Remember The D.U.M.P.?
Yeah, I still have this old windshield on the bike, though it’s cracked from the one time I went down on it.
Thinking about my first days with a motorcycle made me think of other things. Like the D.U.M.P. As in Denver Used Motorcycle Parts.
This was an appropriately dumpy little place along Park Avenue West, at about Ogden or Emerson, where it was a parts and gear shop plus they had a small yard with old bikes being parted out. A lot like Steele’s today but much smaller.
I got all my early gear from the D.U.M.P. And I learned a lot.
For instance, I very quickly found that I did not like the blast of the wind at speed. I went to the D.U.M.P. and asked for a windshield. The guy showed me some and along the way I used the word “fairing” interchangeably. He asked me, did I want a windshield or a fairing? I didn’t understand the difference. I bought a windshield.
I already had a helmet, a half-helmet actually, from my days flying a hang-glider. But I wanted a face shield to block the wind. It had three snaps across the front so I looked for snap-on shields. The woman waiting on me at the D.U.M.P. showed me some simple, curved shields but I asked about this one that was like a half bubble. She told me scornfully that yeah, some people used those, but it was clear she did not think highly of them. I liked it and that’s the one I bought.
Later I bought a sissy bar and rack there.
I got my first leather jacket from the D.U.M.P. and my first gauntlet-style gloves and also a similar pair for winter lined with Thinsulate. And then my leather chaps. I was a regular customer at the D.U.M.P.
Of course the name of the place inevitably led to some amusing confusion. I remember a girlfriend asking me where I got something and when I told her I got it, in her hearing, “at the dump” she looked at me with a very weird expression.
And then one day I came by and they were closed. Gone. Now there’s probably some high-rise standing on that piece of land.
That’s something I’ve come to see as a constant: Motorcycle shops come and go. I try to keep my Colorado Motorcycle Dealers and Repair Shops page on the website up to date but at least once a year I go through and click on all the links and remove a bunch that are no longer in existence. Heck, the little shop on Federal where I bought my CB750 closed within a year or two of me buying that bike.
Fortunately, there always seems to be someone else willing to give it a shot. It’s probably not a bad idea if we all support our local motorcycle shops. That’s the only way they’ll be there when we need them.
Biker Quote for Today
Why motorcycles are better than women: Motorcycles last longer.
