Young restorers Alexis and Kayleigh
Meet Alexis and Kayleigh, young sisters who kickstarted their love of motorcycles by each restoring a Sportster
Both Alexis Neill and her sister Kayleigh Greene are too young to legally ride motorcycles, but that hasn’t stopped either of them from restoring bikes of their own. Thirteen-year-old Alexis started working on her 1994 H-D Sportster when she was just nine. Two years later, when it was finished, she asked her grandfather if they could find another bike to restore for her then-six-year-old sister, Kayleigh.
Their grandparents both ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles, so it’s only natural that Alexis wanted to help when her grandpa bought the non-running 1994 H-D Sportster. “It had sat in a building and got tarnished up and hadn’t been messed with for a couple of years,” explains her grandfather, Roger Wilson of Granite Falls, North Carolina.
“On the job” training for Alexis began right away. “She came into this helping me with the small pieces, then it got to the point where she wanted to do more,” says Roger, who estimates that Alexis did 80 percent of the work restoring the Sportster. “I just kind of stepped out of the way and basically said, you want to build it, you build it. At first, she was helping me, but by the time it was over I was helping her.”
Over the next 28 months, Alexis spent much of her free time working on the Sportster. “Most of it she picked up on her own as we went along. There was a lot of stuff that I even had questions about, but then she introduced me to Google, which told us how to do a lot of stuff.”
For the big jobs, Roger had a mechanic friend help out. “It was very, very few things,” he explains. “Like rebuilding the transmission and anything that had to have certain settings that we couldn’t figure out.”
Their project attracted a lot of attention, turning Alexis into something of a local celebrity. “It was the talk of the town around here,” Roger proudly says. “I actually went to the doctor, and a lady stopped me and asked if I have the granddaughter who restored the Harley-Davidson!” Their local dealership – H-D of Asheville, NC – did a photo shoot with Alexis, presenting her with a certificate commemorating her accomplishment.
Finished with her own bike, Alexis and her grandfather looked for another for young Kayleigh to restore. They found a similar, non-running ’94 Sportster, and the three of them got started. Roger says Kayleigh did most of the work on her bike, with Alexis helping out as needed and Roger supervising.
“I guarantee you’re not gonna find another grandpa who’s prouder than me. They just basically proved to me that there was nothing that I could do that they couldn’t do just as good.”
The sisters have an upcoming photo shoot scheduled with members of the military, highway patrol, and other first responders to honor all fallen first responders. “It’s turned out to be a pretty big deal,” Roger says. And people have even called asking if the two sisters could work on their motorcycles, a request Roger declined.
Both Alexis and Kayleigh are looking forward to riding together when they’re old enough, and there’s no doubt these two young ladies are going places. Here’s wishing them many safe miles and lots of smiles in their future motorcycling endeavors!
Words by Glen Abbott
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