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Trick Riding the PanHead

    Brentley, my husband, the self-taught trick rider, purchased himself a basket case.  For those unfamiliar with that term, it generally refers to a bunch of parts in a basket, in boxes or just a pile in the middle of someone’s shop. Most likely the parts have come from several motorcycles. Often times, this menagerie of parts has belonged to several different people, each with hopes and dreams of someday piecing them together to form the motorcycle of their dreams. When you buy a basket case, you are at the mercy of the seller. No one really knows and would not say anyway to what percentage of complete this bike might attain.  A task not recommended for novices or beginners.
 
    A long-time friend of my husband had this basket case for sale. He had convinced Brentley this was a deal to die for.  The motor had been rebuilt. It was brand new!  Most all parts were included. One would just have to put the pieces together to have a bike simular to the one the parts were derived from.  Brentley was indeed convinced this was a Good Deal. I, on the other hand, could see the writing on the wall.

    From my past experience, I understood the risk involved with purchasing a basket case. Not to mention the risk of dealing with friends or family. I tried to relay this to my husband, but he just did not see why I was so down on this Good Deal.  

    To make a long story short, my husband finally bought the old basket case for $4000.  He invested another $10,000 along with four years of headache, heartache, anxiety and down right anger at this Good Deal.  

    My husband is not a biker nor is he a mechanic, this fact added to the reasons I was so against the Good Deal.  We are, today, greatly indebted to the several dedicated friends for sharing their expertise in fabricating parts that are no longer available, and holding my husband’s hand while he attempted to do things unimaginable in his mind.  

    The transmission was so old, it could not be fitted with an electric starter.  It would be a Kick Only bike.   In the process of planning, Brentley decided a suicide clutch and a hand shifter would go along with the kick only starter to make the bike more unique.  The old bikes were built similar.  Over the years, builders such as Harley Davidson, moved the clutch from the foot to the left hand grip, the shifter to the left foot and added electric starters for ease of operation and safety.  Although these two things do not register on the Cool Index they are standard equipment on all current motorcycles.    

    The bike reached completion in the spring of 2005.  Brentley and the Boys are rightfully proud of the outcome.  They actually did an above average job on many things.  It is a very good looking, old style, chopped and bobbed motorcycle.  It has won the two bike shows it was entered in, Best of Show.  With the  foot (suicide) clutch,  a hand shifter, and the kick starter, it has taken some practice in learning to ride this bike, and some days, a lot of work to even start it, but he loves it none the less.  

    In July, Brentley took his prize winning Pan Head to a family reunion in Idaho.   His intentions were to  show off his handy work to some of his biker type relatives.  The week previous, I had ridden with some of my lady rider friends to Boise.   After several wonderful days of traveling by bike with these gals, I was eager to meet up with my husband, and his newly completed, prize winning motorcycle.  He had driven the RV with the motorcycle in the trailer to Clayton, Idaho.  By chance, we ran into each other at a gas station a few miles from the Reunion Ranch.  We were glad to see each other and rode for an hour or so, checking out the scenery of the wonderful country side.  I had never been in that part of the world.  Brentley had to tell me all about his new bike and how wonderful it was running.  How much he loved riding it.  We eventually headed back to the ranch where many of his relatives were gathering.  We parked the bikes close to the RV.  The trailer had been dropped  across the pasture about 100 yards away.  Later that afternoon, it began to rain.  Brentley said to me, “We better put the bikes in the trailer.”  I walked over, started mine, rode it to the trailer and in.  As always, I parked on the left side.   I walked back to the RV.  He was still kicking the Pan Head. It gave no indication that it wanted to start.  I asked, “Do you want me to push you over to the trailer?” We had always pushed it into the trailer, both of us.            

    “No, I will start it.” he sniped with that his stubborn attitude of  ‘I will not be shown up by a mechanical beast.’  I busied myself picking up the lawn furniture and stuff.  Suddenly, the bike roared to life.  He hopped on it and around the pasture he went, up into the trailer and –  Crash was the noise that I heard.  His brother looked at me puzzled,  “I think he hit something in the trailer.”     

    Thinking that Brentley must have hit the wheel choke awfully hard to make that noise, I added, “I am thinking you are right,”   Darwin and I headed for the trailer.  I had visions, almost cartoon like, of an image, a hole,  a silhouette of Brentley on his bike through the front of the trailer.  As we rounded the corner, there was Brentley standing between his bike and the right side wall, the bike leaning on it’s side and he was doing his best to keep it up off the new paint on the tanks.  

    “Would you help me here?” he desperately barked.  The back tire of the pan head was up against my bike.  The front tire was all the way up to the front wall of the trailer instead of parked  two feet back, in the wheel chock, where it normally sits.  After up righting the bike, we began to inspect the scene.

    Brentley had locked the front brake on the way into the trailer.  The skid mark started at  the bottom of the ramp, all the way up the ramp, from one end of the trailer all the way across the 14 foot floor and ending at the wall plus leaving a deep impression in the front wall. It separated the wall from the floor by about two inches.  Apparently as he squeezed the brake lever with his right hand, the pressure he used to hold the brake also held the throttle open. After the bike came to a stop against the wall, the back wheel of bike continued to spin and  left a unusual three foot skid mark as it spun itself over next to my bike.  As all of this was happening in a split second, he could not get his foot on the clutch to compress it.  Finally, he thought to hit the kill switch.  And that is when we found him.  
   
     He later called his buddy,   “Bill, I think I figured out why they call it a suicide clutch.”





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