I’m sure there are others who already knew this, but I just found out yesterday that Freedom Harley-Davidson is no more. Under new ownership, the company is now called Avalanche Harley-Davidson, although at least for the time being the URL for their website is still http://www.freedomh-d.com/.

According to a report in the Denver Business Journal, owner and founder Ken Allen sold the dealership he established at 8000 W. Colfax to Michael Veracka, who is a partner at several other Harley dealerships around the country, including Grand Rapids H-D in Michigan and Rawhide H-D in Olathe, KS.

Although I don’t ride a Harley, my emotional connection to Freedom H-D goes way, way back. About 25 years ago, before I even owned a motorcycle, I was editor of the Sentinel newspapers in the suburbs north of Denver. We were always receiving gifts and various schwag from businesses hoping to get some free publicity out of it. As editor I got to pick and choose what I wanted and would distribute the rest to my staff.

One day a package arrived and it contained a T-shirt from Freedom H-D in connection with a poker run or something else they were sponsoring. I didn’t have a bike but I had always wanted one, ever since I was a kid. And in fact it was just a very short time later that I did buy my first bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom that I still own and ride.

Anyway, I kept that shirt. And I wore it a lot, until it was finally shot full of holes had to go in the rag bag. So I’ve always felt a bit of connection to that dealership that I have never felt to the others.

Now time marches on and there’s a new owner and new name. I just have to wonder, though, why they changed the name. It seems like you’d be hard put to find a better name than Freedom. Just makes me wonder.

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Biker Quote for Today

Hot women come and go, but a beautiful bike stays with you long after you sell it.

I told my friends that Judy and I were going on vacation in British Columbia and would be renting a Harley Electra Glide Classic with full passenger accommodations and they said Judy would like it so much she’d probably buy me one when we got home. I said that would be unfortunate because I don’t want that kind of bike and now after having ridden it for two days I’m really, really clear I don’t want one. Plus, Judy doesn’t want one either. She says they’re too loud. She did like the passenger accommodations, however, and this particular one was in her color, as you can see in the photo above.

The Glide was fine on the highway, no question about that. It was slower speeds where I grew to hate it. First off, it’s very heavy. Very heavy. Maneuvering in parking lots was hard and in heavy traffic, filtering onto the bridge that crosses from North Vancouver into downtown Vancouver, it was absolutely the worst. In our parking garage in Whistler the floor is smooth and slippery, the turns are numerous and tight, and winding through there was horrible. I mentioned all this to the EagleRider guy when I turned the bike in and he agreed, saying that while it’s a good highway bike he would hate to ride it in the city.

Well, you know, I do a lot of my riding in the city. I’m not going to own a bike just for the highway, and even when you travel you still end up going through towns.

Nope, no Electra Glide in my future. Thank goodness.

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Biker Quote for Today

Never lend a friend your Pacific Coast. Unless you like scratches and want a beer annuity.

As I reported on Examiner.com, Harley-Davidson has signed on to be the chief sponsor of the 2011 Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge. What I didn’t mention in that report was the wave of skepticism that immediately followed that announcement.

For instance, Todd8080 has been to several such reports with his comment saying:

Have traffic laws in all of the lower 48 states suddenly changed overnight? Up until now it’s been illegal to race any vehicle for money on public roads in every single state.

You can call Hoka Hey an “endurance challenge” or anything else you choose, but the fact remains whoever gets to the finish line first wins the cash, and that’s called racing in any language.

No one has the right to jeopardize the driving public (in 48 states no less) by conducting an illegal race on public roads. Last year’s Hoka Hey was fraught with death and serious injuries, and not just to the race participants.

Over on Cyril Huze’s blog, Grayhawk offered this:

One might surmise that this sponsorship might put HD at the top of the grief list and the deepest pocket if the 2011 event repeats itself in confusion, issues, deaths, publicity, etc. from their 2010 effort no matter the assurances it will be different, your words from an excerpt above specifically, “stretching the boundaries”, may be deemed by some as encouragement to extend man and machine past it/their capability to reap monetary rewards. Event insurance alone may not suffice the negative impacts if this event goes south, just asking.

Now, with Harley as the sponsor, it would not be surprising if competition was limited to H-D riders, and that may be the case but it may not. The Hoka Hey home page says “The Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge is open to riders of Harley-Davidson motorcycles” but on the Entry page it says “This year’s event will be open to riders of V-twin, air-cooled motorcycles.”

The general opinion on that limitation, if it is in fact the case, is just fine: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Again over at Cyril Huze, TommyBoy remarked:

So, the Hoka Hey is now supported by Harley and only Harley motorcycles can participate!!!!!! Surely, the boys Harley & Davidson are looking down and smiling as once again The Motor Company eliminates Indian from what could have been a tremendous advertising/growth opportunity.

Some of the objections to the Hoka Hey right from the start have come from members of the Iron Butt Association, many of whom consider the Hoka Hey to be dangerous and badly conceived. I suspect they also fear it may have repercussions that will damage their own events. A commenter on my Examiner page, who oddly chose to identify himself by the name “IBA,” had this to say:

I knew it wouldn’t take long before the IBA whiners started chiming in. You have your rally, so go away already. If IBA was so great you would be the one with the big sponsors and prize money events rather than making your riders do all the documentation and work then pay too much for a patch they can get made for $2. IBA is a great idea in the hands of the wrong people.

So the Hoka Hey is back for 2011, and whatever its merits or deficits, it’s getting a lot of attention. I see this first hand when I check my Google Analytics statistics for the three days since I posted that sponsorship article. In that time fully one-third of my readers have been to that story, and its readership outstrips the No. 2 story 15 to 1. Yikes!

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Biker Quote for Today

As I get older and more fragile, my bikes get bigger, heavier, and more powerful….Another beer please!

I’ve never been a Harley guy and I’ve never understood why so many people are so nuts about them. So I took the opportunity of being invited on this four-day EagleRider media tour to spend it all on a Harley, in hopes that I would finally understand.

I think I do understand now, at least sort of. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I understand the appeal of cruisers more than I did before. Harley vs. some other brand I’m still not sure I get.

First and foremost, the Heritage Softail I was on was easy to ride. (That’s it in the photo.) I say that in context of my Kawasaki Concours, which I love now but which took me a couple years to really get comfortable on. The thing is, the Kawi has a high seat level and a very high center of gravity, so for a long time I wouldn’t dare ride it without my highest boots on. Nowadays I’m perfectly comfortable riding it in just sneakers, but that took a couple years before I reached that point.

The Softail, on the other hand, was just get on and go. With a low center of gravity and low seat height, I never had the slightest fear of falling over. I can understand that appeal.

I also liked having floorboards. I’ve always preferred to have pegs underneath me so I can stand up on bumps, and the one hard bump I hit on the Softail definitely flipped me way up off the seat, and back down hard. But I found that if when approaching a bump I pull myself up with the grips and stand on the floorboards, I can lift myself up to minimize the jolt. In the meantime, I was able to stretch my legs out at whatever knee angle I chose. I can definitely understand how my aging friends would be uncomfortable with keeping their knees bent all the time. I suspect I’m more limber than they are, but even for me it was nice.

There were other details I won’t bore you with, but there was also one thing I really did not like about the Softail. Apparently, when they come from the factory, the exhaust pipes do not have any heat shield. This leads to two things. First, the pipes eventually turn blue, which I don’t like. Second, it makes it very easy to burn anything that touches them. One day we rode in the rain and at lunch I noticed some black on the pipes. Then I noticed a shiny spot on my rain pants. It seems that you have to be careful at a stop to hold your leg far enough away from the bike not to get burned. How absurd is that?

So I’m not sold on Harleys, but at least I feel like it’s not such a mystery why so many people are. Thank you EagleRider for the opportunity.

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Biker Quote for Today

If it’s too loud you’re too old.

Yeah, I know Thumper said “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” But if all you ever say is nice stuff people can start to question your credibility. Not everything is great or terrific or wonderful.

I went up to Loveland this weekend to the Thunder in the Rockies rally put on by Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson and I have to say I was disappointed. Maybe I’m just jaded from being to the Stugis rally a few weeks ago and the Laughlin River Run back in April. Those are big rallies, with many thousands of bikes and more vendors than you can visit in several days.

Thunder in the Rockies, on the other hand, is nowhere near that big, and I knew not to expect a lot. But I still expected more than I got. They had vendors set up in one location and I was eager to see who was there and what they were hawking. There couldn’t have been more than 20 or 25 booths and that was it. And certainly nothing I had any interest in.

Another draw of this thing was the Full Throttle Saloon, which had brought its operation to town and set up to serve and entertain. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, but that was no great shakes either. A couple of the sexily dressed barmaids were doing their trademark thing, body shots and such (see the photo) but it really wasn’t much.

The dealership was offering demo rides on new 2011 Harleys, and I did avail myself of a few of those. That was great and I appreciated the opportunity to try out some of these bikes. For me that was the best part. So I rode a few bikes, walked around a little, and left.

Heading home I figured I’d swing by Berthoud to stop at their little museum there and see the Floyd Clymer exhibit they have up. I had received a notice of this and had done my best to give them some promotion when it opened but hadn’t been able to get there myself until now.

Of course I understand that, particularly in these difficult economic times, the budget they had to work with was probably $15. But I still had hoped for and expected more. Floyd was a local boy before he went on to make a name for himself in racing and then in publishing, so it made sense to put up an exhibit about him. Unfortunately, the exhibit consisted of three bikes from the era, none of which had belonged to or been ridden by Floyd, and some print-outs of a few letters Floyd had written about interesting occurrences. Plus a few photos and a photocopy of an old Cycle World article about Floyd. That was it.

I don’t want to come off as critical. The lady who showed me around was super nice and did what she could to make my visit as interesting as possible. But I suspect from her apologies that there wasn’t more–when I hadn’t said a word about disappointment–that she would agree that it just isn’t much. And I do applaud them for doing what they could. But I was disappointed. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.

Ah well, I’m still glad I went to both. I would have felt that I’d missed something if I hadn’t.

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Biker Quote for Today

H-D = Hundreds of Dollars

One of the hallmarks of the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge from the very start has been the poor or non-existent communication coming from the organizers. This situation continued right up to the award ceremony Wednesday night at the Broken Spoke campground outside of Sturgis.

The organizers had eventually announced that the winner would be named and the prize awarded at the Broken Spoke. But then Will Barclay was named the winner, and Barclay told an interviewer that he had already received his winnings. That left a question in many people’s minds about whether the award ceremony would still be held. With no word to the contrary, those of us in Sturgis planning to attend the ceremony assumed it was still on.

But there are two Broken Spokes, and the Hoka Hey site didn’t specify which one. I went to the Broken Spoke in town and nobody there had heard of the Hoka Hey. One helpful fellow checked and told me absolutely that the ceremony was not going to be held there. That left the campground.

We ran out to the campground a little before 7 on Wednesday and looked around for an event about to begin. There was nothing we could see so I asked one of the sound guys getting set up for that night’s performance by Gallagher. He had never heard of the Hoka Hey, it was now 7 sharp, and he told me that at the very least, there was not going to be any Hoka Hey ceremony on this stage.

Great. Do we stick around? Is there anyone who can answer some questions?

But then, at maybe 7:10, the owner of the Spoke got up on the stage and started talking about the Hoka Hey. And a few minutes later, there’s Big Jim Durham up on stage, and we have an event. So much for the sound guy having a clue about what was going on.

Ultimately the event came off, Will Barclay received his “rubber” check, and Durham announced that there will be another Hoka Hey next year, with a prize of $1 million.

I have one word of advice for Durham or whoever organizes next year’s event: communicate.

I honestly have no idea whether Durham is a scam artist as some people claim, whether the designation of Barclay as winner is totally legit, or what’s true and what isn’t. Without first hand information, and investigative resources far beyond my abilities, I’ve just done my best to sift through what people have said and check the facts I could check.

But let’s say that the whole thing was on the up and up right from the start, and all this skepticism and criticism were totally off the mark. Durham and the rest could have allayed an awful lot of these issues if they had simply communicated better.

• Release the list of competitors before the race begins
• Release checkpoint lists daily during the race
• Release the “photo finish” photograph that proves Barclay’s tire was four inches ahead of Frank Kelly’s
• Demonstrate to the media before the finish occurs just how the photo finish equipment is set up and will work

And there is so much more. If they had made a practice of making the whole event as transparent as it could be, there would not have been all these murky areas to raise suspicions. It would appear that there would still have been skeptics, but there would not have been this widespread doubt that resulted simply from the fact that no information was available.

And it also wouldn’t hurt if Big Jim would engage his brain more often before opening his mouth. It wasn’t the media that “got it screwed up” that he was claiming the FBI would administer the polygraph tests. Durham said that in so many words, and his statement is readily available for anyone to listen to. He made numerous other statements, too, that later proved to be incorrect or had to be clarified. Jim, you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself if you make a wrong statement and people call you on it.

So now the Hoka Hey is wrapped up, at least for now. I, for one, am happy to lay it to rest. But I’ll be back with more if there is anything more to report. There are some lawsuits out there . . .

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Biker Quote for Today

Helmet laws suck. They interfere with natural selection.

The word from Will Barclay, the putative winner of the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge, is that he has already had his $500,000 prize wired to his bank account, so it would appear that some folks’ expectation that no payout would ever be made was unfounded. Still, as one comment on Examiner in regard to this said, “This completely exonerates the organizers of all improprieties associated with the race. NOT!”

Nobody has done a better job than Cyril Huze of stating the questions that Big Jim Durham/Redcloud ought to answer. I doubt we’ll ever see answers to those questions, however. But here’s the latest.

Quick Throttle ran an interview with Barclay and it’s an interesting read. The story was picked up by U.S. Rider News and in a comment on that story, Frank Kelly, or at least someone who claimed to be Kelly, disputed the “photo finish” decision that ruled him out of the money. Kelly and Barclay had been in a heat for the finish and agreed to cross the finish line together and split the prize. Durham announced, however, that there could only be one winner, and that winner was Barclay because Kelly had been disqualified.

Now, I say, “at least someone who claimed to be Kelly” because there’s no way be sure here whether someone else simply posted this comment and claimed to be Kelly. With that understanding, here’s “Kelly’s” comment:

I have a bit of heartburn with alot of people saying I was disqualified or that I disqualified myself, no such thing happened. My name is on offical checkpoint sheet. The reason I was told by Jim “Red Cloud” Durham that Will was the winner and we couldn’t split the pot is that the Hoka Hey Organizers said that there could only be one winner and in their “photo finish” Will’s tire was a couple of inches ahead of mine. I haven’t seen the picture yet. I was told from Jim “Red Cloud” Durham that if Will didn’t pass his polygraph then I was next in line to have to take it. I am not sure where this info is coming from but someone is getting lied too.

So in keeping with the tone set by Cyril Huze in his questions, I think it’s also fair to insist that Durham release the photo, as well as the particulars of how this image was captured. Are we talking about serious photo-finish equipment such as they use at racetracks? Or is the photo simply one shot by someone sort of close to the finish line, sort of almost perfectly in line with the finish line?

Maybe they did have that sort of precision equipment in place and in operation. But it is exactly these sorts of unknowns that will continue to cast a shadow over the Hoka Hey until solid answers are provided. And double-checked. Because if one thing is certain it is that Jim Durham is, at best, careless with his words. He accused me and other reporters of error when we reported that he claimed the FBI would administer polygraph tests to potential winners. “That’s another thing they screwed up,” he said. Well, I know I was quoting his words exactly when I wrote that he said that, because I heard him on the radio interview he did with KBBI radio in Homer, AK. And there are other, similar instances.

So, congratulations to Will Barclay, and kudos to all competitors who finished. But is everything about the Hoka Hey settled now? NOT!

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Biker Quote for Today

Biker: A drunk liar in dirty clothes who plays with a large vibrator in public.

We just got back from our annual OFMC motorcycle trip and already the musical chairs have started. With our group up to 10 guys now, it seems like every year someone shows up on a new bike.

Last year it was Dennis, having traded his Gold Wing in on a new Harley Street Glide. This year Brett sold his Fat Boy to his brother Matt and got himself a new Street Glide almost just like Dennis’s. And Matt came along for the first time, the new kid, on what is now his Fat Boy.

Already now we know there will be at least two people on new bikes next year. During this year’s trip Bill and Friggs swapped bikes a couple times so Friggs could get a taste of Bill’s Fat Boy. You see, Bill is very interested in a new Harley Ultra and meanwhile, Friggs has decided it is time to move up from his old Virago. So Friggs will buy Bill’s Fat Boy and Bill will get his Ultra.

Incidentally, that will move our group one further into the Harley column. Just a few years ago we went out with nine guys and among them were five Hondas, one Yamaha, and three Harleys. With Bill and Friggs dealing it would line up for next year at three Hondas, one Kawasaki, and six Harleys.

Except that may not be the line-up. John has also made up his mind that the time has come to replace his 16-year-old Honda Shadow. And he, too, had been seriously eyeing the Harleys all these other guys are riding. However, to my surprise, he told me the last day of the trip that he had been cured of his Harley envy. It seems he talked with some of the Harley guys and was aghast at the cost of the regular service requirements to maintain the warranty, as well as Dennis’s remark to Friggs that the new handlebars Friggs wants for the Fat Boy will run him about $800.

Mind you now, John has an almost totally stock Shadow and it has been pretty nearly everything he has wanted. He has never been in the position of spending money on his bike. I agreed with him that the Harley prices seem pretty high but when I bought my Kawasaki Concours the first thing I did was put on risers to bring the grips 3 inches closer to me, at a cost of $300. And then I added a backrest for Judy so she feels more secure on behind me, also at a cost of $300. Harley gear may be more expensive but all motorcycle gear is pricey.

So it looks like John will be on a new bike next year but at this point he doesn’t know what it will be. I’m betting it’s a Gold Wing.

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Biker Quote for Today

Remember, only you can convince yourself to ride a wheelie on a Bagger!

OK. I mentioned way back in February that the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge was coming up this month and the start was yesterday. This a 7,000-mile race from Key West, FL, to Homer, AK, with a winner-take-all prize of $500,000 in Alaskan gold.

The only bikes allowed in this race are Harley-Davidson air-cooled V-twins. The entry fee is $1,000, so the organizers needed at least 500 riders just to pay the winner’s prize. Apparently they got about 750 takers.

I’m going to be following Robert Peterson, of Quebec City, in this race on my Examiner.com page. That arrangement came out of Robert contacting me to inquire about problems riding over Rabbit Ears Pass with a bike tuned to sea level or thereabouts. It creates some issues for me because Bob’s Facebook page on the race is in French. Presumably he’s French Canadian. But I have a cell phone number where I can reach his support team–and hopefully him, at least on occasion–and everyone on the other end of the line speaks English.

So the race got off to a difficult start yesterday, at least for a few riders. It’s hard to get it clear from the news reports but at least four, and maybe five, bikes crashed at approximately the same place around Immokalee, FL. It would appear there was some sort of hazard at that spot, else why would so many bikes crash in multiple crashes in just one spot? Who knows. But Bob wasn’t one of them.

An interesting thing about this event is the skepticism. The idea of awarding a $500,000 purse to the winner does sound extreme. One person commenting on my first Examiner story had this to say:

It’s interesting that by the rules, no prize need be awarded now. According to the rules they do not need to pay the winner if ANYONE gets in an accident or gets a ticket. There have already been several accidents as of this afternoon so it is entirely possible the riders will continue on for naught. Another disturbing point is that one of the “charities” targeted for funds is the Red Cloud Foundation whose relationship to Hoka Hey co-founder Big Jim “Chief” Red Cloud is unclear.

And I read in a H-D forum a comment by one guy who said he’ll believe it all when the money actually is given to the winner. I guess we’ll see.

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Biker Quote for Today

Harley-Davidson® motorcycles: Impeding the normal flow of traffic for over 100 years.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Jim Campbell, who had just completed at 30-day, 30,000-mile ride on his H-D Screamin’ Eagle Ultra Classic to raise money for muscular dystrophy. Since then I’ve emailed Jim a couple times about telling his story more fully in a book or in additional articles, but I haven’t had a reply.

I found out why about half an hour ago. In an email from Jeff Sirles, Jim’s friend who first told me about his pal’s feat, I was informed that Jim is in the hospital in Ft. Worth. Here’s Jim’s note.

Hi Ken

Thought you may want to know Jim Campbell was in a severe bike wreck in Ft. Worth, Tx over the weekend. He is hospitalized there. Ill spare the details… its all on his 30K for MDA facebook. He needs our support in other ways now. He is a fighter and will live to ride another day. Please let your readers know.

Regards

Jeff Sirles

Oh my gosh.

So I immediately went to the FaceBook page and found this report from Jim’s wife, Beth.

Well, for 30k+ miles Jim rode his Harley w/o an accident but the odds finally caught up to him. On Fri. evening Jim wrecked his cycle on hwy 20 outside of Ft. Worth TX. He was taken by ambulance to Harris Methodist Hospital in Ft. Worth in the ICU unit. He has a broken neck & pelvis. Please keep him in your thoughts & prayers and we’ll update this site with his progress for those who wish to know.
Beth, Jim’s wife

I don’t know what to say other than “Oh my gosh.” To have ridden so far–safely–and then to have this happen . . .

You can track Jim’s progress on the FaceBook page, as I’ll be doing. Best wishes, Jim.

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Dress for the crash–Not the ride!