*Front fender detail 2010 Harley Davidson FLHR*

For quite a few years I’ve been touring on an Harley Davidson Road King. I call her Scarlett. She’s red, but the name is more for the slow Southern cadence by which she conducts her business, It suits her, and she suits me. My home is in Charleston, South Carolina, but I was born and raised in Chicago, and I’m pleased to reveal myself as a Yankee each time I speak.

In the Sixties, any motorcycle bigger than 500cc was a good-to-go touring bike. At that time in America, bigger was always better, and Harley-Davidson strode amongst the imports like a colossus. Of course, multi-cylinder superbikes were beginning to change it all, but at the end of the decade, Harley still held the displacement title, along with a headlock on U.S. market share.

I was just a kid then, staring into the Easy Rider poster on my bedroom wall, building motorcycle models, and flashing peace signs to the long-hairs that occasionally passed through the neighborhood on their choppers. In the fall of 1969, on Wednesday evenings, you’d find me sitting cross-legged in my pajamas, sipping on a Black Cow, and watching Michael Parks of “Then Came Bronson” searching for TV truth aboard his red Harley-Davidson Sportster.

One hot summer day in 1970, my uncle and his college girlfriend stopped by our tiny ranch house in the suburbs of Chicago on a BMW /5. Uncle Kenny stood 6’5” with long dark hair, a ruddy complexion, and a deep booming voice. Me and the other kids from the neighborhood crowded around our half-open kitchen window and pressed our noses against the screen just to get a gander at him sitting at the kitchen table.

They were Hippies or Yippies, or both. She had smart eyes and a wide mouth. Bright and liberated women went bra-less then, and her heavy breasts swung like two pendulums under a black t-shirt that read “Harley-Davidson” across her chest. The motions were mesmerizing to a 14-year-old boy, and doubtless a brand stamp was made upon me that day.

But it wasn’t just Harley-Davidsons that caught my imagination, it was everything on two wheels. American, British, Japanese, Italian, four strokes, two strokes, singles, twins, triples, fours, it didn’t matter. I devoured every motorcycle magazine I could find, and part of every day was devoted to daydreaming about motorcycles.

When I turned 15, I got a part time job in a local factory after school and began putting aside a little money every week towards the purchase of a motorcycle. After three years of saving, the money went towards college instead. It was a bitter sacrifice, but I forced myself to do it. For better and worse, pragmatism had taken its first foothold.

It was 1979 before I had an opportunity to act. I was finally out of school. No more tuition and a paycheck with just enough blue sky in it for a monthly payment on a bike. After my first day on the job, I went directly to the closest Harley Davidson dealer and sat myself down on a Sportster. In fact, most every evening that first week, I visited a different motorcycle dealer.

A lot had changed in a few years. Norton and BSA were gone. Triumph was as good as gone. Ducati, Moto Guzzi, and BMW were exotic, expensive, and hard to find. Japanese bikes were everywhere. It was easy to see why. They offered performance, reliability, and affordability. I longed for that Sportster, but that little pragmatist inside me was whispering a now-familiar mantra, “Where is the value at?”. I bought a 1979 Honda 750K instead.

By the late eighties, Harley-Davidson had out run their shoddy AMF-era reputation along with the embarrassment of tariff protection. Skillful marketing and product placement converged with a renewed nostalgia for things American, and Harley was re-animated. I still longed for a Harley, but now a new obstacle to purchase began to creep up - the people buying the bikes.

I always saw motorcycling as a refuge of the workingman, and Harley-Davidsons particularly so. By my experience, your bike was frequently the only decent thing you owned. You turned your own wrenches as best you could and you rode with your best mates, rain or shine. The people who were buying Harley-Davidsons were now white collar dandies, and I objected to The Motor Co. courting them. Demand for the bikes pushed prices over MSRP. Formerly small and intimate dealerships built huge, extravagant, impersonal emporiums, and stuffed them with Harley branded merchandise from t-shirts to tampons.. So I waited. For a long time I waited.

Decades and hundreds of thousands of motorcycling miles passed. During this time, I owned many different brands, and I reckon every time I made a buying decision, I thought of Harley-Davidson first. Always In the end though, I made a different choice. Then came the Great Recession.

By 2009. Harley’s Rococo period was coming to a close. The lavish dealerships were empty of customers. Bikes had to be discounted to find buyers. An underappreciated but excellent new touring platform had been recently introduced. Now was the time! I scrambled to sell the bikes that had accumulated in my garage along with a vintage Formula Ford that was I racing. With pockets full, I headed to the local H-D dealership. Walking down the aisles of new bikes, a bright red Road King whispered my name. To quote Shakepeare: “The wheel is come full circle, I am here.”

Scarlett and the H-D Affair

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