Hayden Roberts’ California Dream

Words by Joy Lewis | Photos by Dylan Gordon

One day I was hit by a car – Hayden, whom I’d been making out with for just over a month, got the call. Apparently, in my delusional state of being loaded into an ambulance, I mumbled something along the lines of, “Don’t call my mom.” I’m still a little fuzzy on the details, but I remember waking up with Hayden standing over me, Pellegrino in one hand, Sour Patch watermelons in the other. I remember feeling tears running down my cheeks and not being able to move or hug him, but feeling a huge sense of relief – maybe it was for sparkling water, but I think it had more to do with being alive. “I know we both said we’d never get married again, but can I keep you?” He took it as a proposal.

The next couple of months flew by, as they do when you’re (hopped up on morphine) in the honeymoon stage of a new marriage. I slept 20 hours a day. Hayden moved in and played nurse – having to do and see things no man should so early in a relationship. At some point, he ended up at a shop across town; the guy who ran it, John Ireland, was in his late sixties, and had been the local Triumph dealer up until things went belly up, and he had set aside his heathen ways and moved into a one-man shop servicing all old British bikes. The day he met Hayden, he let him know that he had a year’s worth of work piled up and asked if he’d lend a hand. His first test was to remove and take apart a motor of a ’60-something Triumph – Hayden had the thing done before John finished his burrito.

Hayden grew up in a small town called Willenhall, outside of Birmingham, England, which happens to be smack in the middle of where so many British motorcycles came from – defunct Triumph, Norton, Velocette, and BSA factories were all within 10 miles of his house – and he lived in the old Rubery Owens housing (I’ve come to learn that RO provided bolts for many British bikes.) He always told funny stories of playing in and around the abandoned industrial plants: Every so often, someone lost a leg, but it sounded like a great childhood. I picture Hayden in plaid flare pants and women’s blouses with a head of black curly hair, smoking fags and bopping from show to show on a Lambretta. And by “picture it,” I mean, I’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories. While his vehicle of choice was a Lambretta, he’d take whatever he could make run from the local scrapyard.

As long as he can remember, he wanted to come to America. He always loved the music – not because it was American, but because he loved it and then it was American. Fast forward to adulthood, and he’d completed an apprenticeship in Marine Engineering – the gist of it being machining parts – and was working on a rig for a bit before receiving his redundancy (the U.K. has a way of making being laid off sound less miserable.) He took the severance and bought a ticket to New York City, with the plan of renting a car, seeing the East Coast and then driving to the desert. 

I guess you underestimate just how far California is when your entire country is drivable in a day. A pitstop in D.C., where he met a beautiful California girl, turned into the next chapter of his life. Sometimes I try to picture Hayden during this time – working a ton in a very adult and corporate career, both he and his wife making good money, babies raising babies, traveling all over the place to see his favorite bands, collecting all the pretty bikes, and having a great time on the other side of the world from where he dreamed it all up. 

At some point the hobby became the full-time gig – Hayden started wrenching on friends’ bikes, just enough that they’d have something to ride over the weekend. There was a whole lot of them getting together to run ridiculous races – flat-tracking in jeans and T-shirts, hill-climbing in Halloween costumes, TT races through massive mud puddles. No tough guy stuff or cheesy sponsors, just friends on old beat-up bikes, and it looked a lot like California from the ’60s and ’70s, all in good fun. I knew of Hayden at these races; we never met, but he took my entry money a couple of times and recognized me as “Twiggy” during a hill-climb. We didn’t formally cross paths until we were hired to shoot a commercial for BMW. We became fast friends and stayed in touch over the next few months – at some point there was making out, but no expectations it would go anywhere – and before marriage was ever on the table, we got matching tattoos of a rocket because we loved the Jonathan Richman song about being together “just for fun.” 

FUN

more like a rocketship and not so much like a relationship

we got together just for fun

yeah yeah

It wasn’t until our third anniversary that I found out that those aren’t the lyrics at all: rocketship = rockin’ trip. It makes way more sense, and now I love that tattoo even more. 

Several months after my accident, when I was learning to walk again, Hayden built me a little Triumph Cub –  it’s like a mini version of the Triumphs he builds today, only it’s 200cc, weighs about 200 pounds and shifts on the right. It was my birthday, and I was having a pity party because I couldn’t walk; my head was still messed up, and I was sitting on a beach where it had just gotten cold, when Hayden showed up with this cute little bike. He started it for me, carried me over and steadied me on it, and for the first time since being taken out by a fucking minivan, I was able to ride around a parking lot and feel like myself again.

We fell into a routine after that day. Little by little, I was getting back to normal, and Hayden was catching his stride at the shop. John and Hayden ended up being great for each other – Hayden has an encyclopedic brain and is obsessive about everything being “as it was intended,” while John has seen everything and has amassed a collection of any tool or part you could possibly need to rebuild a British bike. Not to mention that John doesn’t hear well and Hayden doesn’t talk much – they quickly caught up on the backlog of work, and Hayden started bringing in new customers. Somewhere along the way, people started to take notice of the bikes he was building for himself – period correct, and purpose built – and with that, Hello Engine was born. He doesn’t always understand why people look to him, but he does recognize that there’s a community of folks, old and young, that appreciates what he does. 

Hayden comes off as pretty quiet until you get to know him. I asked him about this forever ago, and he mumbled something about people not understanding anything he says– at least I think that’s what he said, but I rarely understand him, either. One time he asked if I wanted to make love – turns out the restaurant in town was serving meatloaf for dinner, and I got it all wrong. All to say, if you’re reaching out to Hayden about a bike, you’re likely hearing from me. I’m the first stop to make sure you aren’t going to ask for a black bike (he won’t do it), that you understand an old bike will require maintenance and will most certainly leave oil in your driveway, and will cost you just as much as (or more than) a new one. If you meet Hayden in real life, you’ll get a shy hello and a small wave, maybe a handshake. It’s not until you get to know him (or invite him to a wedding) that he cuts loose. 

Nearly four years since that emergency room proposal and trip to city hall, we are living in a small town, off the beaten path. When you get off at our exit, there’s a feeling of stepping through time, likely not far off from the California that Hayden pictured as a kid. I appreciate this place for the quirky charm, and you can’t beat the riding – take a left out of the driveway and you wind up the mountains, while a right will take you through the orange groves. Hayden has a workshop off the side of the house and has sequestered a room solely dedicated to listening to records. 

If the little boy in the plaid flares could see him now, he likely wouldn’t be surprised – less hair and no smoking, but not lacking any style, still bopping around on his favorite bikes, listening to his favorite bands.