All Due Respect: Rich Ostrander's 883

For all the cool antique American motorcycles Rich Ostrander has restored, ridden and repaired over the past six decades, there’s a slightly more modern model he holds in high regard. It’s a Harley-Davidson he says never got the respect it deserved. “I’d pull in somewhere and guys would say, ‘I see you’re on your sister’s machine’, like it was a lady’s bike, and it had little to no significance,” Rich says of his 1987 883 Sportster. “I’d always say ‘let’s take the big fat pig you’ve got there up into the hills, and let’s do it’. That 883 would run the twisties like you wouldn’t believe. Not bad for a bike that sprung from the WWII military bikes to Daytona winners to the favorite of the Angels in Oakland in the 1960s, to one of Harley’s longest produced models and best sellers.”

In the hands of the intrepid Sacramento-based motorcycle historian, welder, artist and author, Rich’s 883 served him both as a well-traveled touring machine and a four-season commuter. Currently a well-laid out custom bike, it has more than 150,000 miles on the clock, and it’s in the hands of young Jeremy Loewen who, a short time ago, was more interested in trucks than motorcycles. But thanks to his dad, Mark, and the Fort Sutter chapter of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America, father and son are now deeply involved in the vintage powered two-wheeler community. And that’s how Mark, and then Jeremy, first learned of Rich and his storied Sportster.

Rich is now in hospice care due to a terminal brain tumor (see No Regrets: Rich Ostrander, AKA Dr. Sprocket). Over the phone, we chatted about his beloved Sportster, and he picked up the story of the first brand-new motorcycle he’d ever bought. “It was coming up on my 40^th birthday, and my wife gave me $1,000 to put a down payment on something,” he says, and continues, “and that something could have been anything, but I wanted a Harley. I went to the dealer, and the only thing they had that was in my price range was the new 883, which had come out in ’87. For $4,450 out the door, tax and license included, you could bring it back and trade it in and they’d give you the money on a Big Twin. I never took it back.”

He was enamored with the 883’s stunning all black finish, peanut gas tank, little solo saddle, spoked mag wheels and Hemi heads; this was the first year of the Evo Sportster engine. Off the showroom floor, Rich rode the Sportster 500 miles into Nevada. “I came back, tossed that Harley solo saddle and replaced it with a Corbin Gunfigther. A good move,” he says. “I rode the Sportster every day to work rain or shine, and I toured. For three or four years, I’d roll over Mt. Hamiliton, running to camp at Watsonville KOA to attend the Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. Onward to Yosemite on Highway 120 over Tioga Pass to 395, down to Manzagar and Bishop, then to Lone Pine for the Lone Pine Film Festival.”

Setting the 883 up to tour, Rich replaced the peanut tank with a King Sportster tank, giving him an extra gallon of gasoline. While riding to a Death Valley “D-V” run hosted by Max Bubeck and the SoCal AMCA chapter, Rich met Dale Walksler, then Illinois-based and out West chasing machines for his-soon-to-be Wheels Through Time Museum. Rich relates the tale of how he met someone he says became a very good friend. “I’m rolling down on the 883, and pull up over the top towards Panamint Valley, which is one valley to the west of Death Valley.” Notably, Panamint Valley is known for its use as a low-level training route for military fighter jets, and as Rich says, “I pull around this corner, and all of a sudden, I’m in the ditch. One of the F16s on exercises came along up out of the gulley and I could see the pilot inside and the percussion from the jet motors blew me off the road. I pick myself up and get back on the bike and down the road a piece and I see this beautiful original paint blue and white ’57 Panhead, and I pull in. I walked up to the Pan, and this guy steps up with aviator shades and a bomber jacket on and he goes, ‘Man, you ought to have been here a minute ago, this jet came up through this canyon and stood her straight on its head.’ And I go, ‘Oh, really? Don’t I know it.’”

Rich continues, “We started talking and he gave me this spiel I’ll always remember. He shakes my hand really hard, and he goes, “Dale Walksler, Walksler Harley-Davidson, Mount Vernon, Illinois.’ He asked where I was going and I told him I was heading to Furnace Creek in Death Valley to meet friends for the Max Bubeck Road Run, and he says, ‘That’s funny, that’s where I’m going. I’ll see you down there.’ I got down there later that day and I’m at Furnace Creek with my tent out and everything. Dale walks up and says, ‘Rich, right? What are you doing with this tent out here?’ I told him I camp, and he goes, ‘No you’re not. I’ve got my room for four or five days and I’m in there by myself. You come in and stay the night,’ and he starts picking up all my camping gear and putting it on my bike – and I’d never met the man before!”

While at Death Valley, Rich’s Sportster tank split a seam. John Cameron, an original Boozefigther, had him load the bike into the back of his truck, taking him early in the morning to Lancaster H-D to pick up a new one so he could carry on riding the 883 to the Roy Rogers Museum in Apple Valley, and then the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park before riding Highway 99 back home to Sacramento. Following that, it was north to British Columbia, Canada, to meet friends in the Laughing Indian Riders Club. “My friend Jim and I rolled up Highway 99 to Highway 70 along the Feather River and through to Modoc and Mt. Lassen country where the roads were still covered with snow. We then crossed the mighty Columbia River just west of Spokane and headed to Yakima and into the Cascades on the Fourth of July where we ran into a ‘frog strangler’ rain and lightning storm until we crossed into Canada. We spent a week goofing with the boys before heading south from Victoria Island by ferry to Port Angeles. Down the Washington coast to just north of where Lewis and Clark first viewed the Pacific Ocean. The next night was spent in the Mendocino redwoods by Ft. Bragg and then home to Sacramento.”

His longest ride was across the United States to Bradford, Pennsylvania to visit his father. The 883 had been modified with extra foot pegs so he could move his feet around and a small ‘bar-mounted flyscreen helped keep the wind off his chest. Gear was stowed in large Nelson saddlebags and a Fox tank bag. Saddling up, he rode the ‘Loneliest Road in America’ through Nevada to the Colorado border where he picked up Highway 70 to Steamboat Springs. Next, up and over the 11,330-foot Berthoud Pass, and then east to St. Louis, “Where I called Dale Walksler and told him I was passing through,” Rich laughs. ”He told me to step on it as he wanted me to go with him through the corn fields that night to break in the motor on his V16 Cadillac Coupe he was driving to Chicago for his high school reunion. Since it was the only car he had running, we used it for three days, to go to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Pretty cool!”

After making it to Bradford, Rich stayed a week before starting his journey back west. He stopped at the new AMA Museum and then in Davenport, Iowa for the Blackhawk AMCA national meet at the fairgrounds. What happened next on his tour is an adventure he says he’ll never forget. He told me, “After riding over the Big Horn mountains, that night I stayed in a KOA cabin and the next morning at zero dark thirty I rolled through Cody and entered the east portal into Yellowstone. The sun was coming up over my shoulders and the sky ahead from the north to the south was black as the Ace of Spades as far as I could see. It came to mind that this did not bode well so I stopped and put on all the foul weather gear I had on board. Good thing because a few minutes later it dropped to 21 degrees, and I got hit with 10 to 12 inches of snow.  Everything was white: me, my 883, the buffalo, rivers, roads. I rode out the west portal of Yellowstone and turned south headed to Idaho Falls.”

He continues, “I was compromised, hypothermia had set in, and the clutch and front brake levers were getting hard to operate. I found a diner off the road and turned in. The elderly waitress saw a rider in distress and took me to the kitchen and told me to disrobe to my long johns and dried everything on the ovens. After she fed me a huge bowl of homemade minestrone soup, I redressed and handed her a $20 tip and headed to my machine. She was an angel. Then, I headed south to Wells, Nevada. Thank goodness the storm had passed by while the waitress was saving my life in the diner. Once I got to Wells, I rented my first hotel room of the whole trip. I took a shower turning the hot water on high and settled in for a couple of hours, I was still frigid to the bone. I got out looking like a Maine lobster, but I was finally thawed. I rode back over the Sierras at Lake Tahoe that evening and slept in my own bed in Sacramento that night. A trip well rode.”

After 20 years with the 883, Rich was inspired to build a custom reminiscent of show bikes of the 1960s, often based on Triumph twins. These usually featured rigid frames, metal flake paint jobs, white handgrips and plenty of chrome. Looking around his garage, the Sportster was all he had to hand. Rich had acquired a gold-painted tank for the project, but when an asymmetrical candy-painted Wassell tank came up on eBay, he liked it better and bought it. He dropped the drive train into a Paughco black powder coated rigid frame. The V-twin had been apart to install new old stock flywheels, but Rich says it’s otherwise close to original. Up front, the lower fork legs were shaved, and a tweak bar was added while the tubes were covered with rubber gaiters. A Bates headlight went on, and Rich polished the rough sand cast nine-spoke alloy wheels together with a Moon oil tank. A polished Wassell-style aluminum rear fender topped with a reproduction Crocker taillight is out back with a sissy bar. Rich’s custom exhaust headers are capped with MCM cocktail shakers. To make the primary cover appear like an early tin one, he made his own and powder coated it black. Further modifications included a handmade aluminum chainguard and air cleaner and a Crocker-style toolbox. He also split the cam cover. “There’s about 50 coats of PPG clear on that old paint on the tank to seal it and protect it from the weather,” Rich adds.

Once done, it was back on the road as a daily commuter. To show it off, he rode over Highway 5 to Hollister and then down to Orange County to one of the first Born Free events. It showed well there, but after getting home it took his spine several days to recover from the journey. Around 2016, Rich needed money to finish up another motorcycle project and decided to sell the 883. That’s when Mark first heard it was available, but he missed the opportunity and Jeremy says the bike disappeared for a bit to SoCal.

Time for a proper introduction to Mark and Jeremy: Jeremy’s connection to vintage machines began when his dad participated in the 2014 Cannonball Run on a 1925 Harley-Davidson. Mark rode again in 2016 on a 1912 Excelsior. Jeremy says, “For the 2018 run, dad had two different bikes to qualify for the Cannonball, and he asked me if I wanted to go. At this point, I’d never even ridden a motorcycle. I was into my old ’66 Ford F100 that I drove to high school. But, in December 2016, when I had just turned 20, I took a learn-to-ride course, got my motorcycle licenxe and ended up with a 1980 Suzuki GS550 as my first bike. I rode it daily to work until dad got enough confidence that I could learn to ride the ’25 Harley-Davidson for the Cannonball. I started on a Harley ’45 with a foot clutch and then learned to maintain and ride the ’25. We rode together on the Cannonball in 2018. I had some challenges, but I made every mile of the Cannonball, and it’s still one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. That really whet my appetite for old motorcycles.”

When Rich’s Sportster turned up for sale again in 2017, Mark didn’t hesitate. He bought the bike and worked out a deal with Jeremy, who says he loved the look of the custom 883. He took over the machine late in 2017 and began to ride the Sportster daily, commuting to American River College, where he earned a welding technician degree. Rather opportune, as he rides the 883 hard and has put his TIG welding skills to use repairing bits and pieces of cracked aluminum. “I have no intention of ever changing a thing on the 883, it’ll be exactly as Rich built it and rode it,” Jeremy says.  Rich is sentimental about the machine with which he made so many memories and speaks of it fondly. “It was only $4,450 out the door,” he says. “From the day I bought it, to today, it’s getting 75 mpg. What a life it’s had. And now, with Jeremy, I know it’s in good hands.”