November 2010 Asylum Mobilitarium
Wow, it looks like sales are improving nationwide with Harley-Davidson. That’s a good thing and makes me wonder how many brand new riders are coming into the fold.
The Harley-Davidson cult and culture is a rich one. With its All-American image, the icon status that it continues to enjoy to this day, the social lifestyle that draws riders from other brands, it has a little of everything for a lot of people.
Sometimes however, just getting into the lifestyle is well, a little daunting. There are so many models of Harley’s for one thing. It’s important to be able to talk the talk when around your best buds at the local watering hole. There may be motorcycle etiquette, words, and terms that you might later scratch your head and wonder what the heck they were talking about.
But you know, don’t let the lack of motorcycle knowledge worry you. It’s a learning experience that will come with time. That’s a part of what Asylum Mobilitarium is. To spread the word, with tongue pressed firmly in cheek, of all things relevant in the two-wheeled world.
This will be the first of a two, or maybe three part series, the next will be in the December issue of Hogwash. Maybe some of this information will come in handy and let you survive a dressing down at Stroker’s or some low-class bike hangout someday.
I have found that there is one basic thing one must try to avoid when buying your first Harley. Try not to kill the bike in front of a bunch of veteran riders! If you do, kinda shake your head like, “Yea, its doin’ it again,”slowly get off the bike with whatever kind of biker swagger that you can muster, knell down and start looking at the plug wires, touching this, adjusting that, like you know what you’re doing. Then, coolly get back in the saddle, and while the bunch o’ bikers are still watchin’ ya, go over in your head “How to Start the Bike,” and crank her up. Now all the old throttle-twisters checking you out have been there-done that, but they would never admit it!
Okay, you may be new to the world of the Orange and Black. That’s okay, everyone starts somewhere. This term is “newbie,” and like I said ITS OKAY!
Ah hem, I’ll digress a little bit here .I should have pointed out at the beginning that if you are a rider who leaves your bike in the garage you months at a time, or you bought the Machine because your next door neighbor bought one and now has a much too young for him hottie (sometimes called a hanger on, not a bad thing but just another term,) riding around with him, and making his ex mad. Well, you can probably stop reading here, because you won’t be riding enough, or be around “real bikers,” (another term you will hear forever) for it to matter.
These words are the secrets of the faithful. Some spot on serious , and all not to be taken too seriously at all because it’s all about having fun, but words you can live by. Regular readers of these pages will know the difference.
The early Flathead engine was introduced in 1928, on the Model D. This was the workhorse engine for HD until 1973 with the Servi-Car three wheeled police bike being the last Harley to have this engine between the frame rails. Arguably the most famous HD motor of all time is the “Knucklehead” that was introduced in 1936. The “Knuck” has sometimes been called the engine that saved Harley during the last years of the Depression. It was the hot Twin for the time, with the Flathead still soldiering on with that years police bikes and the WWII WLA a few years later.
It’s interesting to point out that old timers for the most part didn’t call their mounts a “Knucklehead” back in the “Golden Age of Motorcycling.” That term apparently became common later on after WWII. The old guys would describe their machines 61’s, 74’s, or 80’s. Later, Panhead and Shovelhead bikes were called Pans, or Shovels only after they had been Bobbed, Chopped, or bastardized into something else. Nothing wrong with those terms, but if you talk to a rider in his seventies or eighties today he will fondly remember his old Harley 74.
Next month; what is a “Hard Tail,” and what KSU really means.
Willie Hank
Panther Creek Historian
Youths gone astray since 1955
www.asylummobilitarium.blogspot.com
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