So this should be fun! Ya see, what I am going to try and do here is re-live an “Around the USA Harley Tour” I did when the Harley Low Rider was first introduced in 1977. I was the editor of Big Bike and Choppers Magazines for High-Torque Publishing, and I conned the owner into letting me do a little “Test Ride” on the new bike.
And so it was I soon found myself hitting the highway on a shiny new Red Harley Lowrider!
The plan was to try and shoot a pic every time I crossed a state line, and, while out, I would ride to Milwaukee (the Harley Factory), York, PA (Harley’s engine factory), and Bridgeport, Connecticut to the AMF Directors (AMF owned Harley Back then),
The first leg was from my home on the beach in Hermosa Beach, California to The Harley Factory. The first thing I n noticed was, the bike seemed to use a lot of oil. In fact, every time I stopped for gas I had to add almost a quart!
By the time I reached the factory I had gone thru a dozen quarts of oil.
When I arrived they too the bike onto the “line” and went thru it. They couldn’t find anything wrong!
And so, after a fun ride Thru the beautiful Kettle Morain Area with Willy G (then the designer at Harley, and Grandson of the Founder), I was once again on the road… this time to York to visit the engine factory.
Once again on arrival, they tore into the bike to see if they could figure out why it was burning so much oil.
As I was about to leave they were buckling up Big Red (what I called the bike), As I watched them ad oil, I noticed they were using 30 weight.
I, on the , had been adding 5W30 whenever it got low.
It was at about this point the oil problem was fixed. All I had to do was use the RIGHT OIL! Viola! No more oil loss!
Did I feel like an idiot? Uh, yeah!!
But I digress. The next part of the trip was a real blast. I headed to Bridgeport Connecticut where Bill Dutcher was the AMF Rep for Harley. He invited me to stay at his house, and that night we rode into New York City, where he’d gone to college, for a night out.
I gotta tell ya, for a California Boy, 34th Street, 5th Ave and Times Square Blew me away. We parked our bikes in front of Broadway Joe Namath’s Bar, where Bill knew one of the door guys, who watched our bikes, while we went and took a ride on the Subway.
We had way too much fun, and awoke late the next Morning.
It was time to move on, and my next stop was local, to visit an old friend, John “Rogue” Herlihy, at that time the International President of the Huns MC. (They merged with the Hells Angel’s shortly there after.)
Had a great few days talking about good times, and making a few new memories, and then I was off again. This time south, down the East Coast, and heading back across the US on Hwy 10.
BUT, as always, something had to go wrong, and what went wrong was no ones fault. It seems when you put 3 to 5,000 on a front tire, you need to change it. Fortunately I had a friend in Dallas named Bear who had a shop in his garage. I pulled in late in the afternoon, and by dinnertime we had the front tire changed. I figured the back one would be okay.
I honestly don’t recall much from the ride home from Dallas. I just kinda entered a dream-state as I rode, and before I know it, I arrived back at my place in Hermosa Beach.
Where I found my apartment full of empty beer and wine bottles, old pizza boxes, and a couple pairs of ladies panties! It seems “my friends” had decided to use my apartment as Party central while I was gone! As a gift they left about a foot of trash all over.
I did get my revenge, but we’ll talk about that another time!
Sure brings back memories. I had an ’82 FXRS that I rode to a lot of the same places as shown in your photos. My first H-D was an ex-San Jose PD panhead that I bought at Sam Arena’s shop in San Jose. I’m 78 – more power to you at 80.
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