A Facebook friend reposted a two-year-old screed about late-model wankers with their heated handgrips, windshields, stereos and security systems, and I felt moved to respond. As is my wont, I got windy about it. Here’s what he wrote:
To which I replied:
I don’t even like needing a windshield on a motorcycle, and wouldn’t run one if I hadn’t broken my damn back, but I have never seen the purpose of stereos, GPS systems and such. Get your Prius out of the garage, if you need all that shit!
My 2016 FLRT Freewheeler: no fairing, no stereo, no GPS, no cupholder, no bullshit…. It’s early days – I’ve only owned her for a couple of years – but she’s already lost weight, like the heavy chrome bumper and engine guards. Don’t be surprised if she loses even more weight as time goes by. I like my motorcycles stripped near to naked! 😏My 1954/66/74 shovelhead stripped near to naked, at left, and with the pogo-stick saddle and windshield I was forced to add after the 35′ fall that broke my achin’ sacroiliac. As you might imagine from my rantings on this page, I would much rather have the iteration at left! 😏
Still, I remember in the early ’70s, cats mounting alarm systems on their rides because…. hey! If some motherfucker gets off with your bike, the odds are you’ll never see it again. Most broke tramps I knew had everything they owned in that machine, and no insurance company was gonna cover a custom bike. You and your bros were all that stood between your bike and the forces of evil.
I’ll never forget sitting at a party back in ’73: we’re all getting drunk and high and grooving to the tunes on the turntable, and all of a sudden we hear a fucking police radio right there in the room with us! Turned out to be the remote for the new alarm system on Al’s Sporty. It could receive a signal from the alarm module if anyone fucked with his bike. No one knew until that instant that it could also pick up radio transmissions! 😱 Talk about freaked out! 🤣
I’ve never had an alarm system on any of my bikes, but I also avoid parking them where I can’t keep an eye on them. If the bike’s not in my line of sight for any reason, it’s locked up tight and I’m checking on it at infrequent intervals. Gotta keep them thieves on their toes!
Even in my bolted and alarm-secured garage, my bikes are locked up. I worked hard to get and keep that shovel, and the FLRT parked beside it, and I’m not taking any chances on either of ’em going walkabout. Not on my watch! 😏
….if the bike’s not in my line of sight, it’s locked up tight and I’m checking on it at infrequent intervals. Gotta keep them thieves on their toes!
I remember sitting at local beer joints, watching as those of us who rode took turns hopping off our barstools and checking the parking lot. It looked kinda funny, seeing us go up and down like a whore’s knickers, but we all knew none of our rides were safe unless we watched out for ’em.
And it wasn’t just paranoia. I had a customer come in the shop with a Sporty shock that was bent almost in an ‘L’. Naturally, I asked him what happened, thinking he’d been t-boned by a cager. Nope. He was at a titty bar on the north side. He recalled parking his bike and passing a cluster of UT frat boys leaving as he walked in. Nothing happened, he said – no harsh words or dirty looks or anything – but a few minutes later one of his buddies walked in and said ‘Man, what happened to your bike? It’s layin’ on its side out there.’
Turned out someone – presumably the frat boys – knocked his bike over and did a fandango on it: stove in the fuel tank, bent the handlebars, fucked up the gauges, broke the mirrors, et cetera. 🤬🤬🤬
A few months later, I was sitting in a titty bar on the south side, rapping with a friend, and told him that story. He got this sick look on his face, jumped up and ran out the door. I just sat there, kind of amused, figuring he’d be right back…. but then he didn’t come back, so I went to check on him.
As I push my way through the double doors to the parking lot, I see Doc on one side of his bike, and a young couple standing on the other. Doc’s finger is in the guy’s face – he’s obviously pissed – and I’m thinking ‘Oops! Looks like we’re fixing to get down.’ I hit the second set of doors like a freight train, and as I do the chick turns to me and chirps ‘Oh, you think you’re bad?‘ 😲
WTF? 🤷🏻♀️
The guy already looked like he was about to wet himself, with Doc growling at him, but when the chick said that the dude went bone-white, like he was about to faint right there. 😆
Turned out that when Doc walked out the guy was just about to throw a leg over Doc’s Triumph. The kid wasn’t a thief – he was just an idiot showing off for his girlfriend – but Doc told me later that when he hit the parking lot, all he could do was point at the guy and say ‘Don’t!‘ His hand was shaking from the adrenaline rush, he said, and the one word was all he could muster in the moment. By the time I came barreling through the doors, Doc had caught his breath and was just detailing the young man’s near-death experience for him, in great detail. 😈
Then the chick mouthed off at me, making everything worse. 😏
Oooooh, it could have gone sideways real quick-like, but we checked the bikes over, made sure nothing was damaged, and the kid (who apologized the whole while we were out there) insisted on buying us both drinks. He must have had a come-to-Jesus discussion with his girlfriend, too, because before we were done with our free drinks the girl came over, knelt beside my chair and begged my forgiveness. She even kissed my hand! 😲
Damn, I had a hard time keeping a straight face! 😆
Of course, all that happened before ‘biker’ became synonymous with ‘middle-aged empty nester‘ and ‘man-bun-wearing hipster’. 🙄
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, fromPopular 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! 🤬
The carburetor prior to disassembly….
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….….there’s cool accents and then….….there’s overload.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.Trick, no?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 Fandangoout 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. 😎
ABOVE: Bud Reveile on 7 January 2015, a couple of months before he passed away. All photographs by author unless otherwise noted.
Four years ago today we lost one of the best men I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.
ABOVE: Bud’s front door at his shop’s penultimate address. Photographer unknown.
Bud Reveile was a Vietnam veteran; a U.S.M.C. tanker whose story was included in Oscar E. Gilbert’s Marine Corps Tank Battles in Vietnam. He was a devout Christian and family man, and a lifelong and benevolent member of the East Austin community.
ABOVE: My shovelhead right after I switched to a rigid frame in early ’80, in front of the tin shed that held Bud’s original “showroom” and mechanic’s bay. The notorious school bus is visible at top left.
Bud was also a dyed-in-the-wool Harley man, a walking encyclopedia of all things Harley-Davidson, and a natural-born good guy. He could talk to anyone – Bud maintained friendships with outlaw bikers and cops, Christians and atheists, bankers and b-girls and bums – and he did his level best to treat everyone with respect. He had very few enemies, and the only ones I ever met were only enemies because Bud wouldn’t give them something for nothing. He was a businessman – a true old-school horse-trader who worked hard to make a buck – but Bud was honest, and in all my years of knowing him I never saw him take advantage of anyone.
ABOVE: Knuckles and Pans and Shovelheads, oh my!
Bud built his business the old-fashioned way, beginning (just like Harley and the Davidsons themselves) in a backyard shed behind his North Austin home with some tools, a small collection of used motorcycle parts, and his experience working at Harley dealerships in California and Austin.
ABOVE: Frames, fork tubes, primary covers and more, just hanging from rafters or crammed into corners.ABOVE: Front forks, fenders and fat bob tanks as far as the eye can see!
In April of 1979 Bud moved his operations to the grounds of a defunct lumberyard in East Austin. There a Spartan tin shack – unheated in winter, un-air-conditioned in summer, noisy and dusty all year ‘round – served as mechanic’s bay, showroom and office, while erstwhile lumber bins held his burgeoning parts inventory.
ABOVE: One man’s trash is another man’s ‘Damn! I can’t believe I found this!’ 😮
Over the following 36 years, Bud created a sprawling compound that eventually covered more than a quarter of a city block. In a ramshackle series of structures – some built, others acquired or repurposed and all interconnected – Bud kept aisles and aisles (and piles and piles) of old and odd motorcycle parts jumbled up in glorious disarray. There were tons of new old stock – OEM and aftermarket pieces painstakingly gathered from shops that were going out of business or dealerships purging their parts departments – and all stacked right alongside all the bent, broken, rusted, oil-soaked parts salvaged from a thousand different spent and clapped-out motorcycles.
ABOVE: If it came off a Harley, or might fit on one, Bud had it laying around somewhere!
There was everything a rider might need to repair an old machine, customize a new one or, for that matter, build herself one from the ground up. Visiting Bud’s shop was like stepping back in time to those halcyon days when Harley shops were unique, one from another, instead of the prefabricated corporate clothing boutiques they’ve degenerated into. For those of us who care about such things, Bud’s was Disneyland! 😎
ABOVE: Fifty years of Motor Company history sitting there! And if that’s not enough for ya….….let’s go for eighty years! 😎ABOVE: My shovelhead outside Bud’s perimeter fence, late 1979 or early ’80. Over the fence are the lumber stalls, now enclosed to create mechanics’ bays downstairs and parts storage upstairs.
I first met Bud in the late spring of 1979, when another biker gave me one of Bud’s cards. I had just gotten my first Harley, and wanted to learn everything I could about them. When I saw that Bud was the real deal, I quickly asked if I could become a shop hang-around. I would come in after work and on weekends, exchanging free labor for the occasional discount motorcycle part and a far more valuable education in all things Harley-Davidson. By the fall of that year I was working there full time, and in one way or another I kept working there for the next 36 years.
I just tell folks I forgot to quit! 😏
ABOVE: Originally the yard office for the lumberyard, that little shack became my home on more than one occasion. No heat, no A/C, no bathroom, but it kept me and my shovel out of sight of the repo man! 😏
Jack-of-all-trades what I was, I helped build various add-ons to the shop, including closing in the old lumber stalls to create additional mechanics’ bays, and reinforcing the second story so parts could be stored there. I ran electrical systems throughout as the business sprawled across first one, then two, and finally three separate lots known to all and sundry as 2612 East First Street. I worked as a shop grunt, with my elbows deep in the muck of the parts washer, became a parts man and mechanic, and even lived on-site for a while during periods of homelessness, doubling as night watchman while hiding my as-yet-unpaid-for shovel from the repo man. I also served as publicist, writing articles about Bud and the shop for national magazines, and provided backup on the rare occasion when a situation so demanded.
I just tell folks I was a Known Associate of the shop. 😎
ABOVE: A profile I wrote about Bud, back in the summer of 1991.ABOVE: Bud’s logo, created and reproduced here by the artist Gaylyn Maxson, aka MAG.
The same design also graced Bud’s business cards, bumper stickers, t-shirts…….although not all publicity is good publicity…. ….or it it? 😏 Photographer unknown.
I also traveled with Bud to swap meets all over hell and gone, driving his rattletrap school bus gutted of seats and packed full of the infamously New, Used and Abused parts that were Bud’s specialty: everything from trendy chrome gewgaws and one-off chopper parts to hard-to-find transmissions, carburetors, flywheels and cylinder heads. Sometimes it seemed as if we were carrying half of Bud’s inventory with us when we set out and, because Bud shopped even as he sold, frequently carried even more inventory back to Austin!
ABOVE: Collectible parts like the original Superglide fiberglass ‘boattail’ fenders and milk crates chockablock with various gems; a Harley builder’s Dreamland!ABOVE: Kids today call it ‘cluttercore’, but we just called it ‘Bud’s’. The Pearl Beer can was in memory of Colonel Worm (AKA James Hinds, R.I.P.). A fellow veteran of Vietnam, he worked for Bud as a paint-and-body man.
All those parts, BTW, were haphazardly stacked in rectangular metal trays, and part of my job as grunt was to hump the damn things in and out of the bus at every stop. Bud was a “recycler” before recycling was trendy – those metal trays were actually old medicine chests salvaged from a downtown hotel slated for demolition – and when filled with panhead four-speed gears, ironhead cylinders, shovelhead connecting rods and the like, they were heavy and sharp-edged enough to take off fingers! I hated them with a passion, but even those trays couldn’t diminish the joy of traveling in Bud’s circle, meeting bikers and shop owners from around the world, and learning the ins and outs of doing business the East Austin Way.
ABOVE: Frames, frames and more frames, from Servi-Car and Sportster to Big Twins of all ages, rigid and swingarm, custom and OEM…. even sidecars!
Of course, Bud also became one of my best, most reliable friends. He always seemed glad to see me, to step out and share a meal or just hole up in his cramped little office and visit for a while. There wasn’t much we couldn’t discuss, either, from faith and fear to family and friends, flatheads to Twin Cams, the war, the rallies at Sturgis and Daytona, the swap meet circuit, the biker books we both enjoyed and exchanged and, naturally, the latest gossip from the motorcycling scene. Toward the end, we talked about what was happening to him, and steps he needed to take to be at peace as he crossed that final bridge. Like everyone who loved him, I did what I could to help, but it wasn’t enough. If it could have done any good, I would have cheerfully given up blood, sweat and body parts to help him recover, or at least not suffer quite so much.
ABOVE: Buddy Merle Reveile, October 21st, 1950 to March 23rd, 2015, from his online obituary at Legacy.com
The day Bud died I exchanged texts with another longtime friend who had known Bud in the days when he worked at the old Harley-Davidson dealership in town. I wrote that our world just became a much smaller place. He agreed, writing “Smaller, sadder, and much more lonely.”
Above: Artist Norman Bean, who worked as a mechanic in Bud’s shop even as he honed his skills as a fine artist, created this tribute to our friend, titled ‘Emergency Tool Kit.’ My copy is framed and has pride of place in my collection of moto art. For those of us who knew and relied on Bud, he was an ’emergency tool kit’, always at the ready to help us fix whatever was broken and adjust whatever was out-of-kilter. Prints of this and other paintings by Norman Bean may be found at https://normanbean.carbonmade.com/
I miss my friend every day, but I remain grateful that he was my friend. Through Bud I got to be part of a grand tradition in American motorcycling – the small independent shop that was the backbone of the bikers’ world. Bud’s was a near-mythical place packed full of history disguised as scrap metal – a funky, messy mélange of mechanic and machinist’s shop, motorcycle museum and meeting hall – and it was a BLAST! Man, I’m glad I got to be there!
ABOVE: Bud’s Motorcycle Shop circa early 2000s; the old wooden building overshadowed by the three-story steel building Bud completed shortly before his passing.ABOVE AND BELOW: Memorials left for Bud in the days following his passing. Photographs courtesy of J.C. Cruz.A very clean old school chopper belonging to J.C. Cruz, a longtime customer and friend of the shop, is parked outside the front door just days after Bud died in 2015. Photograph courtesy of J.C. Cruz.
The Shovel Shop 