Today is my birthday and for many years I received a call from Howard Messner wishing me a happy birthday and then I would call him tomorrow the 17th on his birthday and do the same. Daytona Bikeweek wasn’t the same without you this year . Valerie, Howard’s sister knowing our tradition called me in Howard’s place today. RIP Marine , you are missed . All of Howard’s customers on this forum keep him in your thoughts tomorrow on his birthday. Howard all of us Ohlins riders appreciate all you did for us. God Speed buddy.

 

Sorry for your loss, he was a wealth of knowledge about suspensions and read many of his post through the years RIP.
Happy Birthday to you, hope you have a great year.

 

Will do. and HB2U

 

Happy Birthday!

 

Happy Birthday! Howard was a big loss for many people.

Paul

 

Today is my birthday also. Losing long time friends sucks, they cannot be replaced I believe.

 

Yeah, Howard will definitely be missed. I still haven't taken him out of mobile's phone book :-(

 

Happy birthday, Tim!

 

I called him about 10-15(?) years ago, when I was contemplating Ohlins rear and front forks on my 2008 Road King. I was the epitome of dumb@ssery when it came to tuning shocks, ride height....you name it, I didn't know it. I must have talked to Howard for a solid 45 minutes as he painstakingly explained what he would do to set up the shocks, and then gave some great tips on installation......a wealth of information. Like many others, I will miss his knowledge. I hope he's enjoying a long stretch of empty highway. Semper Fi.

 

I Googled Motorcycle Metal since I just bought a new bike and was thinking about some new Ohlins, and Google brought me to this thread. After reading about Howards passing it was like a knife was stuck in my heart.
In 2013 I had bought a new Road King and wanted Ohlins, after researching the forums I decided to order them from Howard, there were a lot of negative post about Howard but many more positive so I ordered them from him, after a few weeks my shocks did not show up so I called him to find out what was going on, he said he would look into it, He called me back and told me that Ohlins didn't ship them due to them sending all their shocks to Sturgis and they could not order them from Sweden for another month due to a national holiday there, he even forwarded the email from Mike Hensley to me. Howard Immediately refunded my money and I ended up finding the shocks elsewhere. Fast forward to 2018, I had purchased another new Harley and put the Ohlins on the new bike and then left on a month-long cross-country trip, but I had a problem with the shocks, the preload collar had locked up and I couldn't adjust the preload. I was in FLA and a old friend that I hadn't seen in 35 years saw that I was on the Gulf Coast of Florida and said that he lived in Davie and could I make it over there, I replied that I would be there tomorrow, that was on a Saturday. Sunday I headed for Davie and I thought I might give Howard a call when I got there and see if he could help me out,

When I arrived in Davie I stopped for gas and tried giving Howard a call thinking that I would leave a VM, to my surprise he answered the phone and I explained my situation to him and asked he would look at my bike on Monday. He asked where I was at and I said GPS says I a few minutes away, he said get there now, I said it was Sunday and this can wait until Monday, no problem, he said " I told you you &$%^ get here now!" LOL I said OK I'm on the way and I will pay you what ever you want, and he replied " I don't want your F'n money I just told you to get here! "

I thought that it would be a quick and simple fix but it ended up being more involved and he spent 4hrs working on my bike, taking the shocks off, fixing the preload collar then inspecting them to make sure there were no other problems, reinstalling them and resetting them to make sure every thing was set up properly, he had me take a test ride around the neighbor hood. When he was satisfied that everything was done correctly he said I was good to go and made me promise to call him when I was 100 miles down the road to make sure everything was OK, I said I would call and then asked how much I could pay him for his time since he spent his whole Sunday working on my bike. He said " look I told you you Son of a %#$@&^% I don't want your F'n money, your a biker on the road and you need help so I'm gonna help you! " I said " look you Son of a ^%$#@*&^, you worked all day on my bike and I'm gonna pay you! " He said F-you, get in my car! I asked why, he said your gonna buy me dinner, so he drove us to his favorite sports bar where his favorite cute waitress served us dinner, we ate dinner and flirted with her for a couple of hours! LOL

Thank you, Howard, for a great memory.
Howard was one of the good ones and will be greatly missed.