You may have noticed that I used to write for some of the magazines, back in the day. In the course of that pursuit I interviewed a woman whose husband ran a chopper shop in Killeen, Texas, in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Louis Schange was killed in a freak bike accident in ’72, and when I met his widow, Nelda, in 1994, she still had all the photo albums and memorabilia from those days. She had a 1934 VLD in the shed (!) which she’d just sold to an American living in South America. She also had plenty of tales to tell about jumping on the bike to go touring several states, or hopping aboard and riding to Ohio just to take part in a hill climb… She had all sorts of adventures like that.
Nelda Schange and her daughter, Joy, in 1954. Joy was the one child who loved motorcycles as much as her parents. Sadly, she passed away at the age of 40.
As we leafed through the photo albums I said ‘These photos should be in a book, or a museum! There are several motorcycle museums that would love to have this stuff!’
Nelda shrugged and said ‘Oh, my children will probably just throw them out when I die.’ 😳 That broke my heart. The only one of her kids who liked motorcycles died a young woman, and the others didn’t give a shit about her, her life, their own father… 😡 I tried to get her to let me take the albums and copy them, at least but she wouldn’t cut for that. She let me take some pics of the VLD, gave me two photos for the article, and gifted me a vintage dealership sticker her husband picked up in Hawaii. She would not budge on the rest.
Nelda with her panhead in 1960
I published my interview, and tried to keep tabs on her through the friend who introduced us, but she died before I could even make another run at her, and I heard from her brother-in-law, who I met many years later, that her prediction came true. All that history lost!
It still breaks my heart. 😢
Nelda with Louis’ 1934 Harley-Davidson VLD. She maintained the bike for twenty-two years after Louis died, cleaning and lubricating it. I asked if she’d ever ridden it herself, and she said ‘Oh, no! That was Louis’ bike.’
A last note: take a moment to look at the photo above, and really think about what it represents. Twenty-two years after her husband died on a motorcycle, this woman – who looks like your average housewife – was still dedicated enough to his passion (and hers) to keep the VLD cleaned, properly lubricated, et cetera. She was dedicated enough to the love of her life to keep his memory alive, and retain all those souvenirs of their life on two wheels.
How many people would do that?
The VLD, ready to go to its new owner. So much history!
Darcie spotted the sidecar the moment I brought it home in the back of the pickup truck, and proudly informed us that it was her car!
A reader asked about the sidecar I attached to my Shovelhead back in the mid-’80s, which sent me off on a daylong squirrel hunt. As I didn’t have access to the interwebs way back then, I had a hard time learning anything about the sidecar. I knew it was a ‘Zephyr’ brand unit, but after that my search for info hit a brick wall.
I nicknamed it ‘Moon Unit’ because it looked kind of like a space capsule, but it was actually pretty well-built, with the rollbar-style cage around the body, a weatherproof roof and windshield, comfortable bucket seat with seatbelt and legroom enough for most adults, storage space behind the seat, and room for a dashboard-mounted stereo if one was desired. I personally consider a sound system on a motorcycle an abomination – I mean, who needs a stereo when they have the sweetest music in the world echoing out their exhaust pipes? – but I might have made an exception for the sidecar, if it would make Darcie happy..
However, in the course of researching the sidecar’s provenance and history I did come upon the United Sidecar Association, and founding member Hal Kendall. I joined USCA and purchased a couple of sidecar manuals Dr. Kendall had published. Looking back, I know I could not have gotten the sidecar safely and properly mounted on my Shovelhead’s OEM Harley-Davidson wishbone frame had it not been for the good doctor’s manuals, which are still available as downloads at the USCA’s Sidecar Library page.
Another essential to my task was the assistance of a motorcycle-savvy welder named Bill Mading (RIP) who owned BG&T Welding in Austin, just down the street from the cop shop. Bill was a dirtbike racer, which meant he understood the stresses and strains motorcycle frames must endure, and how to compensate for them. However, he was also a skilled enough artisan that he could weld aluminum and aluminum-alloy engine and transmission cases – not an easy trick, as those metals tend to warp from the heat of the welding process. Warped cases means uneven gasket surfaces, less-than-perfect seals between case halves, et cetera. Bud (Bud’s Motorcycle Shop) used Bill for all his delicate welding needs, and we never had a problem with a part Bill repaired.
Bastard applications call for bastard engineering. Between us, Bill Mading and I designed the lower mounts for the sidecar. At the rear we installed a vertical plate near the frame’s dovetail, which included a pin-style electrical connector for the sidecar’s lighting. Up front we replaced the OEM mechanical brake foot-pedal mount with a larger plate that could accommodate the mounting tabs we’d devised. NOT PICTURED:The top front mount was the OEM Harley-Davidson clamp assembly. I also replaced the standard front-fork triple trees, shown here, with Harley’s OEM adjustable rake trees. For added stability and handling I added an OEM steering damper, as well.
Between the manuals I’d received from Hal Kendall, and Bill Mading’s dedicated assistance, we were able to devise a bastard set of mounts for the sidecar. They weren’t pretty, but they by gollum worked! Enlarge the photo below for more information.
Everything one needs to mount an off-brand sidecar to an OEM wishbone frame.
I didn’t have the interwebs back in the Dark Ages of the 1980s, so finding out what I needed to know involved scouring magazines for any mention of sidecars, writing letters that were often ignored, calling long-distance (remember those days?) and running up my telephone bill, et cetera. Today? Ten minutes with a mouse and I had already gleaned scads of information! In fact, the first site I visited told me where the Zephyr was manufactured, and by whom, and even had a photo of a pretty snazzy brilliant yellow Zephyr sidecar!
ONE FINAL NOTE: If you are at all interested in sidecars, please consider a membership in the United Sidecar Association. It’s money well spent, IMO, and support for a great organization.
I got hooked on motorcycles as a child, when the boy next door gave me a ride around the block on his BMW. Unfortunately, I also got hooked on other things, as I stumbled through adolescence, ultimately drinking and drugging away any motorcycle money I might have saved. Finally, in my early twenties, after years of lusting after a bike, I got sober, got my finances together, and toddled off to find my motorcycle.
It had to be a Harley, of course. Hanging with outlaw bikers in my teens, and years of poring over Easyridersmagazines convinced me there could be no other choice. Hence, I took myself to the Harley-Davidson dealership on Burnet Road there in Austin.
I had spent months hanging out there, watching the sales manager fawn over prospective buyers. For whatever reason, he must have decided I wasn’t a serious prospect, because when I announced I was there to buy a bike he just flapped a hand at the door to the parking lot, said ‘The used bikes are outside,’ turned on his heel and walked away.
April 11th, 1979 to now: 42 years of true love !
I left, naturally – damn if I was going to spend my money with an asshole like that! – but as I was driving away I noticed a Harley parked at a used car lot two doors up the street from the dealership. I called a friend of mine named Wayne Agee – an experienced chopper builder, attorney and motorcyclists’ rights activist – and he very kindly went with me to scope it out.
What we found was a 1974 Harley-Davidson FX (kickstart-only) Superglide shovelhead with 6,000 miles on the clock, box stock except for 6″ overstock fork tubes. It was low and lean, black and mean and absolutely gorgeous. The salesman swore it was his personal bike – a story I dismissed as sales-speak at the time, but later learned was the absolutely truth. No matter. It was a Harley-Davidson Big Twin, and the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.
1974 FX 1200 Superglide as described in full-line sales brochure.
I didn’t have my motorcycle license yet, so Wayne test-rode the bike for me. The price was right and he gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and I was sold! I went straight to my credit union to arrange financing, and the next day, April 11th, 1979, I went to take possession of my very first motorcycle. A five-minute tutorial on the machine – clutch up there, brakes here and here, shifter over there, one up and three down – and I was on my way.
1974 FX 1200 Superglide as it appeared on April 11th, 1979, at Northwest Hills Texaco, Austin, Texas. My 1963 Buick LeSabre is in the background.
I passed a motorcycle safety course when I was in the service – a requirement if I was going to ride a motorcycle on base – and took rides on other people’s machines whenever they were dumb enough to hand me the keys, but I was basically ignorant of riding technique. Of needs, I taught myself to ride by spending every possible moment on that bike, cruising the Farm-to-Market and Ranch-to-Market roads that snake across the Texas Hill Country west and south of Austin. I quickly realized I was born to this life; to be in the saddle, in the wind. Nothing before or since has brought me such pleasure and peace of mind, or felt so right.
1974 FX 1200 magazine advert. Note stylish matching helmet and brown leathers. I never had either of those things. Only reason I had a leather jacket going into my first winter of riding was that my folks sent me a birthday check big enough to cover a Sears moto jacket…. which, BTW, came in tall sizes and gave excellent service!
I began calling my shovel ‘The Bitch’ long before The Grateful Dead released their In The Dark album in 1987, but a couplet from the song ‘Tons of Steel’ describes her well:
“It’s one hell of an understatement to say she can get mean She’s temperamental; more of a bitch than a machine!”
However, the name was given tongue-in-cheek because, even though any machine will act up one way or another if you own it long enough, The Bitch has been a stout, faithful steed with plenty of heart and class.
September, 1979, Labor Day Weekend Harley Drags at Little River-Academy Raceway east of Temple.I stripped the tank emblems (which I could kick myself for, now) and replaced the stock saddle with alow-ride LaPera king-and-queen. I traded the stock headlight assembly for an original Bates unit Ifound on my very first trip to Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, replaced the stock buckhorn handlebars withbroomstick drag bars, and installed foward controls and highway pegs to accommodate my long legs.
The Bitch has been through a lot of changes over the years. I began by turning her into stripped-down cruiser, above. Then I converted her into a fat bob, below.
December 1979, on Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas, just south of Town Lake. I still had the drag bars,but I replaced the stock one-piece fuel tank with the more traditional-looking two-piece ‘fat bob’ tanks. These were the 3.5 gallon size commonly seen on early Police motorcycles. I loved the look,but unfortunately, the older fat bobs were prone to cracking and leaking. A lapful of gasoline at 60 MPH is never a good thing, and as a result,I never kept a set of the original fat bobs for very long.
Next, I built her into a version of the FL Sport – a dresser sans saddlebags and windshield – using the wide-glide forks Wayne sold me, and pieces sourced through his ‘chopper shop’ (which, as it happened, bore a striking resemblance to his law office) and Bud’s Motorcycle Shop. The photo below shows the project about halfway to completion.
1980, at Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, 2612 East First Street, Austin, Texas,just before I completed the makeover to a stripped-down dresser.I had removed as much of the chrome trim as I could, replaced the3.5 gallon fat bob fuel tankswith a 5 gallon set, swapped the narrowFX front forks for the wide glide I boughtfrom my friend Wayne, and traded the Superglide rear fender for thelonger,widerElectra-Glide tin.All that was left at this point was the dresser coversfor the rear shocksand the aluminum nacelle and full-sized headlight for the front.Then that damn rigid framed panhead showed up!
Just about the time I finished that project, with a full aluminum headlight nacelle off an old Electra-Glide, a friend let me throw a leg over his rigid panhead, and I was in love. The rigid was so much lighter (and cleaner looking) than the stock swingarm frame, and I just had to have one.
1980, in early winter, at Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, in front of the tin building that housed Bud’s original East Austin shop/showroom/office.
By then I was working at Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, and Bud helped me find a 1954 wishbone frame. I swapped the engine and transmission into the wishbone and slapped on some get-by fenders and fuel tank, above. Meanwhile, I sourced fresh tins for the bodyman, so I could keep riding while I got everything painted and ready to go.
1980 at the Terrace Apartments off South Congress Avenue in South Austin, Texas.The Bitch when I first put it in the rigid frame, prior to the complete makeover I had planned for it.I rode it like this until I was ready to tear it down and rebuild it.Note how dingy the aluminum on theengine and front forks looks.
After some dithering around I settled on a bright blue the same color the Austin Police Department used on their cars. I’d seen it referred to as ‘Ford Engine Blue’ and ‘Dodge Blue’, although APD’s press releases called it ‘Powder Blue’. Whatever the name, it was a close match to an original 1954 factory color Harley-Davidson named ‘Glacier Blue’.
Austin Police Department’s ‘Powder Blue’ cars, circa 1980s.
I took the shovel apart, rebuilt the engine, polished every bit of smooth aluminum I could get a buffing wheel or elbow grease to, and put it all back together.
1980, The Bitch in Glacier Blue, the day I completed the makeover. Note the shiny aluminum. That was alotof work !The Bitch in Glacier Blue, in the yard at Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, 2612 East First Street, Austin, Texas, where I was a proud Known Associate for over 35 years. Note the suicide clutch and slap-shifter. I liked the idea, but leaning on my brand-new engine for revs high enough to power the take-offs a suicide clutch demanded hurt my heart. Twenty-four hours later I went back to the hand clutch/foot shifter arrangement.
That rear fender was from a swingarm dresser with the hinge welded shut: a concept by Dave Hobday, a fellow employee at Bud’s, and skillfully executed by a body-man named Paul, who was left quadriplegic after a motorcycle wreck. Paul did the paint and body work for a number of custom builds at Bud’s shop, and in return we built him a three-wheeled shovelhead adapted to his disabilities. He later took the trike back to his home state of Massachusetts where he rebuilt it, doing most of the work himself, and did such a fine job that it ended up featured in Easyridersback when that was still a rag worth reading.Paul with a trike he has every reason to be proud of, featured in EasyridersJanuary 1985 issue.
I caught a lot of flak for that paint color the whole while the tins were hanging on the wall in my shop area, but once I put it all together I received nothing but compliments. As an added plus, I never had a car pull out in front of me the entire time I ran that color. Not once. They might not have been aware of motorcycles in traffic, but they by God noticed that cop-car blue!
1980, enroute to a party at Lake Buchanan, shortly after I completed the Glacier Blue makeover. That is the smile of one veryproud bike builder!1980 at Lake Buchanan, Texas.1981, Memorial Day races at Little River-Academy Raceway. I was winning my bracket until the timekeeper gave me the wrong ET card at the end of a run. I’d actually won that heat, but didn’t realize it until after the trophies were awarded. Just as well. If I’d won I probably would have been hooked on racing, and that is an expensive habit!September, 1981 at Lake Brownwood, Texas, with Lea, Bill Jones and Debbie.1982, a ride to the annual Black Hills Classic Motorcycle Rally at Sturgis, South Dakota, above.
Me and my buddy, T.R., left Austin on Friday after work, and took forty-eight hours to ride our rigid framed shovelheads about 1300 miles, from Austin, Texas, to Sturgis, South Dakota. That averages out to a measly 27 miles an hour! However, during that forty-eight hours we stopped regularly for sit-down meals, and tent-camped at the roadside both Friday and Saturday night. We also stopped at Hugo’s Harley-Davidson in Wichita that Saturday afternoon, where they kindly loaned my buddy a welder so he could repair his broken headlight bracket. Since we were in town anyway, we paid a visit to Truett & Osborn’s Speed Shop, too. Then we lost some time when I ran out of gas at sunrise on Sunday morning, and again when I had a leisurely visit with my brother’s in-laws in Kearney, Nebraska, later that morning, so I’m thinking our speed was a little better than 27 MPH !
A visit with my sister-in-law, who was staying on a ranch in Lusk, Wyoming.
On the way back to Texas, I stopped to visit my sister-in-law, who was staying on a ranch in Lusk, Wyoming. T.R. went on ahead, and I caught up with him at his friend’s tattoo shop north of Denver the next day. We crashed there, and then (because he had more time off than I did) he took off for the West Coast, while I made the 1000-mile run back to Austin in less than twenty-four hours.
At one point during my dash back to Austin, I stopped for a nap in a small Eastern Colorado town. Just as I was settling in on a picnic table in the local park, a boy on a dirt bike started buzzing around. He was just excited to see another motorcyclist, eager to ask me questions about where I’d been, where I was going, what kind of bike I had…. but I was hot and cranky. I snapped at him and ran him off.
After my nap I was in better sorts, and I felt bad about being a grump, so I rode around town until I found the boy, turning lazy circles in the dusty main street of whatever the hell town I was in. I flagged him down and apologized for getting owly earlier.
He said ‘That’s okay. My Dad gets that way sometimes.’
Fuck me! The last thing I wanted to be was some other adult who snarled at him when he just wanted to hang out and learn stuff. I stayed with him for a bit, answered his questions as best I could, and then got back on the road, hoping I’d left him with a better memory of our encounter.
1983, a ride out to see the Bluebonnets blossom. Going to see the wildflowers is an annual event in Central Texas, and the roadsides are lined with people posing their kids, dogs or, in my case, a motorcycle, amongst the the beautiful blossoms.1983, Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush at the roadside southeast of Austin.1984, at a scenic overlook near Kingsland, Texas. I was still a smoker, then, and deliberately trying to imitate the image of my father astride an Army Air Corp scooter at the end of World War Two. Later, without even meaning to, I did a much better job.1945, Lincoln, Nebraska, Tom James, Army Air Forces navigator, astride an AAF scooter, and 1994, me at Shiprock, New Mexico, astride The Bitch. It wasn’t until years after the photo at right was taken that I realized how alike we sat our machines.There’s my father in May of 1993, attending the vintage motorcycle show at Hanford, California. Top, he’s posing with a Cushman scooter like the one he rode in the service. Below, with an Indian Chief like the one he rode after he got out of the service. Interesting side note: my father knew that my brothers and I wanted motorcycles – that I was particularly crazy about the things – but we were forbidden to have even a Briggs & Stratton-powered minibike, which were all the rage at the time, let alone an actual motorcycle. He certainly never mentioned that he had been a rider himself! I didn’t learn of that until I’d had The Bitch for several years, and was in Seattle for my younger sister’s high school graduation. One afternoon, we dropped my mother off at a real estate seminar, and Dad and I were driving up Puget Sound to visit my younger brother at University. We’re motoring along, and all of a sudden, my father starts telling me about this Indian Chief he used to ride, how he won the money for it playing poker and bombed around the Baltimore area on it, until a get-off convinced him he’d probably be better served on four wheels than two. I looked at him, goggle-eyed, and said ‘Why am I just now hearing about this!?!’ He said, ‘I knew you boys wanted motorcycles, and I didn’t want to encourage you to do something I knew could be dangerous.’ In his way, he was just trying to be a good father, and I get that, but he and I were estranged most of my life. I was a rebellious doper and budding alcoholic, he was an inveterate alcoholic, and we were just too damned much alike. We rubbed each other wrong at every turn. Things got better between us when I got sober, and tons better when he followed suit a year and a half later, but I can’t help wondering how different those years could have been if we’d been able to bond over motorcycles. Because that’s what happened once the cat was out of the bag: we bonded over motorcycles because, as it turned out, he’d never gotten over his fascination with them! You know those old guys who come up to you in parking lots and say, ‘I used to have one o’ those things’? My Dad was one of those guys! So, while we didn’t spend those golden years of my adolescence sweating over greasy motorcycle parts, or trailering bikes out to the motocross track or whatever, we did have the last fourteen years of my father’s life to gab about bikes, bikers and two-wheeled adventures! RIP, Dad.
I made other changes as the years passed. I went back to black, changed fenders and tanks, ran a pogo-stick saddle and windshield for a while, added a sidecar so my stepdaughter could ride in safety and comfort, and put on mile after mile after mile…
1985, at the Flea Market on Highway 290 east of Austin.1986, at J.B. and Dana’s house on Romeria Drive, Austin, Texas.1986, at J.B. and Dana’s house on Romeria Drive, Austin, Texas, with my stepdaughter’s mother.1987, at home on Wilmes Drive in Austin, with the sidecar for my stepdaughter.That’s her tricycle in the grass, and our roommate’s chopped Honda in the shed.Another view of the sidecar setup.Our intrepid tricyclist and our friend Bam-Bam, as the grownups get ready to ride out to the Rattlesnake Round-Up in Taylor.1988, at Redwood Lodge, Lake Whitney, Texas.1989 Southeast Texas enroute to an ABATE Texas function.1990-11-18 at Benny and Carol’s house in McGregor, Texas. From left: Carol, Benny, Michelle, Bill and The Bitch, Laura, John and Clifford. 1991-06-30, on a solo ride from Austin to Estes Park, Colorado, where the brother I hadn’t seen in ten years was teaching at a mountain-climbing school. I call this oneSunrise Sunday Morning, Texas Panhandle, June 30, 1991. Not hard to guess that it was taken at a gas stop in the Texas Panhandle shortly after dawn.Later that day, crossing into New Mexico. I had seen Townes Van Zandt perform at the Cactus Cafe in Austin the night before I left – his plaintive song ‘Snowing On Raton’ was stuck in my head – and I was hell-bent on riding through Raton Pass. I did, too, in the middle of the night. The view from Highway 7 south of Estes Park when it was a quiet two-lane country road, before the casinos were built and the road became clogged with tourists.
Below: I stopped at the visitor’s center in Estes Park, to get directions to my brother’s school. As I dismounted I heard two Harleys, and looked up just in time to see a familiar motorcycle pulling into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant across the street. I finished my visit to to the center, crossed the road and stumbled into the Mickey D.’s (so stupefied from being on the road that I stepped on some poor man’s toe in the process) and sure enough…! In town no more than five minutes, and who should I run into but T.R. Evans – the man I rode to Sturgis with; a man I hadn’t seen in almost a decade – in Colorado for a vacation with his wife! 😳 How’s thatfor a small world!?!
1991, T.R. and Kimberley, with their motorcycles parked behind them.
They were both up there on their motorcycles, so when I wasn’t hanging with my brother I was riding around with T.R. and Kimberly.
1991, heading up into Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park.1991, atop Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park, at 12,000′.
However, hanging with my brother was its own kind of adventure! Lee was a professional climber and mountaineering instructor and guide most of his adult life…. and when I say ‘professional’ I mean that he made his living at it. In fact, he was in Estes Park to teach a course at a well-respected climbing school there.
Our first day, we went hiking in the national park there; pretty tame, and nothing this flatlander couldn’t handle. However, our next excursion was a completely new experience for me. We were going for my first-ever ‘technical’ rock climb.
The Flatirons outside Boulder, Colorado. Lee, a professional climber and guide most of his adult life, took me up the face of the middle one. See the vertical scar just below the peak? Remember that.
Now, I’d done some scrambling up the cliffs near our home when I was a kid, and I climbed billboards for a living, but I’d never done anything like this!
We started the day at his school, where he borrowed some specialty rock-climbing shoes and a harness. Then we drove to the base of The Flatirons. Just looking at them, it’s not hard to understand how they were named.
The Flatirons are a popular climbing spot; so much so that the local climbing club had installed eyebolts on the rock to make it easier and safer to climb. This morning, we were fortunate to have the rock to ourselves; a rarity, Lee told me. At the base of our chosen rock face, he gave me a quick tutorial on rock climbing dos and don’ts, and terminology like ‘belay’, and then we were off.
I’m pleased to report that I impressed him during my climb, choosing my hand- and footholds carefully, not getting stuck. We were roped off – the ‘technical’ part of technical climbing, but I never needed belaying.
My brother in his element.
Then we got to that vertical scar near the top of the rock. Lee wedged a tiny aluminum thingie – a cam-operated device a climber can tie off to, which expands its width when force is applied – and roped me to it. My next move was to trust that cam, my rope and harness and my older brother, and lean back, allowing that cam to bear my weight.
Remember the scar in the rock? I’m beside it in this photo, trusting my weight to the ropes, the tiny aluminum wedge I’m tied off to, shoved into a small crack in the rock face, and of course, my brother’s expertise. What a rush! By the way, that’s Denver in the distance.
There are no words to describe that moment of surrender to gravity and good fortune. First the fear: Am I doing this right? Will the cam hold? is this rope strong enough? That harness? That strap? Then comes the giddy realization that everything worked, you didn’t screw up, and you’re still alive! 👍🏼
Nothing like it!
The following summer, July, 1992, riding through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado, with Peno and Steve.The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Great riding country!We were attending a motorcycle rally in Montrose, Colorado, on the Western Slope. That’s Steve at left, and his burgundy-colored panhead behind him. Peno, at right, was my road dog for most of my best adventures during those years. I have just recently (April 2023) reconnected with both men.Peno on his shovelhead, with the flame-job paint he did himself.Steve on his panhead: one happybiker !1993, July 4th, a solo ride to meet up with a friend in Lake Eufala, Oklahoma.The friend in question, Byron, on his beautiful and relatively unmolested 1972 FLH with the original Brandywine paint.1993, Labor Day Weekend, a group ride to Lake Eufala, Oklahoma, to visit Byron. From left: Paul, Jeff, Peno, Bill and Melissa B.1994, July, ride through Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.Peno took this shot one-handed at about 65 MPH.1994, on IH35 in Belton, enroute to the annual Tri-County Toy Run.1995, on the bridge over Royal Gorge, Colorado. That time it was me and The Marlboro Man, a genuine cowboy named Don Sawyer (RIP). Don had been hired to judge a quarter-horse show in Colorado, so we loaded our bikes in a rented van and hauled them to Colorado Springs I’d spend the day exploring the mountains on my bike while he judged the horses, and at night we’d ride out to get supper and chase pretty girls.
Don would tell ’em we were brothers; there was some resemblance, TBH. He also told folks I was ‘Harley Davidson’ and he was ‘The Marlboro Man’ – after the Mickey Rourke/Don Johnson film – and then have a good laugh about it. We also did Skyline Drive above Cañon City; me on my shovel and The Marlboro Man on his Softail. A couple of years ago Jackie and I drove Skyline Drive in my van, and it gave her the willies the whole way over. Me, I love it!Don Sawyer on his Softail, on the road in Colorado. in 1995Don Sawyer on his Softail at Mikeska’s BBQ in Taylor, Texas. Any wonder he was known as The Marlboro Man? RIP, cowboy.2000, with Jackie on the back, at Monument Cafe, Georgetown, Texas, for breakfast with our friend Tina.2001, in Crawford, Texas, with Randy and Tina.2004, January, a winter ride on a back road near La Grange, Texas. High temp that day was 47 degrees.
In July, 2004, at the age of 48, I fell 35′ from a billboard structure, when a piece of the board’s face came loose. I rode the ladder I was standing on all the way to the hard rocky Hill Country earth, and ended up with an open compound fracture of my right leg, numerous fractures in my left mid-foot, and a burst fracture of my L-4 vertebra, which caused catastrophic nerve damage to the cauda equina that controls everything south of the waist, and I mean everything!
After fourteen days in hospital, numerous surgeries and a near-fatal hospital-borne infection, I went home to a wheelchair and a rented hospital bed, with lots more to come. Still, at the end of October I limped out to the driveway, kickstarted The Bitch and took it for a ride around the neighborhood.
2004, Halloween, and my first time on the bike since my on-the-job accident that July.
I’ve probably made smarter choices in life, but it seemed important at the time, and sure felt good!
2004, Halloween, and my first ride after my accident.
A lot has happened since then, including another makeover of The Bitch and a return to A) another blue paint job, B) another set of fat bob tanks, C) another pogo-stick and D) another windshield, all to accommodate my back and leg injuries. More about adapting motorcycles for disabled riders here and here, if you’re interested.
2008, and yet another makeover: late-model fat bobs (less likely to crack and leak) with a traditional pogo-stick saddle, adapted to fit the new fat bobs, and a windshield, to save my back muscles having to fight against the wind at highway speeds, but……my body no longer wants to cooperate.
The pogo-stick and windshield arrangement was good for a while, but remember the nerve damage I mentioned? Yeah, that nasty nerve damage has come back to haunt me.
One of the nastier tricks it plays on me (and the nasty tricks are legion, believe me!) is that my right knee gives out with no warning. It’s been doing it since I first got out of the hospital, but that particular trick has become more frequent as the years since my accident go by, to the point where I can no longer feel safe riding a two-wheeler, so….
…meet my new wish-list! I can either pony up the $25,000 to $30,000 people are askingforlate-model Harley three-wheelers, or stick my dearly beloved Bitch in a three-wheeled framelike the one Paughco offers,One way or the other, I have got to get back in the wind!
Watch this space for updates!
UPDATE, April 16, 2023:
Paughco no longer makes the frame I’d been saving my pennies for 🤬 and I searched all over for another manufacturer, to no avail. Plenty of swingarm frames, and a few neo-chop rigids, but nothing that mimicked the traditional Harley frame the way Paughco’s did. Since I’d lost touch with (or lost) the people I would trust to adapt my existing frame the old-school way, using a Servi-Car rear end, I caved and bought a 2016 Freewheeler. Less than a month later I reconnected with an old friend who – ain’t that the luck? – runs a custom frame shop in Dallas. 😤 Maybe after I recover from buying the Freewheeler he and I can talk about triking my shovel. Hope springs eternal!
Meanwhile, meet the newest addition to my family:
My new-to-me 2016 Freewheeler. It’s a long way from a stripped down rigid shovel, ain’t it? Now I just have to unlearn forty-four years of riding two-wheelers! 😂I took the FXRP saddle I’d souvenired from my totaled FXRS and had custom mounts built for it. Then I had Bob Lee Peña at Steelhorse Saddles in Liberty Hill, Texas, make a pillion pad for it. He did a great job – like a factory fit – and was really reasonable about it.All the good! Gets my hips level with my knees (important with injuries like mine) and works like a champ! Between that and the windshield, I can start rebuilding those atrophied mileage muscles!
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.
As a longtime biker, any mention of motorcycles, riders, clubs, etcetera, intrigues me, so when Bob Dylan mentioned late Hells Angel Berdoo President Bobby Zimmerman (Chronicle: Volume One, 2004, pg. 79), while explaining his own renaming, I went looking for more info. First, I located a photo of the deceased, posted on the Berdoo chapter’s Memorial page:
Dylan apparently had the date of death wrong: He said Zimmerman died in 1964, but Zimmerman’s *Angel brothers have him dying three years earlier.
Then I dug a little further, and found this article, a human-interest item by John Weeks of the San Bernardino Sun, published last fall, in which Dylan claims a spiritual bond with the soul of the dead Angel:
A surprise addition to the local family
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s put our hands together and give a warm hometown welcome to a local boy who has made good, who has distinguished himself as one of the most influential singers and songwriters of all time, a living legend, a Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, a recipient of multiple Grammy, Oscar and People’s Choice awards, the one and only, the Inland Empire’s own … Bob Dylan!
Whoa, hold on here. Let’s check our notes.
Says here that Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 in Duluth, Minn., that he grew up in Hibbing, Minn., that he went to college in Minneapolis, that he moved to New York and became famous, that he later lived in both New York and Minnesota, and that for the last couple of decades he has made his home in Malibu. There’s no mention here at all of the Inland Empire.
Oh, wait, there’s more. Wow, this is new. Says here that Bob Dylan had a bonding experience with the soul of a dead San Bernardino biker, also named Robert Zimmerman, in the 1960s, and that he was transformed into a different person at that time.
An Inland Empire person, evidently.
Is this a joke?
If it is, it’s Bob Dylan himself who is telling it. In public.
Here are his own words, in an interview with Mikal Gilmore that appears in a recent cover story in Rolling Stone magazine:
“When you ask some of your questions, you’re asking them to a person who’s long dead. You’re asking them to a person that doesn’t exist. But people make that mistake about me all the time. … Transfiguration is what allows you to crawl out from under the chaos and fly above it. That’s how I can still do what I do and write the songs I sing and just keep on moving.”
That Bob Dylan! What a card! What a kidder!
No, wait. Later in the interview, he starts talking about transfiguration again, and he presses the point. He brandishes a dog-eared copy of the book Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club. He cites a chapter in the book that recounts how Robert Zimmerman, the 21-year-old president of the San Bernardino chapter of the Hells Angels, who lived on Walnut Street in San Bernardino, was killed in a 1961 motorcycle accident in Madera County. That accident was a precursor, Dylan believes, to his own motorcycle accident in 1966 near Woodstock, N.Y. The two events were directly related and they completed Dylan’s transformation into a new person, he says.
He can’t be serious about this, right?
Wait, he really is. He goes off on it for a third time during the course of the interview. “I’m showing you a book that’s been written and published. I mean, look at all the connecting things: motorcycles, Bobby Zimmerman. … And there’s more to it than even that. … I’d always been different than other people, but this book told me why. … I didn’t know who I was before I read the Barger book.”
Well, if he really means it, we should start now to prepare for that hometown concert in the Inland Empire that now seems inevitable. We’ll put up banners. “Welcome home, Bob!”
He can perform in the giant San Manuel Amphitheater in Devore, or perhaps he would prefer a smaller arena show, at the Epicenter, say, in Rancho Cucamonga, or the San Manuel Stadium in downtown San Bernardino, or Coussoulis Arena at Cal State San Bernardino. Or, he could do a series of small, intimate shows in theater settings, such as the Glass House in Pomona, or the Fox Riverside, or the historic California Theatre in San Bernardino.
Many towering figures in the music industry do have strong roots in the Inland Empire. The list includes Tennessee Ernie Ford of San Bernardino, Kris Kristofferson of Claremont, Frank Zappa of Rancho Cucamonga, Jimmy Webb and Jim Messina of Colton, Sammy Hagar and Travis Barker of Fontana, and Liberace, Dick Clark and Herb Alpert, all of whom had homes in Lake Arrowhead.
Jazz legend Pearl Bailey, in her retirement, ran a popular guest ranch in Apple Valley.
Singers Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez both have University of Redlands connections, thanks to their fathers. Raitt’s father, the Broadway star John Raitt, was a University of Redlands graduate. Baez, whose father taught there, writes about living in Redlands in her autobiography, “Daybreak.”
Now, it appears, we must add a new name to the list of musical hometown heroes.
Bob Dylan.
Of course, unlike the others, Dylan neither was born nor raised here, nor did he ever work or go to school here. No, he’s here only in spirit, as the result of transfiguration.
The story is addressed in greater detail by author Grant Maxwell, in a post he describes as “a (slightly modified) excerpt from my forthcoming book, How Does It Feel?: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Meaning of Rock and Roll,” which may be seen here:
In that post Maxwell delves deep into the chronology of events, and how Zimmerman’s death ties in not only with Dylan’s own motorcycle crash, but with the entirety of Dylan’s professional career! So, I guess that would make Zimmerman Dylan’s “guardian angel,” right?
Food for thought, if you’re inclined to think along those lines.
* NOTE: In the book Dylan mentions in his interview – Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club – Hells Angel Sonny Barger relates the story of Zimmerman’s death on the ride home from the Bass Lake Run, an annual Angel event immortalized in Hunter S. Thompson’s book on the Angels. However, while on page 70 he gives the same 1964 date that Dylan used, on page 130, again recounting Zimmerman’s death, he writes that Zimmerman died in1962. I can’t explain the discrepancies between Barger’s recollections and the chapter’s official website.
I’ve been doing a little research on songwriter Bob Dylan. Like most riders, I already knew about his mysterious wreck near Woodstock, New York, in 1966, where he dumped his Triumph, injured himself to an unknown degree, and went into seclusion for a while.
However, in reading through books about Dylan, interviews with people who knew him prior to his arrival in Greenwich Village, and his own Chronicles: Volume One (2004) I turned up a few references to Harleys, time spent running with the biker boys in his hometown, even being a bit of a “rough, tough” character. I don’t know how true any of that is, but he apparently did spend some time around riders, as seen in the photos below.
1956, with a friend’s Harley-Davidson FL:
1966, on the Triumph he later wrecked:
I always cringe at this one, because for some reason he’s dangling his feet – not a smart thing to do and goofy-lookin’ to boot!
The passenger below is identified as John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful, who went on to have a solo career as a folkie in the early ’70s. He was one of five acts on the bill at the very first real concert I ever attended*, at Randall’s Island, New York City, on July 17th, 1970. The others were Jethro Tull, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad and some guy named Jimi…. Jimi Henderson, or Hendricks, or some such. I wonder whatever became of that fellow? 🤷🏻♀️
I’m not sure of the year – probably mid-’60s – but Dylan appears to be riding a Yamaha….
….and in 2004, back on a Harley-Davidson!
One more, of the man on an entirely different kind of bike….
.…but wearing a motorcycle club jacket. Go figure!
UPDATE: 28 SEPTEMBER 2023
When I first published this article a little over ten years ago, I included the photo seen below. The image appeared in a book about Harleys, and although the rider was unnamed, the text placed the rider in the vicinity of Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Between that and the rider’s resemblance to a young Bob Dylan (and some wishful thinking and exuberance on my part) I initially felt safe in making the leap. However, my journalistic integrity niggled at me — I couldn’t swear that the knucklehead rider was, in fact, Bob Dylan — so I removed the photo.
Later, a post at Revzilla confirmed my original suspicion, so I am reposting the knucklehead photo.
Bob Dylan as a teenager, aboard a Harley-Davidson knucklehead bobbed in the post-war fashion, but still popular in the mid-’50s when this photo was taken.
….but wait! There’s more!
It has since come to light that Bob’s father, Abram Zimmerman, was also a rider. The photo below shows a young Mr. Zimmerman in 1938, aboard a Harley-Davidson flathead. The ‘F.C.’ carved on the battery box is for the Flying Cuyunas Motorcycle Club, founded by Duluth-based miners from the now-inactive Cuyuna Range. The pennant on the handlebars is apparently from the Beaver Bay MC, a friendly club the FCMC shared rides with.
Like father, like son? The resemblance is uncanny. Reports suggest that, while Mr. Zimmerman gave up riding motorcycles prior to beginning his family, he purchased a Harley-Davidson 45″ WL for Bob when Bob was a teenager. Apparently, Bob traded up at some point to the larger, faster knucklehead he’s pictured on.
Funny thing but, like Bob’s father, Abram, my father rode motorcycles prior to beginning his family. Unfortunately, and unlike Abram, my father was not about to buy his kids motorcycles. He never even told us that heonce rode, despite the fact that my brothers and I all had two-wheeled fever to some extent. Hell, we weren’t even allowed to have mopeds or minibikes!. 🙄
It wasn’t until I became an adult and had owned my first Harley for several years that I learned about my father’s history with motorcycles: that he won the money for his Indian Chief in a poker game 😎, that he rode after the war 🤠, that he had a get-off serious enough to convince him motorcycles were not the best choice for a family man 😮, and that — most importantly — he never got over his love of the damn things!🤷🏻♀️He never told us about his motorcycling exploits when we were kids because he didn’t want to risk encouraging us to do something he knew to be dangerous 🤔, but once I had my own bike it was something we could share; something we bonded over in the final years of his life. In fact, I am always patient with the oldtimers who approach me to say, ‘I used to have one of those….’ in part because my father was one of those guys! 😁The only pic I have of my father on a ‘motorcycle’ back in the day: an Army Air Forces Cushman scooter at an airfield in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1945.My father at the Hanford, California, vintage motorcycle show on May 1st, 1993, sitting on a Cushman like the one he rode during the war.My father at the 1993 Hanford Cycle Show & Swap with an Indian Chief like the one he rode after the war.Dad in 1945 at Lincoln, Nebraska, and your humble narrator in 1994 at Shiprock, New Mexico. I didn’t realize how alike my father and I sat our machines until years after the Shiprock photo was taken. The photos are now framed together in my office, and again in my living room. 😎
* The New York Pop Festival was actually an ambitious effort to recreate the three days of Woodstock (held the previous August) within the city limits. It turned out to be overly ambitious, but the first night — the one I attended — was freakin’ awesome!!! 🤘🏽 Look at that line-up!
I have written an essay about the New York Pop Festival — the production history, my experiences and the impact it had on my life — and will use that to create a separate post about the concert ASAP. For now, though, just look at that price: $8.50 to see five of the biggest names in rock music! 😮
The Shovel Shop 