Born Free 4 Part III -Blue Velvet- A South Bay Survior

So I'm headed towards the Ride In Bikes and an older guy says, You're Chris, of MCart, right?" After acknowledging, he continued, "I'm Kerry, I really like the blog, especially reading all the old South Bay stuff." He then explained how he use to hang with Bruce Parrish and Earing Mike in the South Bay back in the late 70's. Then he mentions how his bike was featured in Easyriders (Dec.'89), and that he rode it in today. I told him, "there's a really good chance I'll know it, since I bought a lot of issues of Easyriders around that time.... lets go take a look".

The second I saw Kerry's pan, I knew it and totally remembered the feature.

Later, I went through all my old issues, but was puzzled to not find Dec. '89. Then remembered it had to be in my scrap file. A few years ago too many magazines were pilling up, so I threw out all the old ER's that didn't have enough cool stuff in them to keep.

I figured I would save a lot of room by cutting out anything from those issues that was worth saving and keep it in a reference file. Well, Kerry's Panhead and David Mann's art was probably the only things that made the cut from that issue.

The 2 page spread from Easyriders. There's no way I was going to forget this bike. Especially when you compare it to the kind of bikes that were starting to get featured. Blue Velvet was the name ER came up with, not Kerry.



When I saw Kerry's bike at Born Free, this is the image that flashed through my head. I like the shorter mufflers, tall risers with drag bars, and (since I'm old school), the front drum brake.


Since his bike was in the magazine, it qualified to be in their bike show that year and placed 2nd in it's class. Kerry's looking very late 80's in his B-2 Bomber shirt.


Kerry has owned his pan since '76. Here they be in '78. Sporty tank and up sweeps look good too. Risers were made from Schwinn bicycles until a set of Flanders were found. By the 80's most guys were going back to fat bob tanks and it seems Kerry did as well.


Kerry (center) reunites with a couple of his long time buds, Trav Goldworthy and Paul Laquier. Both of these guys were crew members on Bob George's stream liners in the 70's.

Since Born Free 4, Kerry has kindly sent some very cool photos from the 'old daze' and you can be sure I'll be posting some soon.