Since the trade embargo placed on Cuba 50 years ago, Cubas Harlista’s have had to make do and mend with the Harleys left from before the revolution. This has not dampened their passion for the Harleys and there is still a strong following for Harley Davison in Havana!

Saturdays Rally in Havana was the first of it’s kind in Cuba and saw bikes from all over the island.

Harley Davidson in Havana - 1st Cuba Harley Rally

Harley Davidson in Havana Rally

 

 

Dozens of black-vested Harley owners rumbled into this resort city from across the island this weekend, many riding double with their loved ones, for two days of rock ‘n’ roll, schmoozing, showing off their bikes, and, most important, sharing their mutual obsession with the powerful machines.

“You’re sitting atop the history of Cuba,” said Max Cucchi, the owner of a 1958 Harley. “It’s like being on a bull that wants to run.”

Cuba’s “Harlistas” are just as passionate as their American counterparts, but like the owners of rumbling 1950s Detroit classic cars that still prowl the streets of Havana, vintage Harley fans have had to get creative to keep their bikes road-worthy.

Rally organizers say vehicle registries show nearly all the estimated 270 to 300 Harleys on Cuban roads today were built before 1960. They are what’s left of the estimated 2,000 that existed here at the time of Fidel Castro’s 1959 Cuban Revolution, when they were favored by police and military for their power.

“Normally all the motorcycles you see would be in a museum elsewhere in the world,” said Cucchi, an Italian resident of the island who helped organize the event and is working on a book about Harlistas. “Here people use them to live.”

With no retail sales of new Harleys or parts during the 50-year U.S embargo, tales abound of makeshift monkeywrenching: substituting Alfa Romeo pistons, mounting Volkswagen Sedan wheels and tires, even scavenging residential piping to replace a handlebar or exhaust pipe. According to one story, motorcyclists in the countryside with no way to fix a punctured tire would fill it with grass instead.

“It was tough. The blockade was very strong. There was no possibility to do anything. Anything,” said Jorge Fonseca, a mechanic by trade and Harlista by love. “Those who had motorcycles and were capable of maintaining them were people of great merit, because without any possibilities they kept going with their Harleys.”

Things began to ease in the 1990s as Cuba opened to increasing tourism. Canadian and European visitors in particular have brought in parts as gifts. Islanders’ friends and relatives in the United States are increasingly doing the same as restrictions on Cuban-American travel back home eased in recent years. Import taxes are said to be manageable.

“Right now it’s relatively easy,” said Adolfo Pez, another event organizer. He said he can even order parts online and have them shipped to Canada. “Friends there bring them to me in Cuba.”

But there’s still a need to use one’s wits. Fonseca confessed that while most of his 1954 Panhead is original Harley, the alternator more properly belongs in a Russian-made Ural.

“You know how much a (Harley) alternator costs? $400!” he said on a recent afternoon as he tuned up his bike for the rally, clad in a black Bon Jovi T-shirt and Harley baseball cap.

“The Ural? $15,” he said with a laugh. “$15 — but it works for me.”

A closely knit community, Cuban Harlistas share tools and help each other with repairs. They get together periodically and party to classic rock tunes like Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” rather than Cuban salsa or reggaeton.

There are more than 200 registered Harleys in Havana alone and three clubs, including the national-level Cuba chapter of the Latin American Motorcycle Association.

Some gather each Saturday in the shadow of Havana’s seafront Hotel Nacional to display their vintage bikes, sip rum and coke and trade stories of the garage and the highway. It’s a diverse crew that includes mechanics, tour guides, retirees. Many bring wives and children along.

Even politics are set aside. A U.S. diplomat sometimes shows up with the 2007 Harley he brought to the island. So does the youngest son and namesake of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

At the two-day rally in Varadero, the Harlistas were entering skill competitions like catching hot dogs in their mouths from bike-back and seeing who can ride the slowest without putting his feet down. There were also awards for the oldest, best-restored and most classic bikes, and the greatest distance traveled.

via Cubans Are Hog Wild Wild for Harley-Davidson | Fox News Latino.

With the majority of the 300approx of the bikes in Cuba (200 Harley Davidson in Havana alone), being built before 1960 parts are obviously hard to come by. Cuban Harlista’s used any means possible to keep their Harley’s on the Road. This includes getting parts brought in by friendly visitors to the islands. I’m always impressed by a bikers drive to put passion over adversity no matter what the cost.

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