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Hog Wild
The venerable Harley-Davidson celebrates its centennial this year with bikes for the inner rebel
Phil Scott
From the Print Edition:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, July/Aug 03
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One of the more popular modifications is to change the width of the rear tire. The Hog-off-the-line comes with a 150 series rear tire, for instance, which is 6.25 inches wide. Typically, Zielinski and McDonald replace that with a 250 series that's 9.5 inches wide. It sounds simple, but it means changing the whole rear end of the bike. "Wider is better," Zielinski says. "Get it chromed and make it look like a million bucks." He says his shop can take a stock Harley and rebuild it completely, turning it into a Jesse James Chopper (referring to a Californian bike builder, not the outlaw) if that's your dream. Or you could chrome a bike from wheel to wheel, or have the frame painted any color through a process called powder coating, in which paint is baked on using an electrical current.
Of course there's strange lingo, mostly pertaining to engines, that Hog lovers speak, and Zielinski's glad to define it. For instance, the first Harley motor, built in the 1920s, had a flat cylinder head cover. That bike's now called a Flathead. Then came the Knucklehead, which looks like a knuckle. The Panhead resembles a pan. And the Shovelhead looks like a shovel. And in 1999, after a different cylinder head was developed, the Shovelhead became known as the Fathead. That's evolution. The latest, greatest Fathead is the 1450 cc mill.
Now, with its 100th birthday this year, Harley-Davidson continues its yearlong celebration. Last July, Harley sponsored an open-road tour, with stops in five major U.S. cities. This year, the tour went international, with visits already to such cities as Sydney, Tokyo and Barcelona, and a stop in Hamburg planned for July. In each city the company sponsored three exhibitions: the Journey (that is, the Hogs' 100-year history), the Culture and the Machine. The celebration will end at the Hogs' hometown of Milwaukee for a few days of factory tours and street partying.
In addition, Harley has already observed Daytona Bike Week in Florida and the Laughlin (Nevada) and Laconia (New Hampshire) events this year. And in early August, the annual Sturgis rally will take place in North Dakota.
The Star of Davidson club traveled to Daytona for Bike Week in February. Rayman, an avid cigar smoker, had just bought a box of Montecristos and a new cigar cutter. On his way back to where the Star of Davidson riders were assembled, he noticed a vendor selling neo-Nazi patches. Rayman bought a patch from the neo-Nazi and rolled it into a tight spiral -- similar to a cigar's diameter. Then he stood there defiantly and clipped it into pieces.
Phil Scott wrote about Indian motorcycles in the March/April 2003 issue.
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