The Desert Rat
Bill was my oldest friend; we first met before kindergarten. He lived next door to my great aunt who my family would visit often. We attended the same schools growing up, and were both heavily into bicycles; we thought nothing of riding 10 miles out to Walden Pond for a day of swimming which was a significant distance for a 14 year old in the mid ‘60s. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that we both fell in love with motorcycles when we were exposed to them.
Now, Bill was into Harleys. It was the only bike for him. He’d had a Honda 350, but he never really cared for it; and over the years, he’d owned several other bikes, but Harleys were the bikes that spoke to his soul. His first Harley was an old Army Surplus WLA that really was in pretty sad shape. However, he fell in love with that old 45 and one thing led to another, and he eventually wound up with a new Superglide that he kept for a few years. However, way down deep, he wanted a Sportster. I found out why a few years later.
One day when he was a kid, Bill was in the family car with his mother and an aunt. They were sitting at a traffic light when Bill saw some guy on a Sportster and thought it was the coolest looking bike he’d ever seen. His aunt made the typical sounds of disapproval and disgust, which only locked in Bill’s impression. He decided that one day, he’d own one.
Eventually, Bill got a Sportster; a 1978 XLH 1000 painted Brilliant Red. He loved that bike and rode it all over. He worked six days a week in the family store, and would pore over maps for hours plotting rides for his day off. He went all over New England on that bike. In 1979, he took a ride around the country that reached as far west as Nevada and totaled something like 7600 miles.
Eventually, Bill sold that bike; but he never lost his love for Sportsters. One day, in the mid 90s, he bought an 85 Sportster. The guy selling it wanted $5,000; Bill went and looked at it and asked, “Will you take $4,000?” the seller agreed, and Bill became the owner of what he called, the Pimp Bike. It was gaudy; it had Apehanger bars, it had every conceivable piece of “Live to ride; Ride to live” chrome accessories attached to it. But, it was a Sportster, and Bill saw it as a project. He bought a cheap used 3 rail motorcycle trailer and took it out to California.
Everything on the bike had been done in a half assed manner. If something required three bolts (like the license plate bracket), there were only two. Instead of buying a metal fender to replace the stock rear, the previous owner had used a fiberglass cover (and, of course, only used a few bolts to hold it in place). Everything on the bike was like that.
However, it was a project, and Bill kept working at it. As the job progressed, he took pictures to document the transformation.
One day, he was in a coffee shop and overheard a conversation between some custom bike owners talking about trailering their bikes to Laughlin. They didn’t want to ride them that far; the paint might get chipped, or the bikes might get dirty. That’s when he had his flash of inspiration.
He was going to build a custom bike that would look better the dirtier it got. It would have no chrome, and would be a Rider. Bill didn’t believe in show bikes that were only for display; he felt that motorcycles were pieces of transportation.
Bill was also into Military Jeeps. He’d had a few, including a 1944 Willys MB, so he decided that he would build a “Military” Sportster He put a lot of thought into the project, and when he was done, he had a bike that was everything he wanted it to be. It looked like something the Army might have used in World War 2, and the dirtier it got, the better it looked. He named the bike the Desert Rat.
As the job progressed, he sent me a series of pictures titled, The Pimp Bike Joins the Army. The final pictures were of a bike that was a vision transformed into metal.
He entered it in a couple of shown and won a few trophies, but the two most gratifying compliments he got were from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jimmy Robertson.
Bill was at the Rock Store (a popular Motorcycle meeting place in southern California), when Arnold pulled in on his military themed Softail. Arnold liked Bill’s bike, and told him so.
When Bill sent me pictures of the bike, I took them over to the Shop, and Jimmy looked at them and approved of the bike. When I told Bill of Jimmy’s reaction, I could hear the note of triumph and success in his voice.
In 1999, I flew out to LA to visit Bill, and I rented a Sportster from Bartel’s H-D. Bill and I rode around southern California and, at one point; we traded rides so I could get a feel for the Rat. It wasn’t just a Sportster; it was so much more than that. It grabbed attention from everyone. People would stop whatever they were doing and stare at it. It was a bike of Vision. Riding it was an order of magnitude above riding any other custom.
I wish I still had all the pictures of the bike that Bill had sent me; Unfortunately, I only have one. It was a magnificent motorcycle in its own unique way, and a true testament to a friend who converted a concept into reality.
