#73 Sean Kohmescher

Sacramento, CA

1948 Harley Davidson FL

Born in Fairfield, Ca and raised in Oklahoma on route 66 hence the significance of this route.  My parents never had much money but my dad used to always talk about wanting a Harley.  He would always point them out.  We would always stop and chat with anyone who rode.  I was always working when I was young as my parents always did.  I started a mowing business pushing my lawnmower equipment through the neighborhood.  At 16 I had a car and a trailer to grow my business.  At 17 I put a deposit down on a 1992 Sportster when demand surpassed supply.  It arrived in 1992 when I was 18 years old and I paid $5200 cash for my Sportster.  Wanting a larger bike 2 years later, I sold my bike and bought a 1973 FL which I stripped down and installed white wall tires.  I was later at an AMCA show in Oklahoma City, OK and saw an Azur Blue restored 1948 Panhead.  I was in love.  I sold it by 1973 and with the help of the Panhead owner, I was able to piece together a hodgepodge 1948 Panhead.  I stripped it down and repainted, rechromed, and built a bike that looked like the one in the AMCA show.  I moved to San Diego, traveled  around the world, moved to San Francisco to graduate from SFSU.  Then I worked in marketing 50-60 hours a week and decided if I was going to work a lot, then it should be working for myself.  I always loved working in the cafe business in San Diego, so I decided to open a coffeehouse in Sacramento, CA.

Eight years later, I needed to sell my motorcycle and car to have the funds to start building my shop myself while working in the local coffeehouse.  6 months later I opened on November 1, 2005.  Many people knew my story of selling everything including my 1948 Panhead to open my growing business.  The local motorheads always like to talk about motorcycles or car racing.  11 years later, a good friend named Phil called me on the phone to tell me that he thought heard there was a 1948 panhead on a porch in Truckee, CA.  Knowing that most bikes are just pieces, I told him to send me some pictures.  Yes, from the best I could tell, it was a very original 1948 Panhead in black.  With small talk from a lady named Susan that acquired it after her father had passed, I drove with Phil and a van in hopes that all the numbers would be correct and matching.  The bike was partly taken apart but was all complete, except missing one floorboard.  Due to it being up 6 flights of stairs on the porch, I had to call a moving company to come help carry it off the porch.  I went to work on the bike, putting it back together and some serious cleaning.  Later Dave Kafton and friends helped go through the bike that had sat for nearly 40 years.  With the motor being unrebuilt and tired, it was taken to the local builder Dunkin Keller to go through the engine and transmission of the nearly all original 1948 Panhead.