Hanson

I write this from Terminal C at Boston International Airport. After three days of living in the land of motorcycles and Bud Light I’m ready to head back to Minnesota.

Friday morning found me up at five AM so I could make an early flight to Boston. By eleven AM the chauffer and I were rolling down I 95 toward Whitman and Hanson, home to Shadley Brothers and Bobby Sullivan.

For those who don’t know, Bobby is owner of Sullivans, one of the country’s biggest distributors of motorcycle and snowmobile helmets and clothing. More germane to my trip is the fact that he also owns one of the world’s largest collections of Triumph motorcycles.

In July we plan to shoot the entire collection, which numbers something just shy of 100 Triumphs. I don’t mean 100 including the parts bikes and the stuff that isn’t finished yet. I mean 100 really, really, really nice Triumphs, starting in the 1930s and continuing right up into the late 1970s.

The Triumph Tree at Sullivans in Hanson, Massachusetts – sketched out initially on a napkin one night over drinks well before the construction of the bigger motorcycle trees at the Barber Museum.

The photo shoot is scheduled for early July, but the scope of the project seemed to demand a planning session. So when the limo stopped at the Shadley Brothers shop in Whitman, I just said a few quick hellos to the Shadley crew before boarding a borrowed Victory and heading off for the Sullivan office and warehouse in nearby Hanson.

First we made a quick mental list of Bobby’s bikes, some of which have to come from the other Sullivan warehouse in Birmingham, Alabama. Next we looked at the parking lot and wondered how it would look from the roof, all the concrete covered in bikes and bikes and more bikes. To do it right, I came back on Saturday, and photographed the parking lot from the roof, so that Ryan Bissett (Ryan is operations manager at Sullivans) and I could photograph the empty parking lot, and determine exactly how big our two-wheeled “canvas” could be.

Upstairs, amongst boxes of helmets and Joe Rocket Motorcycle jackets, is the parts department…… and another ten or twelve Triumphs.

Before leaving Ryan and I walked through the building, photographing bikes as we went. To anyone who walks into the front office at Sullivans, it’s immediately apparent that Triumphs have overtaken the operation. First there’s the Triumph tree in the foyer, then the miscellaneous Triumphs scattered through various offices, and finally, a group of nearly thirty Trumpets in what was once the conference room. The plan for July is to get all these bikes down from the tree and down from the second floor, roll them outside for the Triumph photo shoot of the century. In fact, there will be so many Triumphs in one place at one time I’m thinking we should apply for a Guinness-Book World Record.

Like much of the warehouse facility (and Bobby’s house for that matter), the conference room at Sullivans is now reserved for a group of classic motorcycles. You have to wonder what they talk about at night - maybe the good old days – when they started on two kicks and ran wide open against other Triumphs, and those damned Harley Sportsters.