Or whatever way you want to spell it.

This subject has always interested me.

Old school really depends on how old a person is as far as what "old" is. In my case, I'm now 67 years old so what I consider "new" is "old" to younger people.

A few days ago, I had my MP3 player on at work and a young guy said"hey, that's the song in the Honda commercial". I was playing ELO/Hold on Tight. I asked him what year he was born and he said 1974. ELO recorded that songin 1972. You see, it is all relative.

A lot of people (bikers) mention to me about me making things for my scoot. And I always tell them that is how we HAD to do it when I started riding.

I have been riding since I was 21 years old, which is late by todays standards. That makes me riding for 46 years now. My first bike was a 1947 61 cu.in. knuckle-head Harley ex-police bike, with a tank shift and a foot clutch, and as my signature says, the left grip twisted also, it was the spark retard.

When I started riding, there were no after-market parts places to buy parts. You bought your parts from a H-D dealer, or in my case from an old man that was a mechanic for the police deparment of Washington D.C. I would go to his home and in his garage out back had a couple of bikes in various stages of repair, and parts just scattered at random on shelves in the garage. He did no "custom work" just repaired them like they were.

I belonged to what I guess would be considered a club today, although we didn't consider it that. It was just all of the guys that rode Harleys or Indians. It consisted of myself and two other white guys, four black guys and one Indian guy (native American). Just the 8 of us. Back then, there was no racial over-tones, we just all liked those bikes and rode together. In fact, I can never remember the subject of race ever being bought up. On the weekends, we would get a couple of cases of beer, fire up the grill and cook hamburgers and hot dogs and sit around trying to figure out what to do next to our bikes, or what is now called "customizing". If one of us broke down, then all of the rest of us would help him get it fixed again.

We made all of our "custom parts" that bikers buy today. If we wanted a sissy bar, we would go to the steel shop, buy some 1/2" square or twisted stock and come home and take a torch and bend it to fit, drill a couple of holes and bolt it on, painted black of course. Swapping mufflers was a matter of going to wherever there was a wrecked bike and buying the mufflers and making them fit. When I chopped the '47, I put shooter pipes and BSA mufflers on it.

I remember bending several handlebars with rope tied around the ends and a pipe in the middle twisting the rope to tighten it, to pull the handlebars together (now called long-horn bars). I also remember laying bars on the ground and someone would jump on them to straighten them out (now called beach-bars). All custom paint was from a spray can. And the biggest thing was, there was never a worry about "re-jetting" the carb. or if it would "pass inspection" or the "EPA" rules (there was no EPA back then). Fenders were cut with a hacksaw or a pair of tin snips and filed to shape. A few years later, some company started selling front end "slugs". You would screw a slug (4" - 6" - 8") into the top of your forks, loosen the triple clamps, push the slugs down so they were flush with the top triple tree and tighten the clamps - instant extended front end, with no hassle. Then someone figured it "wasn't safe" - they could (or did) break at the joint. Hell, I rode them for a couple of years on my second Harley.

Now, there are "o-ring" chains. But I remember using number 50 (I think) industrial chain and"boiling it" in a can of wheel bearing greaseto make the grease go into all of the links. Then taking it out of the grease andrubbing it down with ragsto remove the excess grease. What a messy job that was, but if you w

 

Best I can do Clutch.......... Really enjoyed your post

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_school

Somtimes I think the good old days, were.

DougJ

 

67 -

Man what great memories ... I remember when I was poor, too. It sucked ... unlike you, I wasn't riding a knuck (lol).

Thanks for sharing man; you see a little of that spirit when you look at threads like the 'How to ... for under 50 bucks.' Hopefully you'll inspire some of us.

I think that due to the media, and the increased overall number of bikes on the road now, there are business models that support an aftermarket industry for parts. Yeah, it's truethe average rider fits a much different demographic now. I don't presume to judge whether that's good, bad or indifferent; it just is. However, it's also true that sometimes you can't find what you are looking for and have to get innovative--resort to some good ol' yankee ingenuity. People are nostalgic by nature, so I think it's natural to think you are evoking some romanticized version of the past when what you really have may only bear a passing resemblance.

I, for one am glad of the improvement in v-twin technology ... notwithstanding that the modern concept of 'old school' may be totally bogus!

Thanks for sharing.

Respectfully,
Priest

 

Interesting...........hummmm..........."retro".... ......."obsolete"..................

Doug, you have way too much time on your hands.....................

C66

 

Priest........"V-Twin technology" back then was - you were REAL lucky to get 50k miles on an engine. I have rebuilt several knuckles and pans, just because the things wore out by 40 or 50k miles. There WAS NO technology. They just fell apart.

And I have to agree with you about the modern concept of "old school" at least to some degree. It's all about the money.

C66

 

to me old school is white walls and kick starts

 

XLNT post Clutch

 

Very nice read Ron. Appreciate that you took the time to type it.

To answer your question at the end
(So, just who or what is old school to the rest of you.)??

For me, even in 1967, my older brother was "Old School".

mud

 

i love my old pan but if you break down on the side of the road ,youmake what you need to get you going again.the local H-D shop don't even have a spark plug for a 1963 flh.some of the guys there don't know what a panhead is.so now for a trip i ride my 01 t-sport.i like to take my old bike to bike nights and watch the younger guys figure out what it is.and they freak when i have no magic button to press to start it.i'm always late leaving because the want to see if they can kick it off.

[IMG]local://upfiles/26876/1580D538C54D47CD9AAC43CBBB463BD0.jpg[/IMG]

 

Gotta love the drum brake, Mud