Leo Chlebnikow the 100 Year-old Polar Bear

Leo Chlebnikow, left, with his neighbor Ralph Maresca.
Photo by: Mitsu Yasukawa 

Bonus Post. I wanted to share Polar Bear Grand Tour Chairman Bob Hartpence's post about one of our fellow Polar Bear riders. The story was shared February 22, 2016. The photo above was taken the day before on Leo's 100th birthday.

 I thought you might be interested in reading this about Leo one of our Polar Bear members.

This is the story of how Leo Chlebnikow bought his first motorcycle. It was 1932, and a man in the neighborhood was selling a used Harley-Davidson for $100. Chlebnikow didn’t have a hundred dollars. The Depression was on, and during the winters Chlebnikow and his family warmed their house on 32nd Street in Paterson by chopping furniture into kindling and feeding it to the stove.

But Chlebnikow was 16 years old, and he wanted the bike. So he made the best offer he could. First, he’d save up $5 for a down payment. After that, he’d pay the man a dollar a week. Most of the money came from Chlebnikow’s job at an auto repair shop, where he scrounged around car seats for loose coins.

“It took me two years to pay it off,” said Chlebnikow, who celebrated his 100th birthday with a party on Sunday with about 80 friends and family members at Biagio’s restaurant in Paramus. “That’s the way you made a deal in them days.”

Time went on and the money came easier, but the fundamentals of Chlebnikow’s life didn’t change much. First there was work, always work. Then came family, friends and motorcycles, and most of the time the three were all mixed together. Many friends he met through motorcycle clubs, or out on the road. And if members of his family didn’t like riding on the back of his motorcycle, they often wound up buying their own.

“Anybody who turns 100 will get a lot of people to his birthday party,” said Dave Quinn, 58, a friend who met Chlebnikow through the New Jersey Highlanders motorcycle club. “We’re not here because he’s 100 years old. We’re here because he’s an amazing guy.”

During World War II he worked at the Curtiss-Wright airplane factory in Caldwell, forging metal propeller blades. Some days, when the plant had an order for “little fighter plane propellers,” Chlebnikow said, he’d make 100 blades a day. After that, Chlebnikow did a little bit of everything. He drove trucks, owned and sold a furniture store, chauffeured a Paterson business owner to San Francisco and back, fixed cars, worked as a plumber, worked as a mechanic for Time Life Publications, and traveled the country setting up call centers for a telemarketing company.

He did try retiring once, at age 75. He and his wife planned a trip to California, his daughter Beverly Schneider said. But retirement didn’t take. Within days, Chlebnikow was so bored he found another job. The California trip was canceled.

“Oh, Mom was mad!” said Chlebnikow’s son Bob. “He just couldn’t sit still.”

The work continued at the family’s home in Paramus. Chlebnikow dug the trench to connect the house to the city sewer line, then he dug another big hole for the heating oil tank. Until last year, he changed the oil on every car he owned.

Once, a couple of decades ago, his neighbor Ralph Maresca fell ill and was bedridden for three months. Maresca describes himself as a “fanatic” about keeping his yard nice. So Chlebnikow told his neighbor to rest. He would handle all the work himself — mowing, watering, weeding and edging the grass — all summer long.

“Here I was in my 40s and I can’t get out of bed, and this guy’s in his 80s and he’s outside doing my yard,” said Maresca, 55. “He’s a great friend, and the best neighbor you’ll ever find.”

Even when Chlebnikow finally retired, it was not voluntary. For 10 years he worked at the Bergen Honda motorcycle dealership, teaching new owners how to ride so they could pass the state test and get their motorcycle license. When Chlebnikow was 93, the dealership closed.

“They laid me off!” Chlebnikow said. “Well, what was I going to do? Who’s going to hire a 93-year-old guy?”

His example of tireless, mostly joyful work rubbed off. Bob Chlebnikow, now 79, retired to Myrtle Beach after a career in construction. Eventually he got bored playing golf four times a week, so two years ago he got a job buying supplies for a construction company. He works 10 hours a day, five days a week.

“Dad was a plumber, and he had me cutting copper tubing by the time I was 8 years old,” Bob Chlebnikow said at the party. “He taught me a lot. He was just the best father you could ever want.”

Chlebnikow rode motorcycles the way he worked — joyfully, and almost without end. When Quinn joined the New Jersey Highlanders eight years ago, Chlebnikow was the leader of the first ride. The group headed down to Lakehurst, in Ocean County. On their way back, as they merged onto Route 287, Chlebnikow spun the throttle and rocketed ahead of the pack.

“He had somewhere he wanted to be. He must have been going 90 miles an hour,” Quinn said. “He was 92 years old, and he got around like he was 18. He was just the coolest guy.”

Eventually Chlebnikow didn’t trust himself anymore on two wheels, so he bought a white three-wheeled Honda motorcycle. His latest ride was on a Sunday last August, when he fired up the bike and rode it around the block. Maresco was so amazed he stopped working in his garage, walked outside and filmed the ride on his phone.

At Sunday’s party, the consensus opinion was that Chlebnikow’s motorcycle days have finally passed. Some people weren’t so sure, however. A few weeks ago, he asked Ramon Frias to come over. Frias doesn’t work on motorcycles anymore, but for 10 years he was the service manager at Bergen Honda. Chlebnikow asked his old friend to fix his trike’s clutch.

“I spent 15 minutes fixing the bike and six hours in his house, listening to him tell stories,” Frias said. “This guy is a pleasure to be around. He’s just really sweet.”

In 1994, Peter Cohen founded the Bergen Honda Riders motorcycle club. Chlebnikow asked to join.

“I told him sure, we’ll give you the senior citizen’s discount. He was 78. I figured he’d be gone in a few months,” said Cohen, who was glad when Chlebnikow became the club’s de facto leader. “Chicks love him. They think he’s cute. I’m a single guy. I’ve met a lot of women through Leo.”

Now Cohen and Chlebnikow have at least one more trick planned. When spring comes and the weather warms up, Cohen will ride his motorcycle to Chlebnikow’s house, put his 100-year-old friend on the back seat, and go for a ride.