In his own words, Dan Hardick hasn’t gone far and he’s gone to a lot of places.
The 2003 Aledo graduate now lives just a few miles down the road. However, his life has taken him to places all over the globe.
“When people ask me what I do, I ride motorcycles and I talk to people,” Dan said.
Dan is more than a Harley Davidson enthusiast. He has some legendary stories to tell, and loves doing so on his Danger Dan’s Talk Shop podcast.
Among the many motorcycles he owns, one of his five Harleys is on display in the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee.
“There are so many beautiful places in this country. Mexico is one of my favorite places to go,” Dan said. “The food’s great, expenses are great, the people are incredibly nice — and it’s right next door.
“I can leave my front door in Tin Top, Texas and be at the bottom of Copper Canyon in a little more than two days travel time.”
Dan credits his education in Aledo with getting it all started.
“What’s really helped me out in my career is a video tech class I took at Aledo High School with Mrs. (Karen) Paul. Her husband (Joey Paul) was the band director,” he said. “I still use all that stuff every day. I can’t thank her enough — and Aledo for having a video tech class to take.”
His family moved to Aledo in 1995 from Grand Prairie. Of course, he played football until his sophomore year. He also marched in the band and played in the drum line — a talent he still puts to regular use today.
And he stood out from the norm, so to speak.
“I rode skateboards, rebelled against everything. That’s what I did,” he said with a smile.
He also fell in love with motorcycles.
“I first started riding as soon as I moved out to Aledo and there was enough area to ride them,” he said. “I think somebody brought a PW 50 over, other friends’ motorcycles.
“My dad was so against me riding. He had a couple friends die on motorcycles when he was young.”
Now, his dad, Jim Hardick, is one of his son’s biggest fans, though he admits holding his breath still when it comes to some of Dan’s rides.
“Some of the stuff he does as he rides, I can’t watch it,” Jim said. “The Himalayas, the tip of Mexico. Some of the places he rides are not for the faint of heart.”
“I just progressed. I got bigger, my friends got bigger and so did our dirt bikes,” Dan recalled.
Dan got his first dirt bike from a friend of the family while he was growing up in Aledo.
“My friend’s mom knew I needed a vehicle and she hooked me up with her deceased husband’s Suzuki Savage 450,” he recalled. “I rode that around for few years with no license, registration, or insurance for a few years.
“Then I went down a different path and traded it for a bag of drugs and a gun.”
For a while Dan actually had no bike — and his life had some challenging questions. Then he met his wife Katie and they began plans for a family.
Dan decided to make some major changes in his life. He took a job working on a drilling rig in Wyoming to save money for having their baby.
“I decided to get my [act] together,” he said.
But he couldn’t stay away from motorcycles, the other big love in his life. Plus, he wanted his son to see his true image.
“I had a bunch of money socked up and before he was born, I decided I didn’t want to look like a [wuss] in front of my son and not have a motorcycle, so I went and bought my first Harley,” he said. “I’ve been riding them ever since.”
Autry is now 12 years old. The Hardicks also have a second son, 9-year-old Brack.
Katie and their sons will sometimes join Dan on his adventures.
“They travel with me when they can, but they’ve got lives of their own,” he said. “I try not to be gone more than two weeks a month.”
The Danger Dan’s Talk Shop podcast began from his biking adventures. Along the way he would meet folks in motorcycle shops, making friends and hearing some interesting stories.
Editor’s note: The podcast contains explicit language.
“For a long time I just had a 1959 Harley Davidson Chopper. I rode that all over the country,” he said. “Riding a bike that’s 60 years old, you have to constantly be working on it, and I would constantly be finding shops all over the country.
“They were just great people. This is what I came up with to give back to those guys. You’ve got to have these independent shops to keep these bikes on the road. There’s so many Harley Davidsons out there.”
Dan also highlights shops through his business MC Shop T’s. He distributes them to subscribers, along with giving boxes to the shops themselves.
“It’s like a T-shirt of the month club, but I feature a different motorcycle shop every month,” he described. “Every couple of years I throw in a Danger Dan’s Talk Shop T-shirt. I don’t really sell any Danger Dan merchandise.”
“Some of my favorite ones I call ‘The Road Shows,’” Dan said. “When I used to travel with that 1959 Chopper, I would just pull my phone out as things would happen on the road and record stuff. I would mix music in.”
Well, for a while he mixed music.
“I was almost like a DJ, really, picking my favorite songs, whatever was going through my head during that trip,” he said. “They were a lot of fun to do and people really enjoyed them.
“Then, I started getting some ‘cease and desist’ letters. I think the first came from Bob Dylan’s attorney, or somebody related to whatever entity owns the Bob Dylan songs.
“I realized I can’t just put people’s music on the podcast.”
Of course, the podcasts have continued, as have his interactions with what Dan calls some amazing people. His list of conversations/interviews range from the CEO of Harley Davidson to “some guy I met on the side of the road who was peddling his bike across the country to meet a girl.”
Then, there was a unique connection in a foreign country with another motorcycle lover of a different kind.
“I met a Mexican when I was down in Peru whose family was a motorcycle circus stunt team,” Dan said. “He had these incredible photographs.”
Dan has a motorcycle in the Harley Davidson Museum. He and his family recently took a trip there during the holidays to see it on display.
“It was a surprise to find out it was there. I said, ‘Let’s go, let’s take the grandkids,’” Jim said. “Dan’s on video talking about it.
“I never thought I’d have a kid with a bike in the Harley Museum. There’s so much history connected to Harley there, the first one ever made, an Evil Knievel exhibit. It was just so cool seeing it all and knowing Dan’s bike was among it all.”
As to how the bike ended up there, Dan said it began a few years ago when he was in Milwaukee working with the annual Mama Tried Motorcycle Show.
“It was put on by a guy named Warren and another guy named Scott who have become good friends of mine. They work directly with Harley Davidson, as do I, and when the museum reached out to Scott and Warren about creating a Mama Tried exhibit and bringing in some custom motorcycles, my name got thrown in the mix,” he said.
But it wasn’t a done deal at first. The museum asked Dan if they could display his Chopper.
“I said there’s no way I’m going to let you have my Chopper. I can’t go without it,” he said, still with emphasis.
But a deal was worked out.
“He liked the look of this 1994 Sportster I built to race in the Mint 400 (a motorcycle race near Las Vegas),” he said. “I was going to ride it in South America, then 2020 happened (the Covid 19 pandemic).”
If you look up Dan Hardick on the internet, you might also come across Dan Hardick and a popular band out of Oklahoma. They are not the same Dan, but they are related.
“My dad’s brother is Dan Hardick and has a band called Finger Pistols,” he said.
However, Dan does still play drums in his own band, Outbound Train. They play motorcycle shops, skate parks, and as Danger Dan said some of the crowds are “freaking huge.”
“We don’t do it for a living, so we try to curate the funnest places to play,” he said.
In fact, last year Dan said Outbound Train even went on tour.
“We played a penitentiary in Boise, Idado, then we toured back to Texas on the Choppers, riding our motorcycles to a different show every night,” he recalled. “I just mapped out the coolest route, the most scenic route, from Boise to Dallas, and then I found bars in motorcycle shops along the way.
“We played a show every night. We ended at Brown’s Cycle in Dallas - and it was insane.”
Dan said there are still so many places he’d love to ride his Harley. They include Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Brazil, Australia, and a couple of very special places, he said.
“Africa’s really been calling my name lately. That’s probably going to be the next big one I do,” he said.
This includes the Death Acre. It’s where dunes meet the sea on the coast of Angola.
“These giant waves crash into the beach, and when the tide recedes you can use that small bit of time to ride across the hard packed sand in between the waves and giant sand dunes,” he said with excitement.
Then, he added, “I’d also like to go to Kenya, the Congo, Morocco, Egypt. I’ve been to a lot of places, but there are still plenty of places to go and experience.”
Though his life is one big adventure, Dan said he’s eternally grateful for his family and friends.
“Thanks to my family, my wife and kids for putting up with my crazy antics and my traveling ways. My dad for being the rock back home and supporting me. My mother as well for passing on this adventurous spirit,” he said. “My two brothers and my sister who are all doing great in their own ways.
“And I do appreciate Aledo, the schooling, the community that I was fortunate enough to have growing up.
“One of my favorite things about going anywhere is turning around and coming home.”
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