HOLLISTER, ANYONE?

Posted on June 12, 2024 by billjfromaustin

If you’re a biker, you know that Hollister is not just an über-hip clothing line for spoiled mall rats. No, Hollister — a small farming community in Southern California southeast of San Jose — is the birthplace of the American Biker, that enduring trope perpetuated by media and entertainment ever since that hot July 4th weekend of 1947, when a ‘riot’ broke out during a motorcycle rally.

For much of postwar America, this guy served as introduction to the two-wheeled menace known as ‘the biker’. Even today, decades after the Yuppie invasion has convinced much of America that most Harley riders are Empty Nesters in full Midlife Crisis mode or well-to-do RUBs (rich urban professionals) with more dollars than sense, the menacing trope of ‘the biker’ endures. We serve as villains in movies and television shows, as objects of perverse sexual attraction in an alarming number of bodice-ripping romance novels, and as bogeymen for law enforcement agencies looking to gin up support for larger budgets and more deadly weaponry. In **LIFE** *magazine, the photograph was credited to Barney Petersen. However, numerous sources have his last name spelled ‘Peterson’, and that’s the spelling I use here.*

The scene at Hollister was a familiar one: a small town, eager to bring in tourists who might spend money at local businesses, built a racetrack at Veteran’s Memorial Park, and began hosting motorcycle races and ‘Gypsy Tours’: popular family-friendly gatherings sponsored by the American Motorcycle Association, as it was then known. The events were well-attended and profitable, and in most cases the worst local authorities had to deal with was a few Drunk and Disorderly arrests and some hospitalizations due to injuries suffered in motorcycle crashes on and off the track.

*This photo of a ‘straight’ club appeared in the magazine* **LIFE** *just* *three weeks after the infamous Peterson/Davenport photo.*

However, the 1947 event, one of the first held since the guns of World War Two fell silent, drew a new breed of rider. These were not the nice Mom-and-Pop ‘straight’ clubs pictured above, that frequently appeared at these events in matching uniforms, riding pristine motorcycles kitted out with numerous factory-approved accessories.

One of the field games played at many a motorcycle rally. The idea was to ride at the lowest possible speed while the passenger tended to the task at hand. If the rider’s foot touched the ground, he and his passenger were disqualified. Note the **American Motorcycle Association** *patch on the rider’s shoulder. Membership in the American Motorcycle Association (now the American Motorcyclist Association) precludes membership in an ‘outlaw’ club.*

No, these were rough, hard-bitten young men — most of them combat veterans who had seen the worst the world had to offer in the killing fields of Europe and the South Pacific — and they roared into town en masse aboard stripped-down, hopped-up motorcycles unlike anything those at Hollister had ever seen before.

*The lot at Veteran’s Memorial Park, packed with motorcycles — many Harley-Davidson or Indian motorcycles stripped for action — on the July 4th weekend in 1947.*

These were rattletrap bombers with front brakes and fenders removed, and rear fenders ‘bobbed’ as short as possible. Chain guards, windshields, engine guards, saddlebags — anything that might increase weight and wind-drag, and slow the machines down — were all shitcanned in favor of better performance, until all that remained was the bare essence of a motorcycle: a massive engine, rigid frame and springer forks, two wheels, a petrol tank and a saddle.

A typical ‘bob job’ Harley-Davidson at Hollister: no windshield, no front fender, back fender cut short and the original taillight – not that large or bright to begin with – replaced by a front fender light even smaller and less visible to following motorists. The hand belongs to the bike’s sleeping owner, rolled up in blankets on the ground beside his Harley, as any good biker would.

*A Galloping Goose and a Boozefighter race heads-up on January 18, 1948. The Boozefighter’s sweater has their trademark Triple-X bottle on its front, a logo the club still uses to this day.*

These men also came sporting motorcycle club sweaters or jackets with new, more menacing names — Boozefighters, Thirteen Rebels, Galloping Goose (in military argot the ‘goose’ was the upraised middle finger we call ‘the bird’) and more — and they came not to sit docilely in the stands watching as racers on the track went round-y-round, but to ride and race and party themselves, and that is exactly what they did.

13 Rebels MC in an undated photograph, all wearing their club sweaters with the Bad Luck Cat emblem on the front. The back of each sweater bore the legend ’13 Rebels’ in large stitched-on letters.

*13 Rebels MC members and friends loading a racing bike kitted with specially-lugged mudder tires. As you can see by their boots and trouser legs, those tires were sorely needed!*

Boozefighters MC members in a photograph purportedly taken at Riverside, California, in July, 1948, where a second ‘riot’ allegedly took place. Some researchers have suggested the photo was actually made at Hollister in 1947.

Many motorcycle clubs of the day wore sweaters with the club name emblazoned on them, rather than the paramilitary uniforms of the Mom-and-Pops or the cutoff denim vests of later groups like the Hells Angels.

The Boozefighters MC, led by ‘Wino Willie’ Forkner, described itself as a drinking club with a motorcycle problem, and did their level best to live up to that claim. Other clubs, in turn, tried their best to keep pace.

*‘Wino Willie’ Forkner was a combat veteran who had been thrown out of his previous motorcycle club. He founded and led the Boozefighters MC, and passed away at the ripe old age of 78.*

*♪ ♫ Wine, wine, fruit o’ the vine, when you gonna let me get sober…. ♫ ♪*

*Club members play two-wheeled games in the middle of Hollister’s Main Street.*

*‘Little Bobby’ Kelton, a member of the Wing Nutz MC, at play on the streets of Hollister….*

*….but it wasn’t just the boys. These women are identified as members of the Tracy Gear Jammers, an all-female club that got down with the boys in the streets of Hollister that weekend.*

*A trio of Tracy Gear Jammers giving Eddie Davenport a run for his money!*

*The Tracy Gear Jammers may have harbored a penchant for sailors’ blues, although the tall brunette second from far right is very noticeably NOT hugging a sailor!* 😏

THE RIOT

The much-ballyhooed ‘riot’ was really nothing more than a lot of rowdy behavior along Hollister’s main drag, including impromptu drag races and riders doing doughnuts in the street, and raucous drinking in the bars. At one point, it’s reported that a rider did pilot his motorcycle into a bar. In the tumult, some furniture and glassware were damaged, and promptly paid for by the offender.

*A heavy police presence brought an end to the most outré behavior.*

Still, local law enforcement felt overwhelmed, and called for reinforcements from neighboring counties and the California Highway Patrol. The cops geared up, corralled the partying bikers on the main drag, and commandeered a flatbed truck for use as a bandstand. They pressed a dance band into service, and the rest of the night proved playwright William Congreve’s contention* that ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.’

*Alleged ‘rioters’ boogie to the sound of a band pressed into service by the cops.*

A few of the boys were invited to stay a little longer, but the most serious offenses were traffic violations and ‘indecent exposure’: reportedly the result of a drunk trying to urinate into the radiator of an overheating car. I did some très stupid things while drinking, but whipping it out on the main drag to water down someone’s steaming flivver is beyond even me! 😆

NEWS COVERAGE, MONDAY, JULY 7, 1947

*Unlike the San Francisco daily, Hollister’s local newspaper, the* **Hollister Free Lance***, didn’t feel the need to exaggerate the weekend’s events.*

*The coverage in the* **San Francisco Chronicle** *included two photographs by Barney Peterson. For your viewing comfort, I replaced the grainy newsprint photos with clear images of the original pics.*

CYCLIST’S HOLIDAY, LIFE, JULY 21, 1947

*This innocuous cover photo belied the bombshell waiting within.*

However, at around the time the band began to play, photographer Barney Peterson arrived in town. Peterson was a freelancer dispatched by The San Francisco Chronicle. His brief was to bring back pictures of the reported mayhem, but all he found was a street filled with happy dancing bikers and civilians, a parking lot full of motorcycles, and a few riders sacked out for the night on the courthouse lawn. In other words, b-o-o-o-o-ring!

*Instead of ‘rioting gangs’, photographer Barney Peterson found riders sacked out beside the front steps of the local courthouse.*

Desperate to preserve his commission, Peterson improvised. As eyewitnesses confirm, he found a motorcycle parked at the curb — a stripped-down Harley-Davidson knucklehead with no front fender, and a seaman’s bag tied across the rear fender behind the saddle.

Perfect!

He carefully arranged a bunch of empty beer bottles on the street around the motorcycle, even cadging some from a nearby café, to symbolize the debauchery he assumed had taken place prior to his arrival.

Yeah, that will do!

Finally, he recruited a fellow named Eddie Davenport to climb aboard the artfully staged motorcycle and pose for some photographs.

Bingo! The editor’s gonna love it!

*The shot heard around the biker world.*

A series of images were made, including the most infamous: the ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ photograph (above) which the magazine LIFE published in their July 21st issue, above an overheated blurb about the ‘4000 cyclists’ who allegedly ran amok in the peaceful city of Hollister. Barney Peterson’s posed and staged photo of the man identified as Eddie Davenport — he of the slack-jawed, glassy-eyed gaze and two-fisted drinking style pictured above — struck terror into the hearts of pearl-clutching newspaper and magazine editors, chiefs of police and other dignitaries across the nation. Another Peterson creation showed Davenport holding a club jacket belonging to a member of the Tulare Raiders Motorcycle Club named Dave.

For a long time, I believed Eddie Davenport was a nonrider recruited by Peterson for the infamous photo. However, I have recently read reports that ‘Dave’ (as lettered on the club jacket in the photo below) was actually Davenport’s road name, and that Eddie Davenport was a bona fide member of the Tulare Raiders MC. My apologies to Mr. Davenport if I mischaracterized him.

*Per the custom of the day, Peterson noted his subject’s name on the film negative.*

Finally, whatever art or deceit the photographer may have employed, Peterson’s editor did love his photo just as he’d hoped, but they weren’t alone. The photograph hit the wire services, and was immediately picked up by LIFE.

THE REACTION, LIFE, AUGUST 11, 1947

The response to LIFE‘s publication of Peterson’s staged photograph was immediate. Three weeks later, the magazine’s August 11th issue included Letters to the Editors from motorcyclist Charles A. Addams, film star and cyclist Keenan Wynn, and Paul Brokaw, who edited the magazine Motorcyclist at the time.

*Letters to the Editors from Charles A. Addams, Keenan Wynn and Paul Brokaw.*

All three correspondents complained of the negative coverage.

Mr. Addams wrote that the 4000 riders reportedly in attendance were not members of a single club, as the magazine alleged; that 50% were members of the American Motorcycle Association and the other 50% ‘mere motorcyclists out for a three-day holiday’; and that roughly ‘500 made the event the debacle that it was.’ I checked, and it appears certain Mr. Addams was not the infamous New Yorker cartoonist who created The Addams Family. How cool would that have been? 😏

*Actor Keenan Wynn (No. 39) rides like a nutter in the 1957 Catalina Grand Prix.*

Keenan Wynn, who later took film star and fledgling desert racer Lee Marvin under his wing, and showed Steve McQueen what dirt bikes were for, wrote ‘I have taken it upon myself to… straighten out what will obviously be an extremely bad impression of motorcyclists.’ He went on to decry the reckless behavior of the wild ones at Hollister, and noted that riding under the influence ‘as our friend in the picture seems to be doing, is one of the fundamental “don’ts” of riding…’ Wynn also felt obliged to cite some examples of ‘safe and sane Hollywood riders,’ like Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, Ward Bond and Andy Devine.

*Keenan Wynn (left) with fellow actor and motorcycle aficionado Lee Marvin (right) and Marvin’s Triumph Scrambler, at an unnamed desert race. I do not recognize the other two people.*

Motorcyclist Editor Paul Brokaw expressed his shock at the photograph, and was perhaps the first in print to call Barney Peterson out for his chicanery, noting that the picture ‘was very obviously arranged and posed by an enterprising and unscrupulous photographer.’ Brokaw also called out the ‘mercenary-minded barkeepers’ who continued to serve obviously intoxicated customers, and the ‘small percentage’ of riotous motorcyclists, ‘aided by a much larger group of nonmotorcycling hellraisers,’ who actually caused all the fuss.

Brokaw went on to damn LIFE for ‘sear(ing) a pitiful brand on the character of tens of thousands of innocent, clean-cut, respectable, law-abiding young men and women who are the true representatives of an admirable sport.’

LIFE responded to the criticism by including, in the same issue, a lengthy ‘presentation of law-abiding, respectable motorcyclists,’ which included photos of Mom-and-Pop clubs and motorcycling fashion trends.

*The first page of* **LIFE***‘s ‘you meet the nicest people on motorcycles’ article.*

Field games and uniformed riders. Note the writer’s insistence that ‘womenfolk’ are limited to riding pillion, despite the fact that at least **three** photos in the article feature women riding their own machines, including the full-page photo opposite the damned headline! Sheesh!

*Fashion for the ‘womenfolk’ and the motorcycle!*

*Instead of ‘Mom-and-Pop’ we have ‘Mom-and-Daughter’ at top, and a sore service station attendant at bottom, with a little daredevilry in the middle.*

‘HOLLISTER’, MOTORCYCLIST, AUGUST, 1947

Paul Brokaw’s magazine’s August 1947 number. In the Table of Contents is an article titled ‘Hollister’. I had never seen any reference to this article, and had no idea what it might say, but I purchased a copy on eBay in November of 2024, months after my original Hollister post was first published. It took a while (we’ve been moving from one city to another, for one thing; lots to do!) so I am just now (February of 2026) getting to follow up with what I learned.

**Motorcyclist***, No. 598, August, 1947.*

**Motorcyclist***, No. 598, August, 1947: ‘**Free. Fearless. Fair.**‘*

Granted, LIFE‘s coverage of the Hollister affair was pretty lurid, but Motorcyclist editor Paul Brokaw is no slouch in producing purple prose. He laments the fact that ‘millions of the nation’s citizenry — let that soak in — MILLIONS — have had organized motorcycling paraded before them in the debasing light of a flaunting debauchery.’

A flaunting debauchery? 🤷🏻‍♀️

He goes on to blast the unnamed reporter ‘who rolled up the original Hollister report into a juicy, evil smelling mud-ball, and splattered it to the far corners of the country,’ and nominates the hapless wretch for ‘the 1947 award for outstanding yellow journalism.’

I also love the line about ‘boobs, booze and blooey-pipes.’ Brokaw does have a way with words! 🙄

**Motorcyclist***, No. 598, August, 1947. Page 9 is topped with headlines Mr. Brokaw collected from newspapers across the country, all eager to report on the ‘Hollister Riot’ of 1947.*

Brokaw then spends the remainder of his ink and column inches on a proposed reformation of the American Motorcycle Association*, which he blames, sotto voce, for not reining in ‘the abuses of the selfish, inconsiderate, intemperate few who, by their exhibitionism, created a national scandal.’

* The AMA is now the American Motorcyclist Association, which claims to be a ‘motorcyclists’ rights organization.’ However, the Association was originally formed by motorcycle manufacturers, to protect their interests against anti-motorcycling legislation that might impact their bottom line. In 1947, the AMA was little more than a mouthpiece for the Indian and Harley-Davidson companies.

Brokaw’s argument against the AMA is a bit convoluted, but he apparently feels their ‘totalitarian organization’ and its ‘fear of losing one iota of control’ causes the leadership, such as it is, to treat its constituents like ‘irresponsible adolescents.’ In his view, this brings on ‘a tendency of motorcyclists to relax into indifference, and look to the National organization (which exists in name only) to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.’ Brokaw feels that local control of events would inspire clubmen to rise up and hold the line against those ‘incorrigibles (who) defame the sport’ of motorcycling.

**Motorcyclist***, No. 598, August, 1947. Page 9 included a cartoon cadged from* **The San Francisco Chronicle**.

I was really hoping this Motorcyclist article might have some hidden gem – maybe even the elusive statement attributed to the AMA about 99% of motorcyclists being fine, upstanding citizens – but no. 😒 Instead, we get a self-serving screed about protecting the motorcycle industry by foisting responsibility off on rank-and-file members of the industry’s lobbying organization. 🙄

**Motorcyclist***, No. 598, August, 1947. Page 30 carries the conclusion of Mr. Brokaw’s piece.*

I had also hoped I might find the September 1947 issue of Motorcyclist, to see what readers thought of the Hollister debacle and Brokaw’s editorializing, but have yet to locate a copy. I can tell you that nothing appeared in the October and later 1947 issues, which I have at hand.

The hunt continues! 😎 Meanwhile, the Hollister story grows legs.

CYCLISTS’ RAID, Harper’s, January, 1951

The ‘riot’ at Hollister probably would have faded into the mists of time and memory, had it not been for Barney Peterson’s photograph, but the next stage in the evolution of the biker image was even more nefarious. A hack named Frank Rooney took the bare bones of what happened at Hollister and fashioned them into a lengthy, perverse short story titled ‘Cyclists’ Raid‘.

I am convinced the title’s echoing of LIFE‘s ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ is not a coincidence.

*Artwork by David Berger, which accompanied **Cyclists’ Raid** in the pages of* **Harper***‘s.* *Here, the bikers arrive, organized and orderly for a while.*

In his lurid saga, Rooney portrays the bikers as a paramilitary pack of marauders who chose the small nameless town from a list of possible destinations, and even did reconnaissance in advance of their arrival, going so far as to learn the names of hotel keepers and filling station managers. They ride into town in formation aboard matching motorcycles, and their leader, ‘Gar Simpson’, declares them to be ‘Troop B of the Angeleno Motorcycle Club.’ In casual conversation, Simpson reveals the club’s plan to expand across California (‘We’re forming Troop G now.’) and other states: ‘Nevada — Arizona — Colorado — Wyoming.’

*Angeleno Motorcycle Club leader Gar Simpson, or is it? Who can tell?* 🤷🏻‍♀️ *They’re all dressed alike!*

The riders quickly take over the accommodations in town, including the hotel operated by the story’s main character, Joel Bleeker, a widowed former Army officer and combat veteran with a comely seventeen-year-old daughter. The club members proceed to drink, to sing raucous songs, to ride their motorcycles up and down the street (and eventually the sidewalks), but never ever remove the green-lensed riding goggles they all wear, even at night, even inside the dining hall of Bleeker’s inn.

*By dint of their uniforms and mask-like goggles, Gar Simpson’s riders were ‘standardized figurines, seeking in each other a willful loss of identity…,’ or some such psychobabble.*

This is crucial to Rooney’s telling, because the goggles allow individual riders to remain:

‘standardized figurines, seeking in each other a willful loss of identity, dividing themselves equally among one another until there was only a single mythical figure, unspeakably sterile….‘

….so much so that when the ‘raid’ comes to its inevitably violent climax — a freak motorcycle crash which kill’s Bleeker’s beautiful daughter — Bleeker and his outraged townsfolk have no one to blame but themselves. The nameless, faceless riders are able to mount up and ride out of town, exempt from consequence by reason of their numbers and unremarkable sameness.

The ‘raid’s’ evening concludes its horrific third act as riders terrorize citizens, racing and stunting in the streets, riding on sidewalks and in and out of business establishments. It is this last which brings about the final tragedy: the death of Bleeker’s lovely daughter.

Rooney’s story appeared in Harper’s, a popular magazine that arrived by post in many American homes, issue after issue. It could not help but reinforce the ‘lesson’ of LIFE‘s ‘Cyclist’s Holiday’ pic: ‘Martha, those goddamned bikers are bad news!‘

A complete scan of the story ‘Cyclists’ Raid’, as published, can be read here.

THE WILD ONE, Stanley Kramer, et alia, December 30, 1953

**The Wild One** *starred Mary Murphy and Marlon Brando, and featured Gil Stratton, Jr. and Alvy Moore, as members of Brando’s motorcycle ‘gang’, the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club.*

Rooney’s story, dripping with pathos and armchair psychology, caught the eye of filmmaker Stanley Kramer, who used the Hollister stories as inspiration for his 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle, The Wild One, co-starring Lee Marvin, Mary Murphy and, in an uncredited role, character actor Alvy Moore, best known for his portrayal of county agricultural agent Hank Kimball on the 1960s television show Green Acres.

*That “Streetcar” Man Has A New Desire!*

Kramer interviewed people who actually attended the July 4th gathering at Hollister, and came away with a clear idea of the story he wished to tell.

*Stanley Kramer is introduced to Marlon Brando’s sister, actress Jocelyn Brando, on the set of the 1953 film* **The Wild One.**

A script was commissioned. However, it placed at least some of the blame for the events on the townspeople themselves, who invited the bikers in, tolerated the more benign hijinks they engaged in, and profited from sales of alcohol, food and other commodities. Censors rejected the script as ‘pro-Communist’, in that it made money-grubbing merchants the bad guys. We all know that anyone making money is, by definition, a hero, right? 🙄

Kramer caved, and as a result, we ended up with a bowdlerized version of the story Kramer wanted to tell. The true anti-heroes of Hollister — those brave young men just back from a grueling war, eager to recapture the camaraderie of military life, celebrate their survival and blow off years’ worth of steam — were replaced by Marlon Brando, as stiff as his brand-new Levi’s and monogrammed Perfecto leather jacket, portraying ‘Johnny Strabler’ as a mewling teenager riven with Daddy issues, riding a shiny new British bike, mumbling already-dated ‘hep cat’ slang and mooning over Mary Murphy’s more mature waitress.

*Marlon Brando’s ‘Johnny Strabler’ whinging on about his mean old man.*

Meanwhile, Lee Marvin, an actual combat veteran with a Purple Heart to his credit, and a real-life rider himself, acted the ‘villain’ of the piece. In ‘Chino’, Marvin channeled the essence of ‘Wino Willie’ Forkner. He rode into town astride a road-weary Harley-Davidson Big Twin, clad in military surplus and thrift store garments the way many of the men at Hollister had been, waving a cigar and loudly greeting old friends.

*Lee Marvin as ‘Chino’, riding into town with his club, The Beetles, and yes, the British band said they **did** name themselves after Chino’s club!*

*Lee Marvin’s ‘Chino’ with that devilish grin, the leader of his pack.*

Johnny Strabler was a dilettante, a poseur. Chino was a fuckin’ honest-to-god biker. Johnny’s leather jacket may rightly be considered iconic — it is a fashion staple to this day, even amongst people who wouldn’t go within ten feet of a motorcycle — but so is Lee Marvin’s portrayal of Chino. Talk to bikers you know. How many of ’em wanted to be Johnny Strabler when they grew up? and how many wanted to be Chino? I can tell you my answer!

*Chino taunting Johnny for quitting Chino’s club….*

*….and defending Johnny even after Johnny beats him in a lively street brawl, because that’s the biker way, baby!*

HIGHWAY PATROL

There’s another chapter to this story, discovered after I completed my post about Hollister. If you’re interested, there’s a link at the bottom about an episode of the television series Highway Patrol that aired in April of 1956. Check it out!

AND SO….

I geek out about this stuff because I love our history as motorcyclists — all the influences that went into creating our lifestyle and all the ways that lifestyle is portrayed, interpreted and further influenced by attention from media and popular culture. The chain of events that lead from World War Two to Hollister, from Hollister to Harper’s, and from Harper’s to Hollywood, are just part of the fascinating origin story we all share.

As I write this, we are less than two weeks from the premiere of yet another biker movie; an A-list Hollywood production starring well-known actors like Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Jody Comer, Norman Reedus and Michael Shannon.+ The Bikeriders, loosely based on photo-journalist Danny Lyon’s seminal 1968 book of the same title, promises to be yet another milestone in our unfolding story. I already have my tickets, and can’t wait to see what comes up on the big screen!

* Congreve, William The Mourning Bride, 1697. The original lines read ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.’

+ Just this afternoon, I received my copy of The Vandals: The Photography of the Motion Picture ‘The Bikeriders’. Woo-hoo!

AS PROMISED, HIGHWAY PATROL

HIGHWAY PATROL, Season 1, Episode 27, MOTORCYCLE A, aired 2 April 1956

A MOMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

Posted on May 5, 2024 by billjfromaustin

*That devastatingly handsome model sporting the latest in biker fashion is none other than your humble narrator, AKA the chief cook and bottle washer here at **The Shovel Shop**!* 😎

The Shovel Shop Store is now open. If you’d like to help an old scooter tramp stay caffeinated while he hammers out his motorcycle-themed ramblings, just visit the Shovel Shop Store and scoop up some cool biker swag: biker books, t-shirts, coffee mugs, patches, and whatever other crap I can think up! Collect ’em all! Tell your friends! Support your local greybeard! 😎

GEORGE THE PAINTER, aka GTP, aka George Frizzell

Posted on April 24, 2024 by billjfromaustin

NSFW content ahead. Brace yourselves.

😏

….if the viewer is open and brave enough, they are going to meet an America few folks will talk about; a grim, hostile underbelly filled with proud white trash, loud motorcycles, barflies, brawlers, booze and sex and rock ‘n’ roll. George the Painter takes all of this in, and then flings it at the viewer like blood, sweat and spinal fluid, in violent knife-edged spasms of color, light and shadow.

***Pussy and Bourbon # 1*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

The term ‘acquired taste’ was coined for characters like George the Painter, but I confess that it is a taste I have acquired. In my collection I have a number of his prints, purchased from the artist himself through the old The Horse / Back Street Choppers readers’ forum, where we were both frequent flyers in the early ’00s. I look forward to displaying some of them in the Adults Only section of MMMoMMA soon. 😏

**Life of Kings** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

***Rebel*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. The ‘RAT LIFE’ tattoo is one of GTP’s own.

**Oh Hell Yea** [sic] by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

When he chooses to, GTP can get downright representational, as with the Sporty above and the moonlit chopper below. I find that painting particularly evocative.

*** *EK87S* ***, a commission by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. Titles marked with asterisks are ones I made up, because the artist’s title was unknown.

Others evince a technical mastery of light, color and shadow that nudges the neighborhood of realism, without fully crossing the line.

* ***Knucklehead* *** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

….and when he’s not painting blowsy barflies, GTP is capable of more pedestrian images.

This looks suspiciously like the scenic and thrilling ***Tail of the Dragon***, which leaves Maggie Valley, North Carolina, (home of Dale Walksler’s famous ***Wheels Through Time Museum***) and meanders over the state line into Tennessee, with a challenging 318 curves in just 11 miles! 😮 Overconfident (or overserved) riders have come to unhappy ends in those hills, but it’s a destination ride for our tribe, and motorcyclists come from around the world to challenge the Tail and visit the motorcycle museum. Highly recommended, BTW.

* Peterbilt Posse * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

* Chopper Couple * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

Richie Pan was a renowned artist, tattooist and bike builder from New Jersey who was killed in an auto-pedestrian crash on his way home from the annual North Carolina Smokeout. I mentioned him in my article about David Mann, but GTP knew Richie Pan, had been tattooed by him, and painted two portraits of his friend.

* Richie Pan in his shop * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. Richie is seated on his beloved panhead, Viola.

* Richie Pan in the wind * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

As with David Mann, Edward Hopper and other favorite artists, George Frizzell will insert himself into his work at times, as with this oddly-named canvas: Intergalactic Attack Formation # 1….

***Intergalactic Attack Formation # 1*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. That is GTP hisself, trademark sneer in place, aboard the shovelhead he calls ‘Leaky Latowski’. He reports that the original canvas now lives in Australia.

….and this, where he demonstrates Leaky Latowski’s low-end torque.

***When Pigs Fly*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

Finally, in this recent canvas, GTP notes that he ‘wanted to paint a loser with a busted ass bike and it ended up being a self portrait.’ He was raffling off the original canvas, and noted, ‘I’ve been off my Shovel for long enough and this raffle will send some cash in the right direction!’ I can relate! If they were still on offer, I’d buy a ticket or two myself! 😎

However, like a lot of bikers, GTP seems to delight in the age-old game called ‘shocking the squares,’ and he plays it well!

**Rothouse 187** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

GTP’s work is sometimes hard to look at – rude and graphic and in-your-face, much like the artist himself – and not everyone can hang with it. However, if the viewer is open and brave enough, they are going to meet an America few folks will talk about; a grim, hostile underbelly filled with proud white trash, loud motorcycles, barflies, brawlers, booze and sex and rock ‘n’ roll. GTP takes all of this in, and then flings it at the viewer like blood, sweat and spinal fluid, in violent knife-edged spasms of color, light and shadow.

If you can hang, study what GTP has created on canvas, and you will discover an uncompromising artist with a hard-core, anarchic sense of self, which makes him a Charles Bukowski of the painted word.

***Blow Job*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

Two of George’s more noticeable tattoos: WHITE TRASH ICON and RAT LIFE.

SHOVELHEAD LOVE

Like me, George loves his shovelheads, and they feature prominently in his art. I’m always glad to see my favorite Milwaukee motor represented, but….

* ***Shovelhead SS* *** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

* Shovelhead with Swastika * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. With that dual-throated carburetor, the engine takes on the look of a demented, malevolent ***WALL-E***, from the animated film, or a **Star Wars** robot…. or maybe ***Cujo***? 🤷🏻‍♀️

* Shovelhead * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

* Shovelhead * in charcoal by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

Some wag suggested * Hogwarts’ Hagrid gets a Harley * as a title. Whatever. It’s another ***Shovelhead*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

* Shovel Jesus * by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell.

If you’re really brave, read a few of GTP’s columns in back issues of The Horse / Back Street Choppers — the now-defunct biker rag that gave Frizzell a resident platform for his art and off-the-wall screeds — and you’ll see that George comes by his ‘fuck the world’ brand of hardscrabble individualism honestly. He is brutally forthright about living his life his way. Dilettantes and poseurs need not apply.

The Horse / Backstreet Choppers was a weak imitation of the OG Easyriders* magazine, which began in 1970, but The Horse did feature owner-built choppers in amongst all the pouty-lipped models, hipster-bearded and tattooed ‘old skool’ wannabes and eye-boggling graphics. The Horse / Backstreet Choppers was GTP’s home away from home for many years. They published his artwork and many of his rambling, overheated screeds. Those columns were later collected into a ‘bathroom reader‘ that is now out-of-print, and listed for stoopid money on eBay and Amazon.

Yet another shovelhead; this one with the inscrutable title ***Deluxe Space Robot*** by George ‘GTP’ Frizzell. That is his Leaky Latowski fuel tank on the floor.

In a documentary series, Richie Pan’s America, George said he wasn’t much of a writer, wasn’t much of a painter, wasn’t much of a bike builder, and yet he’s famous. 🤷🏻‍♀️

He also made a comment that speaks volumes about him, and about bikers in general. He said, ‘Being poor and destitute without a motorcycle is completely uncool, but you can be the same motherfucker and have a motorcycle between your legs — still have no place to live — and it’s cool….’

I don’t know about George, but in my career as a biker, I’ve been homeless, without a car, a job or bank account, but I’ve always had a bike, and yeah, that’s pretty feckin’ cool! 😎

Let’s let GTP go out the same way he came in, with a hearty ‘Fuck You’ to all and sundry! 😎

George the Painter can be found offending the world in these locations (to name just a few): https://www.instagram.com/georgethepainter, https://www.instagram.com/fineartforw_hitetrash, https://georgethepainter.bigcartel.com/products, https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/george-frizzell/art/george+frizzell, https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeFrizzellJr,

And his latest endeavor, Chopper Hostel, billed as ‘a great place to hide the bodies,’ at https://chopperhostel.com/

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

Posted on April 11, 2024 by billjfromaustin

❤️ *A brief pictorial history of a love affair for the ages.* ❤️

Forty-five years ago I was a kid with a dream of owning a Harley-Davidson. I put away the alcohol and drugs that I’d abused all through my teens, got not one but two jobs, saved some money for a down-payment and worked with my credit union to establish credit. Now it was time to find the bike of my dreams….

….and find her I did.

I began my search at the stealership on Burnet Road in Austin, just south of Koenig Lane, where the sales manager treated me like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman. For whatever reason — my age, my long hair, my jeans-and-t-shirt wardrobe choices — he apparently assumed I wasn’t well-heeled enough to afford a Harley. When I announced that I was there to buy a bike he said ‘The used bikes are outside,’ waved a lazy hand in the direction of the door, turned on his heel and walked away. In previous visits to that shop I had watched that man do everything short of performing fellatio on the showroom floor to make a sale, so, yeah, I took being treated that way personally.

But it worked out well for me, because as I was leaving the stealership I spotted a Harley in a used car lot two doors up the street….

….and that Harley — the 1974 FX-1200 Superglide I named The Bitch — has been under my ass or in my garage ever since.

Forty-five years! 😮 Outside my blood relations, there is not a single relationship in my life older than the one between me and The Bitch.

So, Happy Anniversary, baby! Let’s do forty-five more! 😎

Forgive me, Ralph, for I have sinned….

Posted on April 11, 2024 by billjfromaustin

In his 1979 article* about the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, Texas Monthly writer Dick Reavis created a humorous sidebar about the First Church of Harley-Davidson, located in Denton, Texas. The sect’s theology is a little off-center — the church’s founder, Malvern Daugherty, AKA ‘Reverend Box’, describes it as a ‘beer-and-reefer church’ — but some members claim to believe in Ralph, the little tin god of all things Harley-Davidson.

True believers feel that Ralph lives within each Harley-Davidson engine and, as Reavis writes, ‘that he is a jealous and exacting god. In order to worship him, Harley owners must kneel and carry out monkish acts of ritual devotion, like changing oil, tuning up, and keeping Ralph’s motor-temple clean. “The more religiously you carry out maintenance, the more Ralph smiles on you,” oracle Box proclaims. Inspired study of the Harley repair manual is considered necessary to gain Ralph’s grace.

‘First Churchers fear Ralph’s wrath, which a few of them have suffered firsthand. “You’ll be puttin’ down the road one day when all of a sudden your motor will thunder out ‘Rraaaallphh!’ That’s his punishment for infidels. You’ll find that your motor won’t run anymore, if it’s in one piece, and as for Ralph, he’ll be gone from it, back to his celestial home.” This vengeful visitation, Box says, is called “Ralphing it on the road.” ‘

While I’m not a member of the First Church of Harley-Davidson (if it still exists; that was written in 1979) I will allow that some spirit lives within Harley-Davidson engines — that’s what gives Harley-Davidson its legendary ‘soul’ — and that it is possible to piss them off….

….as I have apparently done.

You see, I sinned by taking The Bitch — my beloved 1974 shovelhead — for granted. When I parked her years ago, I didn’t do the things one must do to keep Ralph happy while his motorcycle home sits idle. I didn’t add fuel stabilizer to the petrol tanks or, better yet, drain the damned things. I didn’t put the battery on a trickle charger to keep it fresh, or fire the bike up and run it for fifteen minutes or so, which is apparently what is required to burn off any condensation that may have accumulated in the oiling system. I didn’t do nothin’ except hoist The Bitch up on a stand and slap a chain and padlock on her.

To be fair, I didn’t realize I was parking the bike for years. I’d had a get-off that destroyed the inner primary, and assumed I would make the repairs and get back in the saddle in short order. However, life had other plans.

*In December, on my way to a Toy Run, FFS, I had a get-off in a highway underpass. The hows and whys are a story unto themselves, but the end result was a* **very** *expensive jigsaw puzzle!*

For one thing, I got an opportunity to return to college, to complete the bachelor’s degree I had begun working toward the same year I bought The Bitch. There were forms to fill out, an application essay to write, interviews and appointments and registration…. and then there were classes, and homework, and, y’know, life stuff, like family gatherings and dates with my wife and dinners with friends, and I simply lost track of time. One day I looked up and realized it had been years.

That is when my quest to trike the shovelhead began in earnest, but still, The Bitch sat in the garage, more hat-rack than Harley, as I did all I did to try to procure a trike frame for her. After those efforts failed, and I bought the Freewheeler I am currently riding, any urgency to get The Bitch running quickly waned again. I had something new to distract me, and the learning curve of getting used to life on three wheels. The shovel would wait. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Yet another sin against Ralph.

As noted in my previous post, I got a wild hair to enter my shovelhead in the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show, so I began working on replacing fluids, battery, et cetera. I foolishly believed The Bitch, my faithful steed of forty-five years, would magically not suffer the degradations of time in idle limbo; that the gas would probably be just fine, the carburetor still fully functional, the inner tubes still airtight.

Yeah. That didn’t happen.

Believing the fuel tanks to be close to empty, I poured most of a gallon of fresh petrol in them before learning that the carburetor was not still fully functional, and that the damned petcock leaked whenever I turned it on.

*This leaking petcock would need to be replaced. I had to loosen the fatbob mounting bolts fore and aft to get the petcock, with its 90° outlet, past the backside of the shovelhead’s rocker boxes.*

I ordered a carburetor rebuild kit and replacement petcock from Amazon, available for next-day delivery, and called it a night. The next day, when the new parts arrived, I got stuck back into my penance…. umm, my mechanical efforts…. and began draining the fuel tanks as I rebuilt the carburetor.

Yeah, that didn’t happen, either.

The rebuild kit was nothing but made-in-China crap — the gaskets didn’t fit and the float valve needle was a full 1/8th of an inch longer than OEM! 😮 It’s as if, in creating this kit, the manufacturers looked at the pictures in a service manual and used their best approximation of the necessary sizes. Utterly useless, and on its way back to the Commie bastards who created it.

*She’s missing something, but I can’t quite put my finger on just what….*

So I turned my attention to the tanks, and realized there was far more petrol in there than I’d realized. The first can I used to catch fuel overflowed, so I deployed a second, and thought I’d pretty well gotten everything out. Time to replace the petcock then, right?

Except that, when I removed the petcock, another gallon of petrol splashed out!

I was panicked, getting doused with the stuff and unable to get the petcock back in place, but I did finally managed to get a gas can under the tank outlet and catch the last one-third of a gallon. However, the rest splashed all over the floor and began spreading rapidly, as petrol is wont to do.

In a mad scramble, accompanied by much cursing, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I used crumpled newspaper to sop up as much of the stuff as I could, but the smell remained. Dunno if you’ve ever had the pleasure, but years-old petrol reeks even worse than the fresh stuff you spill on the side of your car at the local convenience store. It reeks, and the stench lingers for a really long time!

Bless her heart, Jackie braved the hail of cusswords and self-recrimination I unleashed in the moment to come to my aid. She also did a quick Google search, and learned that kitty litter will supposedly absorb the odor. I will tell you that at this moment, over thirteen hours after I spread the kitty litter, it is no silver bullet. If any of the odor has been absorbed, or dissipated out the vent fan that’s been running for the past forty-eight hours, I can’t tell. That crap still reeks!

UPDATE: It took over seventy-two hours, the aforementioned application of kitty litter and a good scrubbing of the garage floor with a mixture of vinegar and baking soda to finally clear that stench from the garage! 🤢

I did manage to learn why the tank retained so much petrol after I thought it drained. Turned out that the petcock’s filter was clogged almost three inches up its length — the rust a fuel stabilizer might have prevented, don’tcha know — so that, even with the petcock on its ‘reserve’ setting, none of that last gallon of gas could escape….

….until I removed the petcock, of course! 🙄

Neil Young tried to warn me: **RUST NEVER SLEEPS!**

*Who knows what kind of rust and other crud is up there, inside that hole?*

So here I am. The shovel can’t be put back together because I don’t have the carburetor rebuild kit required, and I’m probably going to have to remove and cleanse the tanks — just the job I was hoping I would not have to do!

Ralph is really stickin’ it to me, dammit! 🤬🤬🤬

I will reproduce Mr. Reavis’ article in a future post. The Bandido MC photo at the top of the page, from Mr. Reavis’ article, was taken by Chris Wahlberg © 1979 Texas Monthly

It was a thought….

Posted on April 8, 2024 by billjfromaustin

The Bitch, my beloved 1974 shovelhead, has been sitting and gathering dust and cobwebs for several years more than I care to admit. Long story, but anyhoo….

Jackie and I are packing up the house in Austin — it’s already listed for sale — and prepping for our anticipated move to San Antonio, so I’ve felt fortunate to have the 2016 Freewheeler to ride, and assumed The Bitch would be trailered to SA in its existing condition.

But then I saw the announcements for this coming weekend’s Handbuilt Motorcycle Show, including a call for entries. I scanned the photo galleries of past events, and didn’t see anything that looked like The Bitch, so I thought, ‘Hmmm…. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head, getting my weary old road warrior in a show with all these slick, sleek professionally built custom bikes?’ What can I say? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m evil that way. 😈

Only trick is that when you submit an entry, you promise that the motorcycle you show will be running when you deliver it to the showgrounds. Hence, with Jackie’s encouragement, I started scrambling to get The Bitch fired up.

*That’s just the color you want to see on a set of plugs!*

First step: drain as much sumped oil as possible from the crankcase. I pulled the sparkplugs, still a lovely shade of tan because I know how to tune the shovel properly, and dropped the feed from the oil-bag, and started kicking, and kicking, and kicking….

*Oil being returned to the oil-bag as I kick drains into the oil pan on the floor.*

*The flow from the crankcase, as I kick, is forced out the chain oiler through the crankcase breather.*

Imagine: we used to let that waste oil drain into the ground and think nothing of it. Now we have to collect it in containers, and make an appointment to take it to the Hazardous Waste Recycling Center, which is all the way down IH35, south of Ben White Boulevard! It’s a wonder more people aren’t just dumping the stuff on the ground, still. Not me, of course — I’m a good steward of the earth these days — but I’ll bet there are a lot of gearheads who can’t be arsed to drain and retain the way I do.

**UPDATE:** *a couple weeks after publishing the post you’re currently reading, I rediscovered this clipping I had in my files, from* **Popular Science** *back in 1963, and thought I’d share it with y’all.*

I finally got enough oil out that I thought I might be good to go, so I reattached the feed line and poured two quarts of Valvoline Grade 50 into the oil-bag. It will officially hold three, but in my experience, that includes any oil stored in the external filter and connecting lines. The tank itself might hold two and a half. However, since the 50 is just to flush the system, two will do what needs doing.

*The last battery I bought **The Bitch** measured 5.25×3.5×7″ and weighed 11 pounds!* 😮

Next up was the battery. I’d been buying lovely gel batteries from the BMW shop on North Lamar, but the bastards had the nerve to go out of business. However, Cycle Gear over on US Highway 183 at Burnet Road came to the rescue. It took a couple of tries, but they came up with a Lithium Ion battery from Duraboost. First one I’ve ever purchased. It’s smaller and lighter, with no acid to fuss about, and has the added advantage of being mountable in any position, even upside down, without leaking or malfunctioning. Not a cheap date, but worth every penny, IMO. I imagine chopper builders the world over are ecstatic about these things!

*This little jewel measures 5.3 x 2.6 x 3.6″, and weighs a measly 1.3 pounds!* 😮😮😮 *It also fits neatly into the battery box with inches to spare!*

Added bennie: Cycle Gear gave me a discount for being a veteran! 👍🏻

Thinking I might be ready to give The Bitch a try, I took her off the hydraulic stand she’d been resting on for years — an adventure in itself — and leaned her over on her kickstand, where she immediately began puking oil all over the floor. I started to panic, thinking all my nice new 50-weight was going to end up soaking into old issues of The Austin Chronicle. Apparently I hadn’t cleared as much of the sumped oil as I’d thought, but it stopped in short order.

So now I have oil, lights and power. What next? Oh, yeah…. petrol! 👍🏻

*Behind that **very** ‘old school’ panhead air cleaner cover is a fifty-year-old Zenith Bendix 38mm carburetor that has served me **very** well for forty-five years!*

The Bitch still runs the OEM Zenith Bendix carburetor she came with from the factory — a juicy, easy-to-kickstart mixer that has served me well over the years. The Bendix has powered The Bitch and I well over half a million miles, from sea-level Galveston and Corpus Christi to the top of Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park — 11,798′ above sea level — and from the Texas border with Mexico to the Badlands of South Dakota. We’ve been up and down the Rockies on numerous trips, and all over the desert Southwest, with nary an adjustment or stutter. I spent years working the parts counter at Bud’s Motorcycle Shop on East First Street, and I was just agog at the pains some riders went through to rejet their carburetors in advance of road trips. Some even installed adjustable main-jets! Me, I was always, like, ‘Why?‘ 🤷🏻‍♀️ The Bitch just never needed it.

But as good a carb as the Bendix is, no carburetor will tolerate being ignored for years. They develop…. issues, you might say, and mine was not the exception I was hoping it would be. Nope. I poured some petrol in the tank, flipped the petcock lever, and….

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Not a drop of petrol was getting from tank to jet. Curses! 🤬

I dropped the bowl, catching the requisite handful of petrol as I did. One of my least favorite things, the smell of gasoline on my hands, because it lingers. C’est la vie, right? I wiped the bowl clean and blew compressed air through the passage from fuel pump to jet, clearing the passage of whatever obstruction it had, and thought I’d scored big-time! I reassembled the carb, turned the petcock back on, and watched heartbroken as petrol Niagara’d all over my engine from the vent at the back of the bowl. Curses again! 🤬

That petcock has less than fifty miles on it, and leaks like a sieve. Apparently, that’s a common problem with aftermarket petcocks. If the one I get tomorrow fails, I guess I’ll be shopping at the stealership again.

I took it all apart again, inspected and cleaned the float needle, and gave it another go. Same mess. Dammit! And, as if that weren’t enough, the petcock, which is virtually brand new, has sprung a leak as well. Imma have to get used to eating food that tastes like gasoline for the next several days. 🤢

I have a coffee can filled with petcocks, fuel filters and carburetor parts — even a spare Bendix carb — but in the rush to prep the house for sale, I naturally packed it and stowed it in the storage unit we rented. 🙄 I ran up to the storage unit and retrieved that tin and another filled with fuel line and clamps, but did not find the Bendix rebuild kit I thought I had in stock. Need I say ‘Curses!’ again? 🤬

*The carburetor in amongst spare parts from my stash, but I decided against trying to piece it together with odd parts. I’ll have the rebuild kit tomorrow, and handle it then.*

Since Bud’s is no longer in business, following Bud Reveile’s untimely death in 2015, the odds of finding a rebuild kit in town are slim to none, so I jumped on Amazon and, sure enough, they have ’em available for next-day delivery! They also have a petcock that will allegedly fit my 1997 Softail tanks. Fingers crossed they’re right. 🤞🏻

So, I’m at an stopping point for the moment. More anon….

….but during all the mad dashing to get the bike running, I received a message from the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show staff telling me my entry has been rejected! 😭 REJECTED!?!? How could they do that to my baby? 😢

Seriously, I knew my last-minute, unconventional entry was a longshot in a show packed full of sleek, pristine machines, but it was worth a shot, no? 🤷🏻‍♀️ And it gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get The Bitch fired up. No reason to quit now!

And I’m still going to the show, despite the slight! 😎 Maybe see some of y’all there!

UPDATE:

I did in fact attend the show, with my old friend Bil (one ‘L’ only) from ‘way back in my glory days. It was fun enough, wandering around checking out the flash machines. A lot of shiny chit to gawk at, most of it Euro or Pacific Rim in origin.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 😏

*I’ll take ‘Things I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead On’ for $400, Alex.*

*I’ll take ‘Things I’d Be Embarrassed to Park Beside’ for $1000, Alex.*

*Some nice details on these knuckleheads, but there really is such a thing as ‘too much’, y’know?*

*I mean, I like Steampunk effects well enough, but….*

*Newton R-n-D Yamaha Triple. Odd AF, but at least they broke the mold.*

*The flip-side of Newton’s Yammer-Hammer.*

*There were some old school chops, like this very classic panhead and the Honda Four beside it….*

….and then there was this Sporty trike set up for a wheelchair rider. If you’ve read my posts titled **chal•lenge**, and **chal•lenge, part two** you know that I’ve long been fascinated by handicap adaptations for motorcyclists, so this really caught my eye.

This part in particular intrigued me – a fold-out transfer board for shifting from saddle to wheelchair. The other wheelchair users I’ve known – motorcyclists and cagers alike – just muscled their way back and forth. That’s what I did when I was in a chair after my accident, but it requires upper-body strength not all wheelchair users possess. This would definitely make life easier for those folks.

*Then there was this oddity – another Yamaha creation – which happened to be parked right beside….*

*….the Coroner’s Office?* 🤷🏻‍♀️ *The show was held in the old printing plant of the **Austin American-Statesman** on South Congress, right where the billboard company I worked for once had their headquarters.*
I have no idea why the Statesman might have had an office for the Coroner, or if that was some wag’s idea of humor. Maybe this was actually the newspaper’s morgue, where old back-issues are kept on file for reference? 🤷🏻‍♀️
In any event, using the Statesman’s property for a motorcycle show was an interesting choice, given the daily’s editorial bias against motorcyclists. Or maybe it was just **bikers** they disliked so intensely? All I can tell you is that I have my own ‘morgue’ of newspaper clippings from the Statesman, documenting their long history of anti-biker bigotry.

*In any event, Bil and I had a good enough time, walking our mutually gimped legs off checking out the displays….*

….but I soon realized that, of the two choices I had for that weekend’s entertainment, the Texas Fandango out in Gillespie County would have been much more my speed. Hosted by the Cherokee Chapter of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America (of which I am an erstwhile member), the Texas Fandango features vintage machines – many of them American – along with a vintage swap meet, bike show, chopper show, Xtreem Flattrack Racing, drag racing, Custom Van show and free camping. It also has the advantage of being held in the scenic Texas Hill Country, with great riding roads all around, as opposed to the Handbuilt Show, which is held in very un-scenic and hard-to-get-to downtown Austin.

The Texas Fandango is coming up soon, April 4th through 6th, 2025, and I’m really, really wanting to make the scene if I can. My friend, artist Norman Bean, is slated to be there, with his incredible artwork on display, and it is to be hoped that other old faces might pop up, as well.

It would be nice to spend time with my tribe again. 😎

I took a little drive one night….

Posted on March 18, 2024 by billjfromaustin

As noted in my previous post, the very talented artist Lyndell Dean Wolff painted a portrait of your humble narrator, based on a photograph of me taken at Mount Rushmore back in the early ’80s. I’d ridden up from Texas with my partner — the late T.R. Evans (R.I.P.) — and just had to do all the famous stuff like Mount Rushmore, Spearfish Canyon, et cetera.

Well, Lyndell completed the painting just in time to unveil it at the 20th Annual David Mann Memorial Chopperfest at Ventura, California. Again, per my previous post, my wife and I are in the middle of packing up MMMoMMA’s exhibits (and all our shyte) for a move to San Antonio. After twenty-four and a half years in this house, and me a confirmed packrat/hoarder, there is a lot of shyte to pack!

However, how many times am I going to witness the first public display of a portrait of myself? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hence, about halfway through the week of the Chopperfest, I got the wild idea of actually attending Chopperfest for the first time! 😮

We discussed it — I mean, the timing could scarcely have been worse — but my wife, bless her heart, agreed that if I rendered one room paintable I could light out for the shaky coast, and she’d still have something to do to move us along. I busted a hump and got ‘er done that Friday evening. Insert big sigh of relief here.

Still, I dithered about going — ‘It’s a lot of miles, we’re jammed up with moving….,‘ and so on — but sometime around nine o’clock that evening I threw a few things in a baby duffel, loaded a cooler full of snacks and drinks, filled my venerable ’70s-era stainless steel Thermos^™ with coffee and set out on the road.

*Late night balling through West Texas.*

*In a lot of stretches, I had the road to myself. That **never** happens on IH35 anymore!*

*I do **love** The Land of Enchantment!*

*I took some time — here on a small stretch of old Route 66 — to indulge my passion for architecture.*

*That gorgeous brickwork just amazes me. I hope someone will come along and restore that building, rather than just tearing it down and erecting some soulless pre-fab thing in its place!*

*This view of snow-covered mountains just presaged what was to come.*

*Between the bitter cold, fog and snow and that ice-slicked roadway, this was a bit of a hairy ride!*

*But we survived, and lived to drive another day!*

*Sunset over I-10 on the Saturday night….*

*….and the colors just get prettier and prettier! Looks like colors from a Maxfield Parrish painting!*

At this point I was running on ‘blues power’ (as I used to call it back in my drinking and drugging days) and was virtually braindead. I could not even tell you what city this was, but this was my last photo of the night.

Jackie and I have a lovely system in place when I’m on the road: we will talk on the telephone at intervals (which helps me stay awake) and when it’s time for me to crash, she’ll go online and book me a room. This particular night, I called it quits somewhere around Palm Springs. After roughly twenty-six hours with nothing but catnaps, Audible books and coffee, I was ready to sleep…. and I did! 😴😴😴

*I woke up to this on the Sunday morning. Hell of a day for a motorcycle show, yes?*

I managed to blast through the Los Angeles area at 80 and 90 MPH without getting clipped. Saw a couple of CHP cruisers and one motorcycle working, but the Sunday morning traffic was sparse, and aside from some left-lane loogies it was a relatively stress-free drive.

It wasn’t hard to find the Ventura County Fairgrounds, where the Chopperfest was being held; just follow the stream of motorcycles. I inched my black road warrior van to the front gate surrounded by the sights and sounds of a vast motorcycling community, found a parking spot and limped my way into the event.

*This was a proper chopper show, with plenty of handbuilt scooters of all sorts and sizes, from this well-worn 1946 knuckle bobber….*

*….and gorgeous, race-ready ’47 Indian Chief….*

*….to this Bizarro World 1975 Honda 550, with all sorts of whimsical details….*

*….like the shot-through petrol tank and Brothel badge…*

*….the ‘**Fuck Ya**‘ hand shifter and copper tank covers…*

There was a replica of the ‘Billy Bike’ from the 1969 cult classic **Easy Rider**, starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. I’ve seen a lot of star-spangled ‘Captain America’ replicas — *at least **three** so far* that their owners **swore** were the sole surviving movie panhead!!! 🙄 — but never seen a Billy Bike outside of Franklin Mint’s 1:10 scale models. For the record, Franklin Mint’s **Easy Rider** 1:10 scale replica motorcycles are part of MMMoMMA’s original exhibit.
*Note that the chopped and flame-painted Billy Bike is parked right beside what appears to be a beautifully restored 1957 Sportster (below). I just love that there was a wide variety of machines here!*

*This was an interesting item: a one-of-a-kind 1942 Crosley, designed and built by Russell Martin.*

*Check out all the beautiful details, and see if you can guess just what it is you’re seeing *….before perusing the menu of ingredients (below) that went into this incredible build*.*

*Near as I can tell, that’s a 2024 WTF, but the builder insists it is a 1974 Maico.* 🤷🏻‍♀️ *Me, I have to take his word for it!*

*….and an even wilder creation known only as ‘bagger’!*

I wanted to enjoy some of the bikes on display before making my appearance at Lyndell’s stand, so I wandered about for a while, snapping photos of interesting details like these:

*I believe that speaks for itself, don’t you?*

*This carburetor cover went with the Native American-themed paint on this rider’s panhead.*

Beautifully designed and crafted midships footrest and brake pedal. I would need to have far shorter legs and smaller feet than I do to even use these, and that slick chrome doesn’t offer much purchase if trying desperately to avoid ramming the cager who just pulled out in front of you. On a wet day? No way!
*Pretty, though!* 😁

*Apparently saddlebags and a sky-high sissy bar weren’t enough for this rider….*

*….but then again, he **does** put on some miles!*

*However, long bikes like these — the laid-back California-born chopper of the sort immortalized in David Mann’s brilliant artwork — remain the* raison d’être *for Chopperfest, and this slabside shovel is a prime example of the style.*

Some fools say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but a tasty shovel hooks me every time. This heavily chromed and polished 1978 is fun to look at, but for my own bikes I avoid parts that are too shiny. It’s a whole thing with me…. 😏

*I may be a shovel man, but this panhead sure caught my eye: simple, understated, with those stepped-up shotguns and a relatively unmolested wishbone frame. Be still, my heart!* 🥰

*And speaking of unmolested, here we are right where we started, looking at a well-loved knucklehead with an OEM frame in what appears to be OEM condition!*

*Days like these are why Southern California is considered a bikers’ paradise!*

But what of the artist I drove all this way to see? There was a crowded food court serviced by an array of food trailers, and a long outdoor market of sorts that stretched from end to end of the fairgrounds, with all manner of goods on offer. I saw leathers, patches, jewelry, custom and vintage motorcycle parts, even rain gutters for your house!

There were also two huge exhibition halls. The first was filled with booths offering much of the same as those in the bazaar outside: parts, t-shirts, accessories, Jesus…. 😮 oh, yeah, the Lord was there and eager to make your acquaintance, if the motorcycle ministry boys surrounding the booth were to be believed.

Finally, in the last exhibition hall, I found the artists. I began with a quick walkabout, to see who-all was there. I spotted some future MMMoMMA acquisitions, and some real dreck.

First were the helmets. As noted in my previous post, Biltwell invites artists to paint and display painted helmets, which are then offered for sale.

*I failed to make note of artists’ names. My apologies to them.*

*This being the **David Mann Memorial Chopperfest**, it just makes sense to honor the man.*

*Imma take a wild-assed guess that these were by Wayne Wreck!* 😏

*….what to my wondering eyes should appear….*

*….but Lyndell Dean Wolff’s contribution to the helmet show! I knew it was his even at a glance because I’d seen the prelim work on his Facebook page.*

There were a great many artists’ work on display, and some great pieces.

*David ‘Huggy Beahr’ Hanson, who passed away last year, was being honored at the 2024 Chopperfest. This is oil pastel on walnut by artist Cynthia Polk.*

*Anthony Hicks, who is also mentioned in a recent MMMoMMA Facebook post. I want to pay more attention to what this fellow’s doing!*

*I failed to get this artist’s name, as well. The print is signed Bloody.TPN….?* 🤷🏻‍♀️

*Finally, it was time to introduce myself to Lyndell Dean Wolff.*

When I approached Lyndell Dean Wolff’s booth in the exhibition hall, I saw that my portrait was hanging on the portable chain link fence that backstopped the artists’ displays. We’d never met IRL, so with Lyndell looking on, I gestured at the portrait with my cane and said ‘That’s an ugly sumbitch right there.’

*‘Sturgis Run, ’87’ by Lyndell Dean Wolff (2024) acrylic on foamboard*

Lyndell said ‘That’s Bill James from Austin’ as he was getting to his feet. It seemed like he was prepared to defend his subject’s honor or his art, or both, and it took him a moment to comprehend that I was saying ‘I’m Bill James from Austin,’ but then all joy broke loose.

He and his sweetie, Sharon, were just amazed that I would travel that far just to meet him, but I told them, as I told you at the top of the post, ‘How many portraits of me are artists gonna paint in my lifetime? I couldn’t miss this!’

From left to right: artist Lyndell Dean Wolff, Early Rider Bruce Shroeder and your humble narrator, leaning on a cane his nephew Devon custom-crafted for him and looking utterly exhausted. You’d think I’d been bustin’ my ass all week, and then taken a hell-for-leather drive across half the continent! 😏
*BTW, check out Lyndell’s artwork hanging behind us, and then check out his websites. Damn, he’s good, and I’d like to see him get the recognition he deserves!*

Lyndell Dean Wolff

This is the gallery handling the sales of Lyndell Dean Wolff’s paintings.

About

This is Lyndell’s own page, with galleries, biography, et cetera.

We sat there and visited for a couple of hours — the great open-ended visiting I love best — talking about our lives, our motorcycle exploits, our work…. After a while we were joined by a fellow named Bruce, who rode with the Early Riders. Bruce could talk for England, as they say. He kept up a running monolog about people I’ve never met in places I’ve never been, and rarely paused for breath. I like a good yarn, but Bruce beat all I ever heard!

*As we sat and visited, this fellow motored by. He claimed he was test-riding the prototype 2035 Harley-Davidson bagger, for when all us Boomers are too pooped to crawl up on our motorcycles anymore!*

As the afternoon waned so did the crowds, and Lyndell and Sharon started to pack up. I gave them some Shovel Shop ‘Watch for Biker’ t-shirts I’d carried out there for them, we said our goodbyes, and I hit the highway east, retracing my steps back to Texas. It was a real pleasure to get to meet them both, and share that wonderful afternoon with them.

*From left to right: your humble narrator with a portrait of a much younger him, artist Lyndell Dean Wolff and Sharon. Do I look sleepy? I think I look sleepy.* 😵‍💫

Took it a little easier going home — a night in the same hotel in Palm Springs, and another in El Paso — but I did my best to make up that time on the road.

*It’s not just me, is it?*
*Actually, just last week I saw a post about this ‘mountain’ on a Facebook page, so I **know** it’s not just me!* 😎

Gotta make up time somehow, right? I’d actually hit 110, but by the time I raised my camera I was already losing speed. However, in West Texas most of the traffic was running 95, so I wasn’t **that** far outta line!

*Welcome back to Austin. Just part of the reason we’re leaving after all these years, but this shyte definitely plays a part!* 🤬

WTF is MMMoMMA?

Posted on February 4, 2024 by billjfromaustin

Some of you may have heard me mention that I am the founder, curator, chief cook and bottle-washer of a little thing I like to call MMMoMMA. New York City has MOMA, aka the Museum of Modern Art, and Central Texas has MMMoMMA, aka My Miniature Museum of Modern Motorcycle Art. 😎

The entryway to **MMMoMMA** featured works by (from top left) Norman Bean, Sara Ray, Jim Lightfoot, James Guçwa, Damian Fulton, John Guillemette and a piece titled *Triumph of Love* by an artist whose name escapes me in the moment (and my sincerest apologies to that artist for my brain fade). The collection is temporarily in storage as we seek larger quarters, or I’d just step out in the entryway and tell you their name. 🤷🏻‍♀️ At right, several photographs of your humble narrator, an original dealership postcard announcing the release of the 1953 model-year Harley-Davidsons, and a fine miniature of a slabside shovel by yet another artist whose name escapes me. I swear I’ll be better about this when we reopen the Museum, honest!

A small sampling of the rotating exhibit at MMMoMMA, including David Uhl’s *The Enthusiast*, a long-time fave, and the piece at lower right by Ian at HotRodPencil on Etsy, personalized with the Shovel Shop name.

One of my favorite tasks at MMMoMMA is spotting those excellent artists who capture our lives and lifestyle (and motorcycles) in their chosen media, be it painting, photography, sculpture, film….

*Veer Left* by Lyndell Dean Wolff is the painting, more than any other, that I’m craving for my collection

….and an artist I spotted a while back is one Lyndell Dean Wolff, a California-based artist who has done some incredible work in that field.

*Beautiful Buzzard from Berdoo* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

What first caught my eye, naturally, was his series of paintings inspired by Bill Ray’s famous 1965 photographs* of the Hells Angels and other California MCs, like Beautiful Buzzard of Berdoo, seen above. Others in the series include Tickle It, Bakersfield Run and Berdoo Salute.

*Bakersfield Run* by Lyndell Dean Wolff (2024)

*Berdoo Salute* by Lyndell Dean Wolff (2024)

However, Lyndell isn’t confined to just reimagining Ray’s iconic photographs. He has another series of works — a near-to-photorealist collection titled Wabi-Sabi — that feature historic motorcycles in OEM and custom trim.

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 12* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 11* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 3* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 4* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 5* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 6* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

One of my personal favorites is Lyndell’s portrait of this motorcycle queen, a shovel rider from Japan whose photos appear regularly across the interwebs. I don’t know her name, but I admire any woman who rides her own, and especially a rigid kickstart-only shovelhead like hers.

*Wabi-Sabi, No. 13* by Lyndell Dean Wolff….

Outside the Wabi-Sabi and Bill Ray collections, Lyndell creates some brilliant images of vintage motorcycles like these:

*Knee-High by July* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Harley-Davidson WL* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*David ‘Huggy Beahr’ Hansen, 1948-2023* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Excelsior Super-X* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

Lyndell also honors legends of the motorcycling world, including Burt Munro of The World’s Fastest Indian fame, and the godfather of motorcycle art, David Mann himself.

*Another Cuppa* by Lyndell Dean Wolff features New Zealand Indian rider Burt Munro, whose story was memorialized in the film *The World’s Fastest Indian*

*David Mann Tribute* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

However, if you visit Lyndell’s gallery, or his website, you will see that he is not limited, any more than David Mann was, to ‘just’ motorcycle-themed art. Lyndell is truly a fine artist in every sense of those words, accomplished and acknowledged, endowed with wide-ranging vision, and possessed of a keen eye for dramatic vignettes and an exquisite hand for detail.

*Embodied Cognition* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Cognitive Phenomenology, No. 13* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

For instance, his series titled ‘Cognitive Phenomenology‘ (seen above and below) is a brilliant exploration of human form and cityscape, reflection, light and shadow. The works bring to mind one of my personal faves, Edward Hopper, and yet frequently surpass Hopper in depth and emotion. Those who know my love for Hopper are probably shocked to see me write that, but it’s true.

What can I say? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I calls ’em as I sees ’em! 😏

*Cognitive Phenomenology 5* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

*Cognitive Phenomenology 11* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

He has other works, as well. Here is one I love, that appears to be an homage to American artist-cartoonist Robt. Williams. Part of the draw for me may be that Lyndell here reimagines traditional representations of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Jackie and I were married at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church here in Austin, and the lay ministry we were involved in at the church featured Our Lady in much of its iconography.

*Spiritual Gentrification, No. 1* by Lyndell Dean Wolff

I’ve been saving my milk money for a while now, hoping to acquire one of Lyndell’s paintings for MMMoMMA, but in the meanwhile we’ve struck up a friendship, and just today he did me the incredible honor of releasing his newest work, entitled “’87 Sturgis Run” (16×20 inch, acrylic on panel). Some of you may recognize that handsome devil standing beside his trusty shovelhead, with the stone faces of Mount Rushmore peering over his shoulder.

*’87 Sturgis Run* by Lyndell Dean Wolff (2024)

That handsome devil is none other than your humble narrator….

….although it’s damned hard to be humble when a talented artist like Lyndell Dean Wolff makes your mug the subject of a painting! 😎

This painting is based on one of my favorite photographs. Every time I see it, I am reminded of the young man I was, and the adventures I had on my beloved shovelhead. I might not be smiling in the photo, but you can bet your bottom dollar I was one happy biker!

Lyndell has been invited to exhibit at the David Mann Memorial Chopperfest Motorcycle, Art and Kulture Show taking place next weekend, February 11^th, on the beach at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. He has been a featured artist at this prestigious event for several years running, and his latest paintings, including “Bakersfield Run”, “Berdoo Salute” and “’87 Sturgis Run”, will be on display.

20th Annual David Mann Memorial Chopperfest

Lyndell has also been invited (again!) to contribute a custom painted helmet to the Biltwell Helmet Show, which is a regular part of Chopperfest. His helmet and paintings will be available for sale on-site.

The lineup for the 2024 Biltwell Helmet Show at Chopperfest

I am very proud of my friend, Lyndell Dean Wolff, and sincerely hope you will check out his work, either online or in person at Chopperfest. Better yet, take a piece home. I know I’m dying to! 👍🏼

FOLLOW-UP:

I actually made it to last year’s Chopperfest – the 20th Annual – and tell the tale here. Now it’s time for the 21st. My friend Lyndell Dean Wolff will be there again. This year. he was asked to paint a poster (below) for the event. If you look hard, you might see a familiar figure limping along in the crowd! Thanks, Lyndell!

Read about my trip to the 20th Annual David Mann Memorial Chopperfest, and my meeting with Lyndell Dean Wolff and Sharon, at I took a little drive one night…

JUST FYI:

*Bill Ray, mentioned above, was on assignment from LIFE Magazine in 1965, in response to the spate of news reports about the Angels and other ‘outlaw’ clubs. His photographs were ultimately rejected for publication at the time. The editors wanted visual reinforcement of the stereotypical larger-than-life ‘biker thug’ that pearl-clutching news reports were describing. Bill Ray disappointed them when he handed in images of everyday women and men on motorcycles, enjoying their lives. His iconic photographs showed the bikers in too good a light. 😎

However, for modern readers and historians, Ray’s 2019 book, ‘Hells Angels of San Berdoo ’65: Inside the Mother Charter‘, presents a mind-blowing visual record of the outlaw scene of the day. If you’re into our history as bikers, it’s as important a piece as Danny Lyon’s ‘The Bikeriders‘ or Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal work of gonzo journalism, ‘Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs‘.

In fact, Thompson mentions Bill Ray in his book, jealous of the fact that Ray was more accepted by the club than Thompson himself. 😆

Ray’s book is available online, and well worth the price, IMO.

chal•lenge, part two

Posted on December 5, 2023 by billjfromaustin

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

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

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

😱😮😳😢😡🤬

*The structure I fell from, with new panels to replace the ones that gave way under my hook ladder.*

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

….and I mean nothing! 😡

*I might be smiling, but there was nothing **fun** about that hospital stay!*

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

*Me and my new wheels, back at the crib!*

*My friend Bryan built the ramp for me, and a bunch of folks from the church where Jackie and I were married came by to sign it and scribble ‘get well’ wishes on it.*

*When you’ve been active and physical most of your adult life, lying around watching television all day is not near as much fun as it sounds, but I made the best I could of it.*

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

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

*The Bitch started first kick after three and a half months of down time. I was so proud of my baby that day!*

*Oh, yeah! I was a happy man in that moment!*

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

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

The Bitch with her frame-mounted butt-bucket saddle. On it I was seated down in the motorcycle, rather than on it. Great feeling, better road sense, lower center of gravity, et cetera, but not user-friendly for the new me.

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

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

Next was a bit of R&D in the best East Austin tradition, to see if a traditional OEM pogo stick might do what I needed. I borrowed a single bright red fatbob tank, a pogo stick and t-bar, and a funky old buddy seat I found in amongst the takeoffs and rejects in Bud’s shop. Test rides proved that a pogo stick could work, but only if I ran the optional OEM heavy-duty spring set, Harley part no. 51771-29

*This might have been ugly as sin, but it **did** let me know I was heading in the right direction.*

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

*Late model flatside fatbobs in a factory blue, with my old bobber fenders painted to match. Since they were Bud’s final gift to me, I am reluctant to mess with the paint scheme.*

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

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

*There’s my homemade backrest before I sicced the upholsterer on it.*…

*….and here it is completed. It didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped….*

....but it wasn’t **terrible-**looking, was it?

*Better than **this**, at least….*
….right?
Right? 🤷🏻‍♀️

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

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

*The sucky part is that it worked **great** while I was moving!*

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

*The Bitch with the pogo stick and vintage FLH windshield….*

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

*….and here, with the later-model Dyna windshield.*

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

*2000 BMW R1100R with a windshield and OEM bags, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.*

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

Instead, I came home with a 1987 FXRS.

The 1987 FXRS I named The Banshee (because she knew how to wail) was ugly as sin when I got her, but had a powerplant rebuilt from a burn by Harley Bob, the same ace who figured out how to make The Bitch’s pogo stick saddle work. It also handled like a dream, had all the get-up-and-go an ol’ boy like me could need, and was the **first** Harley my wife could passenger on!

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

*The FXRP (Police) saddle mounted on my 1987 FXRS Low Rider the day I brought it home….*

*….and the first ride on the new saddle.*

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

The Banshee on October 24th, 2008, the day I finished a two-year makeover, which included the FXRP saddle seen here, the removal of a metric fuck-tonne of chrome shyte, and the installation of as many black parts as I could lay hands on. In fact, a black belt-guard and that all-black pillion pad were the final pieces of my puzzle.

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

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

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

😱😮😳😢😡🤬

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

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

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

Anyhoo….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*See my previous post for details about this trike.*

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

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

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

*The frame of my dreams, minus the chrome plating. Homie don’ like chromie!*

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

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

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

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

The 2016 Harley-Davidson Freewheeler with the 103″ Twin Cam engine; last year for the line, I’m told. I know squat about late-model Harleys, so every day on this thing is a new experience! And just think, I went from a 74″ shovel to an 80″ Evo, and now a 103″ Twinkie.

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

The 2016 Harley-Davidson FLRT Freewheeler I have christened The Box-Turtle. First there’s alliteration — Bitch, Banshee, Bagger and Box-Turtle — and then there’s that great honkin’ taco box on the back, like a turtle shell.

*I even found a metallic sticker of Heinrick Kley’s musical turtles, which I’d discovered several years before they appeared on the cover of The Grateful Dead’s* **Terrapin Station** *album.*

In fact, while I lived in Seattle in late ’75, after getting out of the service, I got the banjo-playing turtle tattooed on my left bicep. Unfortunately, the ‘artist’ — a celebrated tattooist who called herself ‘Madame Lazonga’ — did such a crappy job that I had the thing covered at the first opportunity.

*Still, I never got over my affection for the critters!*

*I even found an embroidered patch to add to my winter riding vest, and a suitable quote from a Grateful Dead song. It really* **has** *been a long, strange trip, hasn’t it?*

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

*The FLRT Freewheeler loaded on my too-short trailer….*

*….and thank goodness I had the heavy-duty tie-down straps Bud gave me, so I could rig that tailgate/ramp securely enough to make it home. I’ll be having braces made for it ASAP.*

*And yes, that is a flat tire, unnoticed in all the excitement until I was a block away, no longer under the nice shade tree.* 😡🤬 *Triple-A earned their premium that day!*

Once home, I didn’t ride the beast for a week. See those four-inch cones? I **like** my neighbors, and I have no interest in inflicting **that** on them, so I waited to ride until I could replace the damned things.

This project, BTW, prompted my return to Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, Version 2.0, for the first time since his death, and my realization that change, that constant motherfucker, had done its damage in my old home-away-from-home. Took two trips out there — one before I brought the trike home and another after, to exchange the first set of take-off mufflers for a set that fit — but I got it done!

*Then it was time to begin the learning curve*.

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

The sidecar we dubbed ‘Moon Unit’, attached to my 1954 wishbone frame with a combination of OEM Harley-Davidson parts and some bastard mounts designed and constructed with the invaluable assistance of Bill Mading at BG&T Welding in Austin. Bill was a former motocross racer who understood (far better than I) the stresses and strains a motorcycle frame undergoes. It was Bill who restored my ’54 frame when I first got it, replacing the stress tube and fat bob mounts some chopper builder had removed, and inspecting the joints for cracks. When I decided to get a sidecar for the shovel, so my stepdaughter could join her mother and I on rides, I knew I could trust him to help keep my little girl safe.

The test-ride I took in Houston was terrifying, so when I got the beast home, I knew I had to unlearn almost five decades of training and experience in order to ride her safely. Just resisting the instinct to countersteer when going into curves took all my concentration, at first.

Then, since I’m not countersteering and leaning into curves the way I’m accustomed to do, the trike constantly felt as if it might tip over in turns, victim to centrifugal force. I had to gradually build up my confidence in curves, carefully going faster and faster as I gained a feeling for how the machine would handle and what it could handle.

It was effectively like reliving my earliest days on a motorcycle. My first rides were just toodles around the neighborhood, but I slowly progressed to longer and longer excursions. Now I’m balling down the highway at 80 and 90 MPH, slinging that trike through Texas Hill Country twisties at speed, and having a grand ol’ time of it!

*My first ‘big’ trip out of the neighborhood was to drop some eBay packages off at the post office. Whoo-hoo, huh?* 🤷🏻‍♀️

*Still, it was me on a motorcycle and back in the wind, so no complaints here….*

….and I’ve managed longer trips since then, including a day-long walkabout through Williamson, Cameron and Bell Counties, down the backroads I so enjoyed exploring on my shovelhead. I’m slowly rebuilding my ‘mileage muscles’, which have atrophied after years of disuse, and look forward to longer and longer rides on my Box-Turtle.

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

*Steve back in 1992, on a ride from Central Texas to Western Colorado. I just love that grin on his face!*

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

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

chal•lenge accepted! 😁

I might look grumpy, but inside I’m smiling like a fool! I am in the wind! It’s **not** my beloved Bitch, but the wind tastes the same! ….and I still **have** The Bitch, so I still have hope. So long as I’m upright and breathing free air, there’s always the possibility that The Bitch and I will be together in the wind again, someday soon. 😎

In case you missed the link at the beginning of this post, you can find the first part of my article on handicap adaptations at:

chal•lenge

chal•lenge

Posted on August 21, 2023 by billjfromaustin

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

What would you do if life – an accident or illness or hereditary condition – stopped you from doing the thing you most enjoy?

*Paul aboard his custom shovelhead trike, as it appeared in* **Easyriders** *in January, 1985.*

I initially got interested in adapting motorcycles for use by riders with physical disabilities in the early ’80s, when I helped design and construct a shovelhead-powered trike for a military veteran who’d been paralyzed in a motorcycle wreck. Paul (seen in photo above) was classified as quadriplegic, which, FYI, does not necessarily mean a person is paralyzed from the neck down, as I’d always assumed. Rather, it simply means the normal functions of all four limbs are affected by the injury or condition. In Paul’s case, that meant he had no use of his legs, and while his right arm was almost fully functional, his left had only limited strength and range of motion. He could make a partial fist – enough to operate a hand clutch and help steer a motorcycle – but couldn’t operate a jockey shift or brake lever.

Now, bear in mind that in the 1980s none of the well-known motorcycle manufacturers were producing three-wheeled motorcycles. Harley-Davidson still offered sidecars, but the Motor Company’s venerable Servi-Car (popular with police and fire departments, delivery services and automotive repair shops) ended its forty-one-year run in 1973, and no one was rushing to fill that slot.

As an aside: circa 1982, Honda reportedly produced a prototype three-wheeler based on their CX500 – an estimated 250 units overall – for U.S. Police Departments. I have a distinct (and very pleasant memory) of seeing a female Austin Police Department officer in full moto-cop regalia, including knee boots and leather jacket, blasting through downtown traffic on one such prototype with her long blonde hair streaming behind her. 😍 Unfortunately, the bikes didn’t make the cut and never went into full production, and I never saw my jackbooted goddess again. 🥺😢😭

Anyhoo, as I was saying….

No one was cranking out three-wheeled motorcycles back then, and aside from some knucklehead-powered prototypes constructed at the onset of World War II, the Motor Company had never produced a Big Twin trike. That meant virtually everything we needed to make Paul’s bike function as required had to be designed and created in-house.

The chassis consisted of an OEM early shovelhead swingarm frame grafted to a rigid Servi-Car rear section. It had originally been built for a local biker who was shot in the leg by an off-duty APD officer during a traffic confrontation on Guadalupe Street, near the entrance to the Austin State Hospital. The cop claimed he was in fear for his life, naturally, and walked away without consequence. Meanwhile, the unarmed and now disabled biker was left to fend for himself, and put together the three-wheeler.

After a while, Rod assumed he was healed up enough to get back on two wheels, so my boss at the motorcycle shop got the trike frame. Unfortunately, Rod wasn’t as healed as he thought he was, because shortly after getting back on his panhead he tipped his bike over while trying to park it in a grassy area pocked with hillocks and treacherous low spots. When he tried to catch himself his right (injured) leg gave way, putting him right back on the disabled list.

However, by then we were already well into the construction of Paul’s trike.

The Easyriders spread from January, 1985, seen below, shows the details of Paul’s unique trike: crossover shifter mechanism, linked front and rear brakes, custom floorboards, et cetera. What the magazine doesn’t show is that, while we got the trike running and dialed in, and fine-tuned the hand-controls and other adaptations, Paul was bartering with the shop’s owner, trading custom paint and bodywork to cover the costs of the build. Paul was a gifted body man, and I was very proud to run the tins he’d shaped and painted for me during that time.

1980: My 1974 shovelhead, recently transplanted into this OEM 1954 wishbone frame, sports tanks and fenders shaped (where needed) and painted by Paul. This was the first frame-off rebuild I’d ever done, and I remain very proud of the finished project! A lot of people who looked askance at my choice of colors when the painted tins were hanging on the wall in my shop area admitted I’d chosen well, and created a striking custom build.

Once we got the trike dialed in, while it was still all bare metal and grey primer, we turned it over to Paul, who soon returned to his home in Massachusetts. There, he took the bike apart and detailed the thing, putting his expertise and artistry as a body man to work, and doing much of the physical labor himself. Paul built an extended platform behind the pogo-stick saddle to hold his wheelchair, and the custom-built ultralight wheelchair itself. He also cleaned up the rough metal we’d used to fashion some of his controls, added a lot of gold and chrome plating, and painted the machine a rich ebony black with striped accents on the frame. Aside from the unique aspects of its construction, the machine was a beautiful custom motorcycle, deserving of its place in the pages of the world’s most widely-read biker magazine.

By the time we completed Paul’s trike, I had become fascinated with the process of modifying motorcycles for use by handicapped riders, and enamored of the spirit and ingenuity that went into each adaptation. I began clipping articles from newspapers and magazines – anything referencing handicapped riders or drivers – and adverts and announcements about new parts that looked as if they might prove useful in adaptations. I photographed adapted bikes wherever I found them, and spoke to the riders if possible.

Over time, I accumulated a hefty file of information in those pre-internet days, and acted as a clearinghouse for that info. Primarily through Letters to the Editors columns of motorcycle magazines I made that information available free of charge to any and all takers.

Early 1988: Jane Strand on the shovelhead trike she and her husband, Rick Strand, designed and constructed. Jane was paralyzed when a teenaged red-light-runner struck the couple as they rode Rick’s flathead through downtown Austin. I featured their bike in the article I wrote for Road Rider. Rick and Jane went on to found a custom motorcycle shop in South Dakota, specializing in adaptations for handicapped riders. However, just now, when I went looking for the shop’s contact info, I learned that Rick passed away several years ago. Sorry to say, I don’t know what happened to Jane.

I’d written for newspapers and magazines for several years, so it was a natural progression to take what I’d learned and create a feature-length magazine article. I shopped the idea around, and Road Rider (later reconfigured as Motorcycle Consumer News) gave me the commission. I did the research, conducted my interviews, took the photographs, and my piece appeared in Road Rider‘s November 1988 issue. I didn’t even know it had come out until someone at a motorcycle rights organization meeting asked for my autograph! 🙄

*Tina and I at Frank’s Lakeview Inn, Lake Belton, Texas, October 1988.*

October, 1988: My friend Tina and I, as I sign my first (and last, so far) autograph on my just-released article about adapting motorcycles for use by handicapped riders. We were at Frank’s Lakeview Inn on Lake Belton, Texas, to attend a Texas Motorcycle Roadriders Association meeting.

Times have changed drastically since that article appeared. By the late ‘90s aftermarket manufacturers had begun releasing bolt-on trike kits, and now offer assemblies for almost every motorcycle marque on the road. In 2009, Harley-Davidson began marketing its own line of Big Twin trikes with a wide range of options. Aftermarket trike frames are also available, as are helpful add-ons like electronic shifter mechanisms, and reverse drive units for those who can’t back their bikes out of parking spaces. Meanwhile, the Can-Am Spyder and Polaris Slingshot offer something other than the traditional trike configuration, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Just in time, too, as the perennially playful Baby Boom ages into the need for three-wheelers! 😆

Okay, so, on to the articles:

This is my piece, written for Road Rider Magazine:

As an aside: the late Roger Hull, who co-founded and edited Road Rider, and has been inducted the Hall of Fame at the American Motorcyclist Association, was a personal hero of mine for his principled, unwavering stance on riders’ rights and freedom of the road. Even though he’d retired from the magazine by the time I sold them my piece, it gave me great pleasure to publish an article in those hallowed pages!