What is a bike shop with no bikes?! We can’t have that! We are selling as quickly as we’re buying and fixing right now. Once it was ready, I posted the Ice Bike online. A man from Milwaukee bought it and came to get it. When he showed up at the shop, it was Scott Johnson of Fuel Café and the Mama Tried Motorcycle Show. He loved the bike! He said he was looking forward to racing the bike at Mama Tried. He was really cool, and even gave us some tickets to check out the show! Josh was able to get that ‘77 FLH running. Now, when the starter button is hit, it fires right up. He got it running great. We try and keep a little black book of bike buyers. I had Josh email a few of them. One guy named Arne, who likes to buy Harleys from us, wanted it. Just one photo of that bike and it sold for $7500. I hated to sell the bike, but winter is cold here in Michigan and selling keeps the heat on! With the ‘77 off the lift and heading over the pond, we got Freight Train up on the lift. I told the guys to just clean it up and get it running. I didn’t think it would be a big deal or take too long, but after they got into the bike, they found a few issues that we needed to fix. First was the starter; it smoked when Josh tried to start it. Luckily, we not only buy bikes, but parts as well. I had one or two starters hanging around for just such an occasion. Once we got a good used starter on it, we had to make a new bracket to hold the starter to the 5 speed transmission. Then, we noticed that the inner primary was a little chewed up from the drive chain. We pulled the primary apart and installed a primary saver. While we were in there, I opted to put a pro-clutch instead of the stock clutch. Since this was a hot rod Shovel, those drag pipes wouldn’t do, but a Thunder header would! Lastly, a little bit of wiring made the bike run better than ever. I wanted to keep Freight Train so I had to find something to sell. As fate would have it, a guy walked into our shop with a running Shovel for sale. Terry had read about us in one of the greatest magazine on the market today! Yep, you guessed it, The Horse BC. He read that we buy and sell bikes. Terry was looking to possibly trade his Shovel for a bike with electric start because he couldn’t kick the bike any more. I had one bike left out of the nine Harleys I bought a few weeks earlier. It was a 1986 Softail custom. It was mostly stock, but it was fast. Terry loved the Softail and wanted to make a deal. His Shovel was cool, but it didn’t have a true Harley title which affects the value. It makes it harder to sell, because there is a smaller window of willing buyers. Then, Terry offered to throw in a parts bike he had too. Now when Terry said “parts bike,” I assumed it was a roller or some bike that wasn’t running. Nope. The “parts bike” was 4 boxes and a frame! That’s great. Like I said, we buy parts as well as bikes. I got Zeke started on selling the parts online. Meanwhile, Josh and I started cleaning up the old black Shovel. This bike consisted of pieces from many different years, but it had some really cool parts on it. The frame was a “drop link,” which would have had a pan in it. The front end was a true super glide with extended tubes. All that, combined with the chopper oil tank and the old pan stuff, made it a really cool bike. We decided to clean up parts like the saddlebag supports and an old horn. I thought a cool, king queen seat would look good on there. My friend, Dustin Themm had a Harley super glide swing arm seat lying around and it looks great on there. As we were working on the bike, an old customer, Mike came in. Josh started talking about all the cool parts on it. Mike called me the very next day to make a deal on it. I love buying old parts as much as I love buying motorcycles. I find that someone needs to uncover parts to put them back into the world of the chopper. I’m always telling Josh to save one or two parts from every bike or lot of parts we get. I was going through a shed out back, and little did I know, the guys have started to build a bike out of some of the parts we have saved over the last year. They had a pretty good start on a roller! I really like what they have going on. It really got me thinking, so coming soon: a buildup of a bike with all used parts from here at Boomers Bike Shop. I’m still thinking of a name for it so send us some ideas at BoomersBikeShop@yahoo.com!!
~Boomer

BUSY!!!!

Busy, busy, busy! The shop has been busy! I’m so thrilled about it! Josh has been selling bikes as fast as I can find them. The nine Harleys I picked up are all gone! So once again, I hit the internet looking for more deals to please Josh and my missis. During some Thanksgiving Day internet cruising, I found an old FLH Shovelhead, but it was way up north about 4 hours away from us. I called the guy anyway, thinking maybe I would take a road trip. It turned out the owner, Rex, was willing to drive it to me. To top it off, he had a bunch of panhead parts he would throw in on the deal too! The very next day, after we got that shovel; another guy was coming into the shop to buy two bikes we had in stock. With some quick thinking, I had Josh roll the Shovelhead out front so the guy would have to walk right by it. That was it! He had to have that bike too. It’s a hard business I’ve put myself in. I love motorcycles. Harley Shovelheads and EVO’s are two of my favorite motors every made. My problem is not the trouble of finding them, or trying to get them bought; it’s that I want to keep every one of them! If it’s not Josh wanting to keep one, or my wife, it’s me. I have seen a lot in the last 18 years in the business. I’ve seen almost every old bike come and go. I recently ran into an old friend, Gerrit. He rode an old hot rod Shovel that we called “The Freight Train” back in the rally running days. I’ve wanted his bike for a long time now. Of course, now of all times, when I’m looking for bikes to sell (not keep), he wants to sell The Freight Train. This Shovel is one of the lowest bikes I’ve ever seen. The rear fender was changed to a Fatboy rear fender and the way it was mounted made it look even lower. The motor has dual fire heads, Crane Hi-4 ignition, and a Jims 5 speed trans to back it all up. It is all black with a chrome front end. Man, it looks mean. So, late one night I sent Josh out in his new shop van we are calling “The Beast” to pick up this bike that I’ve chased for so many years. I didn’t tell Josh about my true motives. I had no real plan to sell that bike any time soon. Another bike we picked up recently was a ‘77 FLH that was in pieces. It was almost together, but still needed a few days worth of work to get it shining again. The bike had only 17k original miles on it. The guy I got it from, Murph, is a classic biker. He has run with clubs for years and lived the life. Unfortunately, he had fallen on some hard times and had to sell his bike. He had the bike painted and was half way through rebuilding it before he couldn’t finish it. The tanks were half-way mounted on the bike so he could start it to show that it did run. It was just a roller with a rear fender on; at least the drive line was all together. After dickering for a while, we reached an agreement. After Josh and Zeke took the bike and loaded it in The Beast, we hit the road headed for the shop. At first I thought that maybe I would just part out the bike. After all, it was mostly in pieces as it was, but Josh being the purist that he is, wouldn’t let it happen. He has a thing for old stock bikes. I don’t get it at times, but he wanted to get it back together, so I let him go for it. He first laid out what he had; the fun part was figuring where everything went and trying not to scratch all that fresh paint. After two days of work Josh had it all bolted back together. He went to fire it up and the starter clutch gear went out. No problem, we are a bike shop, Josh can fix that. He went ahead and changed the clutch gear. After that was fixed, he went to start it again, only to find out the switch in the handle bars went out. I have heard for years of the “AMF curse” and this bike seemed to have it. After Josh fixed the handlebar switch, the starter relay went out. It was at that point, I think I heard a wrench hit the back door. Josh will get it fixed or I’ll call my old friend T.G. Speed to help us out. Either way, the bike looks amazing and I’m starting to see what Josh sees in an old stock bike. I still haven’t told Josh about my plans to keep The Freight Train, but I think if I keep talking about it, he will start to really like the bike. I know the shop is really busy, but I’m not in a big rush to sell these bikes. I think I need to hold on to a few. After all, what’s a bike shop with no bikes??

~Boomer

Ride old Bike, build old bikes!

Ride old Sh@t; build old Sh$t!! Nothing compares to the soul of an old motorcycle. Old Harley’s have a look and sound that is unlike any other bike in the world. It doesn’t matter where I’m at, any bike night, or any bagger show; when I pull in on an old bike like a shovel, people will come up to me asking all kinds of questions. I find even Evo’s are getting harder to find parts for at the swap meets. Maybe it’s because they don’t break down like the Shovels, or maybe people are just holding on to them. I think the Evo is the last great motor Harley ever put out. Don’t get me wrong, Twin Cams make great power and I know a lot of people that love them, but they are just not for me. Recently, a local Harley Davidson dealer, called me about buying some old bikes they had. I know you must be thinking, “Boomer you just said you don’t like Twin Cams,” but not all bikes at the dealership are TC, sometimes dealers buy old bikes too. Sometimes, they have rare finds like Grandpa’s mint FXR that he turned in because he wanted a brand new Street Glide and Harley dealers everywhere are happy to help. My friend from the dealership, JJ, called me saying the dealership wanted to clean out some older used bikes they had. That Sunday, I loaded up Josh and my wife, Sandy, in my van and off we went. They were just opening up when we arrived. They were rolling a bunch of bikes out front. JJ was there waiting. He showed us all around. Man, they had some nice bikes for sale! The bikes we went to see were in a different warehouse. We jumped in JJ’s car and headed down the road to another warehouse. There was a sea of bikes to look at. The first bike we looked at was a beautiful, 1995 Dyna Low Rider. It looked as though it had just been pushed off the show room floor. I had never seen one so clean and untouched. They had a lot of early EVO’s, some even had 4 speed kickers!! They had great a looking FXR sitting in the back, it was mint. So many bikes that would make great chopper projects or builds all in one building; ready for someone to come by and pick them up. In total we considered 9 bikes that day. I am still working out a price for them but keep an eye on our Instagram or Blog. We may be having a big Harley sale in the near future. Going home empty handed but not out of ideas, I called my internet connection Shovelhead Joe (he surfs the interweb for me). I said “hey Joe I came up cold at the dealer ship, got any hot leads for me? Joe replied “I got the perfect bike for winter!” Well we do live in Michigan where it gets cold a lot. Josh was spending some vacation time in Northern Michigan with his gal. I had promised that I would leave him alone, which lasted all of 24 hours. The bike my buddy, Joe, found was not far from where Josh was. With a little bargaining, I got Josh to stop and take a look at the bike. It was a vintage AMA Ice Racing Ironhead with a hardtail. The tires were cut to run on ice, it had a custom seat for ice racing, and it even had a side hack! Later that week when Josh got home, I left to go buy the bike. When I got to the house, I found out Mike, the owner of ice bike, also had a cool dirt drag bike he had built. This thing had a long swing arm, dirt bike tires, a hopped up EVO and a 4 speed trans to back it up. I could not get him to sell the dirt drag bike along with the ice bike but I got him to throw in a nice parts stash he had collected for the Ironhead. With a trailer full of parts and the ice bike, I headed for home with ideas of Josh and me running around the lakes… On second thought, maybe I should sell this damn thing before Josh gets hurt and wants a day off! (If you are ever interested in any bike we have, please call the shop!)

The bikes I find come from a variety of places. I find most through the bike shop or after hours of sitting and looking at the net, but sometimes, my friends send them to me. One day, I was at an auction when my buddy, Joe, sent me an ad from the internet about an old FLH Shovel Head. This was right up my alley and I called right away. That night, I loaded up my truck, trailer, and wife and headed for Westland to check out the old scoot. When I got there, I found more than just an “old FLH” it was a Hot Rod Shovel. This bike had dual fire heads, outside oilers, a 5 speed trans and a pro-clutch that put all the power to the ground. I couldn’t wait to get this thing home! The seller, Mike, had gotten the bike from a friend 10 years ago. He had ridden it around for a few years, but had gotten out of it because the bike needed some fixing up. He said he was selling because he didn’t know anything about motorcycles. He was a car guy. The old girl ran great. It lit the tire up like it was nothing, but it was an ugly old bike. I scored it for $3200. Try as we may to make it look better, it was smarter to just take the whole bike apart. I was able to sell most of the parts before Josh could even start in on it. I sold the frame, fenders, gas tanks, fender struts, battery box, and oil tank for $1500. We threw the rest of the bike online and are currently selling off the pieces. That day wasn’t over. By the time I got back to the shop, Michelle already had a lead on another Shovel for me. A guy named James had come into the store to buy some parts for his Roadking and got to talking with Michelle. They were talking about old Shovels and she told him that we are always looking to buy them. James told her about a good looking, stock FXE that he wanted to sell. James lived down in Inkster. He was a classic biker with tons of cool old photos of rallies he had gone to and bikes he had owned over the years. After looking at them, I realized that I had run into James at some biker events over the years, but I had never really talked to him before. It’s a small biker world. James had three Shovels and one twin cam at his house. I had to ask, “How’d did you end up with a twin cam?” To which he replied with a grin, “The old lady bought it for me. The down side is I had to marry her!” As the beers and tequila flowed, he mentioned more and more parts for sale. He had so many different pieces of bikes for sale: brakes, tires, frames, clutches; anything you could think of. James said if any of his buddies’ bikes went down, they would all get together and someone would have the right part to get it back on the road. He had a really cool network of Inkster bikers. James didn’t really want to sell his parts and the bike together, but we just kept talking and I ended up getting the parts too. Josh didn’t waste any time getting the bike up for sale. He shot the bike and threw it right on the interweb and got it sold. The bike is currently on its way to Denmark! (Sorry, I cannot disclose price)
Remember, we are always buying at Boomers Bike Shop. So if you’re looking for something or want to sell an old bike, just give us a call! ~Boomer