hold your mud

If only i had known

I had no idea what i was looking at when i took this picture at a show a few years ago. I should have studied every inch of these bikes for at least an hour.

Century Enterprises

Just love those single loop frames!

Street Digger

"Chris raps with Ron about the relative merits of a controlled stress frame although she'd rather forget the talk and putt off to the nearest mcdonald's for a burger and a coke." Yeah putt off on a 93.7" stroker that runs 11.90s.

The Art of Doing It Right

fancy artsy pictures

Ahh...Barris

Genious!

Starry starry night

So you're just riding along enjoying the cool fall air on the way to a bike night at the local BBQ joint, even though you know they will all stare at you like you're a pirate riding a water buffalo into a ghost town inhabited by retired parrot trainers and then rumnfnnnn... Your bike quits as you pull out on to the busiest highway in town. Pull the clutch in and coast over to the side of the road. Ok no lights so I blew a fuse, promptly change it out and it burns up instantly. Ok push the bike up over the curb and push it through the grass to the nearest parking lot and out of nowhere a friend hops out of his wife's car and starts to help me push. We narrowly avoid death and make it into the dimly lit parking lot. We ran and got some more fuses and I checked over the wires to make sure nothing was shorted to the frame. Installed fuse and had lights, but no fire... Looks like an ignition problem. Friend had to go, but called my wife and she shows up a few minutes later. No ramp... Well ok this thing can't weigh too much right? Did I mention my wife is all of 80 lbs AND 5 months pregnant! Ok so I try back wheel first but can't get a good enough grip from the side... Got the front wheel up in the bed and my wife tries to keep it straight while I lift the back. barely fits with front tire jammed in on corner and back tire almost hanging off the back of the tailgate. Well now that the bike is in the bed we need a way to keep it there. 1 ratchet strap, 5 bungee straps, and one green half chewed piece of nylon rope later and the bike is secured in the bed. As I rode in the bed staring at the stars in the beautiful sky, I felt a certain peacefulness come over me. Then I wished upon a shooting star that my bike would run again.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Smokin'

Period Frisco

"The new riding style out of Frisco is "knees up Mother Brown," so the shifter and rear brake pedal were relocated on top of the primary case. Luna balances his feet on a set of freeway pegs, bolted to the primary case behind the rear barrel. Although this arrangement is unorthodox, a lot of people in the San Francisco area swear by it, claiming that it's the hot setup for long jams, making it easy to rest your elbows on your knees."

Roadtrips

Need to happen more often



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

remember that time?

we sat on a table for hours and waited for this coupe to fire off and leave? So worth it

Scribbles

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Timeless tricks

Always a good choice over flake and pearls

classic chopper style

Pretty neat little '50 preunit. The compact stock frame/small seat/peanut tank/drag bars say classic 60s and the 8 over fork brings it up to the 70s chop standards. Killer stance...

Way back...

Stinson up front on the 400, me following on the 750. Ahh the old days before we had jobs. We should have done a lot more riding and much less studying. But the real question is who wears shorts when they ride? Losers haha

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Road Trip

Well it all started when I was looking for parts for my 4 door 56 Cadillac that I was planning on converting to a 2 door. My search lead to me to find a Black 2 door Coupe DeVille 9 hours away in Kentucky. It looked super solid and it seemed alot cheaper to start from scratch on the two door instead of trying to convert the 4 door. Problem was that the only vehicle that I had running at the time was a TrailBlazer with an inline 6. Needless to say, it wouldn't tow a 2-3 ton cadillac and the trailer that weighed a ton or more up the mountains.

Solution to the problem was to get my 2004 Chevy Dually back on the road. It was built as a show truck but needed work to get it back on the road. After unplugging the batteries in the back and cleaning all the connectors, which wasn't pleasant because they are underneath the bed; replacing the front airbags; rebuilding the air compressor for the air suspension; and fixing the A/C we got Big Red back on the road. Oh, and installing a new Edge Juice with Attitude programmer on it to up the fun factor.

Problem #2, the lights on the trailer didn't work. After getting my electric genious friend Strawbridge to troubleshoot over 2 to 3 evenings, replacing 2 broken lights, and figuring out the ground system, I was finally ready to go.

THE TRIP

My girlfriend and I had to be ready to leave at 4 am on Saturday Morning to make it to B'ham at 6 to pick up stinson. Then the three of us made the long trip to Kentucky cash in hand. Safety in numbers, right? Everything went fine until we turned to get to the house where the Caddy was located. It was a super short bridge with a sharp left turn. Yeah, the dually wasn't going to make this turn. Luckily I brought every tool and jack I owned. Stinson and I jacked up the rear of the trailer and pulled it to the right edge of the bridge so we could make the turn. And still had to drive into someone's yard. Then we had the search for the house where the Caddy was. Now with our luck, thus far... you would think that we would have a break and have the house right there. Nope, the house was up on a mountain...with a very steep, very narrow driveway and a sharp turn at the top. No way the dually was going to make it up that one. Solution: the family who we were getting Blacky, the Caddy, from hooked up their truck to my trailer and helped us get Blacky.

THE FAMILY:

Now this was an interesting family. They all smoked. Three of them had the same name. And within five minutes the wife had told my girlfriend everything about their family. They were extremely nice and hospitable and helped us in every way they could. They kept offering us cokes and water to drink, I think I lost like three bottles of water and they kept trying to give me more. At one time we were backing up the mountain and they stopped the truck just to give me a bottle water. Seeing Blacky was love at first sight. I knew it was coming home with me as soon as I laid eyes on it. It was just as the gentleman had described it and I was excited because I had been dreaming about this car for a lot of years. The car was solid as a rock, except for one rust hole in the floorboard.

After 2 hours of looking for spare parts in attics and various other locations on their property, we did the paperwork and loaded up the cadillac to take home, which was not an easy feat. Blacky was running, with the original 365, but the drum brakes were locking up. We FINALLY got her on the trailer and started the process of backing up and getting turned around (while on the side of the mountain) so that we could get it down and hitched back to the dually. Stinson was behind the trailer making sure that we didnt go off the side of the mountain. At one point the rear tire of the trailer was inches away from the edge on a pile of dirt they had added to the edge to stop cars from falling off, which apparently had happened a few times.

After 4 hours of loading the car and meeting their entire family, we started the long trip back to b'ham where we would stop for the night. At every gas station we stopped at for fuel, except one, I was asked "How much for the caddy?" Even at the last gas station the attendant locked up the store so she could come out and look at it. I felt like we were the circus in town with Big Red towing Blacky. The trip was a total of 23 hours non stop once we got to B'ham. And I drove the entire time, everyone else seemed to be scared to drive the dually with the trailer behind it.

On Sunday we spent some time with Stinson and his wife. Stinson took some pictures in his neighbor of our little circus on wheels and then we headed home for some much needed r and r.

A few days later we unloaded Blacky and are eager to get started on fixing her up to her natural beauty, plus a few modifications. Stay Tuned...

Show and go

Dig the pinstriped slicks...

Sunny days

Not too many days like this left, awesome ride AJ.











- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone