The Bitch

Deze pagina in het
Nederlands.

So I'm driving a Harley.

First, let's confirm the preconceptions:
I have a long beard, let my freak flag fly, and there's holes in my jeans.
I have been drunk a couple of times (way in the past of course), every now and then I like to smoke a joint, and I do inhale them (well, this is Holland, after all).
I like women, prefer to be a lazy person, and pick my nose.
Despite all of this, I'm kind towards children, friendly to the elderly, and almost never bite the group in between... as long as they keep their hands of my bike that is.

But this page ain't about me, it's about my bike... the Bitch.
A shovel build in 1980, 1200 cc, which sounds a lot better than cubic inch.
Though she wasn't named the Bitch at the time, we met an odd thirty five years ago. End 1982 I picked her up: a frame, one engine, two wheels, and three piles of parts, all stashed in an attick.
According to the seller it was a complete Harley-Davidson, it was just in the form of a puzzle.
There is an advantage: after a fiddling around for a winter, with lots of help from a bro, you do know how a hog is supposed to stick together.
The only thing missing was the drive chain.

The previous owner had been plagued with wild dreams about choppers and freedom, had bought an almost new Harley, drove it a month, took it apart, and had it painted bright yellow... yech, it made my eyes hurt.

Building it up again seemed to be a bit more problematic.
There was also the small 'problem' of extra parts, some more paint-jobs, a lot of extra chrome, and a little bit of whatever to make it really the way he wanted it to be.
After a few months he got into a different dream which costed lots of money and I could buy his old dream.

The thing being yellow was quickly handled with some spray cans. Paint it black!
Because it's always quite handy to take along some stuff on your trips, I bought a piece of leather and made my own bags. At the time, it wasn't for sale or it was shocking expensive.
I made those leathers from an old couch, 'cause leathers weren't cheap either.

And thus started the ride, as proud as a peacock.

Did I mention there was no saddle?

Well, the thing had no saddle.
Yeah, some plastic thing, 'made in Taiwan' or somewhere around and it might have looked nice, but it wasn't a saddle!
So the next project was a new saddle. I was lucky to still have kept over enough leather after making the bags, or I would have been plain out of chairs.

The fuel tank would take me one and a half times to my favorite watering hole and back. After miscounting a couple of times and having to push the last miles home, I went looking for something bigger - which also meant the end of my paint-job.
The nearest official H-D dealer had a storage full of used tanks, but he preferred to sell me a new one. It took me some effort to get him to sell me the used one that I wanted, it wasn't much cheaper but a lot bigger and I was tired of pushing.
An asset was the faucet: it had a reserve. A drawback was my new saddle, which sticked out above the tank... to keep a bit of the line I had in mind, I placed the tank a little higher.

Later I found out that switching to reserve would take me exactly one kilometer further.

Rain.

The problem with rain is that it gets you wet.
By itself that's not a real disaster, 'cause you'll dry up again and it helps you to save a lot of water, like for showers and such!
No, the real problem with rain is that it wil get your bike dirty rather quick.

So you start polishing. And after a ride, ending with rain, you'll shine it again!
I was cursed! I rubbed it to a high gloss - in the sun, mind you - and as soon as I would take it for a spin, dark clouds would pour down upon on me.
It became so bad that my fiends started to refuse to let me drive along, that's how bad it was.
There was only one thing I could do: I stopped polishing.

The sun started shining, I had a lot more time for riding, started to see my old friends again and even made some new ones. It's just, well you know, my bike... it got dirtier and it got filthier.

 

An advantage of stopping to care about the looks is that if something brakes or gets stolen, you don't need to worry about new, shiny and thus expensive, parts. Anybody and his sister at the time was building a chopper, so used parts were very easy to get.
Also one of the nice things about Harleys is that parts from other models will either fit or can be made to fit quite easy.

Take those wheels for instance... originally they had spokes, but after a few years ridin', rattlin' and rustin', taking corners became quite adventurous. It's possible this also had something to do with the tires being worn to the canvas, but it was clear that something had to be done!
The unofficial H-D dealer noticed I wasn't very happy with the prices for new spokes, rims, and tires and he soon made me an offer I couln't refuse. Because spokes were rare and yups loved them for their chops, my hub was worth two cast wheels plus new tires. He would even fit them.

Talking about the unofficial H-D dealer...
Even before the wheel-deal, he took care of an engine revision for a price that couldn't buy me the parts at the official dealer.
He wanted to do some tests... parts that were original or better, but tolerance according to Europian standards. Something he had only done with his own bike and one or two friends. He knew I wasn't interested in chrome but in making miles and it was about the miles that he wanted the Bitch as a test object.
All went well, the job lasted for over 150 000 km, double of what I drove before. (Which, considering AMF, also wasn't bad.)

Ridin'

That's what they're made for, isn't it?
I drove it around half of Europe.
Going to a run with friends, take an old lady for a holliday, or just by myself for a very long 'long weekend'.
And the thousands of kilometer around the block because I didn't even had, or wanted, a car.

Driving a Harley is something special, but ask a hunderd bikers whatever it is that's so special about it and you'll get at least one hunderd and fifty different answers.
There's only one thing they all agree on... they shake.

It seems that some people get really strong emotional reactions which are caused by those vibrations, and that may be. But there is also a serious drawback for the bike itself: Things fall off!
One could say that I besprinkeld half of Europe with parts.

Repairs

Harley parts are more often than not expensive, but money's of little importance if you can't buy parts anyway, standing in the middle of nowhere. Also on a deserted mountain trail even far away from Bumfuck City, you're having a problem.

You could wait for a caravan of llamas to pass, or you become handy and learn that that coil in the car down under in that ravine will work perfectly on a Shovel.
If, after a couple of hundred oil checks, the thread of your gearbox runs out, you twist(!) in a cork.
Its always wise to take spark plugs, bolts, and nuts with you on your trips. But more often than not duck-tape, wire, or tie-ribs will do the job quicker and better.
And if it's still holding after a thousand kilometer, well.

And that is how you get what we call a 'rat'.
And because my rat has a mind of her own,
but she's always willing,
I named her 'The Bitch'.

Rat'z Rulez | © BAR2Rat'z

And thus ended the lesson.

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