I bought a Harley on ebay
And now I had a small problem with how I would get my bike to where I live in the best possible way. First I had in mind to take my car with a trailer and drive all the way and back but that would have taken me 4-5 days. On top of that a ferry trip and driving also adds to the cost. Next I started to contact a number of shipping companies to hear if one could arrange a complete delivery that included pickup of the bike, crating and shipping. That was not cheap! We (my friend and me) then decided that I should come over for a weekend to pack the bike in a box and then arrange for shipping to where I live. How do we then get a box? Both of us did check with a number of bike companies in the UK (including e.g. the Harley distributor in UK) to check if one could buy or even get one of the boxes they receive their bikes in. No luck with that, no one would or could sell or give away old packing material. Without options we game to the conclusion that we will build the box. Said and done, I arranged a cheap flight and took off in October many years ago.
John (my friends brother) picked me up at Heathrow in his Land Rover and then off to Bristol. Once there we decided to pick up the bike from the place where it currently was (their father’s garage) and move it the place where we would build the box. We were to get help with this from a few friends of Mark and John. Two guys, Jim and Martin (who is retired these days), they have a company called Allied Forces Ltd. If you need anything for your 2nd World War Jeep or vehicle in Canvas contact these guys by e-mail alliedforcesltd@gmail.com. The only thing we needed now was a bike trailer, off to another friend of John and Mark and as usual when one is in the UK one runs into nice toys. The guy that had the trailer that we could borrow has built a real cool toy, a trike around a V8. Crueler trike is hard to find and the sound from the pipes…hmmmm!
The guy to the right is John and the one to the left is the trike owner. He has built everything himself, the frame where the engine is parts of the frame is really a nice piece of work. I was really impressed!
When we (or rather I) could take our eyes and hands off the trike and all the other interesting things we talked about we hooked up the trailer to the Land Rover and drove to the garage where the bike was. It turned out to be a really nice surprise, I had not seen it before other in that not so great picture on ebay! The bike was in a really nice condition and I did know that I was getting a number of part with it but not that it was that much. I have double sets of gas tanks and fenders, brand new S&S heads and a S&S carburetor, brand new billet forward controls etc. We loaded everything and drove to Jim and Martin two guys that also have a few toys, just a little bit bigger than most of us have! How about a Sherman tank. The bike was unloaded and I was exhausted after a long day and needed some rest, next day was packing day!
