Bill J. from Austin
40+ Posts
My 1974 shovel the day I bought it, and the way it looks today, after adaptations for my disabilities.
Been on motors all my adult life. Started on a '74 shovelhead I bought in 1979. Still have it, but I've owned other bikes, as well: several HD Big Twins, a BMW R1100R and a 1949 Famous James 'Comet'. Worked in an independent Harley shop for many years, and early in that career helped design and build a shovelhead-powered trike for a wheelchair rider. There were no bolt-on trike sections or any of that back then, so we had to design or adapt just about everything on that bike. The process fascinated me to the point that I began collecting info about handicap adaptations, acting as a clearinghouse for said info, and even writing about them for Road Rider, in that magazine's November 1988 issue. Never figured I'd be needing the info for myself, but then, who does? :Shrug:
The trike I helped design and build was featured in Easyriders after the owner, a hell of a paint and body man, did a bunch of plating, paint and detail work to it.
Soooo.... I was catastrophically injured in a work accident in 2004: a 35' from a structure I was climbing. I'm not in a wheelchair anymore, but the nerve damage at my broken back has rendered my right leg unreliable, to the point that I no longer trust it to hold me and my shovel upright at stops. I tried to score a rigid trike frame I could swap my shovel motor and transmission into - I started my riding career on that shovel and was hoping to end it on the same bike - but suitable frames are rare as hen's teeth. Got desperate to get back in the wind, and of the current crop of trikes the Freewheeler was the most attractive option for me. I picked up a 2016 FLRT at Mancuso's in Houston this past Saturday.
The Zephyr sidecar I adapted to my rigid-framed shovelhead, with the help of ace welder Bill Mading. When I brought the hack home in the back of my truck my stepdaughter looked at it and said 'My car!' Smart kid!
Aside from test-riding the wheelchair rider's trike we built in the early '80s, and the sidecar I bolted onto my shovelhead in the mid-'80s, I've never ridden a three-wheeler. Once I slap some quieter mufflers on my new-to-me FLRT, I can begin the process of relearning to ride. Let the games begin! :Coffee:
My new-to-me 2016 FLRT, just in from Houston. Been in this house for 24 years, and actually like most of my neighbors. I'd prefer they go on liking me, if it all possible, so my first order of business is pulling off the too-loud slip-ons and replacing them with stock mufflers. Then I start learning just how much I don't know!.
