7 Important African-American Bikers You Should Know
February is Black History Month, so let's look back at 7 important, racers, riders and builders who have may not have gotten full credit over the years for their accomplishments.
1. William B. "Wild Bill" Johnson - Hill Climb Racer and Harley Shop Owner
Wild Bill was born in the 1890s and was known around his town as a guy who had a way with machines. In an old blacksmith shop in Westchester Country N.Y. he opened his own place where he fixed machines, including bicycles and the new motorcycles. An accomplished rider, when the AMA wanted to hold a motorcycle hill climb on a piece of property in his town, the property owner insisted Wild Bill compete. The AMA leadership allowed it, and William B. Johnson was the first African-American man to be granted an AMA card, though he sometimes had to tell organizers he was a Native American in order to race. That little blacksmith shop soon became a full-fledged Harley-Davidson dealership, and Johnson went on run it and ride until his 80s, dying in 1985.
2. Sugar Bear - Chopper Builder
Do you like long bikes that actually work and can be ridden? Then you owe a man named Sugar Bear a thank you. In the early 1970s, he began experimenting with extended springer front ends on the choppers he was building, eventually engineering them with handling and turning circles much better than anyone else's. The geometry of a Sugar Bear front end seems to be some sort of alchemy because he makes choppers that don't seem like they would work by the numbers, but they just do. Why else would people still be ordering custom springers from him nearly 50 years later? You can get yours from direct from him, somewhere in California, at his website.
3. Bessie Stringfield - Long Distance Touring Pioneer
Bessie Smith is one badass woman rider. Born in Jamaica and raised in Boston, she started riding as a teenager in the 1930s, and soon became the first woman to ride solo across the United States. She worked as a stunt rider in carnivals, and eventually visited much of Central and South America, then worked as a messenger for the army during the war and cross-crossed the country another 8 times. She rode all her life, on a string of more than two dozen Harleys, and was still riding in her 80s when she died in 1993.
4. Ben Hardy - Pioneering Chopper Builder
Everyone in the L.A. chopper community knew it, especially in the African-American biker clubs, but the rest of the world took 40 years to discover that Ben Hardy was the man behind the bikes in Easy Rider. Choppers were already popular among a certain group of riders back in the late 1960s, when the movie was being made, but Captain America and the Billy Bike introduced them to the general public and defined the term. Ben ran a small shop out of Los Angeles and had been building bikes for years when Cliff Vaughs came to him with his vision for the movie bikes. Together they chopped up a handful of ex-police bikes and in just a few weeks made a pair of world famous bikes.
5. Leroy "Buster" Payne - AMA Grand National Racer
Even though William Johnson had been competing since the 1930s in AMA events, the big flat track and road race events were still segregated into the 1950s. It wasn't until Leroy "Buster" Payne (holding trophy) was allowed to join the professional ranks in 1952 and race flat track that things started to change. He went on to compete all over the country in road and dirt oval races, eventually racing for the AMA Grand National title. Before 1952, African-American racers were forced to race in outlaw events on non-AMA sanctioned tracks, but just two years later in 1955, Milton Hall and Julius Walker would become the first African-American racers to ride in the Daytona 200.
6. Cliff Vaughs - Civil Rights Activist, Film Maker, Chopper Builder
The other African-American man responsible for the look of the modern chopper, Cliff Vaughs was an acquaintance of Peter Fonda's and came up with much of the story for Easy Rider as well. Cliff was a bit of a renaissance man, writing and making documentaries, traveling around the south on his chopper fighting for equal rights in the 1960s, and later moving to South America to hunt treasure. He did not get the type of payday you would expect after Easy Rider became a huge hit, and he didn't even get much credit for his contributions until the 1990s. You can read a much more detailed account of the whole story here.
7. Tommy "Tombo" Bolton - Drag Racer
Tommy Bolton may not race a Harley, but he still demands respect. As a top-level drag racer, and builder, he was the first African-American to go over 200 mph in the quarter mile on a bike in 1990. He grew up wrenching in L.A. and knew all the big names, like Vance, Hines, and Russel Collins, eventually racing against them all at the age of 19. During his career, he racked up 25 major titles before he stopped to concentrate on tuning the bikes and building custom baggers. You can read more about him, and see his awesome Harley baggers at his Tombo racing site.
For help and guidance on getting your bike running like a champ, check out the how-to section of HDForums.com
