My 1948 Panhead: On Presence, and the World Slowing Down
By Josh Sirlin, founder of Black Bear Brand
People ask me why I ride an old machine when a new one would be easier. The honest answer is that ease was never the point. My 1948 Panhead chopper gives me something almost nothing else in my life does — a feeling of total presence. On that bike, the noise inside me goes quiet. The world slows down. I'm here. I'm alive. The only other place I've ever felt it that completely is skydiving.
Why 1948 matters
The Panhead isn't just any Harley. 1948 was the first year of the Panhead engine — the moment Harley-Davidson replaced the aging Knucklehead and changed the shape of American motorcycling.
The nickname came from the engine itself. Harley topped the new motor with rounded, stamped rocker covers that mechanics thought looked like upside-down cooking pans. The name Panhead stuck before the factory could do anything about it. Underneath that nickname was real progress: aluminum cylinder heads that shed heat far better than the Knucklehead's cast iron, and hydraulic valve lifters that quieted the valvetrain and cut down the endless adjustments. Oil lines were routed internally to tame the leaks that plagued the old motor. It came as the 61-cubic-inch EL and the 74-cubic-inch FL.
There's a detail about 1948 that riders like me love: it was the first year of the Panhead and the last year of the springer front end on the Big Twins. The very next year, Harley introduced the telescopic Hydra-Glide fork. So a '48 sits right on the hinge of history — new heart, old bones. First-year Panheads are prized for exactly that. It's also why the Panhead became the engine of the chopper and bobber movement that exploded in the 1960s and '70s — beautiful, tunable, and endlessly customizable. To a lot of people, it's simply the best-looking motorcycle ever made.
What it feels like
None of that spec sheet explains what happens when the motor lights and I roll out. A Panhead doesn't let you multitask. It demands your hands, your feet, your attention, your respect. You feel every seam in the road. You listen to the engine the way you'd listen to a person — click clack, click clack, the looms of the road talking, or arguing, hard to tell. There is no autopilot. There is no scrolling. There is only the next curve, the wind, the weight of the machine, and you.
That's the paradox that keeps me coming back: the thing that looks like chaos from the outside is, on the inside, the most peaceful I ever am. The inside storm slows. The noise thins. Everything that felt urgent an hour ago falls away, and what's left is just this — this road, this moment, this breath. Presence, pure and undiluted.
I've chased that feeling across California coastlines and Utah's high desert, through winter storms in the mountains where I was soaked to the bone and somehow completely at peace. I've chased it all the way to Japan, riding with builders and friends who understood exactly what I was after without a word of shared language. Mother Nature is my guide on all of it — the thing that tests me and pulls me to live.
Why this bike and this brand belong together
I don't separate the riding from the making. The same instinct that put me on a 1948 Panhead put me on planes to Okayama chasing the best denim in the world. Both are about presence. About choosing the slow, hard, real thing over the fast, easy, forgettable one. About honoring what was built to last, and building things worthy of that standard.
That's Black Bear Brand. Every piece we make is meant for a life lived out on the road — literally. The wax-canvas jackets that have taken desert rain and mountain wind on my back. The denim built to record the miles. Gear made for the ride, not the showroom floor.
If any of that resonates, come see what we build. Start with our jackets and denim, or walk through the whole Black Bear Brand store. Then go find your own version of the world slowing down.
— Josh