10
RenegadeMagazine.comthought I heard the name Stanley but didn’t want to be too
presumptuous. After some time went by, I finally got up the
nerve to ask one of the guys who this was and he told me
it was Stanley Miller! I then proceeded to tell Stanley how I
met and knew Bob Gage and told him the whole story.
The other guy’s jaw dropped and said “You mean to tell
me you have remembered Stanley’s name for all of these
years?????” Yep, when it’s that important I will remember it
FOREVER! Well, guess what? Stanley told me the kicker
of the story was that Bob finally found out why he was dying-
he had some sort of gas leak in his house. The other kicker
was that if he had known that he wasn’t going to die, that he
would have never sold his K model!
After talking with Stanley (later finding out that he is pretty fa -
mous and some sort of celebrity in the bike world) I asked if I
could take a picture of him and his bike. He told me I could as
long as I promised not
to publish it in a maga-
zine nor put in online. I
assured him I wouldn’t.
He then asked me to
sit on his bike so that
he could take a photo. Since I was already there, Gabe went
ahead and snapped a shot as well. Well, I never published
the photo and won’t BUT the shot of me on Stanley’s bike did
make Wrench Magazine last year!
Funny how things happen, huh?
Speaking of things happening, IT has FINALLY happened- I
got my first piece of hate mail! And of course it was sent
through an anonymous email provider using a fake name. I
have to say I have nothing against people not liking me or
even sending me hate mail, but PLEASE be sure and send
me your REAL name. When I mentioned this to Beatnik over
at Easyriders/Wrench, he assured me that I MUST be doing
something right to be worthy of receiving such an anony-
mous piece of literature. He told me that he got continu-
ous laughs from all of his hate mail, stemming I believe from
some songs he had written. Good thing I haven’t mentioned
some of the songs I have written, right Scharf?!
As history tends to repeat itself, I guess I really shouldn’t be
surprised. The whole time I spent in high school, the teach-
ers hated me and tried to send me to drug rehab. My bosses
have hated me; even my own parents hated me, which is
why I decided to disown them many years ago.
Sometimes my whole life seems like a movie… I’ve been
kicked out of a hardware store for “being too opinionated”,
I have been detained for over an hour in a store for using
coupons, and I have taken an unemployment case to the
Supreme Court (and won). I won’t even mention the time I
almost went to prison.
Chris Gibbany
Old Iron Never Dies!
when I started designing it what color I wanted it to be and
never told one person what that was. I hate that I have to be
like that but when history repeats itself, especially with a se-
lect group of people, it really leaves me with no other choice.
I have kept the Knuckle a secret for almost three years. Most
people don’t even know I have it so letting this photo out in
Renegade is very EXCLUSIVE!
Even though I color my own hair, I actually got to get my
hair professionally colored pink about 10 years ago by using
free gift cards that I received while couponing. Everywhere I
went people made fun of me, just like they did when I was 16
and had pink hair. It didn’t take long before the idea started
catching on and other women started coloring their hair. It got
so annoying that when they went pink, I went purple. When
they went purple, I went back pink. Hell, I even had some of
these women come up to me and comment in regards to me
changing colors, commenting that THEY were then gonna
have to change colors!
Others started asking
me what color I was
going to do next. One
woman, after attend-
ing one of our bike nights, showed up the next week with
purple hair. After that I started keeping my hair color “moves”
a secret and never did tell them how I managed to get my
color to last for over six months!
I seem to be great with keeping secrets. I kept some photos
secret for over a year so that a national magazine could use
them. If there is one thing (make that three) that I am good
at, it is keeping secrets, keeping my word AND remembering
important shit.
I was at a discount store once wearing my shop shirt and
this guy kept staring at me. I noticed him several times in
the aisles and he finally asked me if I could read a label on
something. When I went to check out he got behind me and
after seeing that the back of my shirt read “Ride, Wrench,
Repeat”, he made a comment that it was driving him crazy,
so he had to ask what it meant. I proceeded to tell him that
my husband and I ride and build old Harleys, so he told me
he had a 57 FL. I said “Yeah I have a 56 FL”. We then went
outside, struck up a conversation for about an hour and he
gave me his phone number and address. He told me his
name was Bob Gage.
Next time we were in his neck of the woods we went by and
seen him. He told us how he had been on his deathbed
and up until that time he had owned the 57 Panhead and a
K model for 30 some-odd years. He ended up selling the
beloved K model to his neighbor who had always wanted it.
The motivation that the new owner possessed in trying to re-
store the bike helped to keep Bob’s spirits alive. He literally
credits this guy for saving his life....
So when I was looking to buy a Knucklehead, probably about
five years ago, Bob told me about this guy down in Texas
named Stanley Miller and gave me his number. I never
called him but always kept the info in my head.
While a bunch of us were standing around last year at Just
Kickers in Oklahoma, this old guy rides up on a Knuckle. I
“Ride, Wrench, Repeat”
RenegadeMagazine.com11