Full Circle

My 1978 Honda CX500

Many years back after getting a headful of rum I stupidly made a deal with a friend of mine to sell him my 1978 Honda CX500, for the paltry sum of $300; and when he showed up with the cash the next day, I ruefully kept my end of the bargain and sold it to him – even gave him a helmet to go with it. The last time I saw that bike he was throttling it up the street away from its former (my) home. The three dead presidents in my hand did nothing to console me.

I found out later he only had it for a few months and despite my admonition that IF he was going to sell it, to sell it back to me, which of course he didn’t. He sold it to somebody else and that was that. I was gripped by seller’s remorse. I never should have sold that bike. In the parking lot, that bike is a pig - but get her out on the road and she turns into a ballerina.

Skip forward to March 2025. My birthday is in March. A friend of mine stops by with a 2002 Harley Davidson Road King, and at first I thought he wanted me to work on it, when out of the blue he says, “It yours.”

What…? A furrow crosses my brow. “What do you mean, ‘it’s mine’” …

This Did Not Compute.

“You idiot; I’m GIVING it to you! Happy Birthday!”

I look very ‘red-neck chic’ in my garage clothes here, but you can clearly see the light beginning to dawn on me that he was GIVING me a Freekin’ HARLEY!!

I was flabbergasted; I mean, what a gift! Love Ya Buddy (We go way back; I’ve known this guy since high school – but HOLY S*IT)!

There IS a caveat to this – it didn’t start. Oh, it cranked fine all right, it just wouldn’t fire. So, me being the inquisitive type (“The Bike Saver”, if you will), I did some digging and found out it needed a new fuel pump and neutral switch.

I also discovered quite by accident that the damn thing had an alarm system on it! I had no idea how the starter fob worked, so in the course of fiddling around with it to start the bike I somehow armed the alarm, and when I tried to stand it up one time it went off – and that sucker was LOUD! Like, car alarm loud! Freaked me out, with this huge bike honking away in the driveway. Thankfully it only lasted for an eternal forty-five seconds. 

‘Okay, so the alarm works…!’ I thought. But it still wouldn’t start, so I got to digging.

See that flash of light blue there...? Yah - that's the fuel pump, buried in the gas tank. A real PITA to get to, but I got it out. I put in a new fuel line and fuel valve as well, put in new injectors in case it was the injectors that were keeping it from firing (which I now doubt, but hey – New is Good!), hit the starter and VROOOM...! She fired right up, but MAN she was loud! That bike damn near shook the ground with that Harley vibration, and when I rolled on the throttle it was like being in a thunderstorm without the rain (if you know, You Know) – but she ran! I had the title too, but on top of repairing all the other bikes I had ahead of it the Harley mostly just sat; and bikes don’t like to sit.

The 2002 Harley Davidson Road King is a huge bike. I thought my 1975 Goldwing was big, but this thing takes the cake! Moving it around the garage was a challenge, because at 750 pounds or thereabouts if that thing wants to tip over, It WILL – luckily that never happened...and it has a car tire for a rear wheel, for Pete’s sake! So mostly I just started it from time to time to keep fresh fuel next to the injectors, and it started every time.

Flash forward to July 2026. Recognizing that I would unfortunately probably never ride it, I put it up on Facebook Marketplace for a sum that I believed accurately represented the bike. A few days later, after a lot of “Is this available” messages that I ignored, I got a message from a local guy named Wesley who said “That’s my old bike!! Let's talk…” Wesley correctly named the previous owner, so I set up a meet with him.

He rolled up into the drive two days later, and I think I was as excited as he was to be reunited with his old machine. Wesley is a hugely nice guy; I was kind of surprised to see that he didn’t bring a trailer, but no need to, really. I had kept the bike well and was glad to see it going to someone who wanted it, especially someone that had a history with it.

Wesley said he’d ridden the Harley until about seven or eight years ago when he got interested in a Corvette. A coworker got interested in the bike and Wesley sold it to him, who got it back on the road and rode it until he passed. The bike then went under the radar for some years until it came to me and the rest is history, as they say.

We shared some pics of his other machines and agreed that the orange Harley was a beast of a bike. I gave him the backstory on how the bike had come to me and asked him what he thought when he saw it on Marketplace.

He chuckled and said “I couldn’t believe it! It was like, ‘that’s my old bike!’” Wesley says seeing the bike again brought back a whole flood of memories; he plans to ride it for a while and “see what happens.”

I was really happy to get his bike back him; it needs to be on the road. I’ve bought and sold a lot of bikes over the years, but this is the first time I’ve ever had a bike come full circle and get back to someone who loves their bikes as much as I do.