'66 Ironhead Progress

Rick Fichter: I'm trying to decide on the placement of the tank on the '66. I have to figure whether I'm going high Frisco style or drop it low; I'm leaning toward Frisco style. The tank is incorrect for a '66, but it was common in the early 70s to replace the tank with this sleek AMF era style. I really like it. Most likely I'll use my painting skills to patina the rear fender then match up the tank in that way-cool blue.

This is my brand spanking new but old stock Carlisle rear tire. These are pretty tough to come by around here, especially an old stock one like this. This is true Chopper in my eyes, if not the best handling tire. Made, basically to ride in a straight line - sounds like the Arizona desert to me - and I will sacrifice maneuverability for the great looks. I'm already in love with it. Settled; it's definitely not coming off.

Just got my hands on a new 21-inch front wheel. I’m going with a 21 front, 16 inch rear - pretty much standard Chopper issue I like this shit; I like the stance of the bike and it just feels right with that combo. Although I could try an 18 on the back, I think I’m gonna keep it this way. Stay tuned. 

Me and my buddy, Thor, welded up this rear brake caliper mount. It took a little bit of time to give it a neat, clean look.  I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. I don’t think I could’ve got it any smoother though I'' grind it down and make it cleaner. I like the way it looks on the back of the frame; you barely noticed that there’s a caliper on the back wheel, which was kind of the goal. So this is also a keeper.

Writer's Block

Rick Fichter: My writer friend says there is no such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s block means you regroup, get your thoughts together, do your homework and maybe smoke a J. I haven’t worked on the bike in a few days, so I figured I’d take his advice. We’ve been working like dogs the past couple months to grow the shop, move into our expanded digs and work out the kinks, while still trying to make a living. Let’s see, make a living: that means you give all your money to other people and hope you have enough left to eat. (I’m getting skinny).

But when you do a big move, you find all the old shit you forgot about, so I figured I’d share. I found this old Harley hat at the Olney Swap Meet, but couldn’t find much information on it until I ran across an ad in a collection of Easyriders magazines I scored. There was an ad in the back selling these black, missile leather visors. Every once in a while at a rally you run into an old biker that has one. I don’t wear it much; not really my style, but it’s definitely a cool addition to the collection.

Found my pop’s old vest. He passed away three years ago. I wear it on occasion but I mentioned losing quite a bit of weight, so it’s kinda big on me these days. Now I just hang it where I can see it as a remembrance of my old man. We got most of these patches together at rallies – Sturgis, Daytona, out west. Cool memories. I’ve got his 2005 heritage soft tail and I can still picture him out there in the refuge of the road. I’ll cherish that bike and this jacket the rest of my life. You can buy just about anything in the shop; but these two – don’t ask.

In the chopper world you can never have enough reference manuals, cheat sheets, catalogs of parts, Harley manuals, magazines, you name it. This collection provides a wealth of inspiration. While I’m old school at heart, I download old manuals and catalogs just to have them. You never know when you’ll score that old shovelhead. I gaze at these books and dream of the day when I’ll be rebuilding a ’47 knucklehead; man, can’t wait.

Last, this poster of the legendary Tom Fugel always hangs in my shop alongside pictures of his great choppers. Tom passed away not so long ago but remains an inspiration for all Chopper builders in this country and around the world. He was an artist and a bike builder that paved the way for the great choppers we have today.  Every bike builder’s dream is to one day fabricate a bike as cool as one of Tom’s…

…Guess I better get back to work.

Abstract Art

Obviously, form follows function, although today it seems as if we're all function without the form. That's not what 168 is about. Yesterday it was cool K-Mart (yes, K-Mart!) fog lights, today it's the abstract art shown here.

Rick Fichter: Like something out of Orwell's 1984, this "taillight" is the coolest find in ages. After a week of wracking my brain, I stumbled upon this beauty. Pictured is a vintage microphone that I will convert into a taillight similar to a lot of cool builds coming out of California, and a throwback to Cali custom shops in the 60s. The next step is to, using technology that will meet today's impossible requirements, mount the stoplight on the fender. Trying to think out of the box here, or maybe to throw away the box completely.

1966 Harley-Davidson "Ironhead" Sportster

1966 Ironhead Sportster - Note the Bike's Modifications Over the Years

My pride and joy right now is a 1966 Harley-Davidson Ironhead Sportster.  The 60s were the heyday of the drive-in, bowling alleys, the Space Race, and the birth of rock and pop. American popular culture had infected the world, from blues to big finned Chevys, and out of it would come The Grateful Dead and The Beach Boys, skateboards and hippies. By 1961, motorcycles, especially big bikes like Harleys and Indians, even the BSRs from England, were the new thing – yeah, you get my enthusiasm. Five years later, motorcycles had arrived.

In '61, Harley-Davidson sold just 10,467 motorcycles as the only hardy American manufacturer, and a majority of those were police bikes. By 1966, Harley had increased its sales threefold to 36,210 units with its focus on the Shovelhead. At 66HP, the shovelhead could reach 100mph.

1966 Ironhead Sportster: I'm well into the process of restoration. If you restore a mid-century modern home from the 60s, you take the time and effort to recreate what the house looked like then. That's what I'm doing to my Ironhead - restoration not renovation; I might even call it rehabilitation. At 168 our goal is to enhance the provenance of whatever we do, providing a history and a story, and we hope you'll follow the restoration process with us. Check back each day to note the bike's progress, and definitely let us know if owning a piece of history like this 1966 Ironhead is in your gameplan. (For you purists, the Ironhead - made of iron and not aluminum - wasn't nicknamed until 1986.)

Although the bike has some great original features, like so many bikes of the time, a series of poor choices were made, alongside the appropriate ones. Note in the above pic the inexpensive aftermarket exhaust - we fixed that - and the wrong-era rear wheel, but also note the way-cool, low-slung handlebars, too often replaced with Sting-ray bars like a kid's bicycle. Those are little things. A bigger issue right now is the gas tank. The original decals say "AMF Harley-Davidson." Provenance says no. Harley didn't merge with AMF until 1969. Is it the right tank with the wrong decals or are the decals original to a replaced tank? If you were like me, you'd need the truth - "You can't handle the truth!" - yes, Jack Nicholson, I can. 

Something cool, though, is the reinstallation of the upswept chrome exhausts initially installed around 1969. A little explanation here: in terms of provenance, most owners interested in a bike's history (or that of a house or a car), are impressed by ownership. Twin Palms, for instance, is the coolest house in Palm Springs, made even cooler by the fact that it was owned by Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra was the original owner, so that makes restoration decisions easy. But what about John Lennon's Rolls Royce Phantom V? If restoration were in order, is there anyone who would want it returned to the original owner's "Valentines" black? And so, although the chrome exhausts were aftermarket, the bike at its best, from our research, were those years between 1969 and 1973, and so we've reinstalled them.

We're working hard to trace the bike's ownership, having pinned down its history to the east coast over the past twenty years, but having found registration in the American Southwest prior to that, with the original sale in California. We'll keep you posted. Provenance is research driven and we're dedicated to the restoration of the '66 in its best iteration. Here's where we stand today, after finding a pic of the bike with an unknown rider, circa 1972, and getting all giddy about the tape-wrapped pipes, we followed the lead:

Easy Rider - 1969

The first literary mention of a car accident is in 1922 with F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. That one’s easy to trace. The first novel with motorcycles as a focus was a bit harder to research. As it stands, The Rugged Road by Theresa Wallach goes back to 1935. The remarkable story of two women, the first in the world to drive the length of Africa, and the first to cross the Sahara on a motorcycle, London to Cape Town overland by motorcycle and sidecar, pulling a trailer! No roads, no compass, just a passion for living that women didn't exhibit in 1935.

It's easier to trace film about motorcycles; indeed all the way back to 1914 with the Charlie Chaplin vehicle, Mabel at the Wheel. The first real biker film, though, is Marlon Brando's The Wild One, based on a short story called "The Cyclists Raid," which popularized and exploited the Hollister Riot of 1947.

While mostly B-movies, motorcycle films became quite popular, with cult classics like Teenage Devil Dolls (my favorite), Scorpio Rising, a controversial short by Kenneth Anger, Russ Meyer’s Motor Psycho and the Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill!, the greatest film title ever. These films would lead to the popular Wild Angels with Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern and Nancy Sinatra, which was the 16th most popular film of 1966. It was Fonda's inspiration for Easy Rider. The Billy Jack series began with Born Losers, release about the same time as the ultimate motorcycle film and the best picture of 1969, the aforementioned Easy Rider.

Easy Rider captures a time and spirit in America when the left was the voice of true liberation, individuality and freedom, while those on the right stood for thought control and conformity. How times have changed. Today, leftists are more about political correctness and repressive taxes and conservatives claim they want less intrusive government while striving for a police state with a wall. The home of the brave, the land of the free that the Fonda and Hopper hoped to find is ever harder to envision.

The storyline has a Quixotic quality to it that may not seem obvious to those who didn't live in the 60's and share the dream of a Utopian hippie society. In fact, if you didn't live in the era you might find the premise challenging since the values it celebrates are so thoroughly buried today.

Here's the deal: Wyatt (Captain America – Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) start out selling drugs to some rich dude to finance their freedom. Not necessarily the best way to budget a road trip, but indeed an anti-establishment approach to financial liberation. With the proceeds, they claim their freedom in the form of two beautiful custom choppers they ride throughout the movie. After Wyatt throws his watch in the dust and he and Billy hop on their rides - the two most recognized bikes in the world - their journey seeking true freedom begins.

When the two meet up with George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), they find a lost soul who longs to escape the confines of his environment by joining the hippies, but who ultimately cannot escape his oppressive culture. A bordello and drug sequence intricately explores the myth of the hippie movement; the idea that free sex and drugs are liberating to the human spirit. And while that may be subjective, our friends find that ultimately, they are not. Instead, they see the experience as confusing and hurtful and lead Wyatt to say that "they blew it." The film, of course, is ultimately a tragedy, just as the hippie movement itself was, as Joni Mitchell put it, “Just a dream some of us had.”

The folk and psychedelic soundtrack for the film could not be better, and the sequences of our protagonists cruising the open roads of northern Arizona and New Mexico to the sounds of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" and Hendrix's "If Six Were Nine" are among the most memorable on film.