More on the ST165

As you may or may not recall Flathead Rob and I assisted in the restoration of a 1958 Harley Davidson ST165 last year. The bike was purchased new by his wife's Uncle Wally.

I really grew attached to the bike while working on it for three major reasons:

1) The bike is a somewhat rare example of a time when economical did not equal cheap. Some of the elements that were designed to be inexpensive but functional and durable are sheer genius
2) Uncle Wally and his family are amazingly cool
3) The bike was incredibly original and had the sort of history you just die for in an old motorcycle. Add to that the fact that countless Seattle area kid's learned to ride on that bike.

 That's not to say the bike was just a toy though. Wally used it as daily transportation for years.
Rob ran into Wally's wife/widow at a family event recently and she brought along the original owners manual. We're really thankful she did as it's just a feather in the cap of the bike's history.

If you look closely at the handwritten maintenance notes you'll notice that in November 1975 (just a tad shy of it being 20 years old) the ST165 had 20,000 miles. The majority of guys I know who own HD Road Kings don't put 1000 miles a year on them...