Well, it starts like all old bike purchases.  My good friend, Muddy Waters, picked up a bike in Casper, Wyoming and was parting it out. “A 1945 flathead 74”, he says, “I'm in”, I say! The motor was in a single down tube frame with an I beam springer, solo seat and not much more. Out come the dead presidents and the dance and I left with the parts.

 

A year or two go by and another pal, Mark Lobsinger, calls me up and asks if I have an old 45 cube motor he can run in the TROG. I say what's a TROG, and he tells me about The Race of Gentleman. I told Mark that I had a 1945 flathead 74 motor that he could run, and he shows up with a broken 40's frame from his pal, Zack, and poof, we had a parts pile and shortly thereafter, a running bike. This was the first year TROG came to the left coast, and he did quite well running against the big-name guys.

 

Fast forward a few more years. I have my 42 FL parked in front of my store and a tattoo artist comes in and tells me he has a roller 57 straight leg frame and inline Springer he needed to sell. Off to Bishop with a handful of dead presidents and now I had a frame to put my motor in. Muddy built me a transmission and with more swap meet parts I had a running 45U.

 

She has been a little temperamental as the cast iron heads were spider cracked so she had a habit of blowing head gaskets. Thunderbird Motors made her all better with another set of heads and compete rebuild. She is a real pleasure to ride!