Lost & Found

Tragedy Turned Around As A 1975 Shovel Comes Back Home

Back in the 1980s this bike was originally built by Kenny Flack, the owner of The Hog Shop, which was a small bike shop in Spring City, Pennsylvania. Kenny specialized in building big motors, and this was a bike that he built for himself. The 1975 Shovel motor is stroked with a set of big-bore cylinders, and the pistons are gas ported to provide a little more compression. The heads were machined, ported, and polished on a flow bench built by Kenny. The motor is sucking in air through a modified super B carb with an accelerator pump off a Holley carb. Then, for a little extra kick, a nitrous bottle strapped to the side. The tranny had gears back cut to stop any slipping out. The frame is a Jammer attached to an early FX front end.

normally build clean, kick-only old-school choppers with the heavy metalflake paint that one might call flashy, which resulted in my last build devolving to its very own hater and later named “Cupcake.” When I was invited to Artistry In Iron for the second year in a row in Las Vegas, I wanted to throw a curveball at the competition I feel like in order to compete in these shows you need to build a Knuckle, Pan, or even a Shovel to get anyone to look So I did the oppo-

Iormally and you site and decided to use an S&S 111-inch Evo, Baker six-speed, and a BDL open belt drive to make a ground-pounding badass hell on wheels combination.

My friend and I used to hang out at his dad’s repair shop in our teens, and his father had a ’70s metric Pentagram wheel hanging on his wall I was always drawn to. Years later I couldn’t get it out of my head and knew I had to do something about it

After all the smack talk

After all the smack talk about Cupcake I thought “The Hate Machine” was an ap- chose to my the with Moos, Babineau, called Forever Two Wheels propriate name for the new bike I chose to keep my head down and let the work do the talking, since that’s really the only thing that matters anyway. After discussing ideas with my friends Ray Tourigny, Chris Moos, and Kevin Babineau, we came down with a solid game plan for the i h d dli b ild

I own and operate a motorcycle service shop in the small town of Windham, Maine, called Forever Two Wheels. I started FTW in the late summer of 2013 parts to after leaving a tech position at an H-D dealership in New Hampshire I do everything from oil changes, repairs, parts to custom bike builds, and one-off fabrication. Fixing motorcycles pays the bills, but building custom motorcycles is where my h i .

Kenny had the bike on the road for several years then tore it apart for a rebuild, when an unfortunate swimming-pool accident left Kenny virtually paralyzed from the neck down. His shop and all of its assets, including this bike, were sold through an auction. The bike was bought by a friend of his who actually left the bike in Kenny’s hands. Being that it was in pieces and he was no mechanic, the bike sat for several years and remained in Kenny’s garage.

I was introduced to Kenny through a mutual friend, and after several pleasant encounters he showed me this beautiful machine still sitting in his garage. It was love at first sight, and I knew we had to get this bike back on the road.

With some mechanical coaching from Kenny, I spent the next couple of months putting the ’75 back together. I was in my early 20s at the time and just getting started in bike building.

Once the motor and tranny were back together, and with a little tweaking here and there, the bike was ready to go. After adding a gallon of airplane fuel and some kicking she fired right up! I ripped around on the bike for several months while working on other bikes in Kenny’s basement, which we eventually turned into a small shop. Ultimately, the true owner of the bike (who bought it at the auction) wanted it since it was now running great. Sadly, it left my hands.

I threw the idea out of doing the star profile downtube to Chris and he made it happen The downtube had to be machined at an offset, so when it was cut at 45 degrees on the bottom it was a perfect star shape After Chris’s friend Gary spent four days machining the downtube, it showed up by UPS only to be tossed on the floor by the delivery guy, which bent a point of the downtube and it had to be c i . blocks,

Jim Quinn killed it machining the star profile axle blocks, stainless exhaust end caps, and Pentagram wheels I give him a lot of credit, as my no-talent drawings are t bl

My partner in hate, Ray, worked beside me on the Cupcake bike and didn’t hesitate when I asked him if he wanted in on project Ray halfway through building tank this project We kept joking around saying we hated everything we did on the bike After Ray was halfway through building the one-off aluminum gas tank I think he really started to hate it.

After frame

After the frame was built I reached out to Kris Klein in Iowa for one of his signature Girder front ends It was a no-brainer. They are truly badass, and the lines matched the wheels perfectly I sent out the aluminum tailsection for Curt at Bare a

CHOPPED | 1975 HARLEY-DAVIDSON FX

I moved on and started working for Cycle Stop in Norristown, Pennsylvania, thanks to the owner, Bob Holmes, who has had it since what seems like the beginning of time.

A few years later, with some wheeling and dealing the owner, I finally ended up buying it. I freshened the bike up, put in a new ignition, and it was back on the road again. Over the years she has been on and off the road but still hasn’t changed much. She is still lean and mean. HB

KENNY VIRTUALLY PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN. HIS SHOP AND ALL OF ITS ASSETS, INCLUDING THIS BIKE, WERE SOLD THROUGH AN AUCTION.”