Big George and "Brand X"...Happy Birthday!

The day started off great at breakfast

Cotter pin gone...near death experience...


Mechanics wire...problem solved...or so we thought

Other problem...non field serviceable

Looking for redemption...the Iron Redskin strikes again!

It starts like this... Big George turns 60. His wife has a surprise party for him on Sunday in Jersey. I talk Al from New Hampshire into riding down and meeting me at George's party and then heading over to PA and staying at my place Sunday night. We had a great time at George's and headed back over to my place. George wants to meet up for breakfast this morning before Al heads North...good plan...

Well we meet George and his buddy Horst just over the river in Jersey (Note to self: Leave gun take helmet). So we're going to ride north with Al for a while to see him off. It is a perfect Fall day. Pulling out of the restaurant George hits his brakes and his 41 Chief makes a horrendous weird noise. He acknowledges it but opts to disregard...the bike stopped and goed.

We are cruising alongside the Delaware River on Rt 611 and all was right with the world.

Up ahead was a traffic light for a temporary one lane bridge and construction. I was out front and stopped at the Red light behind a line of cars. The next thing I know I hear that horrendous noise and George comes whipping by me on the left so close I could feel him brush me. He is heading through the red light into oncoming traffic, oddly enough the oncoming traffic is an old Panhead! George just misses hitting him head on and disappears beyond the cars in front of me at the light! (The guy on the Panhead kept going). Al pulls up next to me and I look at him and say, "what the fuck is he doing?" Al looks bewildered and says, "he just about rear ended you!". The light turned green and the cars went through the light and there was George off into the construction area looking down at his bike... He lost the fuckn' cotter pin out of his rear brake rod and it popped out of the pedal...Holy Shit! A little mechanics wire and good as new...so we thought.

I decide to head back and those guys take off. As I turned to walk to my bike I heard the horrendous noise again. I turned around to see George with his brakes locked skidding sideways with smoke coming out from his rear wheel. He had a Dump truck coming up behind him! The truck stopped just in time and I ran over and we pushed him back off the road... We checked over the bike again and this time found that the axle mount on the Indian rear shock broke right off! George looked at me and said, "I think I better just go home now..." He made a call and we waited on a trailer. Al headed back to New Hampshire and I hung out with George and helped him load "Brand X" onto the trailer. The knuckle started on one kick as usual and as I rode off on the Harley and George trailered his Indian home I gave him some words of encouragement...Yeah right...I mocked him mercilessly!

Happy Birthday George!!!