Over 5,000 miles on a hardtailed Sportster!!!

Some of the Haints took off for California to attend the "Born Free" party. One didn't make it out of the state, others had issues along the route, but I'm pretty sure most of them had a great time. I know Nick did, he kept us all updated on the Haints blog (see my linked blogs on the side of the page) and posted pictures along the ride. Basically his bike is a Sportster motor in a rigid frame with just a few inches of spring under his seat. Most folks would be crippled up after this many miles in 2 weeks, but not Nick! He made it back just in time for GarCo's bike Night and hung in there longer than I did. Here's a couple of pics from last night....


Here is the tired Road Warrior taking a few minutes to relax and drink a beer while he tells us his war stories....




This is the bike that he rode. You can see that there are not too many creature comforts to be had on this one. But this is what it's all about, you build your vision of a great bike then you get on it and you ride the hell out of it. I definitely believe this trip fits that definition!

Garage Company had another Bike Night

It was smaller than last month because of the massive monsoon that came through Sat. afternoon. It finally cleared up, but by the time I got around to taking pics the lighting was getting horrible. I did get a couple worth posting. This is a sweet old shovelhead that was built out of different year piles of junk. Definitely proves that a bike is more than just a sum of its parts!






Here is Whitey's bike, you may remember seeing pics of it from last month, but it looks like it's actually finished now. At least he's riding it if he's not done. Sweet reinvention of a Triumph Bonneville America. WAAAY better than what the factory envisioned.

This is an old XLCR Sportster factory Cafe Racer. HD only made this bike for a couple of years (77-79) and it was too far ahead of its time to be appreciated then. They are very sought after these days though. This one is a really nice restoration, the reason I blurred the background is because I couldn't get the folks in the background to get the hell out of the way. Oh well, that's why I have Photoshop ;-)


Maybe next month the weather will cooperate and there will be a good turnout that will show up early enough for me to get some great pictures.

Not much done to the Triumph this weekend...

I did get the new rocker box oil feed on and the lines run for it. Tightened up some other stuff and basically farted around with the minor details. All that's left is the wiring but the guys at GarCo are going to the Horse magazine's Smoke Out next weekend and I'll be out of town over the 4th of July so it'll be a couple of weeks before i can finish. I'll update when I get her to fire up!

The latest on the Triumph

Saturday was a good day for progress on the Triumph. I was able to get the fuel lines run, the new seat springs on (still have to open the end of the springs to fit the frame mounts though), the taillight mounted, the rack on the fender straightened and I mounted the old Falstaff beer opener that I've had planned for this bike for 3 years. Getting run over by the truck really put me behind on this project and some of the stuff that I was actually ahead of the trends on now look kind of common, but that's OK. I know I had them planned years ago ;-)

You can see the beer opener on the rear axle plate in this picture. I wanted to be a "real" chopper builder just like the guys at OCC so I used a step bit to drill the holes (sarcasm off now). Actually, this was the only bit I had that would cut through the plate. (Larry won't let anyone touch his private stash of bits ) I did find out that a couple of bolt holes in the front fork legs are stripped out and need to be helicoiled, but setbacks like this are to be expected.


The new tailight is visible in this picture. It is a stock Harley turn signal with a red lens. It makes a nice clean light and does well with all the vibration choppers seem to generate. Hopefully, she'll get wired up this week and I can fire the beast up for next Saturday's Bike Night at Garage Company. Y'all feel free to come on out next Saturday to check the place out. I can guarantee there will be some really cool bikes and some good folks to hang out with. Even if you don't have a bike, just park your car out on the street and stop on by.

Larry's Shovelhead "The Spacely Sprocket"

A few shots of Larry's Shovelhead, this bike has already won a "Best Chopper" award at teh Big Mountain Run and it's not even finished. They guy who painted the tank was told to do something that looked like "The Jetsons". This is the result and you can see how the bike got its new name.


The background in this picture was WAAY too cluttered and the license plate had a HUGE reflective halo around it so I did a little cropping. The tank is too beautiful not to show off, but good pics of the bike will have to wait until I can get it outside to shoot.


I was able to get a decent shot from this side, still not the best but my camera does have limits. Pretty soon the fender will get painted on this bike and the correct seat will get back from upholstery. Can't wait to see this one finished. You can see my Triumph on the lift in the background.

Spencer's Shovel

Spent Saturday at Garage Company Customs trying to finish up my Triumph. While I was there Spencer had his Shovelhead outside so I took advantage of that to get a few pictures.


This picture is pretty much how I took it except for a some work with the cloning tool to remove a stray hand and a bunch of power lines from the background.


At night the sign over the door lights up and looks really cool, in this pic I played around and tried to replicate that look. It's not too realistic especially with the bright sunlight, but I felt like playing around a little bit.


This is the same pic with all the clutter in the background blurred out to make the clean lines of this bike really shine. For a bike that was supposed to stay pretty stock after he bought it Spencer sure has made a lot of changes to it. Luckily they are all for the better because we all know that "Stock Sucks!"