After years away, Lucas Creamer has returned to Lawrence and opened a motorcycle shop at 912 N. 3rd St.

In his teenage years, Lucas Creamer’s parents forbade him from owning either a Jeep or a motorcycle.

At 17, Creamer moved from his parents’ home into an apartment and bought both.

“It went over about how you expect it would,” laughed longtime friend Parish Sneegas. “But when he got out it was time for him to go. He went out into the world and made his way.”

“When I was 17 I had a job, I was making money and I was ready to leave the house and be my own boss,” Creamer said. “I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, and if I had the money and a job to pay for it (a motorcycle), I didn’t see why I couldn’t have one.”

Following high school, Creamer’s twin brother was heading to Kansas University to enroll when Creamer pulled his mother aside and told her he had no intention of attending college.

“I told her I wasn’t going to KU. I was going to the Motorcycle Mechanic’s Institute in Orlando,” he said. “I think she freaked out a bit, but she was supportive. And I went and had a great time.”

Creamer, 38, said his love affair with motorcycles began with Sneegas’s father, who restored old Harley Davidsons.

On sweltering summer days the childhood friends weren’t allowed to sit inside watching television, Sneegas said. Instead the two would steal away to his father’s garage.

“On a hot summer, like this, we discovered one of the cooler spots to be was the shop. It had one window and it was cool and dark and insulated,” he said. “We spent lots of time dorking around in there because it was full of motorcycles and parts and tools.”

“I always liked what was going on in that garage,” Creamer said. “I liked the smell of the shop and basically I just always wanted a motorcycle.”

At the same time, watching Sneegas’ father wrench on older Harley Davidsons, Creamer developed a taste for antiquities.

“I like old stuff,” he said. “Trucks, buildings, appliances, cycles, old video games. That’s just what I’m into.”

Knowing full well he wanted to work on motorcycles, Creamer took off to Orlando to learn the trade the day after his 21st birthday.

Graduating from the institute’s year-and-a-half-long Harley Davidson program, Creamer said, he moved to Denver to put his new skills to the test and work his way up the ladder.

“When you first get into the industry, you’re doing a lot of brand new bike set ups, getting them ready for customers to buy,” he said. “You’re adjusting handlebars, routine services, tire changes, just simple stuff.”

Soon, Creamer said, he was offered a position as a flat-rate mechanic at another Denver dealership

“I was paid per job,” he said. “That was really what got me excited about the career because you could make as much money as you wanted kind of. You have to learn how to go at a quick pace, but keep the quality high.”

But before long Denver grew old, Creamer said. Slow and snowy winters always led to slow periods in the shops and it was time to move on.

Chasing better weather, Creamer moved from Colorado to work in dealerships in California and Texas, earning his PHD (Pro Harley Davidson) certification in Wisconsin along the way.

At one point, feeling a bit burned out in the garage, Creamer attended school in Portland, Ore., learning to work on wind turbines.

“I worked for G.E. down on the border of Mexico for a year to get a taste of something else,” he said. “But being down in the middle of nowhere was enough, and I really missed working on bikes and fixing them and being in town.”

Ready to get back into the business, Creamer returned to Kansas in 2013, accepting a service manager position in Olathe’s Rawhide Harley Davidson dealership.

“I moved back to Lawrence because I was sick of moving around. I figured I had seen enough of the country,” he said. “I’m here to stay, to finish out my life here.”

Over the years, Creamer said, he kept busy buying and selling used parts and motorcycles. But after a season at Rawhide the notion came to him that perhaps his side business could become his full-time gig.

“I was buying and selling all that stuff while I was working at the dealership,” he said. “Specifically ’30s, ’40s and ’50s Harleys. That’s really my interest, early Harleys.”

So last spring, Creamer bought an old paint shop in North Lawrence, and he and Sneegas went to work.

“It was just a mess. There was a ridiculous amount of paint everywhere, termite-infested shelving, all of it,” Sneegas said. “We gutted the whole place.”

Now Creamer’s shop, Lawrence Vintage Cycle, 912 North 3rd St., is lined with items from a long-passed, but not forgotten, motorcycle era.

Gas tanks, leather and denim jackets, helmets, fenders and sissy bars line the walls. A newly erected mezzanine rests in the shop’s southeast corner, shelving various parts. A 1939 Harley Davidson Knucklehead, Creamer’s daily driver, rests in the shop’s center.

“It’s called a Knucklehead because that’s what it looks like,” Creamer said, clenching his fist and holding it next to the motorcycle’s engine block.

For a period, Creamer’s shop was open by appointment only, but in early July he softly opened to the public.

Kyle Jones heard about Creamer’s shop through a friend of a friend and decided to check it out for himself.

“My bike was running a little funky, so I went in for an oil change,” he said. “I didn’t know what I needed done, but he shot me straight and got me on the road and it was running great after he worked on it.”

A few weeks later, Jones was gearing up for a ride out to Clinton Lake when he ran over a screw.

“I called him up and he had me come on by and had it fixed within an hour,” he said. “It’s something where if I had gone to a dealership, they would have made me buy a new tire, but he replaced the tube and did it right there while I waited. I’ve never been so amazed.”

Since opening Creamer said he can’t compete with the bigger dealerships, nor would he want to. Owning his own shop affords him both flexibility and the opportunity to act one on one with his customers.

Going forward Creamer said he’ll rely on word-of-mouth advertising to attract new and loyal customers, keeping his workload manageable.

“Big dealerships spend lots of money on ads and everybody knows where they are. But it’s just me here, and I can’t handle the traffic like they have at the dealerships,” he said. “But because it’s just me you get to talk to me and have service catered to you.”

Through all his travels, Creamer said, he never happened across a community quite like Lawrence, and he’s gladly home to stay and to focus on his new business.

In the coming years, and as his customer base grows, Creamer would like to add an employee or two to his shop. Until that happens, though, he can be found by himself in North Lawrence, surrounded by relics and wrenching on vintage motorcycles.