My 1989 FXRS - Carley.

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My fifth motorcycle - a 1989 FXRS (Carley)

Finally, on August 18, 1989, I made the jump to American Iron. Yes, I was the proud owner of a brand-new Harley-Davidson FXRS Low Rider. I paid $9,700.00 for her. Chick's H-D was so anxious to "get rid of her" (to make room for the new model year), that they threw in $1,000.00 worth of extras just to take her off their hands. She had 27 miles on her the day I drove her off the show-room floor. As of this writing she has over 208,000 miles on the odometer and still runs like a dream.

Here's what Carley and I looked like 2 weeks after I drove her off the show-room floor. At the time this photo was taken I was in a photo shoot taking some promotional band pictures anyway, so I simply pulled Carley into the studio and had the photographer snap off a couple shots. Too bad you can't see more of her. She's bone stock in this picture right down to the cheezie, plastic side covers and exhaust crossover tube.

April 15, 1991 a person we shall call "moron" pulled out in front of me causing damage to my beloved. As luck would have it, the accident occured less than 2 miles from the Harley shop. Once I saw that the tow guy (we'll call him "moron #2") was going to wrap a chain around Carley (that's her name), I decided to shake off my minor injuries and ride her to the shop myself. The looks on the employee's faces as I pulled into the parking lot were pretty funny. I still have the dented front wheel if anyone needs a good 21" tire and hub. I remember Carley had 33,002 miles on the odometer the day of the wreck. Note the turn signal still works...that's quality! Here are some pictures. (Click on any image to enlarge)

Here's some pictures of Carley as she was getting fixed up (note the new Wide-Glide front end!). In the first picture (taken June 30th, 1991) Carley's donning her new Wide-Glide front end, but still dons the old rear fender and gas tank.

This picture (taken in mid-July) is the finished version with all of the new sheet metal. I had her painted "the blackest black that ever was."

Below is a picture of Carley all packed and ready to hit the road. Notice the clever use of the milk crate and the even cleverer (tm) use of the p-pad doubling as a back rest.

In September of '91 I had 2 weeks off from touring so I decided to take Carley for a little putt around the U.S. and Canada. The trip started in Albuquerque and went to Phoenix, San Diego, up PCH to the Redwood Forest, then up through Oregon, Washington and into Canada. From there I hit British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan down into N. Dakota, S. Dakota then over to Colorado and back home. What a trip.

This next picture is of Carley and myself on Malibu beach, California. Whomever was riding on the p-pad musta taken the picture.

This next picture is what Carley looks like today. Most noticeable is the new paint scheme. More subtle is the fact that she's about 1.5 inches lower. I designed the paint job myself. I call it "Re-entry." It was painted by Jon Eric Ebia, a good friend of mine. I must say he did a fine job. Jon's paint job was about 10 years old when I took this picture. Carley had logged almost 195,000 miles.

Click on image for information about Carley's dual headlight setup

I would like to make a comment about the rear Progressive Suspension shocks. In November of '03, while riding home from visiting a friend in Las Vegas, N.M., one of the shocks broke. The shocks were over 10 years old and had over 150,000 miles on them. Wanting to replace the broken shock, I called Progressive Suspension to see where I could purchase such an old model of shock. I really liked the way that model performed and I was having no luck finding it at any of the shops here in Albuquerque. A salesperson at Larry's Custom Cycles suggested calling Progressive Suspension directly. Progressive's representative asked me to ship the old shock back to him at the factory. His comment was, "Progressive shocks should never break." Less than 2 weeks later a brand new pair of the exact same model shock arrived free-of-charge. So I choose to endorse Progressive Suspension shocks on my website.

This page is up as of March 14, 2005 - 4:PM and was updated July 27, 2005 - 3:30 AM.

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