Mr Long Fork - Dick Allen

[Editor’s Note: You may not have heard of Dick Allen, unless you’re a fan of old school chopper history, but he played a significant role in the development of the stretched chopper style made popular by Easy Rider.  Not that he invented the style: Dick Allen’s contribution was making it work, functionally, by sorting the physics of placing the front wheel of a motorcycle several feet beyond where anyone had placed it in history.  The original longer-fork choppers of the late 1950s used rare Harley-Davidson XA forks (a military model with only 1000 built), which was 2″ longer than a stock springer.  That spurred a mania for increasingly stretched-out wheelbases in the 1960s, but most of those early machines, including the Captain America chopper in Easy Rider, handle like they have sandbags attached to the handlebars at low speeds.  Dick Allen, with a little help from ‘Fass Mikey’ Vils at Ed Roth’s Studios, figured out the required geometry to make any front fork handle with ease – with a minimum of 6″ of trail.  Dick Allen began selling his forks through Roth’s Choppers Magazine, and other small manufacturers followed his lead – from Sugar Bear to Arlen Ness – making choppers safe for the streets and easy to handle.  There’s a wonderful interview with Mike Vils in ‘The Chopper: the Real Story’ about all this, including Mike’s experience with Yamaha’s technical team, who rode, examined, and measured his Panhead chopper, before pronouncing it safe, refusing to support a proposed ban on choppers in the USA, and then selling their own chopper-inspired models in the late 1970s and 80s.  Enjoy Rich Ostrander’s tale of Dick Allen.]

Dick Allen started working in a machine shop in 1950 when he was only 13 years old.  He joined the Navy in the mid ’50s as a machinist, and in 1960 after his discharge, he lived in Bakersfield with his second wife.  She was also a machinist, and they both worked out of a small lot behind their house. In 1965 Dick moved to Lawndale in Southern California, and he soon opened the shop that most people remember: 1900 Artesia Blvd in Redondo Beach, in 1968.

My friend ‘Bob’ (the statute of limitations may not have yet expired), went to Dick in 1969 and had him build a 1949 Panhead that early in 1971 became my first bike. My bike had one of Dick’s Harley springer forks extended to 24 inches over, using Ford Model A front radius rods (forged steel), and it was chromed. It was a sight to behold. This was just after Dick started making his own Chrome Moly Springer in 1968, because narrowing existing Harley-Davidson forks was too time consuming. Around 1970 a young man with the moniker Sugar Bear wanted one of Dick’s chromoly forks for his own machine, but because the wait was too long, he went home and developed his own: you know the rest.

Back to ‘Bob’ and that ’49 Panhead; it had a wishbone frame with a huge neck rake and a Hap Jones peanut tank with the sides dished in. The paint was a gorgeous sapphire candy blue with the tank indents and Pearl white. It cost Bob $3500 to have that Pan chopper built back then, you can imagine what it might cost today.  Of course Bob couldn’t leave it alone so he sold it to me for $750 two years later after he had added 6 inches to the front forks and four inches to the top bar.  He also painted it butt ugly green, not to mention the swastika foot controls and a dildo for a hand shift. Even today, Bob can’t be used as an excuse for bad decisions.

Dick Allen was a big man, over 6 feet tall and 250lbs. Friendly and with absolutely zero ego.  He built bikes to ride long miles and look good while they did it.  He was a long hauler himself, and rode with a lot of patch holders [1%er clubs – ed], but he was never a joiner.  He started the South Bay style machine with the four-bar sissy bar because it was needed to store all the equipment he needed to ride to the Midwest and back – including an extra gas tank.

Long distance riding was also why he started using spun aluminum Centerline rear wheels, and the ten spoke ‘mag’ style dragster car wheels, because wire wheels require too much maintenance. It’s also the reason he created one of the first primary belt drive setups; it dipsensed with vibration (no need for a front damper), chain adjustment and oil mess.  Phase Three, Primo, and BDL imitations soon followed, and Dick lost the battle for production rights, even though he was the first.

 

At least he was able to sell licensing rights to EME for the manufacturing and sales of his two-into-one exhaust header pipe and muffler.  He developed the setup to create lower end torque and for ease of maintenance.  He was also one of the first to champion the use of disc brakes on Harleys – a couple of years before the factory itself realized their great potential.

It’s cool that my 1981 FXB Sturgis, (second year, last of the AMF machines) has aluminum spoke wheels, a two-into-one exhaust (styled much like Dick’s), triple disc brakes, a sissy bar out back, drag bars up front and dual belt drives.  It was the factory’s first real custom! Dick was ten years ahead of his time; he incorporated most of his ideas in his beloved motorcycle ’Loco Motion’.

Around 1970 Dick and Leion Daly (a great fabricator who later moved to Texas) started construction of Dick’s first V8 trike.  They built the drivetrain and chassis, and Dick had Ed Roth build the fiberglass body. A few of these were built and are highly prized today.  They were a handful to ride, as you can well imagine.

Dick lost a lower leg and suffered a bad head injury in a nasty bike vs car accident in 1981.  In 1983 he passed due to lingering issues relating to the crash; gone at the early age of 46. He was one of the main innovators of motorcycle products we riders take for granted today, so next time you roll out, spare a thought for those who came before you, and made a lot of the equipment you now enjoy possible.

I want to thank Joe Hurst and Bruce Parrish for the use of their photographs; Joe used to work around Dick’s shop and Bruce painted bikes down the street.  Both rode Dick Allen styled bikes.  See you down the road…