Anybody here just have a Harley as there only means of transportation?Also anybody living the drifter lifestyle moving around from town to town doing odd jobs basically living on there Harley like back in the day?Interested to here some stories thx
Just Curious??
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I always thought it would be neat to save up enough money and just do it for a year or two. Camp, work odd jobs, but have a few $$ in the bank so I wouldn't starve. May still try to after the youngins get out of higher education. Hell, by then it would be their turn to support me anyway. Right?
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I can't. I got married and I have a kid. Would be fun though. :chopper:
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I liked watching "Then Came Bronson" but didn't want to live it.
I didn't like bugs, camping and being unemployed.
I didn't like bugs, camping and being unemployed.
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Lived like that a long while ago and while I wouldn't prefer it now if circumstances required it I could pull it off...I've been told I'm like a roach, I can survive anything...
Had the bike only for 2 months while the truck wasn't running and I was too lazy to fix it. Truck still isn't running right, but I paid cash for a used car that runs great... still mostly ride the bike though. Only drive 4 wheels when it rains or I have to buy water for the saltwater fish tank. Know anyone that wants to buy a '77 chevy 3/4-ton?
In 75 I had a new FX and bought a 74 Olds, which I wrecked pretty quick. Total loss. Went several months with no car and only the FX. Grocery store was close, so the Appalachian Princess walked up there. Finally, I bought her an old Chrysler for $100. Thing only ran on 7 cylinders and required a quart of oil for every few gallons of gas. She never complained. Man! I love that woman.
I think that life style sounds alot more fun than it really is. It was told to me once tha,t you have a tendancy to try to live with the same amount of security that you were brought up with and the same goes with freedom. it's a scale type thing and we all fall at different points of this scale.
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Yes, from 1991-1994
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I did it for a year and a half....
I pretty much dropped out of life, and went on a little adventure for a year and a half. My first post here in 2003 tells a little bit of the story:
Once upon a time I drove an old Shovelhead across the USA....
Not that I've been such a prolific poster, and I really don't like to be long winded, so I never really followed that story up with any other "tales from the trip" or as my family members call them, "the lost years".
Basically, for a year and a half, I lived on the motorcycle. I saw the 48 states, lots of Canada, and parts of Mexico where most Americans won't go. So for a little while, I got to "live the lifestyle", whatever that means.
I think it'd doable today if you happen to have a job that's very portable, preferably unionized. You'd need to be in excellent health and be physically fit.
Obviously, you'd need to be single, I can't imagine a wife/girlfriend putting up with this for long.
Money of course is the great equalizer - you can solve most of the problems involved in the trip by applying cash.
Unfortunately, as much as I'd love to do it again, my job, wife, and other obligations makes it impossible.
I pretty much dropped out of life, and went on a little adventure for a year and a half. My first post here in 2003 tells a little bit of the story:
Once upon a time I drove an old Shovelhead across the USA....
Not that I've been such a prolific poster, and I really don't like to be long winded, so I never really followed that story up with any other "tales from the trip" or as my family members call them, "the lost years".
Basically, for a year and a half, I lived on the motorcycle. I saw the 48 states, lots of Canada, and parts of Mexico where most Americans won't go. So for a little while, I got to "live the lifestyle", whatever that means.
I think it'd doable today if you happen to have a job that's very portable, preferably unionized. You'd need to be in excellent health and be physically fit.
Obviously, you'd need to be single, I can't imagine a wife/girlfriend putting up with this for long.
Money of course is the great equalizer - you can solve most of the problems involved in the trip by applying cash.
Unfortunately, as much as I'd love to do it again, my job, wife, and other obligations makes it impossible.
I never thought about livin' from job to job and town to town.
But rollin' at the back of the pack with some serious lead and a lot of product has crossed my mind more than once.
Then I go back to my life of wife, kids, sales and management and count my blessings I'm not dead, strung out, or in jail like a lot of the guys I ran with back in the day.
But rollin' at the back of the pack with some serious lead and a lot of product has crossed my mind more than once.
Then I go back to my life of wife, kids, sales and management and count my blessings I'm not dead, strung out, or in jail like a lot of the guys I ran with back in the day.
did that stuff, way back when....
Rode for my only transportation for 5 years (Moto GUzzi...hey its still a V twin, just kinda funny looking...crosswise like) and did the wandering and odd jobs thing to a lesser degree. I wouldn't want to in this day and age, rents are way way higher, low end jobs don't pay that much more, there's waymore paperwork and legal hassle, (insurance for instance, no one ran insurance on a bike in the 60s and 70s) and almost any kind of a job wants references, a background check and on and on. Used to show up at a machine shop or car or bike workshop during the week, tell the foreman my fibs, if he liked me he'd say "We'll start ya on Monday, be here at 7" and if I didn't screw up too badly, I was in. No one cared what was up your back trail. Nowadays, its hard to get a job if you've changed addresses too often, and there's background checks and drug tests to be sweeping floors, and you'd better have insurance on that bike or they'll impound it. There's things you can do yourself, a craft like jewelry making or leather, but you need a stable place to set up your tools, and the marketing is harder than the making. Society has done a real good job of stopping up the cracks where ya might slip through and run free and clear under the radar, as it were. You can't hardly get anyone to pay in cash anymore, and you need a bank account to cash checks of any size, and that gets reported to the State and the IRS....and they'll get you. I sometime s get a sort of bitter laugh when some politician rants on about 'freedom', 'cause there ain't a whole lot of that left around, to my mind. I read an article in Walneck's by a kid, who in the 40s got an old 45, rode across the country to visit his uncle, no license or registration, the cops just helped him along his way, when he got to his uncle's, the 45 was about wore out, so they cast up a pair of pistons(!) and his uncle helped him rebuild it, and sent him home. Kid wouldn't get 10 miles today, and I think its a sadder world for that.
Andrew
Rode for my only transportation for 5 years (Moto GUzzi...hey its still a V twin, just kinda funny looking...crosswise like) and did the wandering and odd jobs thing to a lesser degree. I wouldn't want to in this day and age, rents are way way higher, low end jobs don't pay that much more, there's waymore paperwork and legal hassle, (insurance for instance, no one ran insurance on a bike in the 60s and 70s) and almost any kind of a job wants references, a background check and on and on. Used to show up at a machine shop or car or bike workshop during the week, tell the foreman my fibs, if he liked me he'd say "We'll start ya on Monday, be here at 7" and if I didn't screw up too badly, I was in. No one cared what was up your back trail. Nowadays, its hard to get a job if you've changed addresses too often, and there's background checks and drug tests to be sweeping floors, and you'd better have insurance on that bike or they'll impound it. There's things you can do yourself, a craft like jewelry making or leather, but you need a stable place to set up your tools, and the marketing is harder than the making. Society has done a real good job of stopping up the cracks where ya might slip through and run free and clear under the radar, as it were. You can't hardly get anyone to pay in cash anymore, and you need a bank account to cash checks of any size, and that gets reported to the State and the IRS....and they'll get you. I sometime s get a sort of bitter laugh when some politician rants on about 'freedom', 'cause there ain't a whole lot of that left around, to my mind. I read an article in Walneck's by a kid, who in the 40s got an old 45, rode across the country to visit his uncle, no license or registration, the cops just helped him along his way, when he got to his uncle's, the 45 was about wore out, so they cast up a pair of pistons(!) and his uncle helped him rebuild it, and sent him home. Kid wouldn't get 10 miles today, and I think its a sadder world for that.
Andrew
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If I could do anything I would like to cruise the east coast in the fall. The change of season is awesome back there.
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