Hey, I lost chapter 21. Actually, I started and never finished, and it never made it to the pages of HORSE. We jumped right to 22. So, over the next couple of weeks I'll dig it out, dust it off and dial it in. You'll get an original. In the meantime here's 22.
I've never been one who felt locked into any given place. We live in a free country. If today you're a mechanic, and tomorrow you decide construction is the thing, you can pack up and move on. Generally that's the code unless you find yourself strapped down with a family.
In some circles I'd get slapped for what I'm about to write. If you're young and knock up some broad, you've sentenced yourself to 20 years unless you planned it that way. It doesn't make sense for a renegade, like myself, to be part of a family for 18 years while growing up, party for a couple of years, then start my own family. Fuck that.
Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous respect for the family man whose goal it is to build and nurture a clan. Arlen Ness is a man of such lofty integrity. He started as a postman, building bikes at home in his garage. His entire household now works for the Ness organization. For me there's a big world out there to see, feel and taste. There's women from sea to shinning sea. Okay, I'm a bastard whose been married five times. I've never been rich with wealth, but always enjoyed the freedom life holds. This segment is all about one of those transitions.
I worked for Easyriders from 1971 to 1981. I did all I could do for that organization. I began to sniff turmoil on the horizon, so I said good-by. I had a little house in Thousand Oaks, California, on a half acre of dry land scattered with Oak and fruit trees. I broke up with my third wife and had a new squeeze. I stashed a little money in the bank and owned a couple of bikes. I operated a little mail order company selling H-D scarves and leather wallets. Unfortunately, I left ER about the time Harley began to attack people for using their name, and my mail order company was hit severely. So I started looking around. What the hell was I going to do?
I partied with some loners from Moorpark and one was a kid who worked for the phone company. We rode a lot, chased local broads and worked on bikes. I helped him start a shop called Country Cycle. The shop was located in an Orange grove in a small town further inland. It was based in a cool agricultural community, but there weren't a lot of scooter pilots in town. While Toby ran the shop in a small building, behind the massive clapboard farm house he lived in, I built a bike to be sold at the shop.
It wasn't anything special but a cleaned up Shovel that was very rideable. This occurred during one of the toughest spells the chopper industry ever endured. Harley-Davidson almost went belly up and the aftermarket industry was lackluster for a few years. It was a turning point when old school riders faded, yet before the yuppie crowd came on board. It was a sour time, and I suppose I sensed it. I got so I didn't enjoy jamming out to the shop on weekends. The ride was fine through the open foothills, but the shop wasn't doing well. Customers didn't have bikes only six packs, drugs and cut-off Levi jackets.
I remember the fun I had building that bike. Now 20-some years later, I wonder if I should've continued to build bikes. If we held on until the Evo emerged, maybe, just maybe, I would have been a master builder? The CNC machine wasn't introduced to the aftermarket from the Aerospace Industry yet. We built bikes with shit we had laying around. We grew through long front ends and radical rakes. We modified frames and ran wide car tires. Different towns around the country developed different bike styles. We rocked from custom gas tanks back to stock.
Old school gripes about the yuppies, but if it wasn't for that hearty influx of new customers, mechanics wouldn't make a bundle. Billy Lane and other builders wouldn't be rocking the world. The CNC machine allowed bikers to build parts that would have been difficult and cost-prohibitive in the past. This new era made it economically possible for builders to build any goddamn scoot they chose and make a living. Not bad.
We didn't have much of a budget in '82. We lacked the coin for chrome, so everything ended up manufactured out of spare parts and steel. I welded and black wrinkle painted most of this bike and painted the sheet metal silver gray in my dusty studio. I made the struts, license plate bracket and pipes. It was a Shovel for the street. Nothing wild, but it sold fast.
My garage/shop was tiny. It had a dirt floor when I bought it. I poured a concrete pad, made a driveway, cut the weeds down and created weird shit out of motorcycle parts.
At the time I had a '48 Panhead and a '72 road chop. I ran one of the first SuperMax belt drives on that Shovelhead, with a 16 on the front and rear. I made drag bars with spotlights on either bar just inside the grips for headlights. After a run to Filmore I rode that scoot back through the mountains. The curves were narrow and sharp. It was 3:00 a.m. in the morning as I twisted through the dark foothills. The spotlights were two feet apart and I couldn't see shit. It was fine on the straight and narrow, but I couldn't see my gloved hand in front of my face on a curve.
I rumbled into my driveway at 4:00 in the morning and shut the bike down. My property was surrounded by a 6-foot chain link fence. Immediately the animals started to squawk. I had geese, mallards, rabbits, cats, dogs, chickens and squirrels. I rolled the bike into the garage, unbolted the handlebars and tossed them into the junk pile.
Well, I tried something new for a few years before the hierarchy of ER changed and they asked me to come back. Suppose it was my eccentric fate. You only have one life to live. Might as well dance to a different tune from time to time.
Ride Forever,
–Bandit
