I crawled off a plane from Los Angeles to Ashville, North Carolina. Meeting the diehard Long Road Riders and riding into Rockingport, North Carolina for the 13th Smoke Out, was a mandatory excursion. Bikernet supported the SO from the beginning, and I had the steamy pleasure of riding the entire 1000 mile Long Road last year from New Orleans to Rockingsomething. The trek placed me in an elite cadre of dedicated riders.
I was inducted into the Long Road Clan and forced to show my ugly mug annually. Victory Motorcycles stepped up as my probation officer, and loaned me a 2012 Highball-not to be confused with the 8-Ball or a 5-Ball. As I stepped into the cool air-conditioned airport baggage claim area, I noticed a skinny fuzzy-haired sort in the corner surrounded by enough baggage to power up a high school soccer team. He peered over narrow reading- glasses, sitting half way down his lumpy nose, while staring intently at the face of his Mac Book. It was Michael Lichter, the master of motorcycle photography, since I gave him his first Sturgis assignment in 1979.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a chunk of his bio, gleaned from his new website:
In 1977, after a stint simultaneously playing drums in a jazz band, bussing tables in a restaurant and doing personal photography, Michael decided he was a better photographer than a drummer and hung up the sticks. It was during this time that he started riding his 1971 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead (which he still owns) and photographing bikers. This work, along with a series on cowboys, was exhibited in group and solo exhibitions over the next few years. Prints were included in private and public collections, most notably by ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Corp.) and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, in Paris.
In 1979, Easyriders magazine started to publish some of Michael’s motorcycle photography. He photographed a number of smaller events and features specifically for them, proved his abilities and then was off on his third trip to Sturgis in 1981, now on assignment for Easyriders, for whom he has returned there ever since. Also in 1981, after a solo exhibition of his work at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, Ireland, which was boycotted by the League of Decency, Michael became disillusioned with the “art world” and again changed course. He stopped publicly exhibiting his photographs in favor of publishing his motorcycle work in Easyriders and simultaneously began developing his career as a commercial advertising and corporate photographer. By 1982, his studio was open in Boulder, Colorado. It wasn’t long before he developed a clientele that included companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Kraft Foods.
On a more personal note, Michael married his wonderful wife Catherine in 1982. They met when they were both on a 5-day holiday in Big Sur, California, Catherine coming all the way from Dublin, Ireland where she is from. They have two children, a daughter Kiera, who was born in 1985, and a son Sean, who was born in 1988. Incidentally, you never totally could take the music out of Michael. Although, he wasn’t about to start lugging the drums again, he discovered the Irish penny whistle could fit in his pocket. It has become a great outlet and perfect way to pass the time in the middle of a highway waiting for the right bike or the right light. If you are riding down an open highway and happen to hear an Irish jig coming from a photographer straddling the double yellow line way up ahead, it’s probably Michael about to take your photo.
Personally, I’m not sure about that Irish penny-whistle business. I’ve never seen it. Mike is an ardent work-alcoholic sort who never stops. If he’s not shooting, he’s editing photography, working on his web site, drumming up more business, or convincing Ms. Bo, his wonderful wife of 30 years, that motorcycles are really okay.
Back to the airport: we hired a UPS truck to haul all of Michael’s gear to the hotel where we picked up three Victorys, a new Judge, the latest Victory Cruiser, my Highball, and Mike’s Cross Country, specifically altered for photographers.
This modified 106-inch Freedom V-Twin intrigued me. Mike, known all over the world for hanging out of the back of rattling pick-up truck beds to snatch one award-winning, magazine cover-grabbing photograph after another, fell out of a truck a couple of years ago. It occurred after tailgate shooting for 30 years, when a nylon strap broke. “I’ve never gone public with the accident, but I now have a mantra: always use four straps to tie a bike down,” Mike said. “I’ve seen too many straps snap, or tear like the one holding me. I’ve been forced to shoot around too many dented gas tanks.”
But did he give up the treacherous exploits of a tailgate photographer? No way! Ten years ago he started working with riders and motorcycles to sit backwards while a pilot, like Panhead Mike this week, rode the motorcycle.
Think about sitting backwards on any chopper, the rider at the bars downing silver flask shots of Southern Comfort, and weaving in and out of 70 mph traffic, while a thundering horde of bikers follow just inches behind. So the notion of the perfect motorcycle for such an assignment became a death defying criteria. This touring Victory camera model capable of 109 ft. lbs. of hole-shot torque seemed ideally suited to the job.
“Chris Callen, the editor of Cycle Source, rode me backwards on the BMR, the Big Mountain Run. We rode through the curve riddled Tail of the Dragon, scraping the pegs on every turn,” Mike said. “I straddled his H-D dresser with my legs spread over the saddlebags. Lee, from the Wall of Death, followed trying to play bumper cars with Chris. He backed off only when he hit my dangling boot, bouncing in the wind, with his spinning front tire.”
“I moved around constantly, but the pilot had to be quiet when it came to body movements. Most bikes contained no backrest for the pilot or me. I used the rider’s back as a rest, and we pushed against each other for support.”
This Victory Cross Country posed a unique opportunity for several reasons. First, Mike was afforded the chance to test its performance as a rider for 100 miles into Maggy Valley, to Dale Walksler’s Wheels Through Time Museum. Then Michael shifted to the Victory camera position, and Panhead Mike took up the pilot seat all the way to the pig roast in the hills. We followed a strange fellow, who goes by the nickname Prince Najar, while operating Michael’s GPS in a small compact car. We had no notion of our position on the planet as we snaked behind along twisting, narrow roads into Shady Valley. We met up with the Long Road pack on top of a grassy knoll, where the leader explained the final day of the Long Ride. At the campfire we received a crumpled memo: the same Cross Country would be available to Michael for use on the Cannon Ball, vintage cross-country epic later this summer.
“Two years ago I rode 3,250 miles on the back of a 1953 Panhead piloted by Carl Olsen,” Michael said. “He mounted a passenger solo seat backwards, with stirrup pegs, and that was the best backwards ride to date. If a bike doesn’t have saddlebags, generally my boots bounce against the pavement, making it difficult to steady my camera, even with the heavy, heat-generating gyro attached.”
So, how the hell did this Victory camera bike come to life? “My brother, Robert Pandya, developed it to shoot video,” Manny Pandya said. Manny is responsible for the publicity arm of Victory motorcycles. “The Cross Country is not modified in any respect. Robert removed the saddlebags and made the panels with running boards. They snap right into place with the saddlebag fasteners. The sissy bar is stock, except we took a rider’s sissy bar, passenger seat, and passenger sissybar to Saddlemen. They made a complete set of modified components which simply replace the stock units, and it was good to go.”
Saddlemen adjusted the passenger seat size, added a sissybar pad to the front and rear of the rider’s back rest and modified the passenger sissy bar pad for the cameraman to lean against for hours on end. “The Victory system allowed me to stand and twist for better angles and more controlled photography,” Mike said.
“They can be installed on any Cross Country, anywhere,” Manny said. “We built several Camera Kits, and they’ve been used on many shoots, including coverage for the Iron Man in Hawaii.”
So, what was Michael’s impression of the Victory? “It was my first opportunity to ride any Victory, and I was impressed with the ergonomics immediately,” Michael said. “Arlen Ness asked me to straddle a Victory Vision once, just to witness the center of gravity and balance of the purportedly massive motorcycle, but I didn’t ride it.”
Both Manny and Michael pointed out the comfortable and smooth torque curve of the 106-inch power plant for secured and uninterrupted photo sessions.
“I would be interested and excited to put the 106 drivetrain in a small bobber chassis,” Mike pointed out. “What could a builder do with it with total freedom and no guidance? As a custom bike photographer, I would like to see Victory drivelines in custom applications.”
It was as if Victory built this bike with the yard-long, heavy-weight floor boards to be capable of hauling a fully equipped, 200-pound camera man, hoisting a 100-pound video camera, batteries, and flash while standing and taking world class footage. I also was impressed by the heavily gusseted and padded sissybar, capable of allowing a fire-plug photographer wielding a heavy, hot, vibrating gyro under a state- of-the-art Nikon camera while leaning heartily against the stout blacked-out bar. “The sissy bar was shortened, but not modified,” Manny said. Even Michael Lichter was impressed with the stout accessory.
Michael, a lightweight passenger weighing just around 145, held 75-pounds of equipment. He wasn’t a photography wimp. Panhead Mike, the volunteer pilot for three days of motorcycle torture, a quiet sort, who had never before experienced riding a Victory touring machine with its 6-speed overdrive transmission, helical-cut gears, and neutral selection assist.
With over a decade of daunting backwards riding experience and 10,000 miles under his belt, the ABS equipped Victory was perfect for the job, with its stellar center of gravity. Michael’s riding shot program was dialed. He gave Panhead only three minutes of specific riding instructions along with a Scala Rider communication system by CARDO, so he could offer backward instructions to the man behind the chromed handlebars containing all the cockpit controls.
“I’ve tried every communication system. I needed a voice activated system that never blinked,” Michael said. “We kept verbal communication to a minimum, ‘Left track, right track, center.’ Panhead got it right away. Nothing going wrong is a really, really great day.”
“Panhead did a helluva job,” Michael said after the first night on the road up a myriad of twisting, grass strewn, and rain soaked, steaming humid roads to a pig roast organized by Long Road contributors.
Michael sat comfortably facing backwards and barked orders at the following bikers, while taking shots. He mustered the troops with hand signals and verbal requirements, calling for riders on twisting slick roads to pull within inches of the crimson Cross Country rear fender.
Not only did Michael’s pilot perform flawlessly, but the photographer didn’t blink for 300 miles and shot a thousand images. The Long Road troops kicked off their journey in Bruceton, Tennessee, and rode north into Kentucky for a Jim Beam Whiskey tour in Bardstown, took the Bourbon Trail on US 60 into Milton, West Virginia, then rode north to Bowden where they caught highway 219 and rolled south, back into a sliver of Tennessee to hook up with us in Shady Valley at the pig roast.
The final 220 miles led us into the original Smoke Out town of Salisbury. This time the entire pack followed the Victory camera vehicle to the Farm House restaurant in Salisbury as a tribute to the original Smoke Out location, then we met up with the Chop Off contestants, and Jeff Cochran’s crew, while Michael digitally captured the chopper best as they screamed through the final 50-mile run into RockingWorld, to the Rockingham Race Way and the Smoke Out. Then the party began.
