Only On Hot Bike Web: Ryan’s Ohio Survivor 1953 Harley-Davidson Panhead Chopper
Recently at the swap in Davenport, Iowa, amongst the sea of old guy ‘bobbers’ and way-expensive resto jobs, a cool kid on a cool chop caught wound his way thru the vendor spots, looking for parts and eventually catching my attention. Kids name was Ryan and the scoot he was on was all right, man…You could tell this bike had been thru a lot, both good and bad. I grabbed Ryan and he gave me the scoop on the bike you see here today.
Him and his dad are into bikes, go figure. Their tool guy kept talkin’ about an old Pan he knew of but you know how that goes. It’s hard to track down the guy, even harder to get the guy to actually show it.
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It’s hard to track down the guy, even harder to get the guy to actually show it.
But Ryan’s diligence paid off and finally they were able to take the short truck ride over to an old cat’s house. Ryan said he was amazed at how sweet the bike actually was, like it’d been frozen in time. Funny because that’s exactly what I thought when I saw Ryan on the bike! Guess old dude had ‘sold’ it a couple times over before but each time just couldn’t bring himself to part with the bike he’d had since the 70’s.
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He had ‘sold’ it a couple times but each time couldn’t bring himself to part with the bike he’d had since the 70’s.
Ryan just happened to be the kid that’d finally get to bring her home though and soon him and his dad has some fresh gas and plugs in her and low and behold, the bike woke up from her 40+ years of slumber!
Man, watching Ryan ride this thing around at the swap, you could tell the two were in love. Kid maneuvered it effortlessly through the crowds and junk piles. The whole time a smile was blasted across his face. The bike is 1956 Pan in an old straight leg frame with an original Ness springer running a 21-inch wheel in the front and an old 16-inch in the back. Not sure who painted it but man is the spritz job! True warrior status, man, often copied these days but really hard to beat the real thing!
So that’s it, just a good kid putting’ in work to get an old bike out of the garage and back into the limelight. I’m glad Ryan and his Pops got the bike bug like they do and were able to share this old survivor with us.