The Sprint

I guess I’ll start from the beginning. The 1965 Harley Sprint my dad bought in 1966. He was 16. He Lost his driver’s license 3 weeks into owning it.

“I was street racing my dads 62 Ford fairlane and had a head on collision with a brand new ford galaxy. I was racing in the rain and my dads car had bald tires on the front so I didn’t make the turn.”

In the 60’s you didn’t need a license or insurance to ride a motorcycle, so naturally that’s what you do when you can’t keep 2 tons of 4 wheeled steel in a straight line.

When my dad first told me this story we were on one of our father daughter birthday outings, something we have started doing since I made the mistake of moving over 700 miles away from him. Our birthdays are three days apart in the beginning of March, so we always do something big. This year he was turning 69, I was turning 36 So we decided to drive 4 hours to middle Georgia and spend 3 days at an off road park. Dad was extra excited for this trip, he had just upgraded the suspension and wheels on his side by side, and it was the first time in years that we had ridden together like this with a group.
My bike was tuned up, I had 5 friends meeting up with us and I think he was pretty amped up to feel like a young buck again.

I’ve heard many versions of his stories over the years, as I age, and we bond and the realization that he can’t keep me young and innocent forever sets in the stories get more raw, more honest and more absurd. I can’t wait to hear them all when I’m in my 60’s.

So dad got his Harley Sprint, His mother, the overprotective woman that she was gave him fair warning that dinner would be on the table in ten minutes and he better take one careful test run up the street and be back in time or else……

He started up his 18 horsepower, 271 pound American machine and down the road he went. They lived in a rural Pennsylvania town, the roads were beautiful two lane winding hills, perfect motorcycle roads. As my dad crested the top of the large hill about a mile down from the house he decided to do what in his words “has always been the best and the worst decision I make every time I get something that moves since childhood” See what this bike can do. So he starts his downhill acceleration, first gear, second, third, now were picking up speed. One more to go, as he upshifts that little 246cm3 motor. He started to pass a car and thats when he saw the curve in the road by then it was too late.

He tells this story a lil different every time, but the one thing that’s consistent is this part right here, the part after he admits he’s moving entirely too fucking fast on drum brakes with no motorcycle experience to come out of this turn on two wheels, or any wheels at all. I can’t really give you the details of what went wrong, or how it happened, because at this point in his story he’s laughing at himself too hard. Something my dad does a lot and I think it’s honestly what’s kept his wreckless ass alive this long.

Long story short he was late to dinner, After careening through the woods and scaring the living shit out of some lady who stopped to see if he was alive he limped his little Arimachi home, with the bars turned left to go slightly straight, and both wheels bent. His shiny helmet scuffed about as much as his teenaged ego. I asked him if he was wearing a helmet when he crashed.  “I didn’t have a helmet at that time that’s why my mother took me to the Harley dealer in Butler to get one, it was white, I painted it in the service to match my 69 camaro”

He later painted that little motorcycle in art class. I admired it growing up, as it hung proudly in his childhood bedroom with the old surfers cross hanging from the corner of the canvas and the yellow ribbon from the art show it had won in 1967. That painting now hangs in my house. I’m still in admiration of it.

He must have ridden this bike for a little while, here he is still in high school riding wheelies down the street while my grandfather risked his life for this shot!

I recently made friends with an amazing couple in North Carolina who when I shared this story with them their eyes lit up and they immediately pulled up a photo of their 1965 Harley Sprint. Much to my surprise it’s the same year and color as that little bike my dad proudly posed on in his parents yard all those years ago. We are currently working on getting that little bike to him, and hopefully finding a way to tell if it could possibly by some miracle be his exact bike.