Thousands Turn Out For York Ride

Bike Night is back in downtown York, but not without some questions.

The 14th annual bike night attracted a big crowd — not only in downtown, but also at the Springettsbury Township Harley-Davidson plant.

Chris Thorn of West Virginia tried out a 2010 Harley-Davidson motorcycle at the company’s annual open house celebration. It could be the last open house at Harley if the motorcycle manufacturer decides to close the York County plant. For some Harley bikers, that would be mean no more tours of the motorcycle plant.

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Bad times? Who cares: Trio quit corporate jobs for Harley dealership dream

Wade Fletcher, Brian Glynn and Brad Weber are three longtime friends who’ve seen the country together from the leather seats of their Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Now they’ve embarked on a different kind of journey, one that has changed their lives forever.

Earlier this month, the seasoned corporate executives quit their jobs and took over ownership of Wisconsin Harley-Davidson in Oconomowoc during one of the worst economic downturns in decades.

“Motorcycling is a passion of ours,” said Fletcher, of Beaver Dam, who, until Sept. 11, had been president of the casters and wheels division of E.R. Wagner Manufacturing Co. in Hustisford for the past 15 years.

“We’ve ridden together across the country for a long time,” he said.

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Half car, half bike, it’s the 2010 Harley-Davidson Street Glide Trike

Before I rode Harley-Davidson’s new Street Glide Trike, my attitude about three-wheeled cruisers was that they were geezer machines – ridden by old guys whose backsides were as big as their bikes’. The thousands of dollars riders paid to convert their motorcycles into road-going half-breeds seemed a steep price to pay just to avoid putting their feet down.

But riding Harley’s latest, I learned otherwise. The trike’s attraction is even broader than its car-like width, appealing to the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl (who was the first to get one — as a custom — even before the Street Glide Trike went i to production), the gang-bangers in my Northeast L.A. ‘hood and the guy in the Scion XB who threw a complimentary devil horn from his window less than a minute after I’d taken possession of my temporary wheels.

Powered with a 103-cubic-inch twin-cam engine, rather than the 96-incher on the regular Street Glide upon which it is based, the sporty 2010 Street Glide Trike is the second modern-day Harley-Davidson to be released as a three-wheeler. After a 36-year hiatus from triple-wheeled machines, Harley debuted its Tri Glide Ultra Classic last year, responding to customer requests for a trike that could be purchased off the floor and ready to ride instead of making buyers jump through the hoops of buying a motorcycle, purchasing a kit and ripping the motorcycle apart to convert it. The added benefit of a stock trike: matching wheels, matching paint and a full factory warranty that wasn’t voided by the conversion, all of it for less money.

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