Never again, say Never Again!

Because you just never know!  You may swear on all that is holy that this or that will never happen again, you will never do something again, you will never buy something again, you will never own something again or in this case, NEVER RIDE SOMETHING AGAIN!  Because no matter how much you assure yourself, try to convince yourself or profess certainty to the world, you really just can't be sure.  Years ago, I was down in Tucson with a buddy from Jersey who was picking up his brand new Road King.  I was done with new bikes, I had no interest in them in any way shape or form.  I had my 47' Knuck, my pride and joy, the ultimate murdersickle!  I also had my 92' Evo shipped out from N.J. with the move and I had my rodeo bike in AZ now, what more could a man possibly need?  Then I saw the first year Street Glide and in an instant it caught my eye.  As much as I dug riding rigid and running the ridiculous apes on the rodeo bike, this fucker looked comfy!  I sat down and sure as shit, it was.  As you guys know by now, Diane has MS and although she never bitches or complains, I know that riding on a p pad on a rigid knuck has to be brutal and as many of you know, there is nothing soft about a Softail.  We were going to do some serious riding living out west and I wanted her to be really happy and really comfortable.  So in the spur of the moment, I bought me a brand damn new Street Glide.  I thought for sure I would be so happy with it.

I could not have been more wrong.  It was 100 miles from the dealer in Tucson to my house on the mountain.  I had a spectacular ride across the desert on the Pinal Pioneer Parkway to look forward to for my first ride.  Around the bend and through Falcon Valley and yes, there were Falcons flying over head!  What could be better?  A damn comfortable bike for one thing.  I wasn't 30 miles in to the ride and my low back was wrenched and the pain between my shoulder blades was mind numbing....  How the fuck could this be?  I thought that the reason you rode these fuckers was because of the comfort factor, I must have missed the boat on that one!  I don't think I put more than 14,000 miles on this bike before I got rid of it.  I said to myself and to anyone who would ever listen, NEVER AGAIN!  I would never own a big Harley Bagger again, NEVER!  I still had the rodeo bike for longer trips with my girl and for when people came in from out of town.  It wasn't the prettiest and there really wasn't much cool about it, but that ol' Softail never once let me down and only once did I ever place second in an event on her!  Well, here, I'll show ya what she looked like.

This shot was taken right before I sold her.  I had put the front fender back on and the sissy bar and put a bit lower apes on for the new owner.  I use to wear a big patch on my cut that read "proud to be white" and it was because of this bike.  Everyone told me I was nuts for painting it Alpine Snow White and they would never ride a white bike!  So the more I heard people telling me what THEY would never do, I went home, pulled all the sheet metal and got to it!  She was proud to be white!  Get it?  Here is a shot of the ol' girl in Rodeo action.

I love finding these old pics!  Look at the looks on the faces of the people on the side lines!  Diane never missed the Weenie!  She was a pro.  She always said that it was all me and I swear it was all her!  I miss competing in bike games!  Well times got tough and one thing after another had to be sold to help us survive once the bubble broke.  The medical bills were mounting fast.  We had been on a good run and had some pretty cool, fun shit. I sold off all the toys one after another. 

Arizona has so much to offer when it boils down to have reasons for toys.  We had the only legal four person wave runner ever made.  We would load the truck up with friends and family, fill up the front trunk with coolers, grab the big tube and hit the lakes.  Summer on the lakes in Arizona is always amazing.

Another great thing about Arizona is the TRULY SICK roads through the mountains.  The twisties and the switchbacks are mind blowing.  I searched for four and a half years to find the BMW 635 CSI that you see here in the photo below.  Till this day, this was my all time favorite car.  I bought this car from  Honolulu and picked it up in S. Jersey.  I loved driving this car.  The faster the car went, the better the car handled.  I never really look back on things that I have owned and gotten rid of and feel sad or feel a loss but in this instance, I do!  I truly loved that car!

Our whole lives, we see these commercials on television with trucks plowing through window high mud or Jeeps climbing up and over the top of a mountain.  We watch these commercials and dream of owning that vehicle and fantasize about doing the same thing.  As it turns out, most people who own 4x4's rarely ever even switch them in to four wheel drive.  Where I lived back in Jersey, it was damn near illegal to drive anywhere off road but at least we had snow to do "Jeep Things" in.  Don't get me wrong, I've always had fun with my Jeeps but nothing was like owning one here in AZ.  If you see a road, if you see a trail, oh hell, if you see a space between two Cacti, you can pull off the road and drive anywhere you want.  I found it!  The place where the commercials are actually made!  This was the last Jeep that we owned and this fucker ruled!  We have on average, 350 days of sunshine here and there is just something about driving without doors on that I will love till the day that I die!  I was sad to let this one go, but it took care of some old medical bills and we paid up a bunch of old bills and hell, it had served its purpose.

This photo of the Jeep was taken at the top of my street.  I do miss the views of that neighborhood.  What I didn't miss was all the bullshit, all the added expense of carrying so much insurance on every damn thing.  There were two things that I had left and they were the two things that mattered most in the world to me.  My wife and my mistress!  No matter what ever happens, I won't give up either.  That ol' Knuck of mine damn well better be buried right next to me!

Yeah boy, that's my baby right there!  With all that had happened with the economy crashing, selling off all that we had, Bank of America quite literally stealing our home and everything that comes with damn near losing everything, I was oddly happy! 

I said never again would I allow myself to get in to debt like that.  Never again would I have so much SHIT to tie me down.  Never again would I need the big house on the mountain or vacation properties in Mexico.  None of that shit really mattered in the end when you can have the ultimate 3 way any time you like.  I mean how awesome is it that my wife and my mistress get along so very well now?

Now we paid our dues like so many other families have in this horrible economy and we came out the other side of it a bit more trim.  We had less pulling us down and less to have to worry about "where we getting the money to pay for this shit" and it was feeling pretty good.   Never again will I carry the debt that I had in the past.  The only problem was that although I could get together with the lil woman and the mistress any time I want, it just didn't last as long as it use to.  It's hard enough to knock out a 400 + mile ride on a rigid knuck but damn near impossible with your girl on the back sitting on a small piece of foam.  In the business that I am in and with the life that I lead, bikes are everything to us!  I needed to have a bike that I could load up with enough shit to take me on the road and be comfortable for my girl to ride distance on and not be crippled from the MS when we stopped.  Just like that, our good Karma finally paid off and out of nowhere I got a call about an available bike.  You guys know about the Pickle Sickle and the story behind it but for those of you who may not, allow me to show you my pickle both as I got it and as it sits today.

The photo above is how she looked after her first bath when I picked her up.  Karma kicked in and cut us a bit of a break.  You know how you always hear about that deal on a bike but you either never have the money on hand to pick it up or you hear about it a day late?  Well in this case, I was neither a day late or a dollar short.  I loved this bike, but as you can see, it was not quite ready for two up long distance riding, not yet, but it would soon be.

As you see the bike above was ready to load up and ride solo to Sturgis with all my gear for a few weeks on the road but it wasn't quite ready for that two up travelling, the very reason that I picked it up in the first place.  This would require a few generous donations from friends and a few borrowed parts!

Here she is in her full blown glory.  Ready for its first two up 1000 mile ride.  I had full on fallen in love with all things FXR.  This was it.  The newest bike I own was a 92'!  The only other bike that I would ever consider owning was a Harley Road Glide because it was based on the FXR.  It really was the evolution of the FXR to full blown bad ass touring bike.  But I did say, NEVER AGAIN, NEVER EVER AGAIN, would I buy a full on Harley Bagger.  Not a fucking chance in the world! 

Well like the title of this post reads, Never again, say NEVER AGAIN!  Everyone that I spoke to who owned or has ever ridden a Road Glide has told me that they are the ultimate Harley.  Fixed fairing like the FXR T & P cop models.  They cut the wind like nothing else and handled like a dream and most importantly, they were comfortable as hell to ride.  Only one problem, every time that I looked on Ebay or Craigslist, they were so damn expensive that I knew it would be 10 years before I could afford to buy one at a reasonable price.  Not to mention, I'll never ever again own a Harley Bagger.

That is until you find one at a really unbelievable price, with low miles, close to where you live!  Oh shit, how was I ever going to live this down?  It was hard enough when I had to explain to Koko my Knucklehead that I had been out fucking around with the Pickle Sickle, now I was going to have to explain that she now had to share the garage with a FUCKING BAGGER!  For the first week that I owned it, I let it sit on the driveway.  I wouldn't even roll it in to the garage.  Then one day I opened up the garage door and parked it in the opening and let it sit there for the better part of the day so that they could get acclimated to each other.  Eventually, I rolled it in and parked it.  As of yet, there has been no problems between them but I can't say what the talk about when I'm not in the garage!

So for a guy who preached to the world, NEVER AGAIN, I must eat my words.  I now own a Harley Bagger again.  I plan to put insane miles on her and hope a great many of them have my ol' lady on the back with me, riding in comfort and style!  Today I rode her out and did a couple quick checks on her, I'm giving her a transfusion tomorrow of fresh Spectro fluids and on Friday morning, while it is in the low to mid 20's, I'm going to ride her to California.  If you read my Cycle Source Magazine piece entitled "May the Fours be with you" about four guys, on four fxr's, leaving at four am and riding four hundred miles this is damn near the identical trip with the identical guys only I have abandoned them and will be travelling on the bagger!  This bitch ain't even earned a nickname yet.  I'm leaning towards the Purple Nurple or the titty twister.  You know, that rosy color a nipple gets after you give it a good bite or twist?  But as you know, anyone who knows anything about this life that we live, nick names ARE EARNED, NEVER JUST GIVEN!  So let's see what happens.  I just hope her name don't turn out to be REGRET!

Here she is in all her glory, ready to take her first road trip to California.  Two things could make this trip better.  First off, I wish Diane was able to go and secondly, I wish it wasn't going to be so fucking cold!  We are heading to the International Motorcycle Show, A Biltwell party on the Beach in Malibu and the David Mann Chopperfest!  Should make for a much needed "motorcycle" infusion in to my system.  Believe me, I desperately need something motorcycle related happening in my life.  Money is tight again for a bit and I can't get that Chopper project off the ground.  I got totally fucked on the custom frame that was being made for me, but that is another story and one day, I just may write it.  If you guys will be in southern California this weekend and at any of these events, please come up and say hello, I love that shit.  I don't want to hear like I do so often afterwards that you saw me there and didn't want to bother me!  It's never a bother to meet great people!

Until we see each other on the road;

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and the Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit