Timing,,,,

I sold my motorcycle last night. It was on old Harley Davidson made the year I graduated high school. A friend of mine had it out in his barn when I bought it. He had used it as his backup bike. It was kind of rough looking but ran really well. Squat, beefy, and loud with lots of power and a very low centre of gravity. The first time I rode it I gunned it too hard going down the gravel road he lived on and it jumped hard to the left, perilously close to a barbed wire fence running parallel to the road. The barbs were whizzing by close to the crash bars and a slightly surprised cow just inside the fence gave me a startled look before jumping and kicking like a calf on her way away from the fence and the hard guttural growl of the old shovelhead engine. I had a huge smile on my face at the instant at the insane response of the throttle and the massive vibrato roar that a shovelhead infuses in your whole body while you are riding one. 

Harleys have a following for a reason and it's not all hype and posturing. The distinctive sound from the V shaped single pin design is unique and mystifyingly similar to the beat of a human heart. The timing of the two pistons firing in one distinct part of the cycle and then resting for a longer cycle is quite unique in combustion engines. It's not mechanically efficient but it is unique. Because Harley's fire on such an odd cycle they also tend to vibrate and shake violently when you rev them up. It's almost irresistible when you are riding one. The surge of power is uneven and the bike feels like it squats down and grabs the road before jumping forward like a large lioness grabbing the savannah with each churning lunge of her body. 

Over the years Harley has mitigated this vibration with an assortment of rubber mounts, belt drives, and counterbalance weights imbedded in the engine. The new Evo's sound similar, although there is a difference, but run smoother. The world's largest vibrator now has a softer shake. The old Shovelheads and Panheads were hard mounted to the frame and unmitigated in their stroke. My bike vibrated so much that I had to have a loose grip on the handlebars to get my eyes to focus. It had been bored twice before I got it. It was tuned to turn over slow at idle so it sounded like it was going to go dead between strokes but when I turned the throttle it would literally jump forward after that initial squat to grab the road. The chain drive rattled and added to the cacophony and it had been lowered to the point that the pipe mounts dug into the pavement if you leaned too far right on a turn. Everything came loose on that bike. It laughed at loctite and every short ride was followed by tightening of bolts and screws or reinstallation of accessories that were about to fall off. I actually had the crankcase vibrate open one ride and begin dumping sixty weight oil out directly in front of the rear tire. 

Try that sometime if you want to experience instant panic and see your life flash in front of your eyes. I tore the bike down to the frame and rebuilt it at one point. (Yes.... part of it was in my kitchen for a while so I was that guy). I remember the night I got it put back together and cranked it back up in my shed without the baffles in it to blue the pipes. It was a small metal shed more suited for lawnmowers than bikes but I literally rattled the metal itself so that it added to the symphony of growling horsepower and mistimed energy so much that I could feel it vibrating through my whole body every time I revved it up a little. I remember watching some roofing tacks in a wooden crate move around like an ant bed coming alive as I let it sit at idle and warm up. 

I put it up for sale a week ago as my daughter needs the room in her shed and I haven't ridden it in at least ten years. I lost the urge to constantly work on it. It was the kind of bike that required oil in the saddle bags and and an extensive tool kit to go far as it would just shed parts if you rode it too far or too hard like a big dog shaking water out its fur after coming out of a creek. Putting an old Harley in a sale paper is a little like setting a field of catnip on fire. People come out of the woodwork to bargain with you. Last night a guy pulled up in a large enclosed moving van truck with a lift gate on the back. He was wearing a porkpie hat, a long ponytail, and an long grey goatee that reached halfway down to his belt. He looked straight out of every biker movie ever made. He shook my hand and started talking about where he could back his truck up to load the bike. He immediately told me he was buying it sight unseen because he knew what it was and had to have it. He handed me a wad of folded hundred dollar bills that was exact to the amount I had agreed to over the phone. He was tickled to take all the spare parts I had hanging all over the shed. My homemade tilt jack, the Clymer's manual covered in oil and grease, and every other homemade tool I had come up with in years of working on the bike. He loved the custom paint job and was ecstatic to find the jack plate I had made out of 5/8 steel plate for the clutch assembly. We talked about bikers we knew in common and marvelled the hadn't run into each other before. Somehow.... he and that bike were meant for each other, two relics of a different time reunited. A part of me hated to see that old bike go but I was happy to see it go to someone who understood and loved it like I did.