Shovel | The Shovel Shop

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 Easyriders magazines 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 a* *low-ride LaPera king-and-queen. I traded the stock headlight assembly for an original Bates unit I* *found on my very first trip to Bud’s Motorcycle Shop, replaced the stock buckhorn handlebars with* *broomstick 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 the* *3.5 gallon fat bob fuel tanks* *with a 5 gallon set, swapped the narrow* *FX front forks for the wide glide I bought* *from my friend Wayne,* and *traded the Superglide rear fender for the* *longer,* *wider* *Electra-Glide tin.* *All that was left at this point was the dresser covers* *for the rear shocks* *and 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 the* *engine 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 a **lot** *of 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 **Easyriders** *back when that was still a rag worth reading.*

*Paul with a trike he has every reason to be proud of, featured in* **Easyriders** *January 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* **very** *proud bike builder!*

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.*

*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 one* **Sunrise 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 that for 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.

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* **happy** *biker !*

*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 1995*

*Don 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 asking* *for* late-model Harley three-wheelers, or *stick my dearly beloved Bitch in a three-wheeled frame* *like 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: