Things Change

Things change

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

IT WAS AN IMPRESSIVE SIGHT. FIFTY BIKES or more rumbling down the avenue from the funeral home to the cemetery. Lots of Harleys, but also a few sportbikes, the odd Guzzi and a few BMWs. I was on my KTM 950. The only one in the group, I think. It usually is.

As you might have guessed, it was the funeral of a motorcyclist. A guy named Kenny Bahl, gone at age 75 from cancer. Kenny was a body shop owner and wellknown motorcycle collector in the Madison, Wisconsin, area. You saw him at every swapmeet, auction and bike show, and he was always friendly, upbeat and hot on the trail of some unusual old bike.

I’d say hi to Kenny and he’d tilt his head like an alert bird, and say, “By golly, Pete, there’s a nice R75/5 down at the end of that row. I’ve already got a good one, but somebody ought to buy that thing.”

I met Kenny about 35 years ago when I saw an ad in the paper for a Velocette Thruxton and quickly rode my ’67 Bonneville over for a look. Kenny got there first and bought the bike, which was an immaculate low-mileage beauty in black and gold. I hated to miss out on the Velo, but Kenny was such a nice guy I really didn’t mind losing it to him. I couldn’t really afford it, anyway.

A year later, I wanted to ride out to Watkins Glen with my buddy John Jaegerwho had a new BMW R90S-and realized my aged Bonneville would not be up to the task. So I decided to sell it and buy something newer.

I put an ad in the paper and Kenny showed up. “I’ll trade you a really nice 1975 Honda CB750 for that Triumph,” he said. Done deal; everyone happy.

After that, every time I put an ad in the paper to sell an unusual motorcycle, Kenny showed up. He ended up owning the Bonneville plus my Honda 150 Dream and a square-case Ducati 900SS.

When I finally visited his home, I discovered he had an entire rec-room filled with rows of great or interesting motorcycles. And there, in the middle, was that lovely Thruxton.

Kenny was a good friend of our local Harley dealer, AÍ Decker. The two of them used to ride to Alaska and Daytona together nearly every year-rain, snow, sleet or hail-usually on Harleys.

Decker was a gruff, no-nonsense guy of the old Harley dealer school, when shops had oil-stained wood floors and men didn’t have tattoos unless they’d been in the Navy or Marine Corps and could fight their way out of a Shanghai gin joint.

If AÍ liked you, he was very loyal and helpful. If he didn’t, he might not even sell you a bike. I once saw him turn on his heel and walk away from a pushy guy who was trying to negotiate a deal. He was known, if you got on his wrong side, to be “difficult.”

For some reason, he was always friendly to me, even when I was an indigent, long-haired youth in the Seventies. Maybe because I knew Kenny. On Saturday mornings, we’d sit around Decker Harley-Davidson, drink coffee and talk, with Al’s huge Hound-of-the-Baskervillessized dog at our feet.

AÍ sold me three different FLHs over the years. Even during the red-hot Evo era of long Harley waiting lists, he refused to mark bikes up over MSRP. His local, regular customers came first. All others could take a hike if they didn’t like it.

His shop was small and cramped, and Milwaukee, of course, wanted him to build a big, new, well-lighted emporium.

AÍ just shook his head. “Back in the days when you could barely give a Harley away, I sold every bike they dropped off on my doorstep. Now they want me to spend my money on a big new building. I think it’s time to retire.”

And that’s what he did. After he sold the business, a huge new Harley store was built out by the Interstate. Beautiful place, but not quite the same.

AÍ died a few weeks ago, too. The day before Kenny passed away. He was 88.

Right up the road from AÍ Decker’s shop on Highway 51 was another favorite hangout of mine, Barr Kawasaki. Another small, old-fashioned motorcycle shop.

Bob Barr sold not only Kawasakis, but Ducatis and KTMs, so of course I had to go there about once a week to lead myself into temptation. Over the years, Bob sold me a ZX-11, three Ducatis, three KTMs and an old Honda CB550.

All without one moment of pressure, hype or sales pitch. If you got serious about buying a bike, Bob would go into his office, do some calculations, come back out and hand you a scrap of paper with a price on it. It was always so fair and reasonable you just nodded and said, “Okay!”

Bob stood behind his bikes, too. He was a good man to deal with-as was his son, Steve-and I always enjoyed the low-key nature of their shop.

Last month, I went into Barr’s and all the Ducatis were gone. Bob said he’d had a dispute with the company and told them to take their bikes away. Short time later, all the Kawasakis disappeared. Same story.

I won’t pretend to know what business machinations were behind all this, but a few weeks later Barr closed his shop. Now the building stands empty.

So it’s been a weird summer, a sort of sea-change in the scene here.

Barr Kawasaki and Decker Harley-Davidson were a mile apart on Highway 51, and Kenny Bahl lived less than a mile from both of them. A little triangle of motorcycle activity and good times, all gone.

I cruised through the neighborhood on a ride this weekend and peered in the window of Barr’s old shop. Looks bigger now, all cleaned out. But you can still see sidestand divots in the checkered-flag tile floor where Ducati 916s once sat. And my KTM 950 Adventure.

Down the road, Decker’s old shop is booming again. It houses a nice motorcycle parts place called Madison Motorsports and a good repair shop called Motorcycle Solutions. They just put some sticky new tires on my Honda VFR. Nice people, lots of activity.

So things change and the finite energy stored in the universe moves on and takes new shapes. But nothing-and no one-can ever really be replaced. □