Local Harley guru looks back as landmark shop closes

PALMER — Ron Harvey’s love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles was revved at an early age.

“I guess I was brought up early with Harleys at 5 or 6 years old,” said Harvey, owner of Ron Harvey’s Classic Cycles, a landmark Palmer business for the past 16 years. “My uncle had a Harley and I rode on it — and it scared me to death. Then when I got older, I wanted one and my dad said I couldn’t, so I got one anyway.”

That was the beginning of a lifelong passion that saw the former pilot convert his hobby into his livelihood in July 1995 when he opened his shop in the historic Hartley Bros. building at the corner of South Valley Way and Arctic Avenue. It was one of the many memories he relived Friday on the last day of moving out of a shop that was a Southcentral Mecca for Harley riders.

“I love this building,” Harvey said while looking over the now-empty space, complete with its trademark black-and-white checkered floor and outlines on the walls from the dozens of license plates that once were tacked there. “After the Hartleys moved out of here, it (eventually) became synonymous with us. The cops use us as a landmark; you know, ‘you turn at the Harley shop.’”

While Ron Harvey Classic Cycles is closing down, Harvey isn’t completely out of the Harley business. He’s opening up shop at a new location just a short distance away on Maud Road. There, he’ll expand another business he has, which deals mainly in dust control, and keep his tools warm doing work by appointment .

“I’m kind of downsizing, restructuring,” he said. “Two years ago I took a job with a friend of mine in Charlestown, S.C., relating to dust control, and I’ve actually had fun with it. He gave me Alaska to try as an open territory, and it’s been fruitful to the company and me both.”

But that didn’t help assuage some of the cathartic feelings of closing up the Harley shop, including taking down his trademark giant yellow license plate sign.

“I’ve found things I haven’t seen in 20 years,” he said. “There’s some front ends, engine parts and cases. Thousands of dollars worth of parts, everywhere you look. These walls were all closed in and had shelving with parts all stacked up — probably the largest inventory of parts in the state of Alaska for Harleys.”

He also has no regrets, that for 16 years he got to make a living doing something he loves — building and repairing Harleys.

“It’s been a true blessing,” he said. “I’ve been really blessed to come to work every morning, whether I ride my Harley or not, and work on somebody’s bike. It did rather well for a number of years.”

But the last few years, like for a lot of small businesses, have been difficult. Along with the downturn in the economy, Harvey said a few other factors made keeping the shop open full time financially impossible.

“Well, a few things happened. No. 1 was Craigslist, then eBay and, I hate to say it, but once a guy saw a couple episodes of ‘Orange County Choppers,’ he became a bike builder overnight,” he said. “They want to build their own bikes, and (the popular television show) makes it seem easy, that they can do it overnight in their own garage, and that’s not the way it works.”

Add the opening of a new Harley-Davidson dealership along the Parks Highway near Wasilla, and Harvey said he saw the writing on the wall.

That doesn’t mean, however, that his loyal customers and Southcentral Harley riders have seen the last of Harvey. In fact, with the shop already closed and nearly empty Friday, customers were still stopping by for repairs.

Lenny Olson lives in Eagle River, but said he’s been coming to Harvey for about 12 years to work on his Harley.

“Oh, he’s top notch,” Olson said. “There are people I know who have bikes under warranty and they bring them to Ron instead of the dealer. They’ll pay the difference because of the knowledge he has, the experience.”

Olson was on a long ride Friday when a mechanical problem caused him to turn back.

“Ron put my tire on back in April and the belt started getting loose,” Olson said. “I’m getting ready to ride this out to South Dakota and we went for a little ride and got as far as about Mile 90-something up there (on the Glenn Highway). I stopped to check my belt and it was really loose again, so we decided to turn around and come back.”

With Harvey’s help, Olson was soon on his way again with a solution to his loose belt problem.

“Yeah, it was operator error,” he said.

Many who aren’t Harley riders have also been touched by Harvey’s efforts. He was one of the original founders of the Blessing of the Bikes event in downtown Palmer. The blessing has been an annual happening for 12 years, many of them held at his shop.

“I was just one of many people who got together, a group of guys who wanted to do something for Christian motorcycle riders,” he said. “So that’s what we did.”

Looking around the empty shop, Harvey points out the dusty outlines where dozens of license plates once hung.

“Now they’re just in a box,” he said. “You can still see the outline of the license plates on the wall. That one’s from 1937, that was on my granddad’s truck. We had this whole wall with plates.”

What will he do with them now? “I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to put them on eBay or something.”

As he builds his new business, Harvey will continue building and repairing Harleys.

“I’m going to go back to the shop and do by appointment only,” he said. “That way, it’s a one-on-one relationship with me and the customer — that and the dust control, so two different entities on one property. That’s my five-year plan.”

If dust control doesn’t pan out, Harvey can always go back to his Harley roots. He still has that same motorcycle his uncle gave him a ride on that started it all.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.