"Live to Ride" Patchwork Leather Biker Jacket — Vintage Americana (As-Is)
"Live to Ride" Patchwork Leather Biker Jacket — Vintage Americana (As-Is)
Somewhere outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the summer of 2001, a man named Dennis pulled off Route 66 at a gas station, bought a Coke, and decided he wasn’t going back.
He’d been riding since 1987. The jacket had been with him since ‘92 — a patchwork leather he’d picked up at a swap meet in Dayton, Ohio, from a guy who said it belonged to his brother. Dennis never asked which brother. He just paid the forty dollars and put it on.
Over the next nine years he added the patches himself. The eagle went on first, center back, big as a dinner plate — Live to Ride arcing above it in orange and red. Then Route 66. Then Loud Pipes Save Lives, which he believed with his whole chest. Then Proud to Be an American, which he got the week after September 11th and never took off. Then Let’s Roll, same week, same reason. On the front: If I Have to Explain… You Wouldn’t Understand, which he considered the most accurate sentence ever written. And Live to Ride again on the chest, smaller, in red — because once wasn’t enough.
He rode from Tulsa to Albuquerque that summer. Then up to Colorado. Then east again, through Kansas, through Missouri, through Indiana. He slept in the jacket twice. He wore it in the rain outside of Springfield, Illinois, and it never fully dried until Memphis.
At some point the zipper gave out. Dennis didn’t fix it. He said a jacket that zips all the way up isn’t really a biker jacket. He said that with complete sincerity.
The jacket eventually made its way to Michigan. How exactly is unclear. Dennis is unclear. The whole story, honestly, is unclear.
Or I guess all of that could have happened. We don’t really know. But it is missing the zipper.
Details
- Black patchwork leather biker jacket
- Back patches: Live to Ride eagle, Route 66, Loud Pipes Save Lives, Proud to Be an American, Let’s Roll
- Front patches: If I Have to Explain You Wouldn’t Understand, Live to Ride
- Side lace-up detail
- Multiple zip pockets
- As-is — main zipper is non-functional
- Sold as found — vintage condition
Sold By
The Foundry
Downtown Pontiac, Michigan · Historic Riker Building
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