Okay, I’ll endeavor to make this short, so let’s see how I do. I feel busy this week, yet not really, but I’ll get to that.
I was hoping to have most of the weekend to get caught up on the Torpedo. Micah is having a blast with his buddy’s ’29 Indian at the Race of Gentlemen on the other coast. But he’ll be headed back, and I needed to finish my homework assignments. But I encountered one fly in the ointment.
My Grandson destroyed the Dyna I rebuilt for him year before last. He’s been itching to either repair the mangled Dyna or get something fresh and new. I spoke to Bob T. last week, from the desert on the other side of the 10 freeway from Palm Springs and he mentioned trying to sell his FXRT ’88, rebuilt police bike. I remember the build and it was too cool. Bob snatched a new engine from the factory and upgraded the 5-speed transmission with JIMS components.
He modified, rebuilt or enhanced every element of this bike, so I turned Frankie onto the deal for $7000. Frankie liked it, but immediately went into investigative, indecision mode. He couldn’t decide whether to check it out, buy another twin cam Dyna Glide or spend $17000 on a new M-8 Softail.
Frankie is surrounded by enthusiasts from his dad, his buddies, other builders, you name it, and they all have opinions. He’s been doing well in the tattoo realm and saving funds. Suddenly he had a large chunk of change burning a major hole in his Levi’s pocket.
I told him, if he wanted to run out 140 miles to Yucca Valley to check out Bob’s Evo classic, I would take him. He kept asking me what I thought. I told him he could buy this bike for $7000, put half of his money in a stock savings account and start saving for the future. Tattoo artists don’t have unions or retirement plans. And he could maybe find a better truck. He currently drives a beat-up old Ford Ranger with a zillion miles on the clock. It’s not a high-class ride for a master tattoo artist, plus he clocks lots of miles around LA every week to tattoo lost souls in dark forbidden places.
I’m sure, lots of other folks chipped away at his ears with their advice. Thursday, he called me and wanted to head to the desert. We made a plan for Saturday. We blasted across the city and just about the time we would merge onto 10 freeway, it dawned on me. We were close to Spitfire motorcycles.
We found it off Haven is Rancho Cucamonga and Paul’s 82-year-old dad was dragging a trash container out of the shop. A slight man with a wide smile on his face, at one time owned several massive machine shops cranking out serious equipment for the aerospace industry. He has since sold all his buildings and now rents a portion of one of his former buildings for Spitfire Motorcycles.
Of course, we all know what happened to the custom motorcycle industry after 2007, but there are always demands for quality machine shops. They now machine parts for a local forging plant and even artistic monuments for industrial parks, although finding a chrome shop capable of chroming massive structures is an issue.
Okay, we attempted to pick up Frankie’s repaired girder, but Paul insisted that he had additional upgrades and wanted to make us two new girders or sets of trees. They are supposed to be completed at the end of the week. We peeled out.
LA showed a high of 80 degrees, whereas 13 Palms would reach 94 degrees in the dry sand. Frankie needed food before we reached our destination. Fortunately, there’s just one coffee shop after hitting highway 62 into Morongo Valley, and skirting through and into Yucca Valley, through Joshua Tree and into 19 Palms before all is lost in the desert for 120 miles before you run smack into the Colorado River and Parker Arizona. I’ve done that desolate stretch a couple of times.
I just read an electric motorcycle review in the Week Magazine. They pushed the new ugly, $20,000 Zero motorcycle, but unfortunately it will only get 70 miles on a full charge slightly over 60 mph, less at higher speeds. You’d never make it to Parker and die in the desert of heat stroke, while surrounded by life-saving rescue cans of gas. Incredible.
So, we rolled into Yucca Valley and cut a deal with Bob T. for the supreme ’88. Bob had photographically documented everything he did to the bike and carefully stashed all the receipts in an envelope. He had an original ’88 FXR owner’s manual, the police parts book, two manuals with notes and all his spare parts.
We spent a couple of hours collecting spare parts including police light mounting brackets, a brand-new replacement rear fender, police saddlebags, mounting brackets, you name it. We loaded the stash in the van and Frankie peeled out on the all black FXRT for home as the sun set in the West.
I have another 65 pounds of lead ½-inch sheet. I’m hoping for an all-told 75 additional pounds in the front of the chassis.
I just got back from Lifestyle Cycles. I thought I might pitch them to carry our 5-Ball leather line, but they have way too many leather products. It’s funny about life and such. For many grubby bikers, we don’t have unions and retirement plans. We need to come up with a self-employment plan or die trying.
Yesterday, I roughed out my Gene Thomason story and sent if off to our esteemed copyeditor for final approval. Today I loaded the Bikernet Van and hauled ass to Lifestyle and tomorrow I have another VA meeting. Hang on for more reports.
In the meantime, Ride Fast and Free Forever!
–Bandit
