HIgh Seas Rally Give Away Bike

when I was a kid, every pirate in every movie had an eye patch. I always wondered what was under that eye patch. Was the pirate missing an eye? How did he lose it? Was it in battle? My imagination ran wild with the possibilities. A couple years ago, well into my forties, I learned that pirates would wear an eye patch [not because he lost it in an epic battle] but out of necessity. You see, if one eye is always in the dark, it is easier to acclimate your vision more quickly when you go below deck to get more rum. Oh well…it was fun having an imagination while it lasted! Xavier Muriel lives in the Austin, Texas area and has for most of his life. He’s left a time or two to take a stab at a career in rock n roll, and unlike many others before him, and it actually worked! After more than a decade of keeping time for one of the biggest touring acts on the globe, “X,” as we call him, found a calling greater than the original one, this time, building custom motorcycles. His first ground-up build was purchased almost immediately upon its completion by someone that had no clue “who” Xavier was. To the new owner, the motorcycle had earned a spot in the parking lot of Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, California. Something notable for sure. Since there was space for another build in the one-car Burbank garage behind X’s house, it only seemed natural that another build would commence almost immediately.

Touring the globe in a professional, chart-topping, Grammy-nominated rock band is not for the faint of heart. Almost as quickly as the fire was lit under X’s ass to make the move to LA in the first place, there was an unwavering gravitational pull nagging at the core of Xavier’s soul that lead him to resign his post, on his terms, and follow something that had always been a passion of his…building motorcycles the way he sees them, utilizing the skills garnered over the last two decades of wrenching and riding custom choppers!

Having an extensive network of professional bike-builder friends only gets you so far. A real friend shows you what they know and then leaves you alone to develop your own skills from the talents God implores you with complimented by the skills you develop along the way. Part of building a custom motorcycle (like the one you see here) is having a vision. It isn’t going to work and fire on all cylinders unless you have an eye for design, even if it is only one eye (I just had to sneak another pirate reference in).

If anyone is still questioning the validity of Xavier’s building prowess, I can personally attest to the fact that this is a ground-up custom motorcycle starting with a hand-built frame. Rather than order a production frame from any number of frame builders, the frame for the High Seas Rally build is handbuilt by Xavier and his homie Rick Bray from RKB Kustoms in Fresno, California. The fuel tank started as a shell with no bottom. The top hat bungs that hold the chrome tank skirt were made in his shop by hand and reverse welded using a dental mirror. Xavier estimates having well over 40 hours in machining and fabrication in the tank and skirt alone. The rear fender is from Russ Wernimont modified by X to fit the contour of the Metzeler ME880 rubber mounted to a set of wire wheels from Black Bike Wheels.

The saddle on the HSR bike is handtooled by Curt from Bare Bones, and the seat pan is affixed to one of Paul Cox’s manual Rigidaire seating systems. The HSR chopper is powered by an 80-inch S&S Engine. The powerplant sends power through a BDL 2” open primary to a five-speed gearset built by Xavier that contains some parts from Jim’s USA to compliment what is left of the factory Harley internals.

The electrical system on the HSR is anything but “chopper simple.” In fact, Xavier employed an M-Unit Blue to make all of the requisite components

work flawlessly, and they do! A proximity sensor senses when you are within the proper distance. It controls everything on board using sleek little handlebar mounted switches and can even communicate with an iPhone. An Antigravity battery 12 cell sits nestled in a Providence Cycle Worx fabbed battery box to round out the charging system. As far as the rest of fabrication, the oil tank, mid foot controls, and exhaust were hand fabricated by Xavier.

Everything comes to a screeching halt via Performance Machine brakes, PM hand controls, and grips mounted on Providence Cycle Worx bars and Biltwell risers. The PM hand controls actuate a Speed Dealer hydraulic slave/transmission end cover. The Bel Ray Dot 5 brake fluid flows through Goodridge Sniper II lines and fittings. The turn signals are the new trick little Kuryakyn bullet turn signals that are [almost] easy to miss until they illuminate. The LEDs are brighter than you’d imagine they could be. A standard 39mm front end with Pro 1 black fork tubes is the only real traditional suspension.

Paint is courtesy of The Fast Life Garage’s Jace Hudson. Jace is the host of the Fast Life Garage Podcast and a legendary motorcycle painter. He relies on Paint Huffer for his flake and PPG for his finishes. The chrome

Owner: High Seas Rally City/State: St. Louis, MO Builder: Providence Cyce Worx (PCW) Year: 2020 Model: FXE Custom Value: Unknown Time: 1 Year

Engine Year: 2020 Model: Evo Builder: S&S Ignition: S&S Displacement: 80” Pistons:S&S Heads: S&S Carb: S&S Cam: S&S Air Cleaner: Arlen Ness Exhaust: Providence Cyce Worx Primary: BDL 2’’ Slimline

Transmission Year: 1994 Make: Harely-Davidson Shifting: Foot

Frame Year: 1977 Model: RKB/PCW One-Off Rake: 38 Degrees Stretch: 2” Up 2” Out

Forks Builder: Harley-Davidson Type: 39MM Narrow Glide Triple Trees: Extension: None

Wheels Front Wheel: Size: 21” Tire: Metzeler Front Brake: PM 4 Piston Rear Wheel: Black Bike Wheels Size: 18” Tire: Metzeler Rear Brake: PM 4 Piston

Paint Painter: Jace-Fast Life Garage Color: Black/Silver Metal Flake Type: Paint Huffer Graphics: Traditional Flames Chroming: Dubouis Polishing & Plating

Accessories Bars: RKB/Providence Risers: Biltwell Chubby Hand Controls: PM Contour Foot Controls: PCW Gas Tank(S):PCW Oil Tank: PCW Front Fender: None Rear Fender: Modified RWD Seat: Bare Bones Leather Headlight: Drag Specialties Tail Light: PCW Speedo: None plating is from DuBois Plating in St Paul, Minnesota. The powder was handled by High Point Powder Coating in Liberty Hill, Texas.

The High Seas Rally sets sail from Port Canaveral, Florida, on October 22nd of 2021. It is a seven-day cruise with four port stops and three thousand bikers. One of the cruise goers is going to take this amazing machine home with them… it’s just too bad I can’t win it. Don’t forget your eye patch! “Arrrrrgh”!

This is a new series we will be doing throughout the year in conjunction with the folks at Dennis Kirk titled “Unsung - Dennis Kirk Salutes The Garage Builders.” While there have been many articles in this very magazine about the creations of garage builders, few details about their lives make it into those stories, the history of the men and women who can’t leave well enough alone and what it takes to join the ranks of America’s

Garage Builders. Each of these articles will also include a full-length video interview with the subject. You can find the interview froths month at https://youtu. be/DlHRrvqdS7A, and

I invite you to hear his story in his own words. The following is my interpretation of our afternoon together celebrating the spirit of

Garage Life.

Patrick Maloney, or

Moe as he is known by his friends, is a lifetime scooter bum and a member in good standing of the church of Garage. Growing up in the suburbs of

Chicago, Moe was part of a full house.

DesPlaines is country as hell compared to the

Windy City. He grew up doing what country kids do; riding bicycles, swimming in the lakes, and running around in the woods. Early on, he realized he would be going down the road paved by motorheads. One early recollection could have been a David Mann painting. He was in the family car, staring out the window as a guy on a Harley pulled up. Of course, this infuriated his mother; she could tell how captivated he was. Obviously, this only made the appeal that much more to Moe. While all of his friends were into hot rods and bikes, Moe’s

dad wasn’t really into garage life like most of his friends. I guess they were too busy building the country still. See, most of them were blue-collar, and at the time, much of the infrastructure we enjoy today was being put in place. As it applied to Moe’s dad, he was into telecommunications and put some of Chicago’s most recognizable buildings on the grid. He’d ride the train into the city every day and go about the good work that helped build a nation.

Although Moe had dirt bikes and such as a young man, it would take the Navy to ruin him completely. He joined up right out of high school and got his first bike while in the service. It was a ‘69 Bonneville with a big long Jammer Springer, and six months later, he bought another. Six months after that, he was taking home a Knucklehead roller. It came with Chrome Invader Wheels, A Jock Lid four-speed tranny, and a candy red over gold paint job. This put him on the hunt for a motor, and wouldn’t you know it, right in the middle of a trailer park, he’d find his mill. He bought that knucklehead motor for $350, and that was in 1982. He built that first motor in a shed with no electricity, a Coleman lantern for light. If he needed power, he’d borrow a hundred-foot extension from work, do the job and take it back the next day. Moe quickly began to realize that the Navy ship was a great resource for bike guys. Every ship needs to be self-sustaining, which means a complete welding

and fab shop and a full machine shop on board. After all, once you were underway on a cruise, there was no waiting until you got home to fix or move things. This gave all the guys on the ship a great resource, a bunch of them were Harley guys, and they all helped each other. Those who could weld and those who ran the machines would trade service back and forth. 1986 was Moe’s release date, and he went to work at a number of neat jobs, all that gave him the chance to learn something, and all were the type where he worked with his hands. The first of those was a blacksmith shop. It was filthy dirty work but gave him a crash course in Trip Hammers and forging. Now when I say it was dirty, they had coal delivered by the dump truck as the forges were fueled by coal, considered nearly a lost art in itself today. After a year or so, he bounced around, did some new ship construction, framing construction, and all part of what he called tape measure common cents. Moe figures if a guy can read a tape, well, you can pretty much teach him anything else like the numbers on a micrometer and the dials on a lathe or a mill. Otherwise, he might want to go another route. It was all through this time that he really started to enjoy the community around the neighborhood garage. Each guy had his own setup, but it would be that one place where everyone seemed to gather. Night after night, they worked away on anything that they could roll in, even if it was a project from someone not all of them knew. They were just having fun hanging out in the garage, making it happen. Eventually, Moe made his way to Aviation, where he subbed work for the Navy fixing aircraft on actively deployed carriers. All of that experience came into play when he needed to make broken machines work in the Middle East.

His love affair for naturally aspirated machines doesn’t stop at two wheels, and the car you see pictured is one of his prized possessions. It was a hot rod he built with his son after a trip to the Turkey Rod Run one year. They saw a similar car with a blower with big pipes, slicks, and the whole bit. Moe got the bug hardcore, and in a short time, they had secured the mill, and the project was on its way. Another project that was in the process was the Panhead on the lift. As Moe went over the list of parts, it hit me that this was more than things he had laying around or scored from a swap meet. He actually knows the people, places,

and things that go along with the parts. That’s what makes it all so special to him, the memories that are secured in their iron skeletons. One of these characters was Brother Speed Finlay, oh yes, our very own Brother Speed. It makes sense that they would know each other since Moe was stationed in Charleston, and I think Speed has unofficially been the mayor there for like sixty years. We shared stories about Speed for a good bit of the afternoon, some I had never heard before, like Speeds travels with that legendary motorcycle on the Al-Can Highway.

As the day drew to a close, we talked about the Garage Culture. Moe spoke in almost a regretful way that it seems like it has changed over the years. While so many people are still into it, there is less a sense of community, and now it’s a much more solitary proposition. I would wager this comes down to the fact that most of us can have tools of our own, and we have to rely on each other a lot less than Moe and his buddies; more is the pity. Nonetheless, this makes sense in his life. Many days finds him coming home from work and walking straight past the door to his house to go right to work on his own projects. He calls his shop his living room, the place where he really gets to do what he does. I can only tell you that Moe is exactly the kind of guy we look for to feature in this series based on one thing; at the end of the day, he came right out and asked us why we would want to hear his story……. Exactly!