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Remembering BJ
Young Beattie tips his helmet to a mate who helped to sort his ground-breaking 2003 Australian Harley Homecoming Tour, when several hundred Aussies and their bikes dropped in on the USA
(Ed's
note: These are excerpts from young Beattie's book on
some of the more colourful incidents in an action-packed
life. See the end of the piece for more info.)
Pic: at top is BJ, at left, with Beattie.
Published October 2025
"It’s alright, mam, he’s gone now. You’re safe. He can’t hurt you anymore,” reassured the deputy as he surveyed the chaotic scene.
As I stepped off my Wide Glide, I could see the flashing lights of the police car and a line of car headlights that stretched down the road and disappeared around the corner a couple of hundred metres into the distance.
The Volvo station wagon had obviously taken a big hit, its grill a crumpled mess and bonnet concertinaed back to the windscreen, which had a basketball-sized hole in the middle. Obviously, some serious carnage had taken place.
It was dark and getting cold as I approached the steaming, crumpled wreck. I’d just passed through fashionable Carmel on my way to Big Sur near the start of the curly stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, which winds its way from San Francisco to LA. On either side of the road were tall stands of tall redwood trees, the whole scene lit only by car headlights and the flashing lights of the police cars and an ambulance.
I had Mistress Alicia, Harley Homecoming Tour disciplinarian and manager, on the back of my bike and I could just make out an elderly lady inside the Volvo, grimly gripping the steering wheel and in shock.
“His head came straight through the windscreen!” she was telling the cop, staring out through the holed windscreen and still traumatised. “He was right here inside, with me! I thought he was going to kill me!”
“Sir, can I ask you to please step back,” said the officer firmly as I approached. “This is a traffic accident scene. You need to move on.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the crumpled remains of a Harley, lying awkwardly in the roadside ditch not far from the front of the Volvo. Its headlight was still on and as I looked closer, I realised I knew the bike.
“Mate, that’s BJ’s bike, where the fuck is he?” I demanded.
“You know the rider?” asked the officer.
“Yeah, it’s my mate BJ. He was a few miles ahead of me. What’s happened? Where is he?” I pressed, now seriously concerned for my mate’s welfare.
“I think you need to talk to him,” said the officer, leading me over to the bike. It was then I saw my mate lying in the ditch a couple of metres from his Harley.
“BJ! Fuck mate, are you hurt?” I said, leaning over him as he lay on his back grimacing and holding his right wrist.
“Yeah, think I’m fucked mate!” he managed as he tried to stand. “These fuckers want me to leave the bike here and go to the hospital. I told them no way. If I go, the bike goes with me,” he said, struggling for breath and clearly in pain.
BJ and I first met a couple of years earlier when he
dropped into my office in Melbourne.
“Hey mate, name’s BJ. I’ve been reading about your Homecoming Tour and I’m in. Sounds like way too much fun. Where do I sign up?” And so, he became our first confirmed tour member and over the following couple of years was a regular visitor to our house, where we’d enjoy a beer or two and discuss plans for our coming adventure.
As the tour departure date approached, I eventually signed BJ up as a member of our uncrating crew, helping to unload and prepare the bikes for two months roaming the highways and byways of the US.
BJ was a long-haul truckie, who spent large parts of his time on the road crisscrossing Australia in his immaculately maintained and rare American Marmon big rig. It was a sight to behold, its glistening metallic blue paint complimenting its acres of shimmering chrome. Together with his Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, it was his pride and joy
Standing about five-foot-ten, he had the build of a human wombat, his shaven head topping off a solid frame that was invariably swathed in faded jeans, weathered work boots and a tattered, sweat-stained singlet. His gravelly voice completed the picture of a man hard to the core, but beneath BJ’s roughened exterior was an incredibly generous and genuine bloke with a ready smile, who I was to get to know as a good mate and great partner in crime.
He was very intelligent and articulate bloke, too, and had an opinion on everything, from religion to politics and all things in between. He was also well-read and could quote Greek philosophers and Confucius at the drop of a hat. Throw in a bottle of Jack Daniels and BJ would keep you entertained for hours.
BJ had a particular distaste for authority – more so if it came in a uniform. Which didn’t help given his current predicament, as he berated the cop for not taking care of his bike.
“Mate, at least turn the fucking ignition and fuel off before it fucking explodes!” erupted BJ, still struggling to get to his feet.
“Sir, I suggest you watch your mouth. You may be hurt, but I can still charge you with threatening behaviour,” cautioned the cop, who was clearly not impressed.
Obviously in a lot of pain, BJ for once seemed in no mood to argue. Eventually, an ambulance arrived and as he was loaded up and stabilised, I promised him I’d make sure the bike was taken care of. Soon a tow truck arrived, and I had him drop off the bike at our campground a couple of miles further along the highway.
The next day in the hospital in Monterey the full story of the previous night’s crash emerged. With darkness setting in and BJ keen to get to our campground at Big Sur, he pulled up at a bar only a couple of miles from his destination to get directions. Pulling back out he reverted to the Australian side of the road in a particularly twisty section of the PCH, only to confront the on-coming Volvo a couple of corners later.
“I was going a bit hard mate. Reckon I could smell the beer waiting for me at the bar,” smiled BJ, lying in bed with a plaster cast on his wrist and numerous other bandages and dressings where his body and head had impacted the Volvo. The most serious injury was a broken pelvis, which the doctor said was split clean through.
“Technically, your friend could probably give birth,” was his graphic description. “He won’t be leaving here for at least a couple of weeks and will need full bed rest for at least another month,” he added.
“Bull-fucking-shit!” was BJ’s typically blunt response.
“Just get the bike back to San-Fran and I’ll take it from
there,” he said as I bid him goodbye. Given the tight tour
schedule, I needed to be in Sturgis, South Dakota, nearly
2000km away in time for the group’s arrival in less than a
week.
Above is the Harley Homecoming Tour Crew with BJ at left
After arranging for the bike to be sent back to our freight depot, I hit the road with the rest of the tour support crew.
“Fucking behave yourself and follow the doctor’s orders,” was my last futile comment as I left BJ to recover.
“Beattie, you fuck! Told ya I’d see ya in Sturgis!” I heard, although the comment didn’t seem to make sense. I knew that voice, even above the staccato din of thousands of Harleys rumbling through the campground. I was in Sturgis, and it was mid-morning as we were just preparing to head off for a day ride through the Black Hills of South Dakota when a familiar figure rode up to the tent.
It had been less than a week since I’d last seen BJ lying in a hospital bed and with his doctor advising that it would be several weeks before he’d even be able to walk properly, let alone ride a bike. Yet here he was on his still grazed, but mostly repaired Harley, with a pair of hospital crutches lashed to the side.
“What the fuck, you crazy bastard!” was all I could manage as he pulled up in front of me.
“Do me a favour and kick out the sidestand, will ya. Still can’t move the left leg too good,” he grimaced as he struggled to take the weight of his overloaded bike, which had all his camping and road gear tied to the back-rack.
Over a welcoming beer or several it emerged that BJ had checked himself out of the Monterey hospital only a couple of days after we left. One of the Harley Homecoming Tour crating crew picked him up and brought him back to the freight depot in San Francisco, where his bike was stored. With the help of a couple of crew members, the bike was soon rideable and, loaded up with some suitably potent painkillers from the hospital, BJ hit the road for Sturgis.
“Man, I have to say they gave me some good drugs,” he grinned. “I’ve hardly felt a thing for the last couple of days, although the flying crocodiles and giant rabbits were a bit of a worry until I figured out how to dodge them,” he laughed.
The following few days BJ kept us company as we explored the many bars, shows, concerts and other attractions that make Sturgis such a magnet for bikers the world over. But we parted company at the end of the rally, and I left BJ to head off in search of more entertainment on the highways and byways of the US.
A few weeks later we met up again in Milwaukee for a solid week of partying at Harley-Davidson’s 100th birthday celebration. The highlight of BJ’s week was partying with Pat Simmons from the Doobie brothers, who was plying us with beers at the Steppenwolf concert. I remember BJ revealing his unique insights on philosophy, politics and motorcycling to Pat, who seemed to share some of BJ’s opinions, and I listened on as they had a deep and meaningful moment or two. Sadly, it was the last time I would see BJ alive.
Back in Australia a few months later I received a call from my old buddy and Assistant Editor of Heavy Duty, Mark “Doc” Robinson in Adelaide.
“I’ve got some bad news, mate,” he said. “BJ’s dead. He died in a house fire a couple of days ago. The funeral’s next week if you’d like to come over.”
It later emerged that BJ was a victim of his own obsession with security. Following a couple of burglaries at his home in the Adelaide hills while he was away driving his big rig, he’d had a new set of high-security locks installed. Investigators later determined he’d fallen asleep in the lounge while smoking and the cigarette had set fire to the furniture. When BJ finally awoke, it was too late. He was found near the front door where it looked like he’d desperately tried to escape the flames, only to be foiled by the new password-activated locks. It was a tragic and needless loss.
The funeral was truly impressive. Several hundred biker and trucker mates lined the main street of his small local village in the Adelaide hills, all with a fresh beer in hand to toast our very good and very special mate as he was driven to his final resting place on the back of his prized Marmon.
I was honoured to address mourners at the burial site as I shared a few humorous moments we’d had over the past hectic couple of years. It still puts a lump in my throat now, years later, as I remember a very unique and much-loved character. BJ – a genuine one-of-a-kind Aussie larrikin, sadly missed. RIP brother…
(ends)
More at The Beattie Files home page
The excerpt is from Beattie's wild and woolly book. So far as we know it's had one brief print run and he's threatening to do another. Watch this space.
In the meantime he can be contacted by email.
More at The Beattie Files
home page
Travels with Guido columns here
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