FMH Interview with Kevin Baas

Hi, I'm Dennis Santopietro with "Fix My Hog." And with me here today is Kevin Baas. Kevin Baas, teach. Trapper class with Mr. Baas. That's right, that's right. Well, thanks for having us, man. It's been a great couple of days. It's been amazing. It's been fun. You know, I didn't know what to expect and I tell you what you guys just, great crew, great energy, man. It's been a fun couple of days. I've been having a blast. Thank you. And the project we tackled over the last few days was taking this knuckle out of a pan head frame that had better days. 48 pan head frame, chopper era. Everything was wrong with it. Right. Cut up, beat up, broken, cracked, welded on. Bracing put on just to hold it together, not safe. And this is my wife's bike. Didn't like that frame, didn't make me feel well with her riding it. So we finally got a new actual correct knucklehead frame to put this in, and now we've got a good safe solid frame. And she has the opportunity now as the years go by, this little chopper could progress into more of a stock looking bike. Like some of my other ones that we talked about, so. Absolutely. Yeah, the sky's the limit. We're having some fun with this and you know we're gonna get a lot of miles in and a lot of smiles riding together on old knuckle heads. I think so. You know, and it was such a great project for us too. We have been focusing Evo forward for many years now so it's nice to go back in time, so to speak. And for the best way to do this type of project was, I mean, literally taking it all the way down. We went over, you know, if you're gonna buy an older motorcycle, what you should be looking for, we went over once you do buy one, what you need to know. Now what, what did I get into? Oh boy, here we go. And I think what we did over the last few days is show you some of the stuff you will get into. You know, so it's been a great, great project. It's been a great run here at your place. You're a great host. Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. And just a little bit more for our members and viewers, you know, why this era of motorcycle? Why did you get? How did you fall in love with a knucklehead? You know, it started as a kid. You know, my father, he's always had pan heads and my mom rides a shovel head. And so I've been on the older bikes since little on. And my dad had a knucklehead when he was 14. And it's the only bike he's ever sold because my grandma caught him with it when he was 14 and said, "You can't have this bike, you need to sell it." My dad's never sold a bike since that day. Kept them all, but he's never been able to get another knucklehead. So as I was growing up and I got my first Iron Head Sportster and then I built a Pan head, a tribute to my dad cause he had a pan head. But in my head I always felt like, "I wanna get a knucklehead and build a knuckle kind of for dad's last Knuck, you know?" And once I got my first knucklehead motor and I built the first bike on it, just riding it and just the excitement of having an old knucklehead, ' cause they're rare you know? 36 to 47 only. And back when I started doing this, there weren't a lot of younger people in my, you know, and I was you know, in my late twenties, early thirties riding a really cool knucklehead around where most of the other younger generation were riding Evos and new bikes and Sportsters and whatnot. So it was kind of neat cause I'd pull up and I just kind of stood out like, "Wow, look at this guy with this whole, you know, 47 knucklehead, what the heck." You know, that passion just blossomed inside of me and it just spread and I started looking for more knuckleheads, trying to find stuff and I've collected quite a few now, but I just, I really appreciate this era of the Harley bike. I think this is their most, just coolest, most beautiful motor that they've made. You know, this is their first overhead valve motor and it's just, it's got so much history, so many cool things happened in the past because of this motor. And I just, I'm proud to have it. And it's kind of neat because you know, like my early one, my 39 knuckle, you know, the Harleys and the Davidsons probably were standing there and they maybe touched that motor actually personally. So they got a lot of soul. That's what I always say about these old bikes. The new bikes are cool. New customs are cool, but they don't have the soul like an old bike like this. Like this motor had history that we don't even know about. There's probably some old farmer that had it driving around, it could have been a police bike at one time. Who knows where it went and what travels it's been on. And the way I look at old bikes, we're just caretakers. You know, I'm not the owner of this. I'm just a caretaker of this bike because I'm not gonna be here forever. My wife's not gonna be here. My kids, we don't know where this bike's gonna end up. But now that we know that there's a love for these and people want to keep them, and don't want to let them get trashed or thrown away, there's gonna be caretakers hopefully for, you know, ever. This bike will live forever in some way, shape or form. And just to know it was in my stable here for awhile with my wife riding it, and then my sons enjoying it too when they get to be riding it, it's neat 'cause that's got that soul, you know? Absolutely, absolutely. And you've done so many bikes. They've been in magazines. You've won shows. The coolest thing is, you're a teacher in the school. Your school has one. Your students have one. That's amazing stuff to keep another generation into it. You know, my brothers went to vocational school. He's a mechanic. But for motorcycles and Harleys especially, that knowledge base kinda has been lost to a point. So one of the biggest things for "Fix My Hog" over the years too, is I just wanted people to understand the mechanics of their bike. What they should know about it. And you know going deeper into history just gives people another viewpoint. So everything you do with the school and everything you do with the students, it's much appreciated. Thank you, you know. And you're doing a really, really cool job and we hope to do a lot more with you. Absolutely. I'd love to, you know, I'm just passing the torch. And now that some of the viewers can see just a taste of what an old knuckleheads all about, we could look at doing a pan head down the road and maybe a generator shovel and some different things. Iron Head Sportsters, you know. But I think it's fun that you guys were willing to kind of step back, look at some of this old stuff and give us guys a chance to tell our story and share why we love them. And you know why, they're actually, they're reliable bikes if you know what you're doing. You maintain them you build them right, you can ride them anywhere. I've ridden my 47 all the way to California. Week later, I left here a week later, I was in in Seal beach and you know, people thought, "How could you ride that bike that far?" And I thought, well, how could I not. Right, that's what they're made for. I'm not worried about it. I know what this bikes is. I put it together. So yeah, they're fun. You know, it's definitely a work in progress. Every time you always want to be checking stuff on these. They do vibrate a lot and things break. But, you know, general maintenance, a lot of love, and they'll run forever. Absolutely. Well, thanks again for really having us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. We'll do more with you. And stay tuned and watch more and wrench safe, and we'll see you soon.