You never know who you'll meet...

Just a quick story to remind us all how cool the world (and more specifically the people in it can be) if we're paying attention.

So a good buddy of mine (some of you know Russ) is moving out of state. He went to his now former apartment today to finish gathering his stuff. His landlord was there.

Now Russ has known this guy for years, and although he never had a bad word to say about him he never really got to know him personally. Then today they actually started chatting. After a bit his landlord started asking about motorcycles. Eventually he told Russ that he used to race enduro way back when.

Turns out this guy was none other than Husqvarna factory racer and two time national champion ('72 and '73) Bill Kain. All the years he rented the place and despite his love of old bikes, it just never came up.

Pretty cool stuff.

Almost forgot... He showed Russ this old ad too. Notice the mask under the helmet. Apparently he injured his face so he wore a goalies mask as protection, hence the "Mystery Man" moniker. Too cool.

A sad but good story.... too bad he didn't find out earlier I bet Bill could have told some good stories

Exactly ^^

I found a Craigslist add for a roached out xs650 15 minutes from my house. A buddy of mine wanted the frame. I ended up chatting with the guy and he is a rad old endurance off road racer from back in the day. Had a barn full of cool old scoots, but he sold his first husky to Malcom Smith (the "on any Sunday" guy) had the picture to prove it. It's a big yet small world in the vintage bike community.

Very cool story, you need to go visit and have some beers with him and write down the stories.

15 or 20 years ago I was my Dad's watching something on Speed Channel. This was around when Buell motorcycles was starting to gain some momentum and whatever show I was watching was interviewing Eric. I at the time was not familiar with Eric Buell even in the slightest. My dad walks in though and immediately says, "hey, what's Eric Buell doing on TV?" I just look at my dad and shrug basically. My dad says to me, "man, what a small world, Eric Buell used to build Water Buffalos for my DSR on his kitchen table in his mansion that was on Four Wheel Dr. in Pittsburgh." I'm astonished, and my dad just walks right back out of the room like nother ever happened.

I find increasingly with the interenet these circles tend to get even smaller too. You meet so many people online, next thing you know you're at a resturaunt outside a race track drinking beers and hit off good conversation with some stranger only to find out you've talked for years online.