OIly souls 2016

It was a great weekend… on second thought it was amazing weekend!! Friday was the start of it, the Venturo’s BBQ; it was happening down in Detroit, I had gone there last year and a lot of guys ride choppers. So this year I was going to ride my black shovelhead (issue 164), until I got a phone call from my buddy Terry; asking me to put the black shovel into the Oily Souls Show not only that but wanted me to vend also. This came at somewhat of a shock. Oily Souls always shows some high end choppers, my black bike is nice but I never thought it was show nice. I was honored to be asked, but now what was I going to ride Friday night to the BBQ? The rest of the week flew by, I had kind of forgotten about needing a bike for the ride down there. It was early morning; Josh had been up since 4am making t-shirts and what not for Oily souls. I called him to talk it over, he said why not my old red chopper? I had not really ridden it at all this year. Josh got it running at the beginning of summer but it was only rode out to my house that’s not even 10 miles. I thought why not it needed to get out and be ridden. I went on about my day, later around 530pm I ran out to my house to get the bike out. I pulled it out and the bike fired up 3rd kick. I took off down the road, as I was riding I heard a noise and it kept getting louder and louder, I placed my hands on spots on the bike to try and figure out where it was coming from. I placed my hand on the gas tank and the noise went away. Ah ha I found the problem, I wasn’t too far from the shop now, Josh was there waiting with a few people ready to ride down. When I got there we check the bike over and notice gas was leaking out of the tank! I was bummed but it wasn’t too bad, I had an old FLT that i bought from Shovelhead Joe that he had built up, in my shed back at my house. I ran back over to the house to pull it out but the key wasn’t with the bike. It was at this point I lost my temper; my night was slowing getting ruined. I called josh and told him to take off without me; I’ll catch up down there. I ran through the house in search of the keys. It didn’t take me long and I found them. I fired that old Shovelhead FLT up and took off like a bat out of hell. I don’t think I ever went below 80mph, the sun was setting and I was on a mission to get there. Josh and the boys had just gotten there when I arrived; the party was in full swing; guys racing around the Velodrome, a bon fire right in the middle of all the racing. There where people everywhere, all hanging out having some beers it looked like 300+ people and all were talking bikes. It was a great vibe; it was a warm summer’s night. We stayed there till almost 2 and then headed from home; we still had to get our stuff together in the morning for the show. Day broke the next day Josh is normally at the shop by 9am it was almost 10am so I thought I‘d call and get a game plan for the day. Josh had just gotten out of bed (That lazy kid, he thought he could hang with the big guy). The shop was a little slow that morning, which was good we needed to load up the van; I had planned on taking my 1980 custom van and pull the trailer with it. We had the trailer all loaded up and hooked up to the van when I went to plug in the lights only to found out I had the wrong pig tail on the van…. no lights. The rain looked like it was coming in and that van isn’t the funniest to drive in the rain with body mods 1980 sunroof so on. Josh told me to drive it over to storage and put it away he would hook up the beast (black swat van ) to tow the trailer down. I was driving it back with Josh’s wife, Heidi following me. I stopped and told Heidi I was going to go back and let josh drive it down he had been cleaning the van getting it ready for the show, I didn’t want to let him down. Josh was just getting done hooking up the trailer, he was surprised to see me back, and I could see in his eye he was happy or maybe mad, I don’t know; hell it was early I couldn’t tell. As we drove down to the show the rain came in hard, flash flooding was happening all around us. I thought man it is really coming down, and then it hit me why josh said put the van away…it leaks like the windows are down in rain like this. I felt awful I was trying to do something nice for the kid, I really was!!! I called him just to see maybe it wasn’t leaking. Josh told me “well it’s leaking my head, my legs and my hands, no big deal.” We waited behind the building for the rain to stop, Josh parked the custom van in front of the building and came out back with me and Shovelhead Joe; Heidi had tagged along with josh. She bought some snacks with her (that why we bring our wives lol). We were sitting enjoying the snacks when Fab Kevin pulled up next to us. After talking back and forth he ended up in the back of my van. We all sat there making jokes and enjoying some snacks until the rain quit. Once we got my shovelhead unloaded and Kevin’s Knuckle head out of his van, I got to walk around. The bikes that where in the show were awesome, my buddy Eric (Empire of Rust I.G.) brought up a hill claiming Knucklehead race bike. It was cool as hell! There were all different kinds of bikes, to many choppers to list. As bad ass as the show bikes were, there is some cool bikes that show up outside also. As Josh and I walked up and down the street looking at bikes. He looks over at me and asked well uncle Boomer is all this running around this bike that bike this van that van this beer that whiskey is it all really worth it? Young grass hopper have another corona. Then I said “HELL YA “. We took as many pictures as we could so enjoy!