In 1975 my bid was accepted for a very well worn and abused CHP 1970 Shovel head cop bike at one of their auctions. It went through a lot of transformations over the years. Chopper, ridged frame, a lot of the 70’s stuff. In ’79 I put everything in a ’59 pan head swing arm frame. In 1980 my longest road trip, to date, was to NYC, Washington DC. and the deep South. That was 34 states in 5 weeks and 9,000 miles, with just me and a gal on the back. It was the real deal of a bike trip. No motels, tenting it all the way. No Restaurants either, a Sterno cooker and an Igloo ice chest in the back pack, was what we did for all our meals. When we got home to Roseburg Oregon, I took the bike to a car wash. After the bath it took 45 minutes to start. I said “That’s it, i ain’t gonna wash you ever again”!
Fast forward to 2011 and I have proof that she has yet to be washed! My Shovel head and I have ridden (not trailered) to 48 states and 5 Provinces of Canada, logging well over 615,000 miles to date. In 2008, while going to Milwaukee Wisconsin for Harley’s 105th birthday party, I felt compelled to show some of Harley’s Executive’s, who we were riding with, what we could do. I passed the whole group at 109 mph while waving to them. No I don’t do that very often. But if ya want to ride with me, be prepared to do 80 to 85 on average. I like to challenge myself with Iron Butt runs. Four of them so far of over 1,000 miles in a day.
The whole idea of riding a Rat Bike is to let people smile and enjoy my ever changing creation. Most of the memorabilia on my bike was given to me by people from almost every state , and Canada as well. When people see me and the bike again, the challenge is on to see if they can find what they put on from a previous encounter, sometimes from years ago.
Ever since I was an early teenager, I determined that my goal in life would be to see how many smiles I could put on peoples faces as I pass through this world. Did it work for you?
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