Billy's 1972 XLCH

did you know that you can turn two beat-to-hell jet ski’s into one bitchin Ironhead? No? Neither did I, but that’s precisely what Billy Rose did with the machine you’re looking at on these pages. Like many afflicted with the motorcycle bug, Billy comes from a long line of motorcyclists dating back to his grandparents. Maybe it’s genetic? Or maybe, he just wanted to be as cool as his dad, who rode a 650 BSA chopper. At just nine years old, Billy had his first bike, a HarleyDavidson X90, and he hasn’t stopped since.

Fifty-seven-year-old Billy isn’t a professional motorcycle builder. He’s actually a Facilities Maintenance contract manager for Ormond Beach and former lead guitarist and founder of the now defunct thrash metal band Afterlif, who just happens to enjoy building his own motorcycles. Billy’s first three custom builds included a 68 BSA Chopper, a Honda 550 Chopper, and a 1966

BSA Chopper. So this being his first Harley build would make it a little different. Rose traded two jet skis for the 1972 XLCH running donor. Despite the Ironhead being a running machine, it was beyond due for an update. The original plan was to just rattle can paint the frame with the engine in place and swap out the tins. Sounds easy enough. Well, the best laid plans start with good intentions. What actually ended up happening was a complete tear down and ground-up build.

Once Billy got the bike down to its bones, the skeleton sat in that condition for more than a year. Then COVID struck and, for many folks, brought hardships. But during this period, Billy and his sixteenyear-old daughter, Haley, used this time to their advantage. They built a motorcycle together.

Over the next eight months, the father-daughter duo worked together to create a beautiful

motorcycle and memories that will last them a lifetime. Billy fondly recalls when he got the frame back from powder coat. That weekend, Hayley and Bindi, their 13-year-old shop dog, worked to get it into a roller and the motor placed. Bindi (RIP) was a great supervisor and is missed in the garage. Rose says he didn’t have any one singular source of inspiration for this Ironhead but instead put together a multitude of ideas that had been cultivating for years to bring his vision to life. Fortunately, there were no real hurdles for the pair, just lessons learned, such as next time he will fix things during mockup instead of final assembly.

Billy Flash handled the motor work to make sure the powerplant wouldn’t leave him stranded anywhere, and based on the fact that Billy rides this bike more than his other three, I’d say he did a damn fine job. Rose, a man of integrity, was quite honest in

Owner: Billy Flash City/State: Florida Builder: Billy Flash Year: 1972 Model: H.D. XLCH Sportster Value: Time: ENGINE Year: 1972 Model: XLCH Sportster Builder: Billy Flash Ignition: Electronic Displacement: 1000cc Pistons: +20 over Heads: Stock/Polished Carb: Stock Bendix/Zenith Cam: Stock Air Cleaner: Mesh Exhaust: Paughco upswept Primary: Closed TRANSMISSION Year: 1972 Make: H.D. Shifting: Four speed, jockey shift FRAME Paughco Year: Unknown Model: Unknown Rake: 3 degrees Stretch: 2” FORKS Builder: H.D. Type: Stock 33.3mm Triple Trees: Stock/Chromed Extension: Stock length WHEELS Front Wheel: Chromed hamburger drum Size: 21” Tire: Dunlop 404F 80/90-21 Front Brake: Drum Rear Wheel: Size: 16” Tire: Dunlop D404 130/90-16 Rear Brake: Drum PAINT Painter: Del Morte Customs Color: green flake/white pearl Type: cromax ez water based. kustom shop Flake Graphics: Lace, fish scales,pinstriping, etc. Chroming: Lots ACCESSORIES Bars: Custom one piece ss Risers: Custom one piece ss Hand Controls: HD clutch/Custom right side jockey shift Foot Controls: mid.unknown manufacturer Gas Tank(s): Low Brow/axed Oil Tank: Custom Front fender: None Rear Fender: Low Brow Seat: Biltwell Headlight: Aris triangle Taillight: Custom FU Speedo: Offshore marine GPS Photographer: Missi Shoemaker admitting that this project may not have come to full fruition without the help of several talented friends. Billy wishes to publically thank Del Morte Customs for the stunning paint job, Raz’s Mobile Welding, Mike Vasey Engraving, Yogi’s Garage, Florida Choppadero, and Wulfwerks Metal Werks for being part of this build.

what a ride it has been. What a ride. Since leaving my home in Longmont, Colorado, on December 10th, just one day before a sizable snowstorm rolled in and blanketed nearly every major artery in the state, I have covered 10,828 miles. Of those miles, approximately 400 took place on the Interstate. The remaining 10,428 miles were spent exploring some of this country, and

Mexicos, the finest two-lane backroads.

The journey has taken me as far south as Puerto Vallarta,

Mexico, back north to Arkansas, West to Kansas, back to

Arkansas, back south again to Terlingua,

Texas, then West to

Tucson, Phoenix,

Yucca Valley, and

Los Angelas. From

LA, I began working my way north, up the Pacific Coast

Highway, until I reached the end of the road near Neah

Bay, Washington.

From Neah Bay,

I cruised over to

Seattle to spend a week relaxing and visiting family. It was a welcome reprieve from the cold and damp winter weather of the Pacific Northwest.

I left on this trip with the goal of circumnavigating the globe in an easterly direction, which is what I still intend on doing, although I have spent a lot of time going in entirely the wrong direction. The reason for this is simple, I don’t want to arrive in Europe too early, and I’ve got time to kill at the moment. So why not spend a couple of months going nowhere in particular? However, a few days ago, while still in Seattle, I realized that the moment I left Seattle would be the moment I truly started my Eastbound adventure. From that moment on, I would be heading south to warmer weather, then East to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. The excitement of this hit me like a ton of bricks. It felt as though the real adventure was just beginning. Not that everything else hasn’t been fantastic, but this is what I have been waiting for. I’m looking for the moment I only see the sunset in my rearview mirror and am greeted with the rising sun in my face every day until I return back home. Now, sure, there will be some zig-zagging around Europe first, but I feel like that’s sort of splitting hairs

at this point.

Since that moment, that moment where the task at hand never felt more clear, I have been working my way south through some of the most incredible landscapes. The first challenge, of course, was figuring out the best way of crossing

over the mountains, someplace in Washington or Oregon, so that I wouldn’t find myself backtracking the way I had just come. I opted to pound out some miles on the Interstate for my first day. I knew that crossing any pass in Washington at this time of year would be difficult, if not impossible, due to ice and snow. I covered the distance between Seattle and Roseburg, Oregon, with relative ease and opted to call it a day. Desperate to get off the Interstate and over the mountains, I researched HWY 138 road conditions. It started right I where I was hunkered down for the night. Everything I read said it was clear and dry. Everyone local I spoke to said it was clear and dry. A local also told me that it maxed out at an elevation of 3,500 feet, a little piece of information I should have double-checked. As it turns out, the road was most certainly not clear and dry, and it topped off at just over 6,000 feet. I won’t embellish and say that the road was a treacherous ice skating rink, but I will say that there were most certainly patches of ice, snow piled up 4 feet high on the shoulders, and enough sand on the road to make your own beach. But alas, I did manage to cover that 75 miles of white knuckle riding at a snail’s pace, often only moving at 25 mph, relatively unscathed other than some rattled nerves.

As quickly as the roads glazed, they turned back to bone dry. Not a grain of sand, not a drop of moisture. Things were looking up. In fact, things have been pretty fantastic since. The day of the icy pass, I finished in Alturas, California. The morning I left Alturas, it was 18 degrees but again, dry roads, so I didn’t care how cold it was. From Alturas, I made my way to Hawthorne, Nevada, for no other reason than the fact that the sun was starting to set. I checked into a Travelodge that was across the street from the El Capitan Casino, a place that looks as though it was happening in the ‘70s but not so happening now. Through the veil of cigarette smoke, you could just make out the aging faces of those looking to strike it rich with a cocktail in one hand; the other was shoving quarters into a greedy machine. The restaurant inside this time capsule of gluttony served up a mediocre hamburger which I washed down with a Coke. I paid my bill and decided to see how long it took for a penny slot machine to eat a dollar.

After about ten minutes, I returned, one dollar poorer, to my hotel room. That was last night.

The next day has to rank as one of the most incredible days on the road in a very long time. I left behind my Travelodge in relatively warm weather, 36 degrees, and looked forward to the prospect of visiting the town of Lone Pine, California, and the nearby Alabama Hills. This area, in particular, is well known for Movie Rd, which, aptly named, is a stunning stretch of gravel road used in the filming of countless old westerns. I’ve seen images of this road for years and figured this was the day to make it happen. What I did not know, however, and this is becoming a theme, is that my route to Lone Pine would send me over an 8,250-foot pass where the temperature would drop to a brisk 21 degrees. Just as quickly as the road spiked in elevation, it dove back to earth, and before I knew it, I was coasting along with a stiff tailwind and 65-degree temps, which brought feeling back into my fingers. As I pulled into Lone Pine, I quickly topped off the tank then began looking for Whitney Portal Road, where I knew I needed to make a right-hand turn. From here, it was a bit of a guessing game, but after a few miles, I came across a small easy to miss sign that told me I had found the road I was looking for. At this point, the scenery was already incredible, and I doubted it could get much better, but it did. Mount Whitney was the star of the show. I meandered my way across the grated gravel, down the hills and up again, through twists and turns until I found a spot which I deemed perfect for a photo. Fortunately, traffic was nonexistent, so it gave me ample time to park my bike sideways in the road, take a few pictures and take a minute to myself to simply take it all in. You have to remember to soak those moments in.

After leaving the majestic backdrop of Mount Whitney, I started south again until reaching HWY 190, which led me deep into another world. Death Valley. From snowlined roads, frigid temperatures, and mountains dotted with Pines, I was now traveling through a landscape of sand, rock, and craggy brown mountains. I watched my altimeter as much as the temperature gauge. As the day went on, I sank lower and lower into the earth until I finally bottomed out at 245 feet below sea level. The temperature in Furnace Creek was 83 degrees. Death Valley is one of the most fascinating landscapes I’ve been through. There were long straight stretches of road reaching out to the horizon across a barren desert followed by steep, tight, and twisty passes that in turn send you barreling back to the floor at an altitude loss rate, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Simply magical.

Needless to say, it has been a nice start to my Eastbound journey. 8,250 passes in 21-degree temps to 245 feet below sea level and 83 degrees in a single day. I conquered a road in Oregon that I probably had no business being on and stepped back in time at the El Capitan Casino. So, there you have it, that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to. Where I am going next is anyone’s guess, but I know for sure that the compass will be pointing towards E.