Charles Hancock

Charles Hancock of Chick's Harley-Davidson/Buell says it's time to allow another owner to take the wheel and run the motorcycle dealership
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There were many other group rides - hundreds - Hancock led over the years.
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"I just agonized over that," Hancock says."I got into this 20 years ago because I loved motorcycles."

But, he says, "It just seemed like a good time to bow out."
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"My name is Charles Hancock, but my parents thought Charles was awfully formal sounding for a 2-hour-old kid, and they didn't like Chuck or Charlie," explains Hancock, owner of Chick's Harley-Davidson/Buell."Chick is a rarely used but accepted nickname for Charles."

Though he says the name works "magnificently as the name of a Harley dealership," it has caused some confusion.

"A lady called several years ago," he says, "and when we answered, `Chick's Harley-Davidson,' she said, `Do you have anything for guys there?' "
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Hancock says it's the expansion that originally made him wonder: Should he stay or go?

The expansion has to happen to continue the dealership's success, he says.He could have stayed and carried it out, but the cost would be more of his time and energy.After years of fine-tuning his business so it basically ran itself, was he prepared give more so the Rio Rancho store would take off?

Hancock says he'd rather spend his time with his family, his car collection and teaching - a job that first brought him to the Southwest.

What if

In 1971, Hancock took a trip to a Navajo reservation in Arizona.He recalls a "20-mile dirt road" leading to a school he intended to teach at for the summer.The work was a way to connect with the community he was researching as part of completing an undergraduate anthropology degree from Wesleyan University.

"There was something about it I just liked," he recalls while seated at a round wooden table sharing dining room space with a 1966 Velocette Thruxton, one of three motorcycles displayed in his university-area home.On the walls hang black and white documentary photos of biker gang members wearing thick leather jackets and grim faces.

Through the summer job, Hancock heard of another teaching position in northwestern New Mexico at Borrego Pass School.There he taught English to Navajo children from 1973 to 1977.The lack of age-appropriate educational materials meant he spent a lot of time making the materials on his own.

"I had never worked that hard," he says."It's rewarding, but it's immensely draining, too."

He moved on to teach at the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southern New Mexico.But his passion for the work was lessening; he looked to the business world, and got an MBA from the University of Michigan in 1980.That degree - added to his B.A. and a master's degree in teaching - led to work in Albuquerque banks.He stayed with them until 1985.

That's when the offer came.

Hancock was a 35-year-old motorcycle lover and had walked into the Harley dealership owned by Jake Alcon with the intention of putting down a deposit on his first hog.