Nick's New Shovel Choppy!

Nick locked himself away in the Garage Co. lab for the last few months to work on this beast. He only came out to play at the Christmas party and to wash his butt every few days. All that work payed off because his creation is ready to show the world. This is a true bad ass bike! It's a generator Shovel and tranny from another chopper that he picked up combined with a new repro frame, a one year only springer front end, bates seat, Cut down and split gas tank with the shift gate added and lots of other small cool bits. The details on this bike are unreal, but the lighting didn't cooperate so I didn't get too many close ups. I'll try again sometime and post those later. Enjoy the pics....



The Mad Doctor and his new ride!



He's so happy he's jumping for joy!!!!!!!!!



I told you she was beautiful! The sissy bar is custom made of course and is made from stainless round bar and will get polished soon. The light mount is a leaf from purely medical marijuana CNC cut from stainless, Nick would never want to get cross with the law you know. The leaf was cut by Ross at Southpaw Machine.



The radial lacing of the front wheel really sets of the forks.



I truly dig the way the tank shift looks on this bike, I want to steal this set up for myself. Nick is running a belt primary, that is why the derby cover for the tin primary is not installed. Check out that juice drum on the rear, it was a work of art right from the factory.



I'm not usually a fan of such a height difference between the sissy bar and handle bars, but it really works on this bike. That's how you know the true genius of a bike builder. They can make stuff that normally doesn't work look completely bad ass!



The sweet set of forks, Nick left the original "patina" on the forks because they look so good (I gotta quit letting my Wife talk me into watching all those damn HGTV shows, I didn't even know the word "patina" a few years ago). Good view of the sweet paint that "John the Painter" applied to this honey.



Top view of the tanks, it was an axed alien tank originally, but Nick and Spenser cut them puppies in half and made this set up. It's hard to come up with something unique these days, but I think this qualifies.



More tank detail. And YES, I know there is no petcock. The one Nick has is the wrong one, so he had it off to be changed and I was too impatient to wait.

I think this bike was worth all the effort that went into it and I know Nick will end up riding the hell out of it. I hope to share a few of those miles with Nick myself. See ya Later.....

Garage Company Customs and the Haints Know How to Throw a Party!

Last night was the GarCo Christmas Party and it was a total BLAST! It was by far the best attended party of the year even if only a few of us braved the weather and rode. I had a chilly ride home but it was worth it. Let's see....where to begin? They built a skate ramp in the shop this week and it was in use the entire night and pretty much anything with wheels and a few things without wheels went up this beast. Ross made some KILLER Brunswick Stew that gave everybody gas, but tasted excellent! People came from all over to attend. The B.D.A.C. crew came over from Atlanta and took the shirt off my back (literally), Robbie came back from Austin or where ever he was to attend and most importantly to me my friend Scott Alvarez (Flatbroke Blog) made it up from Pensacola FL and brought his tattoo gear (you'll see more on that in another post). I took so many good pics that I'll have to split this up into a few posts so be sure to read them all.

Spenser is more of a BMX guy than a skatepunk so he decided to show these guys how to get some air!



Duane tracked down Haint Nick's old Sporty the Weed Steed and brought it back home. He tore it apart and is redoing it right. The guys showed up with his finished paint last night so of course they had to get it into "roller" status to show it off. The paint looks GREAT!



As usual, mini bikes and mini choppers were ridden in anger. These crazies even took it up the ramp.


Shane from One Stop Art spent some time showing these guys how to fully utilize the ramp.



Joe and Cindy own the shop next door to GarCo. They knew the kind of scene it would be and HAD to stick around to see all the craziness.

More pics to come so stay tuned! There are 4 parts to this so keep going if they get bumped off the first page of the blog.

Part 2 of Garage Company Customs and the Haints Know How to Throw a Party!

This one will be short and sweet. I put my gear upstairs in the little parts balcony to keep it from getting soaked in beer. I decided to go upstairs and get a few pics of the shop with everything in full swing.


Looking toward the entrance area. The guys in front of the Buell are my good friends in the local Southern Cruisers chapter. Great guys and I enjoy riding with them whenever I can get a chance.



Turning toward the right, this is the area right outside the office. The guys with the flannel shirt and the "Independent: hoodie are the B.D.A.C. guys, Brunson and Alabama Joe from the Haints are right behind them. Lots of other folks were there that I either don't really know or can't recognize while I type this because I don't have my damn glasses on.



Through those doors is the Fab Room. The Astro Glide is on the floor just to the other side of the first lift. Spenser's Shovel is the bike on this side of the lift.



The middle area was left open as the approach path to the ramp and where the doughnuts and burnouts took place. That's Duane's bike on the sideways lift pointing to the right and Nick's new bike is pointing to the left.



The corner where the "sandbox" (bathroom) is located That's Larry the shop owner in the flannel and Shane the tattoo artist is the guy with the long ass beard.

Part 3 Kustom Jeff Gets New Ink!

I got my first tattoo back in 1989 when I was in Germany. I got my most recent one in 1993 so it's been awhile. We met Alvarez at the Quad Cam Bastard's Bastard Bash back in August and we hit it off right way. He and I spent a few drunken hours around the campfire talking about all the cool old punk rock we used to listen to. Alvarez played in a bunch of bands and got to know some of the cool folks who made up the punk scene back in the day and now he's partner in a tattoo shop in Pensacola FL. He decided to make the trip up for the party and I'm glad he did. I've known since I first saw his work that I wanted some art from him and he brought his stuff with him this trip and made it happen for me. A few others got some work done, but I was the first to get one. Here's a few shots of the action. This is one of the few times you'll see pics here that I didn't take, but since they're pics of me I guess it's OK ;-)


My buddy David from the Southern Cruisers took this one of the outline being done. It was funny because we were sitting just inside the front door of the shop due to the lighting. It seemed like EVERYBODY had to come get pictures of me getting ink. I guess they thought I was drunk or something. Alvarez just got this new book of cool old flash and really wanted to do something from it so I agreed. I usually won't get flash because I want all of mine to be unique but since this flash was really old and because of who was doing it and how it tied into my other work I agreed. It's hard to tell in the pics, but the other art on my arm is a skeleton's hand in a torn up glove holding a set of handlebars and says "I'll give up my bike when they pry it from my cold dead fingers" I thought that worked really well with the idea of a Sportster tank turning into a skull with handlebars sticking up out of it. I like it so who cares what you think!







The finished work. Thanks again my friend I LOVE THIS TAT! I even convinced my Wife that it was a good thing this morning when I showed it to her (She must really love me).



The happy art canvas!



The man, the legend, my favorite artist Alvarez Check out the blog he runs with Roadside Marty. Marty was planning to make it, but the day job got in the way.

Part 4 of Garage Company Customs and the Haints Know How to Throw a Party!

Here are some just general mayhem pics from the party. This is the last entry on this event. Enjoy the pics and be sure to give hell to anyone you meet from the party who allowed me to get goofy shots of them.

Robbie having fun in the spilled beer. Doughnuts are fun on a wet cement floor.



Robbie in the garbage can and Spenser trying to hump him or some shit like that.



Ashley likes to complain that she is always taking pics instead of being in them so I took her damn picture dammit!



More wet floor action!Robbie was wide ass open all night. He took a 20 something hour bus ride to get here and then never stopped the whole night. I'm sure he's STILL sleeping it off somewhere.



Big Dan giving out something he calls a jumpstart to get you going again after the alcohol starts to let you down. That is a greasy damn motorcycle chain he is hitting this dude with.



Nice greasy imprint, but by God this man was awake and ready to party after this!



The crazy white boys trying to dance drunk. Larry is trying to do the robot or something. I'm not sure what the hell he was doing.



Ashley was doing some crazy dance that I just had to get a picture of. She was nice and toasty by this point (she was letting Larry spin her on her back in the middle of the beer puddle just few minutes before this). She kept moving too fast for me to get some of the great dance moves she was doing.

And this concludes our party coverage. If you were not there YOU MISSED OUT!

Did some Choppin' on the Triumph!

Since the first day I owned this bike it has had plates welded into the neck gusset area and I never liked them. I removed the bondo a few times, but I didn't know enough about welding or metal work to know if I should cut them out so I would just re-bondo and paint over them again. This weekend I had to take the motor out to redo the top end gaskets and while the motor was out I decided to cut the bondo out again because I need to get everything ready to paint anyway. Since I was at Garco stealing space on the lift I asked Spenser what he thought and he said "cut that crap out of there!" so I did.


Here I am making some SERIOUS progress. I started with a small air grinder and made little sparks. Then Spenser let me in on the secret of the bigger grinder and the amount of sparks increased GREATLY.



Here is the bike while I was taking the motor out. I've done this so many times I think I could do it in my sleep.



The frame with the plates freshly removed. I think I just lightened the bike by a good 2 pounds. Who ever added the plates did a decent job, but they used 1/8" plate and it was too thick for the job since it was used on both sides. The good thing is that they left the coil mounts. I assumed they would be gone since they had cut off the stock tank mounts. I was pleasantly surprised to see them intact.



Finally done with cutting and then grinding out the leftovers. I'll get it sanded and primed soon. Then finish striping everything to get it ready to paint. Hopefully I'll get some miles on this beast this spring!




The other side.



Here I am making little sparks with the air tool before Spenser clued me in to the good stuff.

Stay tuned, it'll be a couple of weeks before I make any progress due to the Yule holidays, but I will update as I can.

Garage Company Customs Bike FOR SALE!

I'm posting this for Larry, one of the FEW times you will see me post stuff that's not mine. Check it and and buy a piece of magazine/SmokeOut history. Here is a link to the feature of it on chop cult.. Astro Glide on Chop Cult



Here is what Larry says.....

Choppy For Sale

She's gotta go. Gotta get some change together for my Chop Off bike. For more info email garagecompanycustoms@yahoo.com

More Pics from Germany...Some Bikes and The Morning after!

Here are some more pics from back in the day. I think I may make Fridays the day for my vintage posts. If I don't find anything else cool to post at least I can have something up at least once a week.

Anyway these pics were taken at a rally somewhere in Germany that I was too hung over to remember. We would go for a nice long ride on Saturday and then ride in and set up at the fest grounds to party all night and then somehow find the strength to strap our crap to our bikes and then take a nice long ride home. It was a great time. I saw all kinds of cool bikes from vintage chops to VW trikes and even modern crotch rockets. You didn't see the attitudes there that you see here in the states. I sure do miss those times.


Nice VW trike, also it was OK for 2 guys to ride together over there. No one thought you were any less of a man, just because your bike was down or something. Dig the cool springer and the cheap hubcaps, build what ya can and ride the hell out of it.



Another trike, looks like he used a girder on this one and actually had some nice rims on the back.



A couple of beautiful Panheads. I'd love to have either one of these today.



One of the large tents I was talking about before. I felt sorry for the folks who had to walk around and clean up after these events. Drunks tend to be messy .



Another shot of the carnage, we were lucky we had pitched our tents in the woods off to the side of the tent so we were not rudely awakened by that bright ass sunlight.

Hope you enjoy these pics, I know I sure as hell enjoyed the events and happenings when I took them.

Party Pictures from Germany 1989-1991

Back in the day when I was stationed in Germany I rode with the Stray Dogs MC. It was a great group of folks who were mostly military like me, but we had enough locals to keep the club grounded with all the craziness of us G.I's getting transferred all the time. I'll post some club pics later but for now I want to put up some shots from the parties we went to. One thing I loved about Germany was that there were clubs in damn near every town and that meant that every weekend there was a big party somewhere fairly close. The club hosting the party would put up a huge Fest tent and have a band, a bar and food to buy right there in the tent. Some parties/tents were small like a couple of these shots show and some were huge like you'll see in another post. No matter what though the beer flowed, it was cheap and the we had a blast.

This was one of the bigger tents, you can see the edge of the stage has a wooden wall, that wall ran around two sides of the tent and enclosed the stage on the short end and the bar/food on the long side of the tent. Sometimes the band was Rockabilly like this one and sometimes it was pure Metal. Ya never knew til ya got there what you were going to hear.



Another picture from the same party, you can see that it got kinda muddy with the bikes running around. We would pull in, put up our personal tents then hit the bar for Beer. Some parties we would get crazy and we would ride our bikes through the tent with someone on the back to hold the beers till we got back to our club enclave.



A local club's colors. Some clubs were big and active and you would see them everywhere (we tried to be like that). Others were kinda small and you would run into them once in a while. It was always a good time though.



This pic is from the IceRun. It was a party held over News Years and you HAD to ride in to be able to party there. It was fun dodging the snow/ice to get to the place. The tent was small because not that many folks had the intestinal fortitude to ride in. We all got a certificate for making it though. This one was fun because the band asked me to ride my bike in the tent when they played "Born to Be Wild". I was trashed, but I somehow made it without falling over. By the way, back in those days the old songs were not as played out as they are today. It was still cool back then.


Another pic from the IceRun. Looking at the back of the tent.



When the whole club went on a run a hang around usually brought a van with all the food and other crap we might want, but wouldn't put on our bikes. It seems we had quite the spread at this party.