Last Sunday's Ride

So with Larry and Ashley out in California for Born Free and the fact that it's over 100* around here lately not much happened on Saturday. Sunday however a few of us got together to take a little ride and have some fun. Ian, Whitey and I decided to meet at the old Garage Co location and work from there. We ended up heading out Shelby County 11 towards Chelsea and looping back around past the new Garco location. Ian split off about halfway through to do the family thing, but it was still great to get out and do a little riding with good folks.

The meet up at the old Garco.

Ian waiting for the damn light to turn green. He has this bike looking RIGHT. Now he can concentrate on the shovel he's building.

Whitey on the most kick ass modern Triumph I've seen waiting for the damn light as well. I'm going to do a real photo shoot of this bike one day soon.

Ridin' the back roads.

Saw this in someone's yard. I LOVE riding out in the country.

More tree lined roads.

We pulled over to discuss directions and I snapped this one of Whitey's bike.

Ian talking to Whitey about what way to go. I don't know the roads in this area so I was just following where they led.

I thought y'all might like to see my master cylinder.

Another reason I like to ride in the country. Folks are still patriotic out here. This wasn't just a July 4th deal this was a permanent display.

The driveway next to the display.

From across the street.

This was just down the road and really caught my eye. I love this stuff!

Just Whitey and I at this point.

We stopped at a cool little cemetery to take a drink and ended up walking around a bit. Really cool place that I may use for pics some other time.

So that's it for this time. I'll have more pics later. Gotta do the family thing this weekend so it may be a little slow with the posts for a bit.

The Flyrite Sporty Is Finally Home

As most of you know I've owned this bike for a couple of years and have been slowly working on it as I could. This whole time it's been at Larry's shop (Garage Company Customs) where I would tinker with it on Saturdays when I could, or when I had parts/supplies. Well finally most of the fab work is done and since Larry and Ashley are going to be gone for a couple of weeks to Born Free, I figured now is a good time to bring her home. This way I can work on it when I have time instead of just on Saturdays. Before, I had to remember to get/order the stuff I needed, and then remember to take it with me or find a way to transport it to the shop on Saturday. Sometimes this was a pain plus it's hard to concentrate and work on your bike when everyone else is cutting up, having fun or just working on something more interesting. This way I don't have all the distractions and hopefully I'll make some progress. My first batch of parts should be here today and some more will be here tomorrow. I still have stuff to get, but at least I'm on my way now.

I have to take a minute to thank Larry for letting me leave the bike sitting at the shop so long. Larry is a good friend and has been truly supportive of me during this build. I also have to say thanks to Spenser for helping me, encouraging me and sometimes just plain ol' doing it for me (Larry did some of this too). It's good to have friends and I hope all of you are able to find folks you can hang out with, work with and basically just share your love of cool bikes with. I also want to thank Bill, Ian, Ross and Whitey for all the support, help and Brotherhood they've provided. Enjoy the pics and stay tuned I hope to be posting more like this soon.

Outside the new shop waiting to go on the trailer.

Big Boss Ross from Southpaw Machine hooked me up and gave the girl a ride home. He's the only one I know with a trailer long enough .

You can see here that she takes up damn near the whole rail. Hopefully during this build will be the only times she ever sits on a trailer.

Got her to the house, Ross is amazed that I think I'll be able to squeeze her in my crowded garage.

Ready to get off the trailer and into her new home.

The next day I pulled her out and sat there staring at her as I made a list of what I need to buy and what I need to do. It's not a comprehensive list, but it's enough to get me most of the way there. Yeah, you can see that I'm a geek with my tablet and keyboard. But it DOES do a good job of keeping me organized and lets me look stuff up without having to come back inside and using the desktop computer.

I love these lines and can't wait to have a long bike on the road again. The Triumph used to be set up very similar to this and I've missed having a bike with that style.

All my babies are together for the first time at home.

I'll post more as I get parts and start to get some work done.

A Tale Of Two Bad Boys

By now you should have figured out that I love my 1995 Bad Boy. I fell in love with this bike the day I saw the first ad back in late '94 and dreamed of one from that day forward. Over the years I would run across them every once in awhile, but never when I had money and when I DID have money none were to be found. I even built (badly I might add) a 1/12 scale model of one just like mine as well as having the little 1/18 Maisto version. I'm telling you I had it bad. Then after my "unfortunate incident" with the delivery truck I found myself with some money again and the deal dropped in my lap to buy this one. Since then I have been super happy and have ridden the hell out of this bike. We ride every day together and I hope to continue this for many more years. The thing about these bikes though is that they only made them in 1995, 96 & 97 and even those years they didn't make many...
1995
Total Production 3367
Blue Stripes - 1747
Red Stripes - 1618
Special Custom - 2 (HD did not record what the color was back then)

1996
Total Production - 3344
Purple Stripes - 1103
Turquoise Stripes - 1183
Yellow Stripes - 1058

1997
Total Production 1635
Blue Stripes - 424
Red Stripes - 444
Silver Stripes - 767

As you can see they only made about 2000 of the blue ones total. As a matter of fact I've never seen 2 together. I've only seen a couple of any color together a few times and one of those was at last years BMR when Chris from GA rode his red one up. So when Robbie mentioned his on facebook I was totally surprised and when he said he was riding it to BMR I was stoked. When he pulled in I couldn't stop grinning. He had only had his a few days at this point so it still had all the goofy stuff the previous owner had put on it. That will change soon I'm sure. While we were there I HAD to make sure I got some pics of both together. I wish I had made us move them to a better spot so that I could have gotten good clean shots of them together, but I wasn't thinking that clearly about it at the time. So these pics are what you get and I hope you enjoy them, I know I had fun taking them and seeing our bikes together.

Robbie's is so original it even has the big ass turn signals. Someone in the past had changed mine out to the newer small ones. I've taken the front ones off, but I leave the back ones on to tie the bag I use for work onto. So far I've made a sissy bar for mine, changed to the 12" apes and added the upswept fishtails. Robbie's has has some blue anodized covers added and pipes, otherwise it's original .

I think this is my favorite picture.

Look at our sweet babies!

The day we were leaving loaded down like pack mules.

From the rear.

From the front.

Ready to ride!


Stay tuned, more BMR pics to come. We went riding this weekend, but there was a big chance of rain so I didn't take pics.

Finally Took My New Years Ride!

I spent the weekend in Nashville visiting with the Stepson and didn't get home until late Sunday. This means I missed my annual New Years Day Ride, but I was off on Monday so I just did it a day late. The most important thing is that my first ride of the year was not during the ride to work. It wasn't a long ride since it was in the low 40's with wind gusts over 30 mph. Gonna be 25° for my ride to work tomorrow, but that's why I have electric gear. I used to be hardcore, but now I'm warm ;-)

Check out the pics, nothing too exciting, but I know some of y'all are already snowbound. At least this way you know there are some of us out here keeping it going until you thaw out.

The road leaving my house.

I stopped at the Bessemer Airport just to see if anything interesting was out on the flightline. I get surprised sometimes like the time there was a B-17 sitting there when I pulled up.

just to prove to ya that I was on my bike .

Passed a few local politicians while I was out.

This is a fun and beautiful stretch of road.

Heading home I was lost so I just followed this guy. He seemed to know where he was going.

Got The New Computer And Went For A ride.

I spent ALL damn day Saturday waiting on Fed Ex to deliver my new computer, it finally showed up around 4:30 so the day was shot, but I did get some restin' and relaxin' in. To make up for missing out on the great weather Saturday I took a solo ride on Sunday. Just me, my bike and a few fun local roads. Some days that's just what you need and this time was no exception. Check out the pics and ride along with me.....

The entrance to a housing area down in a valley. I love living up in these hills. The views are great and the roads are fun.

At another street looking off the other side of the mountain.

A fun stretch of one of my favorite roads.

A neat little building that I've used as a backdrop a few times. It works much better with the blue in the Bad Boy's paint than it did with the red bats on the old Honda.

After all these riding pics I can't believe this is the first time I've taken a shot like this.

I just decided to try this new little side road. It was a great road and I will ride this one again.

Tried to take an artsy pic of myself, not that great but I'm still posting it anyway because I can ;-)


I'll be a little skow posting for a few days as I get the new machine up and running. The hardest thing is getting all my software squared away. I DID download Gimp so I can edit pics until I get it all set up.

Making A New Sissy Bar, The Rest Of The Story

Yesterday I left you with the round bar bent and cut to size and the square stock cut, drilled and tapped. After that Spenser hooked me up and welded the pieces together. After it cooled I put it all back together and rode home. Sunday I decided it needed a little dressing up. The round bar and square stock were welded side by side to each other with two flat ends just kinda sticking out there. I decided to use my cutoff wheel to cut the ends at a tapered angle. This really helped the pieces flow together a lot better. After that I primed and spray bombed the sissy bar black to match the rest of it. Got it back together and have been strapping my crap to it the last couple of days. So far so good. We might add a few pieces to the inside for me to be able to hook bungees a little better, but for now I am done.

Stewie tacking it together.

On the bench getting welded for real.

See what I mean about the flat ends?

A little work cutting them at angles instead made a helluva lot of difference. Add a little paint and we have a nice looking sissy bar.

See what I mean, it looks good to me! I know all my bends are not perfect, but I don't care because other than the welding I made this all myself.

I think it works really well with the overall look of the bike. I've always loved the Panhead that Peter Fonda rode in "Wild Angels" and have kinda used that as a model for this bike. I have no plans for painting a dragon on the tank or changing to a flat fender, but the lines are similar.

As usual I have to get my low angle shot.

Looks good from the rear too. Now we finally have proof that I CAN finish a project and not just drag it on for years. Make your bike your own, then go ride it like you know how to fix it!