Marine’s Fan Club Rebuilds His ‘68 Harley
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Kristen Majercin wanted to do something special when her husband, Mike, returned from a tour in Iraq Oct. 25, and she spent the past eight months anxiously working on the surprise.
The night Mike and 300-plus other servicemen and women returned to Hawaii, she made the big reveal: Waiting in their Kailua garage was a rebuilt 1968 FLH Harley Davidson.
For the past 20-odd years, the bike has traveled from port to port or sat idle in storage as the family changed addresses to keep up with Mike’s job.“It was always one step forward and two steps back,” Mike said of his earlier attempts to restore his motorcycle. “I would get called to duty and have to put it in a corner, then it wouldn’t run.”
“It was a giant rust ball in the beginning,” added Kristen. Now instead of hiding cramped behind boxes and dust, the two-wheeler that shares the same birth year as its rider is ready to hit the open Hawaii roads.
“I didn’t even think that was my bike,” Mike recalled. “I thought Kristen had bought me a brand new Harley because she had just gotten so sick of looking at my old bike. Then I started looking closer and realized she had restored my old Harley.”
Mike’s new bike isn’t just a labor of grease and sweat; it is one of love and support for a U.S. Marine who has always put others first.
“We would put money away each year to rebuild,” Kristen explained. “But other things, like something for the girls or for the house, always came up. Now it’s time to give something back to him.”
Daughters Alicia, 11, and Meghan, 8, helped pick out paint and parts that would make their papa proud. Grandma and Grandpa even got in on the action by hunting down rare parts on the Mainland and shipping them over to Hawaii.
With additional help from Mark and Ben Deacon and Steve Foster of Pro-Street Custom Cycles Hawaii, and Dennis Mathewson and Mark Chiu from Cosmic Custom Airbrush, Kristen was able to restore the bike in record time. She said an overhaul job such as this usually takes a minimum of a year to complete.
They were able to cross that finish line in just seven months.
Mike looks forward to having more time enjoying his hog - he has plans to retire in a few years after 21 years of service. But for right now, he’s settling back into home life with his family and his new toy.
“This story can sound like we’re a big biker family, but we’re very far from it,” he explained.
“That’s what made it so shocking for me! This is the furthest thing I would expect from my girls.”
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