August 1982
HISTORY LESSON
Mann knew the history of our tribe, too, from the streets of Hollister, where it all began….
Wild One, March 1993, celebrates the ‘Hollister Riot’ of 1947, a raucous motorcycle rally and party that got out of hand, and gave rise to the whole outlaw biker phenomenon. In response to negative press about the incident, a spokesman for the American Motorcycle Association (as it was then known) reportedly claimed that the rowdies at Hollister were ‘outlawed’ by the AMA, which meant they would not be permitted to take part in AMA-sanctioned events. The AMA later went on to assure America that ‘99% of motorcyclists are upstanding, law-abiding citizens.’ It turned out the remaining 1% were just fine with the notion of being ‘outlaws’ – part of the elite rejected by the AMA – and were soon sporting patches declaring themselves ‘one-percenters’. The honor is jealously guarded by those who claim it, and anyone wearing the ‘1%’ patch or tattoo had best be prepared to defend it! The infamous ‘Hollister riots’ photograph by Barney Peterson, which appeared in LIFE two weeks later, cemented in the minds of most Americans the image of motorcyclists as lawless, drunken ruffians. Unfortunately, the photo was staged. Peterson, assigned to cover the story, arrived too late to witness any of the ‘riot’ itself. Not wanting to miss out on his commission, he grabbed this fellow, later identified as Eddie Davenport of nearby Tulare. Peterson sat him on a motorcycle parked at the curb and artfully arranged bottles around the motorcycle, to make it seem the entire town was overrun by drunks on two wheels!
….through the early days of the custom bike scene.
Ape Hanger Days (December, 1973) is one of Mann’s most widely recognized and reproduced images, topped only by Ghost Rider (November, 1983). From the bared brick behind the stucco wall to the ragged cut-off Levi’s jacket and the grease spattered on the rim and sidewall of the rear tire, the detail is astounding, and Angelo’s sweet little panhead is period correct and perfect in every way! The swastika is also period correct, although to Angelo the broken cross likely did not mean what it signifies today.Only the gods know how many motorcycles (and paintings, and drawings, and tattoos….) Dave Mann’s works have inspired. This is a note-for-note replica of Angelo’s panhead from ‘Ape Hanger Days‘ by a fellow from Florida named Hollywood Tig.
A RABBIT HOLE:
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go down a rabbit hole for just a moment, to show you another painstaking replica: the late tattoo artist Richiepan’s reproduction of Dave Mann’s own red rigid-framed shovelhead, as pictured below.
Crazy Dave’s Broad-Slide, AKA Slip-Slidin’ Away or Brodie! above.Dave often appeared in his own artwork. This image is particularly prized by fans because it features his shovelhead in action, showin’ class in front of a joint named ‘The Shores’, not far from where Dave and Jacquie lived. Below is Richiepan’s tribute bike.Richiepan’s tribute bike in its prime.Richiepan with his tribute to Dave Mann, prior to the disaster.The Dave Mann tribute bike, and several others, after the trailer broke loose from the truck.Oh, the humanity!
My Old Gang (May 1979) depicts a number of Mann’s brothers in the El Forastero Motorcycle Club. Per David’s Facebook page (link at bottom of column) they are, from left: Tom Fugle, Greycat, Tiny, Skip Taylor and Dan Jungroth. They are often featured in Mann’s other paintings, as well.
….the custom bike movement of the Seventies….
Florida Freeway, October 1973
….the Eighties….
Family, August 1986
….the Nineties….
Cruisin’ Colorado, August 1998
….and into the new century.
Mondo, June 2001, is Mondo Parra of Denver’s Choppers, a respected custom builder from a long-lived, well known and historic chopper shop.
He gave us the prophetically named Last Call….
Last Call, painted shortly before he retired, appeared in BIKERJune 2003
….and a glimpse into the future, come what may.
Future Riders appeared in BIKEROctober, 1999
HEARTBREAKING….
So many incredible paintings, but one of the images that most touches me is this, depicting a rider on his rigid shovelhead; the rider and bike from Ghost Rider, sans SS lightning bolts and cowboy. This time, the biker is alone in the desert hills, but the shadow behind him tells us he’s missing his woman, wishing she were still packing behind him for the long ride, tucked in behind him where she belongs. The tattoo on his arm and the title – In Memory Of… – suggest that she’s not just out of his life, but altogether gone from this world. So much emotion and history packed into one small frame!
Thankfully, I’ve never lost a lover to death, but I do know the ache of yearning for something you once possessed, and will never have again.
In Memory Of…, appeared in the August 1999 issue of BIKER. As noted below, it was painted with magazine staffer Clean Dean in mind. Dean had recently lost his wife to cancer, and Dave thoughtfully used Dean and Karen as models for the shadow figure on the rock wall.
Finally, another appearance by the artist himself.
Here’s the Mann himself in happy days, with the shovelhead that inspired Richiepan’s replica. He is pictured with his brother ‘Wild Bill’ and friend Squirrel.
DAVID WILLIAM MANN, September 10th, 1940 to September 11th, 2004. R.I.P.
SCANDINAVIAN countries are known for their long dark winters. Causing those Viking knights to take refuge in their homes, only to come back out again in Spring. As a Head of Design at a Norwegian distillery, Swedish born (but 1/4th Norwegian..) David Höök is dealing with liquor all day long, so rather than drinking those dark freezing nights away, he was looking for another way to get through the winter period.
Only a couple of years ago he took up the art of customizing when he suddenly had space available after buying a new house.
Softie for Softails
David is a softie for Harley softails and he decided to use this frame for his winter project. The combination with a late generation Evo 1340cc engine felt like the right choice for him. Upon making his mind up he locked himself up in his shed only to reappear in Spring with this ‘Dull Boy’! (see video)
‘Dull Boy’?
The nickname got us wondering where he got the inspiration from. Looking at the way the bike came out, we would have expected stuff like ‘mean machine’ or ‘nasty nailer’.
David explains: “At first I considered to make it look like a newer H-D Breakout, but then I saw a late night re-run of the 1980’s movie “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson and it has one of my favourite movie scenes of all time where the proverb “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is central.”
“I decided there and then to build the bike based on that and it felt natural to make it look like it had been through a lot. I always plan my builds thoroughly in advance to the smallest of details so I had the everything pretty much worked out to before I started on the bike.”
Please elaborate
Whilst on the subject of sources of inspiration, Bikebrewers team decide to pry a little bit deeper. On our query where his vision for this build originated the Viking builder retorted:
“Being the bike nerd I am, I spend a lot of time looking at bikes on Instagram, Pinterest, etc., picking up ideas here and there. Last year I came upon the work of Joe Morris (Jmoto Speedshop and Gallery) and something clicked.
His work really opened my eyes to drawing and painting on bikes, instead of just painting everything black as I had done on my previous builds. As a kid, I used to spend a lot of time drawing and worked as an illustrator for quite some time, but lost interest in this art along the way.
Thinking of bikes as a “canvas” provided me with at creative outlet that I didn’t know I had missed.”
“Gentlemen, roll up your sleeves and light those torches”
With the creative part in place, it was time to get dirty and dive into the technical stuff. According to David he did not meet too many serious challenges working this project. The only minor obstacle was fitting the Road King rear wheel into the frame. It took him a lot of lathing and grinding to get the job done, but other than that things went fairly easy.
Meeting hurdles during a build often requires outside insights before being able to take the next step. “So David, when was the moment you needed an extra hand? “ we asked him.
“My brother, who has a lathe, helped me turn down the rear pulley to fit the 20mm belt and I left the seat to an upholsterer to cover it in leather. I’ve started to learn to do this kind of work myself now though. I like to be able to do everything on my builds, and I really enjoy working with leather.”
Final words • What do you like the most? o “The spare fuel bottle” • Anything particular we need to know about this project? o “It has “All work and no play makes make Jack a dull boy” written in places you would never think of…” • Last but not least, how does it ride? o “Like a dream”
Details of the build
• Estimated budget: € 13-14K • 1998 Harley Davidson FXSTC, nicknamed “Dull Boy” • Stock Evo 1340 with S&S Super E carb, Andrews EV-27 cam, adjustable pushrods and Crane Cams single fire ignition • Cycle Shack drag pipes • Lowered 1.5-2″ front and rear. Progressive shocks and springs • Wheels are from 2009+ Road King. 17×3 with 130×80 in the front and 16×5 with 200×60 in the rear. • Pulley is modified to fit a 20mm belt. • Lower fork legs and brake calipers are also from 2009+ Touring models • Handlebar is a 40″ Highway Hawk Fat Flyer bar. • Headlight a 6.5″ housing modified to house the stock H-D 5.75” headlight. • Mirrors are Arlen Ness mini ovals. • Extended forward controls • Braided brake lines from HEL Performance • Kellermann Atto DF tail/indicator lights • Front indicators are small LED’s from Dock66.de • Custom made seat • Custom made rear fender • Left swingarm bag is from bikebeauty (I’ve added the wear and the lettering). • The right one is from bikersgearaustralia
Builder’s details: • Name: David Höök • Location: Oslo, Norway • Day job: Head of design at a distillery. • E-mail: david@dullboycustoms.com • Website: www.dullboycustoms.com • Facebook: dullboycustoms • Instagram: davidhook
To which I replied:
IMO, rat bikes are organic creatures that evolve over time. They slowly accumulate a patina of baked-on oil, mud and rust. They rack up dings and tweaks and cracks, and develop quirks that render the bike virtually unrideable to anyone but its owner. Maybe a part replaced on the fly doesn’t match the rest of the bike. Maybe something off a Honda or Hodaka was jiggered to fit your Harley, or vice-versa. Maybe it’s a Sportster tank on a Knucklehead, an Evo engine stuffed in a Panhead frame, or the forks off a ’66 cop bike bolted to an AMF-era Shovelhead. Maybe a good road dog gifts you a sticker, a bandana or some other memento, so you slap it on there, somewhere, and it gives you an excuse to tell everyone who asks about the great partner who gave it to you….
….and so it goes. The end product (if a rat bike can ever truly be an ‘end product’) is a machine of unquestionable authenticity and experience, skillfully crafted by mileage and time.
Buildinga ‘rat bike’ is, conversely, the ultimate in poseur pretense and inauthenticity: far worse than throwing mud on the bike you trailered to Sturgis to make it look like you rode the entire way, or taking sandpaper to a new pair of boots to make them look scuffed and well-worn. People who don’t know any better might think your fresh-from-the-workshop ‘rat bike’ is all kinds of nifty, but you will always know in your heart of hearts that it’s just a facsimile, a knockoff, a cheap shortcut to the real deal.
None of this is intended to take away from David Höök’s abilities as a builder of motorcycles. He can obviously be thorough, thoughtful and attentive to detail. Were he to turn his talents to building a proper chopper, or a new twist on the café or bobber or street pro, or even a straight-up custom Softail a la the Fat Boy, I feel certain Mr. Höök could create something more worthy of his talents. If this ‘Dull Boy’ is actually, honestly, the very best he can do, then I fear Mr. Höök truly is a dull boy, and no amount of beer will fix that.
I was eager to see if Mr. Betist might share my critique with his readers. 🤷♀️ Instead, he deleted the entire article! 🤣🤣🤣
Sonny Barger joined the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club the same year I was born, and was still a member in good standing when he passed away on June 29th, 2022. That’s one long career!
Myself, I never met the man – to the best of my knowledge I never met any member of his club – but Barger was still a big influence in my life. He features prominently in Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (Random House, 1967) and parts of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1968), and my nascent view of what it meant to be a motorcyclist – the life path I’d already chosen for myself – was informed by Barger’s and his brothers’ exploits. Not for me the ‘nicest people on a Honda’ as the infamous mid-’60s advert suggested. I would be a biker….
….and that’s what I did.
Aside from Evel Knievel, who was much more masochist than motorcyclist, Sonny Barger is assuredly the most famous biker in the world, and was in the news numerous times throughout his tenure. For example, after members of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, which Sonny served as President, broke up an antiwar demonstration in October, 1965, Sonny held a press conference in which he foreswore violence against future protests because ‘Any physical encounter would only produce sympathy for this mob of traitors.’ He also read a telegram he’d sent then-President Lyndon Johnson, volunteering his club brothers for ‘behind the line duty in Vietnam’ as ‘a crack group of trained gorillas [sic]’ who would ‘demoralize the Vietcong and advance the cause of freedom.’
Hells Angel MC member Michael Walter is led away after attacking antiwar protesters in 1965.Sonny Barger holds press conference in November, 1965, to renounce violence against antiwar protesters and read a telegram sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson. He suggested Hells Angels members serving as ‘a crack team of trained gorillas [sic] would demoralize the Vietcong and advance the cause of freedom.’
Sonny was also the voice of the Hells Angels after the disastrous Altamont Speedway concert in December, 1969, which resulted in the stabbing death of a eighteen-year-old African American named Meredith Hunter. Although accounts differ as to why they were present, the Angels had been sitting on the front edge of the low-slung stage, acting as a human barrier between the crowd and the performers. Hunter, who had been tossed off the stage by Hells Angels during a previous altercation, returned with a handgun and began waving it around, firing at least one shot into the crowd. Hells Angel member Alan Passaro stabbed and disarmed Hunter, who later died of his wounds.
The next morning, as the talking heads on local radio station KSAN attempted to unravel the chaotic stream of events, Sonny Barger called in and gave his club’s side of the story – the only official statement the club ever offered about the concert or the killing. Barger defended his patch holders, telling radio host Stefan Ponek ‘You can say anything you want and you can call them people flower children and this and that, and there was three hundred thousand people there approximately or whatever they say, and I guarantee you that the largest majority of them were there to have a good time, but there was a couple thousand of them that was there looking for trouble.’
Brushing aside the host’s attempt to cut in, Barger went on to say ‘Some of them people out there ain’t a bit better than what some of the people think of the worst of us, man, and it’s about time they realized it….’
The incident at Altamont and Barger’s telephone call to the radio station were captured on film by documentarians Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, and the resulting movie, Gimme Shelter, was released in 1970. One week after its premiere Hells Angel Alan Passaro went on trial, charged with murdering Meredith Hunter. However, when the film was played in court, it clearly showed Passaro acting in defense of self and third parties, and he was acquitted of all charges.
Given the Hells Angels’ hard-won reputation as thuggish brutes prone to violence and lawlessness, Barger was preternaturally media savvy – an excellent spokesman for his club and a wily self-promoter. He finagled parts for himself and other Angels in a couple of biker films – Hells Angels on Wheels with Adam Roarke and future Easy Rider star Jack Nicholson, and Hells Angels ’69, starring ’60s heartthrob Jeremy Slate, who later played the biker gang leader in The Born Losers.
He was also in the headlines for his numerous arrests, on charges ranging from drugs and weapons charges to conspiracy and murder and, while acquitted of the more serious charges, still spent several years in prison. During this time he gave several interviews to motorcycle magazines, including two for Supercycle, published in February and December, 1979.
Sonny speaks, and the ‘Voice of the American Biker’ listens.
During these years, and despite his numerous legal woes, Sonny discovered that he was a marketable commodity. The ‘Free Sonny’ t-shirts his wife sold during his incarceration were wildly popular, and other merchandise soon followed, but he really hit the jackpot when he teamed up with writers Keith and Kent Zimmerman and penned his memoir, Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club (William Morrow, 2000).
The book quickly became a best-seller, so he followed up with two biker-themed crime novels also co-authored by the Zimmerman Brothers – Dead in 5 Heartbeats and 6 Chambers, 1 Bullet (William Morrow, 2004 and 2006). He released a collection of road tales titled Ridin’ High, Livin’ Free: Hell-Raising Motorcycle Stories (William Morrow, 2003) and Freedom: Credos from the Road (William Morrow, 2005). Finally, with Darwin Holstrom, he co-authored Let’s Ride: Sonny Barger’s Guide to Motorcycling (William Morrow, 2010) in which he dissed American motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, for decades the only motorcycle Hells Angels were permitted to ride. In what can only be seen as heresy by those loyal to the brand, Barger wrote:
In terms of pure workmanship, personally, I don’t like Harleys. I ride them because I’m in the club, and that’s the image, but if I could I would seriously consider riding a Honda ST1100 or a BMW. We really missed the boat by not switching over to the Japanese models when they began building bigger bikes. I’ll usually say “Fuck Harley-Davidson.”
Sonny Barger
Sonny’s final contribution to the literature of motorcycling seems to be his massive scrapbook-styled tome, Sonny: 60 Years Hells Angels, published by the French imprint Serious Publishing in 2017. Copies are currently listed on Amazon at $357 USD! 😳 I swear, I did not pay even a fifth of that for my copy! 😎
Anyway, here is the first of the two 1979 interviews:
Supercycle, February 1979Supercycle, February 1979Supercycle, February 1979Supercycle, February 1979Supercycle, February 1979Supercycle, February 1979
If enough folks are interested, I’ll post the second interview soon, along with some other articles about this and other clubs.
Why I Ride a Slow, Uncomfortable, Unreliable, Noisy Motorcycle
Why I ride a Harley-Davidson with 17-inch ape hanger handlebars, a massive sissy bar that has the technical sophistication of a very large lawn mower?
Photo by Anne Watson, annewatson photography
May 28, 2013 at 1:29pm ET by: Tim Watson
If you ever saw my motorcycle you’d think I was a complete idiot. You would ask yourself why on earth would someone ride something with 17-inch ape hanger handlebars, a massive sissy bar that looks like a throwback from an early 1970s biker film bolted to a motorcycle that has the technical sophistication of a very large lawn mower?
It’s also noisy. Very noisy. Under hard acceleration it sounds like a moose bellowing as if someone had just slammed its testicles in a car door.
I honestly didn’t want it to be like that. But when my bike left the Harley-Davidson factory its stock engine set-up meant it ran so lean that the heat from the air-cooled motor made it almost impossible to ride here in California when temperatures climb into the 80s.
So I changed out the stock pipes. But then I was told I needed a new air filter and a re-map of the engine. All of that didn’t make my motorcycle much faster but it did suddenly come alive. And it sort of cooled down.
Its exhaust can be truly obnoxious which is why I ride with a light hand on the throttle in built-up areas. When there’s nobody about and just me and an open road I revert to the moose bellowing. But after a while it can make even my head hurt and then I wonder about my sanity and why I ride this damned bike.
I have read and re-read the countless things I could do to make its V-twin 96-ci engine faster and perform better. But I’m not convinced. I look at my bike and I am not sure that it is either.
At idle it shakes like a carnival ride and if I look down for too long the vibrations make my vision go blurry and then my hands go numb.
I hate the fact every single bolt and fastening has to be glued in place to stop them falling out. Before each ride I always have to check it over so it doesn’t leave me standing at an intersection with nothing more than the handlebars, a seat and a pile of parts.
The ape hanger bars were an after thought. I’d seen some of the Mexican low rider motorcycles in my neighborhood with mean looking dudes using them on their bikes.
I’ll admit they look preposterous (not the Mexican dudes) and I have lost count of the number of people who ask me precisely why I have them. I can’t give them a satisfactory answer. I just like ape hangers.
I did have an idea once of how I wanted my bike to look. I thought a sort of 1950s bobber style with some classic retro parts. But it’s become a bit of a mish-mash and not quite how I envisaged it would turn out.
Photo by Tim Watson
I paid good money for a special order 32-inch sissy bar for the back of my bike. Some people have said looks like I am riding a remote control motorcycle or others have asked if I ever receive radio wave interference through it. It serves absolutely no purpose, rattles like hell all the time and makes getting on or off the bike a contortionist’s act. But I like the way it looks.
In a moment of madness I once took the front fender off. But this resulted in the bike and my face being sand blasted from road grit. Even an artfully tied bandana between the forks when it rained meant all that happened was a jet of water was thrown off the tire and straight up my nose. In a matter of hours the fender went back on.
I also kept the stock solo seat too. But if I were honest it would be more comfortable sitting on a piece of cardboard. There’s no back support and I feel I can ride over cigarette butts and tell you if they’re filtered or unfiltered. But I like the feedback from the road that it gives me even if on long rides it kills my back.
There’s an ugly gash on my bike’s left peg where I thought I could easily squeeze between a parked car and a wall to ride down a back alley. And there’s a dent the size of a dime on the front of the gas tank, caused by a rock flung out of a truck tire on the freeway. I’ve left it as a reminder of what that would have done to my face if the rock had hit me.
The factory fit rear brake light, which some say looks like a limp chrome dick, works intermittently. The rudimentary fuel gauge that may well have come off a 1960’s child’s pedal car some times pops out of the tank when I least expect it.
And I constantly have to check the primary plug for leaks as I over torqued it once during an oil change and stripped the thread. The chopper-style headlight I bought for it and which replaced the perfectly serviceable original light, is about as useful as a candle in the wind. But in daylight and probably only to my eyes it looks good.
Of course there are far better bikes out there I could have bought. There are many that are faster and nicer looking that probably have more engineering sophistication in their front brake lever than my entire motorcycle.
But herein lies the problem. For everything that irritates me about my bike it always without fail makes me smile every single time I get on it.
I have ridden it through empty deserts, up mountains and across, around and through nine states covering more than 8,000 miles in the process. I have nearly been taken out by an 18-wheeler on a downhill mountain pass and I once ran over a rattlesnake with it in the Mojave Desert.
My bike has taken me though some astonishing U.S. backwater towns in 100 plus degree heat and then a few hours later up into the mountains and over snow covered roads.
And, just like legendary Western lawman Wyatt Earp, I too once rode into Tombstone, Arizona, on it.
It’s my motorcycle. It drives me nuts at times but it’s been through a lot with me and has now become a part of my life. And for that reason alone I will never, ever sell it.
And my response? Well, it’s like this….
Why I Ride a Slow, Uncomfortable, Unreliable, Noisy Motorcycle
I too ride a motorcycle that is slower than the latest whiz-bang showroom models, but then, its powerplant is a forty-eight-year-old shovelhead which was tractor-engineered at birth and is still virtually box stock. It is smaller than the smallest late-model engine, still fitted with its factory carburetor and cam, rudimentary exhaust and (gasp!) a points-and condenser ignition system! That’s downright barbaric, isn’t it? and especially when you realize that my motorcycle has never had an electric starter. That’s right; kick-start only, kids, just the way Grandpa did!
My shovelhead does have solid lifters – more for reliability and convenience than performance – and a belt-drive primary. However, the belt is for convenience, as well, and whatever low-end performance boost it might have provided has been offset by the 25-tooth countershaft sprocket I installed to regain my highway top-end. My bike is built to go places, but I don’t have to break any land speed records making the trip.
And when I say ‘built to go places’ I mean that in every sense.
My motorcycle is not uncomfortable. It began its life as a 1974 FX 1200 Superglide, with the heavy OEM swingarm frame and lightweight narrow-glide forks. I played with different saddles and handlebars, added highway pegs and a set of wide-glide forks off a 1966 Police Special, but my motorcycle never became truly comfortable on long rides until I switched from the stock swingarm frame to an OEM 1954 rigid wishbone.
Me and The Bitch (and Rob Darnstaedt’s Low Rider) at the Terrace Apartments off South Congress Avenue in South Austin, circa 1979 or early 1980.
I can hear the Greek chorus now, shouting ‘Impossible! Absurd!’ but it’s true, nonetheless. With the rigid frame and a frame-mounted LaPera butt-bucket saddle, I have ridden all over the Central Plains and Rocky Mountain States, from Texas to South Dakota, from Louisiana to Arizona – numerous 500- and 600-mile days, at least one 1000-mile day, a lot of back roads and goat paths and well over a half-million miles all told – and never once regretted converting to a rigid frame.
Me and The Bitch at Sturgis, 1982.
And if you’re interested, my comfort depended on the way I set the bike up at the start, the way I pack for road trips and the way I learned to ride a rigid-framed motorcycle. It’s different than a swingarm
My motorcycle is not unreliable, either. Despite its origin as a ‘bowling ball bike’ manufactured during the worst of the AMF years at the Motor Company, when factory workers were allegedly sabotaging bikes in order to get back at miscreant management, my shovelhead was never an unreliable machine. In addition, I’ve had my fingers in every subassembly on my motorcycle, from handlebar wiring to wheel hubs, and did my damnedest to rebuild them right. That means plenty of Nylock, Loctite, lock-washers and safety wire, and the systematic removal of anything the bike does not need to function the way I need it to. No chrome covers or extra gewgaws; no colored lights or (shudder) a stereo; not even turn signals.
As a result of stripping my bike down and securing every part on it the best I possibly can, parts rarely vibrate loose. As a result of simplifying every system on the motorcycle the best I possibly can – seven wires for the entire wiring harness, for instance, rather than the seemingly endless coils of brightly-colored 16-gauge snaking hither and yon – I can usually troubleshoot problems with little fuss. As a result of knowing my motorcycle’s innermost workings, I am able to repair all but the most serious breakdowns parked under the nearest shade tree.
Finally, as a result of my efforts, I can count on one hand the number of times in the past 43 years my shovelhead has been forced to ride home in the back of a truck, with fingers left over.
And my motorcycle is not particularly loud, either. Louder than a Prius, yes, but so is a hummingbird fart, and my shovelhead is far quieter than a good many late-model Harleys. It is also a damned sight less irritating to adult ears than the wind-tunnel shriek of many metric sportbikes, whose riders are, ironically, so quick to whine about Harley riders giving them a bad name. Let’s not forget that’s a two-way street, kids.
And you will never find me parked outside some chic café with a lovely open-air patio, rapping on my open exhaust pipes as hapless diners cover their ears, or racing into my neighborhood in the wee hours, setting off car alarms and rattling window glass as I screech to a halt in my driveway. I have this funny thing about treating people as I’d want to be treated, see, and I wouldn’t want some overgrown man-child on his midlife-crisis-mobile destroying my peace and quiet.
See how easy that is?
But what is so compelling about a motorcycle with few creature comforts and only the bare minimum of safety equipment? Why would I choose it over a newer, faster, sleeker model with all the latest whistles and bells, and stick with it for almost four and a half decades?
Well, for me it’s like this:
Recent years have proven that anyone with a large enough credit limit can own a Harley-Davidson, a Victory or ersatz Indian, a Triumph, Moto Guzzi or Ducati, or any of the Pacific Rim brands. A swipe of the gold card, a push of a button, the snick of a gearshift and voila! Instant motorcyclist!
Bill kickin’ The Bitch circa 2002.
But how many of those men and women can climb aboard a motorcycle with a forty-eight-year-old engine cradled in a sixty-eight-year-old frame and pushing fifty-six-year-old front forks, and do the things I’ve done with it? How many can ride that motorcycle from Denver to Austin in a day after a week of 500-mile days, kickstart that engine on an icy-cold morning in the South Dakota Badlands or a hurricane-drenched night in Houston, or navigate the Black Canyon of the Gunnison with nothing but mechanical brakes and a four-speed transmission between them and the canyon rim? How many can tear down the better part of their bike at the roadside and put it back together again, and actually make it run? How many would even be willing to try?
I know I’m not the only greybeard out here on a rigid-framed dinosaur of a motorcycle. There are plenty of panheads and knuckleheads in daily use here and around the world, ridden by bikers who do every one of the things I’ve mentioned here. However, a lot more peoplecan’t do those things than can, and I really enjoy being part of that smaller circle.
Bill and The Bitch, still together all these years!
You may have noticed that I used to write for some of the magazines, back in the day. In the course of that pursuit I interviewed a woman whose husband ran a chopper shop in Killeen, Texas, in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Louis Schange was killed in a freak bike accident in ’72, and when I met his widow, Nelda, in 1994, she still had all the photo albums and memorabilia from those days. She had a 1934 VLD in the shed (!) which she’d just sold to an American living in South America. She also had plenty of tales to tell about jumping on the bike to go touring several states, or hopping aboard and riding to Ohio just to take part in a hill climb… She had all sorts of adventures like that.
Nelda Schange and her daughter, Joy, in 1954. Joy was the one child who loved motorcycles as much as her parents. Sadly, she passed away at the age of 40.
As we leafed through the photo albums I said ‘These photos should be in a book, or a museum! There are several motorcycle museums that would love to have this stuff!’
Nelda shrugged and said ‘Oh, my children will probably just throw them out when I die.’ 😳 That broke my heart. The only one of her kids who liked motorcycles died a young woman, and the others didn’t give a shit about her, her life, their own father… 😡 I tried to get her to let me take the albums and copy them, at least but she wouldn’t cut for that. She let me take some pics of the VLD, gave me two photos for the article, and gifted me a vintage dealership sticker her husband picked up in Hawaii. She would not budge on the rest.
Nelda with her panhead in 1960
I published my interview, and tried to keep tabs on her through the friend who introduced us, but she died before I could even make another run at her, and I heard from her brother-in-law, who I met many years later, that her prediction came true. All that history lost!
It still breaks my heart. 😢
Nelda with Louis’ 1934 Harley-Davidson VLD. She maintained the bike for twenty-two years after Louis died, cleaning and lubricating it. I asked if she’d ever ridden it herself, and she said ‘Oh, no! That was Louis’ bike.’
A last note: take a moment to look at the photo above, and really think about what it represents. Twenty-two years after her husband died on a motorcycle, this woman – who looks like your average housewife – was still dedicated enough to his passion (and hers) to keep the VLD cleaned, properly lubricated, et cetera. She was dedicated enough to the love of her life to keep his memory alive, and retain all those souvenirs of their life on two wheels.
How many people would do that?
The VLD, ready to go to its new owner. So much history!
On a Q&A forum I found the following question: What is the point of riding on a motorcycle other than looking “cool.” Are there any physical advantages as compared to a car? I know the old adage says ‘the only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask,’ but the question that poster posed is dangerously close to a stupid question. I borrowed one reader’s answer as a starting point for my own rant.
The ‘point’ of riding a motorcycle is to ride the motorcycle. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. People bandy about words like ‘freedom’ and ‘exhilaration’ but they are weak sauce compared to the reality. The reality is so, so much more.
Me and my ’74 shovel (aka ‘The Bitch’) in West Texas enroute to Alpine. Man, I justlove West Texas!
Again: the ‘point’ of riding a motorcycle is to ride the motorcycle.
It is difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. People bandy about words like ‘freedom’ and ‘exhilaration’ but they are weak sauce compared to the reality. The reality is so, so much more.
Me and The Bitch riding through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, in the Colorado Rockies.
Seriously, how do you describe the challenge of leaning into a hard curve on a twisty mountain road in the Colorado Rockies, just a hair’s breadth from the high side that’s gonna hurt like hell if you don’t maintain your line? What words can match balling through the New Mexican desert alone on a star-studded night, with ghost shadows marching across the sands as the chill night air seeps through the seams in your leather jacket? Can language even begin to capture the feeling of blasting through the heart of Dallas on a Saturday evening, twenty or thirty of you in a pack, so there in that moment – so large and loud and alive – that the straights in their cars instinctively move aside to let you pass? How do you tell someone who’s never been there about rocking through a mountain pass on a chilly autumn morning, sun at your back and your best road dog at your side as you crest the Continental Divide and rumble down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison? Can you make any sense at all of the delight you feel waking up in a rain-soaked tent in Rapid City, South Dakota, on your way to the annual rally at Sturgis, and laughing about it because Who fuckin’ cares? We’re at Sturgis, baby!
Into every life a little rain must fall…
And if that’s hard, try explaining how even the ‘bad stuff’ gets good, later. Things like riding through the wake of a hurricane in downtown Houston, water so high on the road that it’s burbling and bubbling at the ends of your exhaust pipes and dousing your ignition system. Things like spending a sleepless night camped on the banks of the Rio Grande, kept awake by the bitter cold and the new traveling companion who neglected to mention that he snores like a fuckin’ buzzsaw.
This is me riding through the Black Hills of South Dakota, doing a little sightseeing during the annual Black Hills Classic Motorcycle Rally, a gathering of the tribe that’s been going on since 1938.
Things like kneeling in the mud in a pouring rainstorm to help a stranger get his motorcycle started, because the biker’s code says you never leave another rider behind. Things like facing off with a shotgun-wielding deputy sheriff who is screaming at you and your buddies to get those goddam bikes out of there before he arrests the lot of you, because one of your buddies can’t get his bike started and the biker’s code says you never leave another rider behind. Things like your buddy suddenly remembering, after twenty minutes of trying to kickstart his shovelhead, that he installed a hidden kill switch as a security device just last week, and Oh, yeah! That’s why my bike won’t start….
One of my favorite works by Dave Mann: a loving couple two-up on a nice Spring day. Dave Mann’s monthly centerfold paintings for Easyriders captured every aspect, from the quiet pleasure of a run up the Pacific Coast Highway….….to the drag of getting beefed by some biker-hating cop. and everything in between.
….because every biker knows the best stories are the ones that really sucked in the moment.
Are there physical advantages? Well, let’s see…
Me and The Bitch and the Marlboro Man’s Softail on Skyline Drive, above Cañon City, CO.
There’s the fact that you’re out in nature, breathing fresh air, instead of being cooped up in a cage with the air conditioner on, guzzling fossil fuel and contributing to global warming. And let’s remember that motorcycling is not a sedentary activity the way driving a car is, either. The constant shifting of weight and the tensing and relaxing of different muscle groups actually burn calories, really, and help you maintain a healthier body. Add a kick-starter to your machine and you can just about sell your Nautilus!
Look at the grin on my face. I am on a motorcycle I just rebuilt from the ground up: new paint, polished aluminum, a few chrome touches like new exhaust pipes and handlebars…. There are few finer feelings in this world than what I was feeling in that moment. I wasn’t posing or profiling or showing off. I was just grooving on the feeling: my Harley, the wind, a bunch of good friends all riding together, heading for a party. I didn’t know someone was taking pictures, and didn’t even know the photographer, but sometime later he came into the motorcycle shop where I worked and gave me several excellent photos made that day. Wish I could remember his name (and if you see this, Mr. Photographer, shoot me a kite, eh?) but wherever he is, I bless him!
And for most riders there is also an emotional benefit to being in the wind. You see it in the slogans on biker t-shirts: Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul; Sometimes it takes a whole tank of gas before I can think straight; and You never see a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrist’s office. I know that, for myself, nothing can clear the cobwebs and help me forget about a crappy day like some time in the saddle. It’s two-cylinder meditation. My mind is focused on the ride – the shifting of gears, the changes in pavement texture and potential hazards, traffic patterns, the weather, et cetera – and tending to all that frees your mind from the weight you carry.
To quote Jackson Browne: ‘It’s a peaceful, easy feeling…’
There are also the benefits of being a smaller vehicle in traffic, in those enlightened states that permit motorcycle ‘filtering’. This is the low-speed lane splitting which allows motorcyclists to work their way through stopped traffic. It gets them where they’re going faster and reduces carbon emissions. It also eases overall traffic congestion, which helps get everyone moving faster, further reducing emissions, et cetera. A real win-win. I just wish the Texas legislature would get on that bandwagon, rather than all the horrid, hateful ones they have seen fit to climb on lately.
I was in a pack of thirty or so motorcycles when we stopped for lunch at a roadhouse. Before we could get back on the road, we were surrounded by heavily-armed law enforcement officers, who drew down on us with AR-15s. They proceeded to run every one of us through the mill – driver’s license, tag number, VIN – just because they could; just to inconvenience us, just because that many bikers in one place absolutelymustmean something criminal was going on. They did get one guy, who had an outstanding warrant, but had to let the rest of us go.
Finally, in cities where land is at a premium, and motorists are desperate for parking spaces, motorcyclists require much less space than cars and trucks. If office buildings, colleges and malls would provide secure parking for motorcyclists, they could reduce the demand for parking by the drivers of full-sized vehicles, and again, contribute to lessening carbon emissions, fuel consumption, global warming, and so on.
So, it’s all that and more, and you notice that none of that has sweet fuck-all to do with being ‘cool.’ We ride because we’re riders. We don’t know any other way to be.
Me and the Famous James at Walter Jones’ shop in Marion, Texas.
Forty years ago I attended an antique motorcycle show here in Austin, and came across two Famous James motorcycles. I’m a Harley guy, and I knew something about Harleys, but aside from that? Not so much. I kinda sorta knew of Indian and some of the better known metric brands – the Triumphs, Nortons and B.S.A.s friends rode when I was a teen, and the Italians and Japanese makes I’d see in motorcycling magazines – but I knew nothing about the hundreds of marques that rose and fell before and during Harley-Davidson’s tenure, and had never heard of my namesake motorcycle company.
The 1949 Comet arrives to great fanfare.
The James Cycle Company Ltd. began manufacturing bicycles in 1897, and produced their first engine-powered cycle in 1902. After a short residence in Sampson Road, Birmingham, the works were moved to Greet, Birmingham, and from that locale the company produced a number of popular motorcycles, all the way up to 750cc, in solo and sidecar configurations. They put out some good-looking machines with a reputation for reliability.
This is a 250cc Villiers-powered model owned by an Australian. Although the model is unknown, the engine was manufactured between 1934 and 1940. The paint appears to be custom. All in all, that is a good-looking motorcycle; one I wouldn’t mind owning for myself!
They also produced some innovations that didn’t quite fly – a hub-centered steering system is one such – and even teamed up with an outfit called Samson to create a three-wheeled ‘Handyvan’, complete with enclosed cab.
The James-Samson Handyvan, just the thing for the British entrepreneur!
James earned a name for itself in TT races, which helped sales, and its economy models like the Comet proved popular in a Britain still reeling from the aftereffects of World War Two. However, as automobiles became more affordable in post-war Britain, and Japanese motorcycles later began eating up remaining market shares, sales of British motorcycles fell. A number of marques were either discontinued or swallowed up by the conglomerate Associated Motor Cycles (AMC), including Francis-Barnett in 1947, and James in 1951.
A 1951 advert for the Commodore: little more than a Comet gussied up with leg shields, an enclosed engine and a deeper-valanced rear fender.. Now the British commuter could zoom to work in his street clothes, rather than dealing with overalls or other riding apparel.The Comet’s reliability is touted in this 1952 advert.
Production continued, but little innovation was ventured – on occasion the only difference between a James and a Frances-Barnett was the tank badge and paint scheme! – and sales continued to plummet. A scooter, released in 1960, might have helped save the marque had it been released earlier. However, it was a case of too little too late, and AMC (and James) died in 1966.
The scooter enthusiasts claim might have saved James Cycle Company from extinction.
Standing there in that exhibition hall, I had no way of knowing all that. I just saw my family name on a pretty sweet-looking motorcycle and thought I ought to have me one of those! However, I had not a clue where to begin looking for one.
In amongst all the adverts for Hondas and Harleys, an ad for a 193? James 125cc. Well, he got the brand name right, anyway! However, ‘complete’ was a bit of a stretch.
Then, just a few months later, a co-worker who was desperate to get himself a Harley picked up one of the freebie advertising magazines that were popular in the days before craig’s list – this one geared to motor vehicles – and sure enough, there was an advert for a James!
I didn’t have a truck (or even a car) at the time, so I ‘borrowed’ my work truck to go fetch the thing!
I made arrangements to meet the seller at his shop in a small town north of San Antonio, where he had the bike suspended from the ceiling by a come-along. I bought the thing, hauled it home in the back of my work van, and started researching.
This was the tri-fold handout for the Famous James Comet, given out at dealerships and motorcycle shows like Earl’s Court.Quite a sales pitch, that!
This was pre-internet days (for me, anyway) and ‘researching’ involved chatting up anyone who might know anything about vintage machines, scouring magazines for any mention of the James, writing letters that were often ignored, calling long-distance (remember those days?) and running up my telephone bill, et cetera. I even got up early one Sunday morning and rode my motorcycle halfway across Texas to attend an antique motorcycle show, on the off chance someone there might know something.
Your humble narrator on his 1949 Famous James 98cc Comet.
Someone steered me to a company called Meeten & Ward, Ltd. of Surrey, England, and they identified the bike as a Comet, powered by a Villiers 98cc 1F engine. They thought it was made somewhere between 1949 and 1953, and assured me they could provide engine spares as needed.
The venerable Villiers engine. Villiers produced powerplants for a number of different British marques, from AJS, Francis-Barnett and Greeves to the New Hudson, Panther and Sun.
I later discovered an Ohio-based company called Accessory Mart (aka DomiRacer), and from them I purchased a copy of Roy Bacon’s Villiers Singles & Twins. It was from Mr. Bacon that I learned mine was a 1949 model.
With the help of Mr. Bacon, I was able to discern that my bike was in fact a 1949, the first year-model for the James Comet.
Sadly, both Meeten & Ward and Accessory Mart have since gone out of business, but my quest went on.
If nothing else, the James Cycle Company had some of the prettiest decals. This is on the steering head.
Over the years I acquired a branded James shock absorber spanner and footpeg rubber, a large advertising poster and a 1956 parts manual, but never got anywhere on the actual restoration.
I considered this a real find, not only for its connection to the James Cycle Company history, but the fact that I am a 1956 James model!
The James made a lovely telephone stand in my bachelor pad, and I lugged it with me wherever I went, until I married and settled back in Austin. There it was consigned to a backyard shed, dry and safe but utterly neglected for the next eight years.
The James in my garage at Whitehall, Texas, circa 1986 or ’87.
I had a fun experience one evening, while on a ride with some friends. We had stopped for supper, and when we came out an older gentleman was looking at our bikes. Now, anyone who has ridden for any length of time has encountered the fellow who comes up and says, wistfully, ‘I used to have one of those, but…,’ followed by the explanation that it was sold to pay for school, or because the kids needed new shoes, or some such thing. However, this old boy shocked the hell out of me when he said ‘Have you ever heard of a James motorcycle?’ I shocked him right back when I told him ‘I have one in my living room!’
What are the odds of us running into each other like that? Two strangers, bonding over an obscure motorcycle brand very few Americans have ever heard of! Like I said, fun!
The Famous James doing double duty as a telephone stand and hat-rack, in the living room of my cracker-box house on South 5th Street in Temple, Texas. On the other side of that wall was the attached garage that housed my Harley, tools and equipment.Hard to imagine a better pad for a bachelor biker!
My disabling work injuries made the dreamt-of restoration even less likely, and finally led me to sell the James in early 2008 – a decision I have questioned ever since – but I’ve not lost my fascination with the history. In fact, I was doodling around on the ‘net when I discovered Sheldon’s EMU. If you’re into motorcycling history, that site will keep you busy for a good long while!
Finally, courtesy of British artist Garry Hurt: what my Comet could have looked like, had I ever gotten ’round to restoring it.
So, that’s my history lesson for the day.
NOTE: after publishing this, I came across a Facebook group for James enthusiasts. I wanted to note it here in case anyone is interested in learning more about the marque, or seeing photos of some beautifully-restored James motorcycles dating back to the earliest days of the marque’s (and motorcycling’s) history. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/106226192748844/about
A FOLLOW-UP, 5 November 2022: just last night, I learned that a Brit who claims to own the James trademarks is attempting to revive the marque. Amanda Quick wrote about it here: https://www.webbikeworld.com/the-famous-james-iso-brand-investor-not-picky-must-love-brit-bikes/ (she used one of my images for her article, with appropriate credit, and thank you, Amanda!) and MCN mentioned it here: https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2022/october/james-motorcycle-brand-returns/ but I admit to some doubts. As noted in my reply to Ms. Quick’s article, John Oakley’s windmill is a wondrous thing, but it’s still a windmill. If Indian – a much better-known brand – has struggled so to arise from the trash-heap of history, what chance has an obscure, much-loved-but-little-remembered British marque that quietly petered out of existence almost sixty years ago? If Mr. Oakley is serious about reinventing the Famous James, and not just hustling investors in an attempt to cash in on an otherwise useless intellectual property, I wish him all the luck in the world, but (much as a stock certificate from the James Motorcycle Company might be a fun thing to own, framed on my wall) I will probably not be investing in his venture. The next sound you hear will be me, waiting and watching.
The Shovel Shop 
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