No suspension, 11 homebuilt horsepower: How not to do the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride

Fortunately, I've had just the thing decaying under a water-attracting tarp on my patio since last fall. It's a 1950 (so the frame stamp and title say) Harley-Davidson S-125, a "Hummer." Between my dog wanting to pee on it and the questionability of the build itself, it was a mess: A Predator engine in place of the original, a 30-series torque converter, and leftover Japanese enduro parts, built for no good reason other than "fiscal responsibility." Imagine a vintage motorcycle attending a frat party, getting super drunk, and spending the night with the local easy-to-ride mini bike. On paper it now has double the power of stock, and with the enduro brakes, it also stops better. It's basically a Nissan Altima with more paint and fewer dents. But this pile is actually insured and has at least one fully inflated tire. It survived a few hundred miles of abuse prior to storage.

73 hours before the DGR

Ambitiously, I come up with a recipe to upgrade the engine to keep with modern traffic, while keeping the internals from entering low orbit. I source a laundry list of upgrades that should net somewhere around 11 horsepower. The parts arrive, so I decide to check compression. Instead, I get a gurgling sound as a viscous goo pours all over my sandals. This is the direct result of the bike's vertical velocity stack and my decision to use a questionable tarp. Son of a [insert redacted vulgarity of your choice].

I walk inside and tell my wife, "That engine has more water in it than the Titanic's swimming pool. I need a new one."

"Just add money, honey," she says. "Harbor Freight is still open."

That's top-tier wifery right there! But that would be easy and I prefer the painful route. My Bengineer — my friend, Ben, who's an engineer, get it? — has a Predator engine that we yanked from my Manco Big Cat, so we make plans to get the Hummer to his house after work.

48 hours, 30 minutes before the DGR

I roll the Hummer into the shop, front tire flapping like a bulldog chewing on a wasp, and park it next to Ben's 1946 Simplex Servi-Cycle that he is taking to the DGR. Ben grabs the more-gooder Predator 212 (which, ironically, was submerged in a Tennessee creek a few years back) and I strip the drivetrain from the frame. Dividing the labor makes these tasks take 15 minutes, but we get to spend the next 45 minutes scraping gasket material. I should've listened to my wife and bought a new engine. With 47 hours to go, the engine block is completely empty, and clean. After plugging the governor holes, we fight the piston rings with a screwdriver to get them back in the bore. The rest of the assembly is unremarkable. Whatever gasket material is left is now going to be permanent. With apologies to Ari Henning, I didn't take the time to watch The Shop Manual episode on the proper volume of RTV it takes to cover pitted metal and old gaskets, but I'm reasonably certain the half of a tube it got will be sufficient. I think I'll stamp the engine, "Built by morons who didn't consult a calendar."

We mount the comically large, forward-facing intake manifold to the engine, say three Hail Marys coupled with a silent prayer to Poseidon, and set the engine back in the frame to check clearance. Miraculously, my eye-chrometer was spot-on: The carb doesn't hit the tank. However, my 20/400 vision missed that the throttle cable won't reach the new carb now. Ben pulls it from under the tank and has me carry his 120-pound anvil over to the bike and I watch him make a Harley throttle cable work with a slide carburetor. This dude is a wizard. It's perfect, except for the cable flapping next to the tank. That is a problem for future Scott.

34 hours before the DGR

After work, I make the 40-minute commute home, kiss the dog, and pet the wife before heading back to the shop. By the time I get there, the Bengineer has the engine mounted, converter belt on, and the chain adjusted. It's time to swap the front tire and then to break in the cam and tune the carburetor.

We pull the front wheel off of the bike and somehow manage to get it onto his tire changer. I had previously used my superior negotiating skills to click "Buy it Now" on eBay to score a Lien Shin 3.50-18 tire that probably dates back to the Reagan Administration. Old tire off and as we are about to install the tire my palm impacts my forehead with the same sound as a fastball hitting a catcher's mitt. Rim strip? I forgot. Ben, being resourceful, grabs the electrical tape and the laughter continues as we wrap the rim. This is definitely on-brand.

We get the tire on and the tube installed with minimal fuss. This might actually work. We "wired up" some lights, and wound up using a rear brake light switch from a Kawasaki KLR650. Seems legit.

Earlier in the day, I had consulted my magic 8-ball, (AI, shoutout to Skynet) for some baseline jetting, so we start there. Now the sun is setting and we have to tune it, and we also need to break in a camshaft. Keeping with the theme, we do what every rational owner of Chinese engines on vintage American motorcycles does: reckless application of throttle. Four wide-open pulls on a no-outlet country road got our jetting sorted and an indicated 55 mph. The intake was ice cold and the bike sounded like a big thumper. Time is up. We don't even take time to wash it. Ben rips his Simplex down the road to make sure it still does what it's supposed to. As he rolls off the throttle, some loud pops come from the exhaust. I'm sure that's normal.

We head our separate ways for the night because tomorrow my Pepto Bismol-pink three-piece suit gets picked up from the dry cleaner. You read that correctly. Facebook Marketplace is dangerous, folks.

40 minutes before the DGR

It's 7:20 a.m. Sunday. A sand-colored, Ivan Stewart-striped 1980s Toyota flatbed dually arrives at my house with both bikes loaded. I exit my front door, in a very pink three-piece suit, light-pink Sperry shoes, flamingo socks, and the cheapest pocket watch I could find. Even a new battery didn't make it work. Ben starts laughing from the driver's seat. Carried by the wind, I hear, "What in the world?" from a neighbor enjoying her coffee on the front porch. Don't ask me, lady. I don't know, either. I get in the truck and we point it west towards downtown Cincinnati.

It's DGR time!

We park at Friendship Park along the Ohio River, where it's free. We pull in and drop the bikes off of the truck without issue. Except for one issue: Ben's fuel cap is leaking slightly. Eh.

Ben does his best Superman impression, squeezing into a vintage, baby-blue tuxedo about a half a size too small, complete with a royal-blue tuxedo T-shirt underneath and white New Balances. That's weird, I don't remember him buying a Corvette. A nice lady approaches. We spend a few minutes laughing and taking pictures with her before we finally set off for the DGR. Now seems like a good time to mention that during all the testing and nonsense, at no point was I in the saddle of this bike. Perfect.

Away we go, weaving through downtown, by the Great American Ballpark and Heritage Bank Arena. The road is damp, the bike is tiny, and I'm not. At stoplights, my right leg is freezing from the intake manifold and my left is roughly the temperature of a nuclear detonation. The bike is low, loud, and visceral. This is, in a word, involved.

DGR participants are a dapper group, looking like extras from "Peaky Blinders." Ben and I are closer to Harry and Lloyd from "Dumb and Dumber." I'm sure we look like a mobile gender reveal.

Looking splendid in cap and tails, ride co-host Aaron Maas says, "I was supposed to be the most outrageous one here, and then I saw you two riding up the street! You win!"

As we mingle, two questions recur: "What is on Ben's pants?" (remember the leaky fuel cap?) and "Why those bikes?" Valid questions. Ben could've ridden his Moto Guzzi, I could've ridden my Harley-Davidson Electra Glide. Would anyone remember us riding those? Would we even remember riding this ride on them?

Just before 9:15 a.m., we get the ride brief from Aaron and co-host Dave Osterday and fire up bikes. The symphony of nearly 100 motorcycles idling in the gorgeous Sunday morning air is surreal, right until the moment my left butt cheek takes a dive. I look down. One of the springs under the seat, the closest thing I have to rear suspension, has fallen off, miraculously avoiding the sewer grate I'm parked on. Ben jumps off, wedges the rogue spring back in there, and we laugh. I am going to feel every pebble and ant I run over since I'm scared to lift my weight off the seat. I look briefly at the Bengineer's saddlebags and hope we don't need the tools inside. Here we go.

The group heads through downtown to Fountain Square, the heart of Cincinnati. This is a very historic place, and the city graciously opened the square to allow us up on the pavilion area. One by one, riders get some iconic photos on their bikes with the beautiful fountain in the background. Ben and I elect to take our shots together, and I'm sure people think we are a couple. Whatever, I'm the big spoon.

Ben decides to do Ben things and ride down the steps to find shade, as the rest of us bake before the square vomits us back onto the road. We filter into East Walnut Hills, with me bringing up the rear as I'm still learning how to ride this junk. Somewhere on Victory Parkway, Ben's throttle cable leaves the chat, so we peel off and stop. Between both bikes, we have one working brake light, and it's not his. He quickly makes a cable adjustment and we open up the bikes to catch the group. As we weave through the city, we enter the Oakley neighborhood and come rolling into the historic 20th Century Theatre. We hop off the bikes and Ben almost immediately gets to work plugging the rear tire on a gorgeous yellow Ducati Monster as we hang out for a bit and snap a few photos. Mid-conversation, I pull out my non-functioning pocket watch pretentiously to "check the time." Wait, this works now?

By the time we reach French Park, I am desperate to hop off. My Soviet-era seat is actively delaminating and the brand-new pokey bits are pinching my nether regions in a manner that would have Human Resources filing paperwork. We putt up the steep hills, swerve to avoid a stalled three-wheeler so Ben's bike doesn't burn up its belt and we pull into the lot at MadTree Parks and Rec, a brewpub at the end of the ride. In a rare moment of clear thinking, I have stashed my Jeep and trailer in my office parking garage nearby, staged the night before, so our ride is done and beer is very close by.

I walk into the restaurant alongside a very experienced rider who rode a beautiful blue 1962 Harley-Davidson FL with his glorious gray mullet in the wind. I bask in the elegance of his mullet and the gravelly resonance of his voice as he says, "What are you drinking? Anyone who can survive that ride, on that bike, deserves a beer on me."

Friends, it was a MadTree Amber Ale. And it was one of the best beers to drink while wearing a pink suit on a Sunday. It was all worth it.