SMOKE OUT 16, THE RIDE HOME—There’s a buzz in the industry. We are entering a new world of custom motorcycle upheaval. It flies under the blistering Banner of Cycle Zombies, Brat Style, the Smoke Out, Born Free, The Race of Gentlemen, Bonneville Speed Trials, Suicide Machine, Speed Monkeys, LowBrow, Pat Patterson, Jeff Cochran, or you name it. It’s happening, it’s vibrant, it’s vintage, and it’s a blast.
I’m caught in numerous conversations, analyzing trends, looking for clues, marketing numbers, and guiding lights to Chopper financial nirvana. Hell, I just see it as guys having a blast, calling themselves by names from ‘50s tattoos, like Cycle Zombies, Born Free and then running amuck.
It’s different and better in many respects. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was wild and untamed. Any visit to a shop could end up in a fight. Any party could end in a brawl, way too much whiskey, and women were just as wild. A razor sharp edge permeated everything. We were outlaws.
It’s all different now. It’s about the machines and when it comes to the Smoke Out, it’s all about the ride. I just returned from the east coast and the ride from Charleston, SC to Myrtle Beach, and then north into woodsy North Carolina. Some 55 guys rode the notorious Stampede, cross-country blaze this year and some 38 made it across 2,800 miles at breakneck speeds. “I averaged 77 mph,” Brian said, challenging the effort with a 250 cc bike, just to see if it could handle it. He’s a Mopar and diesel mechanic. He could build an Evo with a 10-gallon gas tank and blast across the country none stop, but no… he needed to challenge his mechanical abilities and a dinky machine over almost 3000 miles in a couple of days.
I’ll get back to the Stampede and the Long Road contingent. A flashy portion of the raucous Smoke Out agenda included: drag races, new drifting trike races, mini-bike championships, nitro bike runs, wild bands like Cutthroat and Rebel Son, pinstriping classes by Julian Rossi, wet T-shirt contests, and the maraschino cherries marinated in white-lightening in the campgrounds.
There are amateur chop-offs, Hard Knocks Custom Bikes, Roller Derby with the Columbia, SC Regulators, Anvil Toss, which I failed at, and Painted Lady Contest, which I wasn’t invited back to (something about how I touched the girl last year). The Chili Pepper Eating contest lit up the stage, the big bike show sizzled in the heat with over 85 bikes, and more music on the main stage from Skye Page, Phillip Roebuck and the Koffin Kats. Of course the late night action included Costume Karaoke and just the right amount of whiskey.
When I first dropped out of the sky from LA and arrived in smoldering, humidity-laced Charleston, stories started flying from the law enforcement side. Rich Worley, the boss of American Biker, the Indian dealer in Charleston and the builder of my custom 2014 Indian recently had two trailers stolen out of his open, but camera-covered yard.
A couple weeks later one was returned, and Rich knew who stole the other one. They had his address and documented surveillance of the crime, but the cops were too busy to pursue it—amazing. The Boss of the Smoke Out, retired Army, checked his constantly fluctuating list and discovered his head of security, who owned a carry permit in his state, mistakenly crossed the iron border into New York State where he was pulled over. When asked about weapons, he offered his permit, which wasn’t recognized in New York and he was given 6 months in jail. Incredible, so the head of security was out of the picture.
About this time the cops shot and killed several bikers in Waco, but fortunately it didn’t have any impact on the Smoke Out. Local cops worked closely with Edge and his team. He had a trailer stolen before Sturgis last year. When he returned from Sturgis, the trailer was back with new tires and a freshly painted tongue.
Michael Lichter, the official photographer of the Smoke Out, also encountered a frustrating glitch with law enforcement while trying to rent a Daytona condo for the rally. It turned out to be a scam, but when he let the cops know, they weren’t interested in protecting travelers.
A strange authoritarian cloud shaded the blistering sun as I straddled my Indian for the first time and attempted a stumbling test ride around the massive part gravel-strewn American Biker parking area. (His shop is very sharp and well laid out. Rich has a knack for classic retro interior design. He built his office out of railroad car wooden slats.) I thought the Smoke Out might take on a cop-riddled character, but after the first couple of days, the law enforcement issue never surfaced again.
What did surface was the bustling excitement the Smoke Out generates. On our way to the first party we took a complete tour of the heat wave attacked Naval Weapons station outside Charleston adjacent to the Charleston Port and a tour of the massive harbor area in a very fast outboard-driven pontoon skiff. The captain told us about the new shipment of air-conditioned skiffs to be deliver the very next day and about his new orders to Italy, the lucky bastard, as we cruised alongside the historic USS Yorktown aircraft carrier.
We grabbed our bikes and took off for Suck, Bang, and Blow, a hot spot in Myrtle Beach just off the main thoroughfare, lined with soft slippery sandy gutters, grass and giant snarling T-shirt selling stucco Sharks. The party started.
My 2014, new-to-me Indian Classic ran like a top with just modified exhaust and the S&S super-flow air cleaner. Rich and his team reshaped the rear fender, lowered the rear, and modified the stock bars to match factory bars from 1946. We stripped off anything unnecessary, including crash bars. The bike ran and handled like a top. Hell, even the mechanic complimented Indian designers with building a solid motorcycle with serious thought in the construction and maintenance side. It’s easy to work on and built to last.
As soon as we arrived at the party spot, I met a couple of Smoke Out Stampede competitors. The rapid-fire schedule called for a Military-Service SmokeOut Rider party Wednesday night and a Long Road party Thursday night. Stampede riders Mike Barnett and Eric stood in the blistering parking lot and swapped stories of blowing up a Buell in Vegas, and scrambling to be back on the road within 24 hours. The steamy Buell overheated, stuck a valve, punched a piston, and bent a pushrod in the Nevada desert.
Charlie rode the Stampede cross-country race 10 years in a row, abusing his body hard annually to make the final cut to the SmokeOut. It’s the brotherhood of the Caffeine Camaraderie. There’s not a tighter group of riders in the world, although the Cannonball contingent comes close.
Some of these guys strapped gear on their beat-up bikes jamming west to the undisclosed starting point on the coast, screamed east to the Atlantic at Myrtle Beach, and then north to the finale at the Smoke Out. A handful of the speed freaks planned to relax, drink a couple of cases of beer over the weekend, snort white-lightening, and then straddle their putts for the jam back across the country for Born Free in California. Holy shit, Buckwheat.
I met Dave who is a grandpa and survived eight Stampede runs. He rode four Stampedes on a ’66 Shovelhead and now rides an 82-inch Evo rigid with a Baker 6-speed. “In ’07 while entering Oklahoma I noticed my carb jiggling. My whole front cylinder lifted off the case.”
Charlie, the last year Stampede organizer out of Arizona, rides as ’74 Z-900 pumped to 1050. “It’s all about making it from point A to point B as fast as humanly possible. Peeling through 1000 miles in a day is easy.” They totaled 2815 miles this year.
Behind the scenes, a handful of brothers are planning a similar run next year, but it won’t be connected to the Smoke Out. It will take on a behind-the-scenes mantra, a group endurance run, a secret society, but not a balls-out race like the former Stampedes. Time will tell and shit will smell. The Stampede was all about cops, liability, and horrendous mechanical and physical abuse, but it was a blast, albeit too much on the razor’s edge. They rode pure interstates, like the 15 to the 70, to the 64, and then the 95 south to the 64 West, done deal!
Charlie started hammering away at the age of 57 on the second Stampede when 13 riders started and 13 completed the race in about 43 hours—Incredible. Brian rode his 250 Honda Rebel 175 miles at a stretch, and crossed the line in 84 hours this year. He scored in the middle of the pack. Some guys run 300 miles between stops. Brian rode to the El Diablo Run, then to the Smoke Out.
This event is all about 2-Wheeled Passion, passion for life, for the ride, for custom, art, speed, girls, road and freedom. Plus, we need to discuss the second major ride contingent, The Long Road. I’ll tell this portion of the story around Uncle Ben, the Long Road Organizer for the last eight years. He’s ridden the Long Road for eight out of the 16 Smoke Outs.
I’ve ridden a few Long Roads, once from New Orleans through a half-dozen states to the Smoke Out. “Last year, you ducked out,” Uncle Ben said, “it rained every day. You showed up on the last day and it cleared. What the hell?”
Over 65 riders started this year in Nashville, Indiana, and rode along the Ohio River, which marks Kentucky’s northern border with Ohio, Indiana and Illinois (more than 600 miles).
In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781-82, Thomas Jefferson stated: “The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted.”
They rode into West Virginia on the first night to Milton, and then over the majestic Appalachian mountain trails to Buena Vista (beautiful views) and along Highway 70 E. into Goldsboro, NC for a night at Whiskey Dicks with Curtis, the Wall of Death Owner, and finally to Murrell’s Inlet to the Suck, Bang, and Blow biker bar extraordinaire. The next morning after another world-class party in the burn-out pits, they straddled their bikes for the final blast into North Carolina and the RockingWorld Raceway for the infamous Smoke Out.
This group of diehards campout most every night under the stars and barbecue to their hearts content. “It’s all about the scenery and the camaraderie,” said Uncle Ben. Many of the Long Road riders are veterans and have been on many of these ever-changing adventures.
Smoke Out 16 is about a motorcycling adventure, if you can keep up with the non-stop action.
