Tyler's '77 FLH

lot of us in the motorcycle world have a memory of a bike that is responsible for their 2 wheel passion. It a could be something as simple as a picture in a magazine, a scene in a movie, or possibly something closer, like a bike belonging to a friend or family member. For me it was the Candy Red Ironhead in the movie Every Which Way But Loose. It was one that was run over by the semi in the trucker’s vs Black Widows scene. For Tyler Harman it was a black Shovelhead that lived down the road from where he grew up. He’d watch that Shovel go by and dream of one day having one like it.

Fast forward 20 years. Tyler has a life, a job, and is running his own shop, Lowlife Customs. The Shovel had traveled coast to coast going to California with its owner during his military service and back home to Maryland. Tyler was eventually able to rescue the shovel from its barn retirement home when he traded a 1970 Chevelle for it.

Once Tyler actually had the Shovel in its new home he started going through the entire bike. Little by little the bike was disassembled and had been completely gone through. Tyler’s goal was to have the finished product look like a bike

that had been customized in the 90’s.

Luckily, there’s a lot of talent in Tyler’s family. Throughout the rebuild his father and grandfather stayed busy in the machine shop making replacements for a lot of the missing pieces. When it was time to paint everything, the shovel was handed over to Tony Nery at TCP Cycles, Tyler’s uncle. After the missing pieces had been made and new paint was down Tyler put the Shovel back together. The motor had been rebuilt before the Shovel went into its retirement, so time was saved and the bike was ready to go, or so they thought. Shortly after they got the engine going it dropped a valve and destroyed a piston.

Now there was a rush on to get the engine going. To be sure no other surprises would spring up, everything was taken apart right down to the crank. The cylinders were bored and fitted with new

Keith Black pistons. A new set of S & S heads were acquired to save on the machine shop time. The cam chest was filled with an Andrews B Grind cam. S & S B carburetor supplies the whole thing with a fuel/air mixture. Drag pipes get the gases out and a BDL belt drive ties the whole thing to the stock 4 speed transmission. Tyler got everything back together in time

Owner: Tyler Harman - Lowlife Cycles City/State: Taneytown, Maryland Builder: Tyler Harman - Lowlife Cycles Year: 1977 Model: FLH Value: Priceless Time: 3 months ENGINE: Year: 1977 Model: Shovelhead Builder: Lowlife Cycles Ignition: S&S Displacement: 1340 Pistons: Keith Black Heads: S&s Carb: S&S B Cam: Andrews B Grind Air Cleaner: S&S Exhaust: Drag Pipes Primary: BDL Belt Drive TRANSMISSION: Year: 1977 Make: Harley Davidson Shifting: Ratchet Top FRAME: Year: 1977 Model: FLH Rake: Stock Stretch: Stock Forks: Stock Builder: Harley-Davidson Type: Stock Triple Trees: Stock Extension: Stock WHEELS: Front Wheel: Stock Size: 16 Tire: Shinko Front Brake: Stock Rear Wheel: Stock Size: 16 Tire: Shinko Rear Brake: Stock PAINT: Painter: Tony Nery TCP Cycles Color: Tuxedo Black Type: Gloss Graphics: Letterfly Pinstripe Chroming: Stock ACCESSORIES: Bars: HD 12” Mini Apes Risers: LA Choppers Hand Controls: VTwin Foot Controls: VTwin Gas Tank(s): Fatbobs Oil Tank: Stock Front fender: Stock Rear Fender: Stock Seat: Swap Meet Headlight: Stock Taillight: VTwin Speedo: HD Police Photographer: Debbie Fitch to take the Shovel to Gettysburg Bike Week. There it caught the eye of the Cycle Source Crew and they snagged it up for the feature shoot you see here.

So, keep those memories of what got you into this crazy way of life close. You never know when that “One that started it all” will pop up in front of you. Who knows, maybe I’ll build that candy Ironhead one day. After all, I always pause the movie at that same spot every time I see her. Either way get out there, build something, and we’ll see you at a Cycle Source Event.

or most of my life, I knew little of Daytona, Florida. Most of what I knew was gleaned from f a then-respectable

Tom Cruise in the fictional NASCAR movie, “Days of

Thunder.” The rest was from looking at t-shirts at the local

‘Hot Leathers’ store in Pawtucket, RI, one town over from where I grew up, just outside Quahog.

I got my first look at this aged beach city in late 2001, on the second to last day of my east coast bicycle trip to Orlando. Honestly, it didn’t make much of an impression on me then. I do remember that it to start heading inland and that I’d never seen so much checkered flag print anywhere. Flash forward to today, and I’m getting ready for my 11th Daytona motorcycle rally. I have actually hit Bike Week in the spring and Biketoberfest in the fall, each of the last five years. In many ways, going to Daytona now feels like a homecoming, or at least as much as anyone place can, while living such a nomadic lifestyle. I’ll put it this way, it’s nice to be somewhere that

you know roads, know the shortcuts and know the people.

This diverse little city earned its place in my heart way back in 2017. I was just free from the chains of middleclass conformity, and mostly because of the timing of Bike Week, March, chose it as the destination for a semi openended, motorcycle trip: (which lasted about a month, took me through 30 states, and added 7,500 miles to my 2004 Road Glide). Those uncharted days of newfound independence were good for the soul, but I didn’t know anyone there and kinda felt like a kid in the cafeteria who has nobody to sit with.

I sought out and met Joe “The Wandering Sparrow”, while he was working for J&P Cycles at Daytona International Speedway. I got my first glimpse of his iconic Goldwing, which, at the time, had some 600,000 miles on it, and found my mind wandering to what those miles looked like, what they meant, and what it would be like to be Joe!

That meeting was quick, because Joe was busy helping the crowd of customers, but it left a mighty big impression on me and really motivated me to find a way to make the fantasy of life on the road a reality, just like Joe rallies (which is mostly me running over to see if he has parts that I need for my customers, and which he almost always does!). Eager to socialize with others that shared my passion to ride, I met up with a half-dozen guys that were from a Road Glide group on Facebook. That morning was chilly, but since I had left New England in very early March, I had all the cold weather gear I needed, and thought little about clearing thick frost off of Gloria’s cracked, stock saddle, when leaving camp. I’m still in touch with a few of those Road Gliders, but none more than Chris Schwerdt. At the time, he was a Sales Manager at one of the highest volume dealerships in the world, Space Coast HarleyDavidson, which is about 90 miles south of Daytona. The following spring I kicked-off my first full season of rally work down there. I became a temporary salesman. Chris not only offered me the job and was one of my bosses by day, but he also gave me his family’s spare bedroom, and was my host by night. Those 14 hour days went kind of slow for the first half of the rally, mostly because I sold zero bikes and earned zero dollars. Thankfully, as I got better, the last 5 days moved quicker,

and in the end, I was happy with the money I earned from the 6 bikes I sold.

The Biketoberfest before that, the fall of my fantasy tour in ‘17, was one to remember. After working my first rally that August, out in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, I spent the next 2 months, and every penny I had made, tramping across the best of the west with my new road brother, Bomber Mike Mchone. We made our way back east in time for Daytona, and rendezvous’d with a few others from our camp back in Sturgis. Linking back up with Scorpio, who had been chasing rallies for years, was a key part of these great memories. He was working in the leather shop that used to be setup across from the Boot Hill, and though not sanctioned, we all poached a little piece of real estate behind the shop to call home. I now know what a luxury it was to camp right on Main Street, especially at no cost, and loved being able have as much fun as I wanted with no concern of having to lift the kickstand to go home. Except for the three hours I spent working as an employee for my boss from Sturgis (I had walked by him and was half in the bag. He offered too much cash to say no, so I worked). it was my last major rally as an attendee. In the fall of ‘18 I was devastated I was left in the lurch. After having a taste of working in service I really didn’t want to go back to retail or food vending, so I started making calls. Thankfully, within a day, I was on the horn with AMSOIL Adam Halstead, owner of X-Treme Bikes. Although I had seen him months earlier in Panama City Beach, on the same vendor lot where I met my girl Laura I didn’t actually meet him until Sturgis. As fate would have it, he needed a guy for Biketoberfest and was willing to give me a shot. Thankfully, things went well, and I’ve been with them ever since, draining and filling bikes with AMSOIL, installing Love Jugs V-Twin cooling systems, and doing as much general maintenence as time allows. The spring of 2019 brought with it a real change of pace. After spending the winter with Laura, we hit the road separately, but together. She was in the kidnapper van with travel trailer in tow, and I was on old Gloria. As has been the case ever since, we parked the modest, utilitarian rig on (or near) whatever lot she’d be vending on. Usually we are up in Ormond, across from the Iron Horse Saloon, although

we did spend one October haunted by the ghost of Aileen Wuornos, at “The Last Resort”, in Port Orange.

That first show of cohabitation had a chance encounter best summed up by myself, in a post I made at the time: One morning at about 6AM I pulled back the curtain of that monstrous windshield and saw a very familiar old bike, about 50 feet away. I could see that it had a springer front end, no front fender, and beatup gray paint, but not much more. To confirm my suspicions, I walked over in the dawn’s early light, and found none other than Panhead Billy Burrows sleeping on the ground, under the roof of a small patio. Are you kidding??? What are the odds? It was almost as crazy as the time I went to a random indy bike shop in New Mexico and found Billy sitting out front. After shooting the shit for about an hour, and making plans to get together later, Billy rolled away on his million mile hardtail, and the beautiful Miss Laura and I listened to the radio, enjoying some coffee and breakfast at “home”, soaking in the last few serene moments before 2 weeks of long, exhausting days. Life was good. Since then, I half expect to run into Billy wherever I go, and often think about how there’s hardly any routes I ride that he hasn’t already traversed.

The past few years have included “the end of the world rally, in March of 2020, and a one-time change of venue for X-Treme bikes, who is going into year 13 at the Speedway. Due to the ridiculous state of the country that fall, our home at the Speedway was shuttered, so we found some room at the popular Cacklebery Campground. This cow field, turned festival grounds, knows how to party, but it was an off year for business, as our regulars didn’t know where we were, and the lot isn’t known for its service vendors. It’s always fun to work at the party, right next to the stage, but I’ll take those busy “day lots” over late nights at party central anytime!

For the past couple years Daytona has become routine, but a routine that I love! Now I usually get into the vendor appreciation buffet up in a suite atop the Speedway, which includes trackside access to the Supercross racing, and the chance to walk past the monster fence, and onto that legendary banked track! Sipping a beer on that checkered finish line never gets old!

The Tuesday night block party “at the corner of Good and High”, with so many racing legends, world class bike builders, chill industry people, and diehard bikers, mingling among all the vintage bikes covering the lawn, has become a staple. Likewise, I try not to miss a Thursday at Coeville, where I get the chance to not only spend a little time with the brilliant Steve Coe, but also get to walk wide-eyed through his impressive collection of horsepower in his sleeper of a museum. Being welcome at these long standing, annual gatherings is a true honor, much of which I owe to Billy.

The rest of my Daytona routine, aside from the ten, 11 hour work days, has boiled down to hitting Main Street once or twice to say hi to some bartenders and rally circuit friends, a lot of time all over Ormond, especially at whatever lot is “home” that week, and a few concerts at the Iron Horse. I skip the steak tips, but always visit my friend Walter, who runs a huge sticker shop, and is always really good to this self-admitted sticker slut. If you look close enough, you’ll see some of Walt’s stickers on my bike, going back to early 2018, when we worked next to each other in Myrtle Beach.

Someday, I’ll go to Daytona to spend money instead of make money. I’ll get to finally take in the chopper show at Willie’s Tropical Tattoo, and get to try my hand at the some of the bike games and rodeo stuff so passionately produced by this fine publication. That will not be this year, though, so come find me at the Speedway to say hi, and maybe let us make your bike run cooler, shift smoother, and last longer! See ya in Dirtona!