No Fear
Mike Hicks’ Improbable Volusia

There are two sound reasons why certain people (say, those closest to him) were skeptical about Mike Hicks getting back into motorcycles a couple of years ago. To understand at least one of them, let’s return to the days when Mike was a tyke.

Growing up on a bucolic horse farm in rural Ohio, Mike led a charmed childhood. When he wasn’t tending to chores, skipping down the road, or fishing in the creek behind his parents’ property he could be found astride a pony, blissfully galloping through the grass. Times were beautiful for young Mike back then — that is, until he turned 10. To celebrate his decade in the sun, he was given a rip-snorting 50cc Bultaco minibike. “I really loved that thing,” he says. However, it wasn’t long before Mike and the Bultaco had a little incident.

Under the cautious eye of his mother and father, our green hero was cranking down a straightaway in a peaceful horse pasture. “I forgot that I had to let off the throttle to stop,” Mike recalls in a moment of wonder. “So, I was braking with the gas on and ran smack into a fence at about 20.” The Bultaco stopped short, and Mike got launched. “My parents thought I was dead.” But no such luck. The boy leapt to his feet, exclaiming, “Cool! This is so awesome!” He then ran back to his bike, hopped on, and blasted off. “No fear,” Mike says. “That’s still the way.”

Maybe it’s the sense of confidence in that last statement. Who knows? For whatever reason, Mike readily reveals that his parents still worry about him riding a motorcycle, even though he’s now a respectable 38-year-old father of two. Although Mike’s wife, Julie, shares the same concern as his parents, she faced other problems when her husband bought this 2004 Suzuki Volusia LTD.

“I ordered it and put the money down before telling Julie about it,” Mike admits. After that good move, Mike then took his wife for an innocent outing to the local Suzuki dealership. “I told her that I was just going to show her a motorcycle that I really wanted.” Julie stood back as the shop boys cracked open a crate to reveal the brand-new Volusia. “It was perfect,” Mike swoons. “Exactly what I envisioned.” Julie was less than thrilled.

The pair talked it out for a while. Finally, Julie pulled through with a generous curveball. “She said, ‘If you really want it, get it’,” Mike recalls. “I told her, ‘Good, because I already bought it.’ That was the longest car ride home I’ve ever had with her. She wasn’t happy.”

Off to a winning start, Mike wasted no time in taking delivery of his Volusia and bringing it home. That was when the real trouble began. You see, though he’s handy with electronics and computers, Mike doesn’t profess to be a very mechanical person — something that Julie was well aware of as she watched him gently dismantle his days-old motorcycle. “She really freaked out,” Mike says. “She got even less happy.” Ah, but little did Julie know: The worst was yet to come.

Those initial tinkerings during the summer of 2004 proved to be only step one in Mike’s master plan. “All the dozen or so aftermarket accessories I added in those first months, I ended up stripping off and selling that fall,” Mike states. He knew that bolt-on bits would not ultimately create the cruiser of his dreams. “I’d been looking at bike magazines and going to as many custom shows as I could. I really wanted to step it up, and I knew what that meant.” So, he stripped the Volusia down to the frame and ripped off the forks and rear end. Only the guts of the motor remained untouched.

“My wife was going insane,” Mike laughs. “She’d have a friend over, and they’d come into the garage. With parts lying all over the floor, they’d stare at me in a state of disbelief and say, ‘Isn’t that a new motorcycle?’ Some people who haven’t been around bikes simply don’t understand.” Well put, Mike.

With his beloved Volusia in shambles, Mike went about implementing his plan. He adored the classic lines of the LTD and wanted only a bit of fabrication done. Most of his ideas had to do with powdercoating, chrome plating, and paint. The real trouble was where to turn for help.

In his home state of Connecticut, at least, Mike had a hard time finding custom shops that would work on anything but Harleys. “It was so frustrating,” he sighs. “But that’s their business, I guess.” Finally, Johnny Moore of Fat City Cycles in Middletown, Connecticut, came to the rescue. “He welcomed me with open arms,” Mike raves. “So, I loaded my parts into my wife’s minivan and made the 45-minute drive to Fat City.” For the next two months, that journey became Mike’s Saturday ritual, as the Fat City cats worked their magic on his bike’s hardware. And, as even a quick study of this Volusia will indicate, that was quite a bit of magic.

When it came time for paint, Fat City had a simple suggestion: Take it next door. There, Mike met the wizards at Air Power Art Studio, and told them of his vision. “A classy-looking flame job, with skulls of some sort,” Mike requested. Ah, yes. What’s a bike without skulls? In this case, a single skull on the air cleaner cover, with flames rippling through one eye socket and a smoking bullet hole piercing the forehead, sent just the right message. “It represents my wild side,” explains the genuinely mild-mannered Mike. “My wife still rolls her eyes at it.”

With metal and tin ready to go, Mike packed the minivan and headed home to his motorcycle fort — and an uneasy feeling of solitude. “It was just me, my garage, and a ton of parts,” Mike says. “That’s when I got nervous about the whole venture. Would I have to hire someone to put it all back together? Should I rent a trailer and take the mess back to the dealer? Do I take it up to the top field and just shoot it?” It was shaping up to be the winter of Mike’s discontent.

Trembling and near the edge, alone in a personal hell of his own creation, Mike suddenly had a thought. “I was going to get this bike together no matter what.” Enter the Internet, specifically a site called www.volusiariders.com. “I found a lot of help searching their archives and asking questions of other Volusia riders,” Mike says. He also printed out online microfiche with detailed specs and drawings of how everything on his bike went together.

Within a matter of weeks, Mike had his Volusia up and running. “Nobody could believe it,” he says. “It was so satisfying to realize that all the hard work, coupled with the uncertainty that I would ever get it completed, finally paid off. People really appreciate the bike.” In fact, it’s a regular show winner.

One can almost imagine the 10-year-old Mike bursting out. “Cool! This is so awesome!” And then, considering the huge shadow of doubt under which Mike triumphed, “No fear.” RB