Featured Everything Old Is New Again! A Road Trip To The Past

When my hubby, Steve, and I first started dating he had a 2001 HD Fat Boy pretty much just like the one that Arnold rode in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day". In fact, it was when Steve first saw that movie that he knew he had to have a Harley Fat Boy. And it was that bike on which I first started riding--pillion. That was in 2009. Shortly after I started riding my own bike, Steve and I began taking road trips and he wound up with a Road King so sold the Fat Boy to a friend. That friend proceeded to mod it in ways that weren't "exactly" what Steve would have had for the bike. Shortly after the friend bought it, he traded it for a touring bike. And Steve's Fat Boy was gone.



Then began the regrets. Steve has always regretted selling that bike and actually tried for several years to locate it--yes, that particular motorcycle--with no luck. Since then, for about the last ten years or so, he toyed with the idea of getting another 2001 Fat Boy, spending time on Cycle Trader, Craig's list, and the like. Well, a few weeks ago he found one that seemed absolutely perfect in the Palm Springs, CA area. After lots of phone conversations and photo exchanges with Sam, the motorcycle shop owner who was selling it on consignment, Steve, Russell, and I hit the road last weekend with truck and trailer to bring the bike to its new home!



Here's a photo of Steve's first 2001 Fat Boy taken in November of 2013. When he sold it, it had about 35,000 miles on the odometer.



And, jumping ahead a wee bit, here's his second 2001 Fat Boy! This bike had one owner, a woman, who put just under 14,000 miles on the clock. I haven't seen a smile that big on his face in quite awhile.



Sam was a great guy and has been in business for about forty years or so. He's looking to retire soon but I didn't get his plan for his shop. A very cool place with a lot of history--but I wouldn't want to have to move out! You'll see what I mean in the following photos...










Of course I had to include a Triumph photo.



Sam handing over the keys to Steve



Continued in my next post

 

We borrowed a trailer from a friend and before heading out to Palm Springs, we installed a new wheel chock. After our experience last May with my Street Glide falling over on the trailer as we towed it home from Bryce Canyon, we were VERY careful to not repeat that fiasco!



And yes, we made it home safe and sound with no bumps or bruises. Here we are back in Tucson.



Here's the "new" Fat Boy starting to look like Steve envisioned. The bike was in mint condition but the woman who owned it had put on some parts that Steve preferred to remove--the "billboard" windshield, an engine guard, and not-quite-correct saddlebags, and some chrome doo-dads. Steve loves chrome but she'd added more than even he wanted. Oh yeah, and Steve found the exact and perfect saddlebags that he was looking for on eBay before he even bought the bike. When they arrived they looked like they'd been preserved since first purchased! When he opened the box and saw the bags, he joked that even if the CA bike didn't work out, he'd have to keep looking to find a bike to go with the bags.



On our way to the Harley dealership this past Friday we went by the AZ Motor Vehicle Division to see if Steve could get a temporary plate. The place was packed so we went on to the dealership and one of the guys there helped him log on to the MVD site and get a temporary for now.



Yesterday we dropped the bike off at a friend's house who is a Harley mechanic. Steve is taking off the exhaust system that came with the bike--Python headers and mufflers--and replacing it with a Vance & Hines system just like he had on Fat Boy #1. Our friend is doing a few other mods as well so I'll get more photos in the next week or so as Steve makes the bike his own. "His own" in this case being as close as possible to "the one that got away"! And new tires are going on this week, too.

 

You are so right, @Markus, about not waiting around for an unknown future. Time's a tickin'! I'll keep you all here updated on Steve's "project bike". I also have a now quite tardy touring report to post about our trip back to the Midwest for my nephew's wedding. I'm planning to get a least a start on that today or in the next couple of days. Hold me accountable please!

 

Steve loves his white Ford pickup truck, @Eldon. It's a 2017 and is a great vehicle. On more than one occasion he has said he'll keep it until he dies--and then he wants to be buried in it.

 

@learningtofly
Thanks, Tony! It was a fun road trip to get the Fat Boy and it's now is quite an interesting project. And the project includes figuring out how best to store it since our garage is plum full. We have a nice-sized cement slab outside our kitchen window that is under a roof overhang and just inside the gate to the back yard. That's where we'll start--along with a heavy duty bike Nelson-Rigg cover. I did offer to sell my Speed Triple but (thankfully) he declined my offer. As he put it, "it was a bit of a half-hearted suggestion". He's right, of course. But I really would have sold it if he felt very strongly about garaging his #2 Fat Boy.
I'll send more photos as Steve moves forward on his project. We went to pick up the bike at our friends last night. Steve was all set to ride it home but it kept stalling before he got it out of the housing development. So we managed to get it back to the friends (the mechanic friend) house where it is at the moment. Our mechanic buddy thinks it may be something in the ignition system. Steve isn't concerned because he reminded me (and himself) that's it's a project bike!

 

Thanks for the photos, @Markus! That first bike is (I'm 99% sure) a pre-2018 Harley Softail "Breakout". They still make that bike and it now has the new frame (2018 forward) as well as a 117 Milwaukee 8 engine. That second bike definitely needs more care! And I'm pretty sure that it's a Japanese V-Twin and not a Harley. Perhaps someone else on the forum can ID it.

 

Thanks, @Helmut Visor! Yes, Steve is so happy to have found this bike. It's promising to be a bit more of a "project bike" than I think he anticipated but he's perfectly OK with that. It does help that he has another bike to ride when that "new" Fat Boy is down. Which is currently is. It stalled out several times when he tried to ride it home from the mechanics last night so our buddy will work on figuring out the hitch in Fat Boy's giddy-up.

Yes, the Fat Boy model is definitely iconic. I've been thinking that it would have been fun if I'd not sold my 2021 Fat Boy and we had two Fat Boys in our household---20 years apart! I love your dream of riding one here in the U.S. Keep on dreaming! And I'll keep up with the updates....

 

Thanks, @Pegscraper. Yes, I am really happy that he decided to "go for it" and, as you put it so well, "rekindle his love for an old flame of the 2 wheeled kind". Hopefully that's the ONLY kind of old flame he will rekindle!

Yes, I suspect that many have sold a vehicle and thought better of it later. Interesting that you couldn't find your "old flame" either. Steve tried and tried--who would have thought it would be so difficult to find a bike if one has the VIN number? I'd say of the bikes I've owned in the past that I most regret selling it would have to be my 2016 Triumph Thruxton R. That said, I traded it for my 2019 Speed Triple RS which I still own...and still love! So the trade wasn't a mistake or a regret exactly. But I'd sure love to have that Thruxton back. I guess it would have to live in the back yard with Fat Boy #2, though, since I'm not (yet) willing to part with any of the bikes currently in my garage.

 

@Pegscraper, I think you're right about me riding pillion on Fat Boy #1. That adds to MY love of the model, too! Lots of sentimental value there.

What a bummer on not being able to find the Z13...even worse thinking it could have been scrapped or is simply sitting in a shed somewhere--unloved--waiting for a new owner to take it home and love it back to health. I know where a few of my bikes went but sometimes I think it might be best to not know. Case in point, this Low Rider S that I traded for my 2021 Fat Boy went to a guy who got T-boned by an automobile driver. He wound up in the hospital for over six months and the bike was totaled. The saving grace in that sad saga is that the guy is mostly ok. He got a huge settlement and bought himself two more bikes with the proceeds. But that bike... I didn't have it long but put lots of love and a fair amount of $$ into it. Well, better the bike than its rider.