You ask a great question.....

Seems as though I just got someone a little bit upset on another thread in here about a horn and coil relocation that is made by Exile....

Don't get me wrong, Russ makes amazing bikes, but HELLO!! why do you think he went in the business of selling aftermarket parts????? Cause some poor azz shlep is willing to pull some crap off a shelf and bolt it on his bike and call it "CUSTOM!" my butt....

Our society is in the tiolet, and I just got back from my third tour to Iraq while the amazing year of 2009 passed by with all of this unfolding. This is not a political thread or discussion, but honestly it has huge potential to come full circle.

We as a society have lost the idea of ingenuity and the DESIRE to be successful b/c of GREED, so you ask where did all the "old school" go???? well they are a dieing breed my friend. As I came up in the automotive biz, my buddy who taught me paint and body used to get a glimmer in his eye when he talked about and English wheel for shapping metal... why??? cause it was the true art form of being creative and making something with your own hands.....Doesn't exist any more. I am only 35 and can't stand some of this off the shelf crap nonsense that people enduldge themselves with (don't get me started on H-D and what they did to Erik Buell). I use what I got and that ain't much, but at the end of the day, I MADE it..................nough said!

 

I'm 56 and just spent a lot of years without a horse, after 27 years of hard riding, building poorboy chops, going thru all the stages of idiocy from hangaround to self-styled outlaw (a legend in my own mind...) then after a burnout disaster, losing my bike, home and everything, it seemed that I never could quite scrape the money together, get sober, or stay in one spot long enough.
Now, with an 05' Heritage I've just done the glitter work on, I'm of one mind: riding for lost time - which is why I bought a low-miler (4300). Lacking the company of buds in garages doing late-night rebuilds, lacking the need to be counted, lacking the need for a buzz, I'm just joining an envoy of like-minded riders who want to ride out, eat, ride home safe. That may be 10 miles or 1000.
When I get caught up, I may take advantage of my garage full of tools and equipment, accumulated knowledge and ideas, and do another build, maybe a hot sporty bob job or chop. But with the comfort of the Herry, I'm in NO hurry. I DO miss kickstarting though. Well....sorta...maybe not.

 

While I don't want too get political either, we need to understand that this "Service Economy" advocated by many, has resulted in kids being raised thinking that working with your hands is second class career choice.. We are sending our manufacturing jobs overseas at an alarming rate with these trade agreements. So what? I learned the Machinist/ Tool and Die trade right after I got home from the Army in the 60's. Building bikes was easy for me. I had access to everything I needed and the knowledge to do it. The Company I worked for is now manufacturing in the Far East. I was fine, I got a pension and found another great job right away. The problem is no one in the U.S replaced me. Guys don't have the opportunity to learn, and we Americans don't give the trades the respect that other countries do. I dealt with European Service Techs in my last job. Mostly Germans. In their culture they are regarded as professionals and given the respect accorded to them, so young people want to follow in their footsteps. Here? Not so much. The E.P.A. has a rule to try to keep you from building more than one ground up bike in a lifetime. How hard is Harley going to fight that one? Still I see a fresh crop of young guys who build and ride some cool bikes. I applaud them, cause it's a lot harder for them than it was for me, but they are doing it.

 

I guess for me the idea of an "old school" cat is someone who truly tries to live the dream in which we (our nation) was founded on.

I don't know that I will ever be "old school" but man, I bust my azz working as hard as I can to make the things I have work together and at the end of the day, I can say, "I was the one who did that."

My most recent boss had a great saying...... "you always want to be an ameriCAN, not an ameriCANT." I believe that, or at least I am trying to as much as it gets harder by the day not to. This reminds me of the Boozefighters and how they became the legend they are today... nothing more than some good ol' boys ham'in it up having a good time.

This forum most recently lost an amazing contributer who in my books will always go down as "old school"... why you may ask??? cause he loved what he enjoyed and he enjoyed what he loved, nothing more nothing less.... and the icing on the cake for him was the companionship that came with his passion (as noted in the hundreds who have taken a second to recognize his name). I aspire to one day be appreciated not for anything monitary, but hopefully for who I was and how humble I tried to be so just maybe I too could be "old school."

 

Old school rules.

 

I agree that younger riders don't wrench like old timers. One reason is the bikes. Today's Harleys are very reliable. Another reason is the availability of HD and aftermarket parts. Why spend time fabbing parts when you can be out riding?

 

I would say "because then it's YOURS", not Arlen's or whomever's. We were making forward controls before you could buy them. Things like that; but sooner or later, there's nothing new under the sun, it's all been done.
But for the moment, I'm in the very boat you just sailed: bought what I needed and I'm riding.

 

well its a good thread, I appreciate everyones input and hats off to all our vets home and abroad. I send horse mag to a friend in Afganistan even though he wasn't per say a biker when he left. but he sends me mail all the time on how much everyone looks forward to recieving the new edition. I actually knew his uncle well and barely knew him when he left, but I wanted to do something in appreciation being a disabled vet myself. I personally sponser a server with many computers in my home cause thats what kids want to do these days. even though I have a large garage and always tinkering with something, the kids would rather be sucking up the air conditioning sittin on a computer. I try but its a dying art, I was a fabricator and millwright in the steel industry and hope to be able to return to that soon. Ive seen though that even in my field, its the old timers and the new timers, 2 vastly different mind sets. I hope something positive changes things before we become a country unable to build anything. just my 2 cents.

 

Well, I hate to use the term Old School since it's been claimed by everyone that throws a set of Ape Hangers on their brand new store bought ride, but I guess I qualify for the original meaning of the word.

When I was a kid in Chicago I lived across the street from a guy named Neil Scouten, who was a welder and fabricator of some fairly famous race cars. Some of the cars I saw him wrench on were Little Red Wagon, Der Mini Brute, Shake Rattle and Roll and a bunch of others. I'd mow his lawn, wash his cars and generally be his indentured servant and he'd help me build my halfa$$ed bicycle choppers. Schwinn StingRay bike and a Briggs and Stratton motor...he'd shake his head when he saw me run along side and jump onto it when it started, control the gas by holding onto the little butterfly throttle etc. Took me to the local hobby shop, bought me my first actual throttle and centrifugal clutch, welded the angle iron instead of my bolts holding it together and centered everything.

I was hooked.

But of more importance were the things he taught me about fabrication, making a part work and fit the "right" way and how you could envision what you wanted to accomplish. Between that and my grandfather who had a farm who taught me maintenance and repair things, I only later in my life learned to appreciate what a great gift I'd been given.

Sometimes have to make a conscious effort to keep my rude comments to myself when I see some so-called "bikers" who don't know jack about their rides.

Only to have the point about the differences between the generations shoved down my throat by my own kid...sigh. He thinks coming by the shop is great because he can see the half-naked Harley girls come by, see us old guys down a beer or two while we happily wrench on some old ride and swap war stories...but when I try to take the time to show him how and why we do some things a certain way, his eyes glaze over and he runs to the front to get on the shop computer.

But of course he wants us to build him a bike. So he can pick up chicks...

I got mine back though...told him I had a ride for him, made a big deal about it, then handed him a Bus Card. I inherited my sense of humor from my dad who one day standing on the *public* beach said, "one day son, all of this will be yours!"

I did just finish building a complete 1990 Softail (in my garage on the HD Forum) almost entirely out of FREE OEM take-offs from all the new riders who put custom parts on their new rides so I shouldn't complain. I have maybe 4K in it (had to buy the motor, trans and frame after all)

 

Ha, that was a great story! Even in the car end of things - most of us ol' duffs were rebuilding engines for dad's pickup at 14...nowadays these guys can't even change a tire at 30.