Discovered legacy: My first ride on a Harley took me deep into my Grandpa's past

I realized this when a debut spin on a Harley-Davidson teleported me back to my grandpa’s first HD ride decades ago.

The year was 1947, the place was a farm near Maple City, Michigan, and he was 15 years old.

“It was my brother’s 1939 UL 74 with a tank shifter,” my Grandpa Fred Bright told me. “I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I went up the driveway and took off down the gravel road. I definitely wanted one after that.”

My first Harley-Davidson experience — a test of a Fat Bob — is what got us talking about all this. My grandpa has a long affinity for the Milwaukee machines, dating back to the golden age of motorcycling.

By family and moto background, I should have ridden a Hog long ago, but it just didn’t happen. My dad, an avid biker of the Steve McQueen and Bob Hannah era, started me and my brother on dirt in single digits and hatched us out onto the streets at 16. But long before my dad learned to ride and taught us, Grandpa Bright was the moto pioneer in our family.

After that first ride in 1947, he was hooked. It led to him owning several classic H-D’s and a lifetime of motorcycling that influenced my dad, my brother, and me.

Grandpa was part of the glory days of motorcycling when cultural icons such as Marlon Brando and James Dean trail-blazed the emblematic biker look of boots, jeans, and the Perfecto leather jacket. Long before specialized machines, my grandpa and riders of that time took those same motorcycles off-road, too. It was run what you brung for everything: road rallies, hill climbs, or dirt trails. And the motorcycle make that most inspired my Grandpa Fred to ride was Harley-Davidson. After that run on an H-D in 1947, he rode his three older brothers’ Harleys “and whatever was available to me,” grandpa told me.

Then in 1959 he got a tip on a sweet bike sitting dormant, owned by Louie Sleder, the proprietor of Sleder’s Tavern — the oldest restaurant in my home town of Traverse City, Michigan.

“It was a 1950 Panhead with only 500 miles on it and bags. It was a peach of a motorcycle and he’d stopped riding it,” grandpa told me. “So I offered him a dollar a mile and bought it for $500.”

The Panhead soon gave way to his second Harley. “I found a ’54 with a cracked piston but it had a foot shift. I was riding off-road a lot then so I wanted that to keep both hands on the bars. I bought it for $250 and rebuilt the top end.”

“There were no dirt bikes back then,” he said, describing how they rode those now-classic Harleys everywhere. “We rode two-tracks, mud, hill climbs, and crossed the Boardman River.” Grandpa also raced something they called Owl Runs: “They were timed night runs, mostly off-road, with checkpoints for about 10 miles.”

Next up in my grandpa’s garage was a 1961 Sportster, on which he took one his favorite trips: a summer ride with my grandma down to Chicago, up to Milwaukee, and back to Michigan across the big lake on a ferry.

When grandpa was a city policeman, he got to try out my hometown’s first Harley-Davidson police bike in 1962. Over the years, he owned and rode a lot of bikes — Triumphs, Indians, BSAs, Yamahas — but his greatest affinity was to Harley-Davidsons.

“The biggest thing was the sound — they had quite a bark. And then there was the comfort. They were about the best thing you could take out on the open road back then. Many of the other twins and singles rode like a wooden horse,” he said.

There was one more Harley-Davidson my grandpa hoped to own, but it never materialized. “In 1965, I ordered a new Sportster XLCH, waited six months and it never arrived," he said. "Those were hot bikes back then. I think they sold out of them. I couldn’t even find one used.”

Passing it on

"Every year, I could hardly wait for the snow to go,” Grandpa said, describing his love for riding. He passed this on to my dad, taking him to hill climbs and getting him his first dirt bike in the late 1960s.

As a kid, I rode dirt with my grandpa, heard his Harley stories, and even inherited one of his bikes in high school, but it wasn’t one of his H-Ds. By the time I had my license much later, all his Harley-Davidsons were in the past.

All this was fresh in my mind as I picked up a 2018 Fat Bob in Queens, New York, and headed out on the highway of I-95. There is a lot of legacy when you cruise on a Harley. My mind filled with Bob Seger road songs and thoughts of H-D’s debut in 1903 — motorcycling’s equivalent to the Wright Brothers’ first plane.

The Fat Bob is a comfy cruiser with plenty of power on reserve. The big made-in-the-USA twin signaled like a drumbeat of America rumbling below me. The entire H-D riding experience also opened up a channel directly into my grandpa’s motorcycle history and the reasons we ride.

During the two weeks I had the Fat Bob, I called him a number of times. I discovered many things my family and I didn’t previously know. I also learned more about what drove my grandpa’s passion for motorcycles.

“It makes you feel free. You got your fresh air and outdoors all around you,” he said. “You had a handful of power on those old Harleys and when I rode I felt like I was in control of something bigger than myself.”

As you can tell by the past tense, my Grandpa Fred Bright can’t hit the road any longer, but he takes it well. “I miss riding, but I had enough, anyway. I rode all over with some great bikes, Grandma, and some good friends,” he said.

It’s wonderful that my first ride on a Harley uncovered all this family history and allowed us to bond around motorcycles, even if we can’t ride together anymore.

I asked my grandpa which Harley-Davidson, past or present, he’d ride if he could. “I’d want to try that ’65 Sportster that never came through. I really wanted that one,” he said, of the one that slipped away.

Grandpa said he’d also be happy to jump on H-D’s upcoming electric motorcycle. “If I was still riding, I wouldn’t mind trying it, though I know I’d miss the sound,” he said.

So when I do get a chance to ride Harley-Davidson’s futuristic LiveWire, my Grandpa Fred Bright will definitely be the first one I call. I like to think he can still ride vicariously through me. And I bet my two-wheel tales of present continue to bring out more adventures of Grandpa’s motorcycling past.