Road King

 

It's been a while since I told one of my motorcycle stories, so here's one from my teenage years.

 

In the fall of 1996, my dad and I made our yearly trip to a wholesale clothing store about a hundred miles away. My parents owned a grocery store/gas station and we'd make the trip to pick up winter boots to stock the shelves before winter. These trips were especially great to me because it marked the end of my football season (I'd always be tired of football by then) and I'd get to take a day off of school. A Harley Davidson dealership was also a few miles away from this wholesale store.

This dealership has since closed and it was quite different than the Harley dealers of today. This was a motorcycle shop without any frills. It was a small metal sided building with no windows. Inside there was a workshop with a small showroom for the new bikes and one t-shirt rack. At this time, demand for new Harleys exceeded supply, so everyone was placed on a waiting list to receive a new bike. My dad had put his name on the list a couple months prior to our trip.

My dad had listed a bunch of different models that he was interested in, hoping to get a bike as soon as possible. He currently had a Sportster 1200, but wanted a touring bike. He also knew that since the demand for Harleys was so high, the shop owner could pick and choose which customer received each bike.

We stopped in the shop that day just to pick up some oil for my dad's Sportster. The only bike on the showroom floor was a brand new metallic red Road King. I'm not big on colors other than black, but this particular red combined with the chrome engine covers made this bike beautiful. My dad, in jest, asked, "Wouldn't it be cool if this was my bike?" Then the owner met us in the front of the shop. He looked at us and said, "Your bike's here." It was the red Road King. We just happened to be there at the right time to claim it.

We didn't take it home that night, so we made a return trip the following week. My dad rode the bike home on a frosty November evening. When we pulled into our yard and my dad looked at me and asked, "You wanna go for a ride?"

I was shocked! He had just spent $17,000 on this brand new motorcycle and he was trusting his 16 year old kid with it. I, of course, accepted his offer.

I rode for only about 2 miles and turned around. On the way home, a deer leaped out in front of me and I was forced to brake very hard. The tires squealed and skidded, but I came to a stop. Looking up, I noticed the deer was frozen less than 3 feet in front of me. After what seemed like an eternity, the deer finally ran away and I crept home in first gear.

I arrived at home and my dad asked what the squealing was. Then he looked at my ghost white face and he knew something happened. "Deer?” he asked. I nodded. "You ok?" I nodded again. "Good." No lecture, he was just happy I was alright. I hope I can be as calm with my kids when they're teenagers.

You'd think I'd learned my lesson when it comes to riding at night and deer, but I didn't. I had a much worse deer incident a few years later, but that's another story.

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved." - George MacDonald