On the Friday night before Greaserama, I rode the Red Shovelhead down to the Record Bar for the Pre-reg party. Planned on getting up super early and ridin into the show to work the gate, but blew a head gasket within a mile of the house. Fuck! At least I made it home. My dad gave me a call soon after and said he was sittin at the bar with a dude travelin from California that needed some help with his shovel. I told him to bring the bike by at 7am and don't be late.
They showed up on time and dude explained that he had ridden this bike from SoCal to Sturgis and back the week before and now was on his way from SoCal to Cincinatti, solo. That's alotta miles for a shovel. He said he wiped out on a gravel road in New Mexico and crunched both exhaust pipes and his leg by sliding into a pole. He payed a dude at a shop to cut the front exhaust and half assed weld a new bend back on, just to get him back on the road. When he met my pops at the bar, the bike was runnin funny and the rear exhaust was still damn near pinched shut. I pulled the exhaust and adjusted the clutch and stuff and dude said it hadn't run that well in a while. Dude was stoked and offered cash, but I thought he'd been through enough and I'm always down to help a fella with the same "shovelhead sickness" I've got. We bullshitted for a while and I asked him if the "FIDO" on his plate was the bike's name. He said he usually just says yes, but told me a crazy story of he and a buddy gettin in a bad situation in the past. They made the best of the situation by saying, "fuck it, drive on!" He said it's kind of a life motto now and it rang true in his New Mexico experience. I was offered lodging in SoCal for life and think I may take him up on that someday. Super cool dude. F.I.D.O.
