Biker Stories

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by jke
Hey Herb,
I live just 19 miles East of Ed Gein 'ville. What was the old dealers name ?
John K. Endrizzi

Please don't get mad, but to protect the innocent I'd rather not divulge exact information. Let's just say that the location is about as far to mote as a WL has motor muscles in a near bee-line from Geinville to where Doerner was killed.

That should be clues enough!

I shall return....

[HarleyCreation]

The Plot Thickens....

So anyway, that same fall (1970) I trotted down to one of the Honda dealerships in Racine with a fistful of dollars I had saved up from my clean-up boy job at Ray Boehm's machine shop. I had scoped out a Honda 450 that I wanted. Coming off a CL160 that seemed like big bike!

But when I got there the sales guy reneged on the price and now wanted $700 instead of $600!

So I walked out and got to thinking about that old Harley stuff up north. I already had a sketchy education of sorts from "Big Bike" and "Choppers" magazines of the cool stuff a guy could do with a clunky stock old Harley. So with my brother-in-law and pal Brian drove up there after the holidays in Feb. of 1971 and dug several old hulks out of the snow and bought them. I got two Panheads: a 1948 EL (titled as a 41EL) and a 1949 FL for $150. My bro-in-law got two WLAs for $50. They were rough and cannibalized but cheap! An old rusty chassis with no motor, wheels, tanks, or gearbox got tossed on top of the load. I don't remember how that happened, but it turned out to be from a 1936 EL, altho it took me many years to learn that fact and only after some of the parts had been lost (sob!).

I was young and foolish but also somewhat intrepid. Oh yeah, I was going to build myself a "bitchin' chopper" and no mistake!

Here's a photo of the load on our return.

The kid profiling for the passing car (Rambler?) is my brother Tom. Just to show how long ago that was, he will turn 50 next year (gasp!)

[AdminGuy]

wow- it's great you got pictures of it. incredible.