My co-worker bought a non-running '76 Harley Sportster for $3K. Which it seems is actually a pretty good deal because he already received 2 offers on the bike. One for $5K as-is and another for a '00 R6 trade plus $1K as-is.

Anyways.. he dropped it off at Grumpy's Hog Shop on Beach Blvd a couple of days ago to get the carb worked on as well as an oil change.

He got a call today saying it's done. He hasn't ridden in like 5 or 6 years so he asked if I could ride it back to our shop. I could tell how giddy he was. He looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. I couldn't say no, plus I was actually down with it because first I've never ridden a Hog and second I wanted to check out the Hog Shop.

So we go and there's all sorts of Harleys from rusty to prestine, new to ancient. But a bunch of shop bikes had the classic skinhead SS lightning bolts on them and the tall dood at the counter happened to be bald.

But my assumptions quickly faded when him and two other doods that were helping us out were cool as ****. My co-worker asked the tall dood if he had a chance to ride the Sportster. But the dood was like naw man, I'm missing a leg, and sure enough he had himself a metal leg. I could tell my co-worker was like, "oh **** I should've kept my mouth shut." but the rest of the guys were all light hearted about it and so was the tall dood.

Anyways.. we pay and get out to the bike and one of the doods sputters it up and gives us a walk around. Then the tall dood notices a little gas leak on one of the carb lines so he tells the other dood to fix it. Well he cuts the cracked rubber but the plastic fitting itself is worn so he told us to go to Harley and pop in a new fitting.

I say a little prayer and head out to the driveway. Then there's a half a dozen customers watching me leave. I proceed to excessively rev and ease out the clutch and I'm off. I merged onto the fast lane and try to shift to second but find it very difficult as the shifter is extremely stiff but I try again and it clunks into gear.

Then cars slow so I drop down to first and the before I can stop the cars start moving so I try to click into second but I can't find the shifter. I try again but I only grab air. So I think to myself, jeez these hogs have crap ergonomics and I look down only to find that the shift pedal fell off somewhere. Immediately I'm like... crap!

So I look back and I see my co-worker slowing down, obviously saw the shifter drop and is making a u-turn to go retrieve it. I look over the right shoulder and found an opening so I pulled over in front of a Mexican church.

I waited a couple of minutes and he pulls up holding the pedal but no bolt. He said he'll go back and get a bolt so I hung out by the bike.

Then couple of minutes later one of the doods rolls up on his bicycle and asked wuts wrong so I tell him and then I ask, how'd you know to come find me? He told me that Grumpy (his boss, they actually call him Grumpy) saw me on the side of the road and thought I needed help so he sent him. I was like, whoa these guys really do look out for eachother.

Anyways another dood shows up with my co-worker and says get in the car and he'll ride the bike back to the shop. So I asked him how he's gonna get it into second and he said, "Easy... with my hand." Ok...

So we get back to the shop and he sets us up with a new shifter for like $10 and he even locktites that ish on. And we're off again.

The pipes don't have any baffles so its loud as ****. The customers outside all stare and point. The clutch travel is about a quarter of a mile long and the throttle sticks like I'm poppin popcorn. The bars are way over my shoulders so the thing feels really squirrelly. And unless I stretch my legs out to the foot rests out front, it feels real cramped on the rear sets. The bike vibrates so bad that the mirror doesn't hold its position and for the life of me I can't find neutral.

Then as I'm cruising in fourth, at about 50 mph down Beach Blvd, I think to myself, these tires have more cracks than on my grandma's face and the brake is as wooden as my dad's ten speed. The clutch barely disengages so when I'm at a light in first, because I can't find neutral, the bike wants to move forward.

Then I came to the u-turn that I always make to get to my shop. I **** the bar to the left and give it some gas but it doesn't wanna go. I look to the right as the approaching cars get nearer and panic strikes me as I'm in the middle of their way and effectively crossed the front tire with the rear to make a "T". The long front fork and the slack head angle makes for an interesting physics problem. So I counter steer and lean the bike over a bit before the bars wanna turn themselves in and revved myself out of the there.

When we get back to the shop I'm almost sweating. That's the most death defying ride I've ever done under 50 mph.

I swear that thing is a POS....

... but boy was it cool as hell!

 

thats funny as hell reminds me exactly whats it was like everytime i was on a POS cruiser bike with wooden brakes and alien riding position! i rode a Dyna wide glide before tho with 800 miles up and it was a bit nicer an experience. i was 24 at the time, i could see everyone was lookin at me thinkin 'how the [freak] did he afford that??'

 

Dood, cool story dood

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fatboy01 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dood, cool story dood</TD></TR></TABLE>

LOL, yeah, all the 'dood' stuff is annoying as hell

 

Did you make sure to not wave at the sportbikes?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fatboy01 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dood, cool story dood</TD></TR></TABLE>

Glad u liked it dood!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by marmaladedad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Did you make sure to not wave at the sportbikes? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I saw a few but I was too busy worrying about the bike falling apart to care.

 

pics of the hogggg

 

Not sure if its all HD but I also cant shift my bike into neutral at a light, its a 2000 too. It also creeps sometimes and I have already adjusted the cable once to try and solve the problem.

Get some pictures up.

 

Sweet, sounds like everytime I would ride my '71 R5.