CLASSIC HARLEY-DAVIDSON: KEEPING HARLEY CULTURE REAL IN RURAL PA

While Kevin and Caryn got back to real life, Tony started negotiating in the background to make a deal on the place.

Their dad had worked a lifetime to make it possible. Kevin and Caryn were just two kids in their early 20s with blind faith in him.

And on February 3, 1998, he called Kevin and dropped the news: “Hey, you’re part owner in a dealership. Will you come work with me?”

They had no idea what they were walking into. Caryn laughs remembering it. “We didn’t even know that we could fail. We had to learn everything as we went.”

They learned by tearing into paperwork, parts rooms, and anything else they could get their hands on.

Caryn rebuilt the inventory system from scratch. Kevin learned the floor and the culture. Everything they did, they did by trial and error.

They even tell me a story about the Daytona 500 that year — Dale Earnhardt’s win — when they accidentally left the dealership door unlocked. Customers walked in, and the Kodz family decided right then to stay open seven days a week.

“Dad used to say his two retirement options were being a greeter at Walmart or owning a Harley dealership,” Caryn tells me. “He picked the right one.” Tony became the friendly face of Classic until he passed away in 2023, and Kevin and Caryn have carried it forward since.

They like to call it the best group project ever. Family is at the core, but the net stretches wider than blood. “It’s a family business, but it’s not just family,” Kevin tells me.

Over the years they’ve had mothers and sons, brothers and sisters working side by side, and plenty of people who’ve stuck around for twenty years or more. Caryn calls it a team sport, and you can feel that in the way this place runs.

Talk long enough with them and the conversation always turns to H.O.G.® — the Harley Owners Group. Kevin’s been a member since 1988, when he was thirteen.

“We grew up in the culture before we ever grew up in the business,” he says. For them, Berks H.O.G. isn’t an accessory. It’s the backbone.

According to Kevin, Berks H.O.G. is unique because they still have original charter members. In fact, Harry, Classic Harley-Davidson's parts manager, has been a member for 35 years.

The chapter swells to about 210 members a year. Roughly 130 ride regular, and about eighty never miss an event. For those keeping score at home, those numbers are impressive.

“We let them be who they are,” Kevin says. “Too many chapters try to be cookie cutter, and that’s really when people start running into problems. We don’t run them. We just let them run.”

Caryn was quick to bring up the role of the women in Berks H.O.G., noting that most ride their own bikes and organize plenty of the events.

“Most of our ladies ride their own bikes,” she says, “but they also run events.” She rattled off the list — Polar Bear rides through the winter, Wacky Wednesday rides, burger rides, range days. “We had the right people,” she says, adding, “Harley culture doesn’t just live in Milwaukee. It lives in the people. Our folks here will keep it going for generations.”

That’s how Classic thinks about its role: sustain the culture, support the riders, get out of the way. “Ride and have fun,” Kevin says. It sounded simple, but you could tell it was the foundation of everything.

Only after I’d sat with Kevin and Caryn for a while did I walk deeper into service. That’s where their words came to life. The staff were riders. One pulled me outside to show me his Ironhead chopper, telling me that he’d been riding it practically every day of the summer season so far.

Another showed off an Evo Sportster chopper he’d been piecing together. In the back, the service crew started talking about the kind of projects that come through their doors.

They told me about helping a customer finish a Panhead build a few months back, proof that old iron still finds its way here.

That mix of history and pride, alongside the choppers they showed me, was exactly what Kevin and Caryn had been talking about.

The roads around Leesport seal the deal. Rural Pennsylvania is better riding than most people give it credit for — tight back roads curling through farmland, old stone barns leaning into the fields, river valleys cutting through the hills, and stretches of two-lane under thick trees.

Kevin put it best: “We have the upside of beautiful roads, but you’ve got history mixed in.”

Leaving Classic, I thought about how easy it is to take a dealership for granted. Four walls, a showroom, some merch on racks. But Classic Harley-Davidson isn’t built like that.

It’s built on a father who refused to take another transfer, on kids who dove in without a safety net, on employees who understand that good customer service can make or break a business, and on volunteers who keep showing up to ride. The people are the engine.

On the way back toward Philly, I rolled the windows down and let the farmland smell mix back into the city air. Classic Harley-Davidson proves the culture isn’t top-down. It lives in places like Leesport, built by families who put everything they’ve got into it, by riders who don’t want cookie cutter, and by loyal customers and H.O.G. chapters that keep it fun.

For anyone hitting the backroads of Pennsylvania, Classic Harley-Davidson is the spot. Family-run, community-driven, and alive with real Harley culture. Pull in at 983 James Drive, Leesport, PA 19533, or give them a call at (610) 916-7777. You’ll be glad you did.