December 2008 - Me & My Panhead at Harley 105th Party

[Buzz Kanter]

PANNING HARLEY’S 105TH & NEW DIGITAL MAGAZINE
I am just back from Milwaukee where we celebrated Harley’s 105th anniversary and HOG’s 20th anniversary with what seemed like hundreds of thousands of other Harley riders. What an amazing party with seas of shining chrome and black leather everywhere I looked. Congrats to all the folks at Harley-Davidson on another world-class birthday! We plan on running a full feature next month after we have time to sort out all the stories and photos, but I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with you here.

The new Harleys are fine machines, but, as usual, I opted to ride one of my old bikes around Milwaukee as I’ve done in the past. For the 90th celebration, I rode out from Connecticut on my long-gone 1986 FXRD. I rode my 1947 Knucklehead for the 95th, and my 1955 Panhead for the 100th anniversary blowout. This time, I spent my days and nights on my 1948 Crustoration Panhead. It was the only transportation I had for the week, and it was a lot of fun watching how people reacted to it.

The action started for me -- too early on Thursday morning -- with a media-only event at the new Harley-Davidson museum from 6 to 8 a.m. I was out in the parking lot at 5:30a.m. unsuccessfully kicking the old Pan over for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, one of the bystanders who’d gathered to watch offered to help me bump start the bike down a slight grade in the parking lot. It fired right off and quickly settled down to a healthy idle. I’m pleased to report that was the only time all week I wasn’t able to kick the bike to life on my own. Riding that Panhead is great fun. Of the tens of thousands of Harleys I saw during the week, I didn’t see another Panhead on the road. There were several on display in the museum, but none on the road. I put a few hundred miles on the bike, and got a terrific reception everywhere I rode, with plenty of thumbs up and smiles. Wherever I parked the Pan, it always drew a crowd with cameras and questions. And many of the people recognized it as the Crustoration project we built and followed in the magazine.

Other than the starting challenge the first day (I suspect damp points from sitting outside all night), the only other mechanical issue I faced was the weak generator. The charging system was fine for riding around during the day with the lights off, but the old three-brush generator simply would not put out enough juice to fire the ignition and lights. So, each night I’d start off with decent headlights for the first few miles, then they would begin to dim and eventually go out all together. Every night was the same. I would nervously ride about 20 minutes on the highway, pulling into the hotel parking lot with no lights at all and barely enough juice to fire the ignition points. I won’t go into great detail here, but let’s just say each night I was always happy to make it back without an accident or police report. Now that I’m back home, it’s time to rebuild the generator.

CAIMAG.COM -- A NEW DIGITAL MAGAZINE FOR OLD BIKES
American Iron Magazine (Untitled Document) celebrates our 20th anniversary in March 2009, and we’re excited about this significant milestone. In looking back over the old issues, I note all of the bikes we featured in the first years are now considered classics. Because AIM is the best selling Harley publication, most of the contents are based on newer models and technology. But there are still a lot of older Harleys and Indians being ridden. So, every issue we offer some editorial and tech here for older bikes, but the vintage bike enthusiasts want more. Thus, I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new on-line publication for classic-bike enthusiasts called Classic American Iron. You can access it free at Classic American Iron.

Being an old-fashioned, “publishing on paper” kind of guy, this whole concept of on-line publishing is new to me. So we’re working long and hard to figure our way through it, and we feel this could turn into a wonderful thing for us all. If we make a misstep or two, I ask that you bear with us. If you’d like to join our team at Classic American Iron or have any suggestions to do it better, please let us know. In the meantime, I’d like to invite everyone to check out Classic American Iron at Classic American Iron. Our plan is to post new material every day, so who knows what you might find there -- classic American motorcycles, tech, history, or events, as well as sources for aftermarket and Harley parts. I can tell you it won’t be boring.

Ride safe, ride smart, have fun.

Buzz Kanter
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief