“Rat Bike” collects 31 years of road dirt, trinkets on one Harley

This may look like a flea market got caught in a twister with a pallet of super glue. But it’s acutally the Harley-Davidson of Milo Anderson, a.k.a. “Ratbike Milo,” who’s driven it 615,000 miles over the past 30 years.

The owner of an Oregon tool and supply company, Ratbike Milo has chronicled his drives almost as extensively as he’s collected trinkets for the bike, which began life as a modified 1970 California Highway Patrol Shovelhead.

Thanks to an online journal updated with each day’s journey, Milo has a running tally of trips through 48 states and six Canadian provinces. (He also warns would-be joiners that he prefers running about 80 mph and the “iron butt” approach, with five rides of longer than 1,000 miles in a single day.)

Here’s Milo’s explanation of how the Ratbike became so encumbered:

Most of the memorabilia on my bike was given to me by people from almost every state , and Canada as well. When people see me and the bike again, the challenge is on to see if they can find what they put on from a previous encounter, sometimes from years ago.

Milo also says he stopped washing the Ratbike after it failed to start for 45 minutes following its previous cleaning in 1980. Whatever three decades of motorcycle grime on furry doodads smells like, Milo could probably bottle and sell it as cologne/insect attractant.

Do you have a Rat Bike? If so, be sure to enter it in our Rat Bike Of The Month. You could win a prize if voted Rat Bike Of The Year!