I can’t wait to see our K-Model flathead 45 engine cleaned up at Departure Biker works. It was just shipped to Paughco for Tom Seymour’s Saddlemen project. It’s going to be too cool. I have another tech coming to Bikernet Baggers from Paughco regarding our project Bagger, a Tribute to Krash Kranzler.
The last V-Twin show standing is coming up shortly, in February. The classic ER show for the custom industry stands tall through the bad economy and show madness. Hang on for updates.
As always, the Bikernet Weekly News is co-sponsored by Cycle Source, Iron Trader News, and ChopperTown.
RAY PRICE DIED YESTERDAY AT HIS SHOP–
Thanks for letting me know. Ray and I have been friends since the late 60s. I did the heads on his original Sportster when he set a record for that class. Both of us went to the nitro Harleys shortly after that. He was a great guy and one hell of a rider for many more years than most.
He finally quit racing after going off the end of the strip unable to stop. He was hurt pretty bad that time. He and Leo Payne were two of my best friends. I also understand that Mike and Margaret Wilson died awhile back. They were one of the greatest couples I ever met. Way too many friends are gone now.
Thanks again and want to wish you guys a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!!
–Tom Rudd
BIKERNET EVE LAUGHS —
What do you call a pantry full of lesbians? A licker cabinet
What do you call an Eskimo lesbian? A Klondyke
What do you call a lesbian with long fingers? Well Hung .
What do you call lesbian twins? Lick-a-likes.
What’s the difference between a Ritz cracker and a lesbian? One’s a snack cracker; the other’s a crack snacker.
What do you have when you’ve got 50 lesbians and 50 govt workers? 100 people that don’t do Dick.
–from El Waggs
BIKERNET INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: STUCK IN TRANSIT–
Tale of woe for lack of anything else to do. I wasn’t going to bother but I have the time.
In short missed my plane
I was at the gate for boarding time but gate changed
Stopped at another gate same airline. They check new gate and say no worries boarding not started yet. I should have made them call the gate crew to hold plane.
It was a real mile walk at a fast pace it took 20 minutes.
Got there 2 minutes before push off. No plane in sight. They are often late. Rarely early.
All flights full. Two more days in – near KL as airport is an hour from downtown barring usual traffic jams. Get to discover a new area that seems very Malaysian as few foreigners around and little English spoken. Public transportation is about an hour into town. No point really. Good news is airline covers taxi. Hotel. Brkfst and dinner. Plus new flight tomorrow. Too bad I’m not in an island paradise.
It could have been worse. Yesterday 13 Malaysians died in a bus crash in Thailand. They will not see Christmas again. The story is big here as families grieve amid plans for holiday dinners with them
Even in Malaysia. Three kids passed out in restaurant while mom and dad play on phones. 
Some views of a big city. Actually this was a ways out of town. 
Condos. Interesting design
Construction everywhere
Last view of downtown skyline. kl tower and petronas twin towers pretty visible. My hotel was almost at the base of twin towers and ten minutes to KL Tower. 
Merry Christmas to you all
–Art Hall
Bikernet International All-Supreme Editor
BIKERNET CHRISTMAS CAROLS —
BIKERNET BAD JOKE LIBRARY OPEN ALL HOURS–
A man walks into a drug store with his ten-year-old son.They happen to walk by the condom display and the boy asks, “What are these, Dad?”The man matter-of-factly replies, “Those are called condoms, son. Men use them to have safe sex.””Oh I see,” replied the boy pensively. Yes, I’ve heard of that in health class at school.”The boy looks over the display, picks up a package of three and asks, “Why are there three in this package?”The dad replies, “Those are for high school boys: one for Friday, one for Saturday and one for Sunday.””Cool,” says the boy. Then he notices a six-pack and asks, “Then who are these for?””Those are for university students,” the dad answers, “two for Friday, two for SaturdaY and two for Sunday.””WOW!” exclaims the boy. “Then who uses these?” he asks, picking up a twelve-pack.
With a sigh and a tear in his eye, the dad replies, “Those are for married men… one for January, one for February, one for March…”
METALSPORT UPDATE IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS–
Metalsport once again is taking the next step to better serve our customers. We have just purchased a new
Vertical Turning Center. This will allow us to do turning of the larger size wheels in house,
which until now had to be sent out.
It also allows us to maintain control of Turn Around, Quality, Cost, and a better oversite of “Special Projects”.
This machine costs about the same as a really nice “Big Rig”. Our way of thinking is that we are better serving
our customers by becoming more efficient.
We are continuing down the road of our goal to have the best product at the best price with the best delivery.
BIKER CHRISTMAS–
It would have been cool to be riding your motorcycle on Christmas Eve in the Holy Land by the light of that bright star that seemed to appear from out of nowhere over 2000 years ago. You’re riding along on the outskirts of Jerusalem and out of the corner of your watchful biker eye you see 3 dudes dressed in the finery ancient mystical kings from the Far East wear and their camel rides are loaded with gear for a cross country putt and royally adorned with exotic tack and Duane Ballard custom leather saddles. So you lay off your throttle and ride up to ask these road dogs, “Hey brothers…what’s up?” “How come you guys are all dressed up and traveling on such a cold night?”
These dudes have excited serious looks on their faces and they point at the star and invite you to follow them. So, you say to yourself, I got nothing better to do and like most of us bikers looking for new adventures, you decide to take these dudes up on their offer. Out of respect you keep your scooter in 2nd gear ‘cause there is no rush & don’t want your pipes to spook these righteous brothers’ rides. You cruise through Jerusalem and ride up a hill or two and as you get to the outskirts of town you end up in a small suburb called Bethlehem. You notice a bunch of shepherd-brothers with their sheep dogs guarding their flocks near a rundown looking roadhouse with a detached stable in even worse condition.
Looks like the place is packed. There is even a small family getting ready to bed down in the stable. The 3 royal looking dudes park their camel-rides just outside the entrance to the stable. You just figure they need to check their rides in first and will be taking shelter in the road house for the night. It’s late and you ‘kinda wonder why guys who could afford 5 star digs would want to stop here, but maybe they need to keep a low profile because the ATF is after them. Also, for now, that star seems to have stopped moving across the sky and is directly over the stable. “Trippy!” you exclaim to yourself. “Feels like something major is up, but I’m beat.” “People are cool here.” “Guess I’ll stop here for the night, too.”
One of the shepherd brothers waves you over to their small campfire and offers you a drink. So, you park your scoot, pull your bedroll off your sissy bar and over you go to accept the brother’s hospitality. That star looks closer and brighter now. You can’t take your eyes of it. You thank the shepherd brother for his hospitality and you’re in the middle of a swig when all of a sudden a bunch of Heaven’s Angels come flying across the sky and the shepherds, their dogs and all the sheep and me are scared sh_ _ less.
The biggest ‘Angel is lit up near as bright as the unusual star and he tells everyone “Chill! And don’t be afraid!” and he says, “Brothers…I got good news…etc.” You are digging on this scene & patting yourself on the back for doing what we bikers do – taking a road to a different place ’cause it sounded like a cool adventure…but you never realized that the road you took this particular night would lead you to witness the birth of the King of Kings and all the bummers you ever had or will have will be wiped clean and the King that was born that night will invite you to live with him in heaven forever, no charge. My favorite sentence: “It’s taken care of….”
Merry Christmas y’all. & Happy Birthday to my King.
-Jerry Kraus
MORE FEMALE RIDERS THAN EVER ACCORDING TO LATEST MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY COUNCIL OWNER SURVEY-
Female motorcycle ownership is at an all-time high according to the latest data from the Motorcycle Industry Council. The MIC’s latest Motorcycle Owner Survey found that women account for 14 percent of all U.S. motorcycle owners, well up from the 8 percent reported in 1998.
“Women continue to embrace motorcycling like never before,” said Sarah Schilke, national marketing manager of BMW Motorrad USA and chair of PowerLily, a group consisting of female motorcycle industry professionals. “Of the 9.2 million owners, more of them are women than we’ve ever recorded. In fact, the number of female owners better than doubled from 2003 to 2014. And, among the more than 30 million Americans who swung a leg over a motorcycle and rode at least one time in 2014, a quarter of these riders were women.”
Among younger generations of owners, the percentage of women is even higher. Slightly more than 17 percent of Gen X owners, and 17.6 percent of Gen Y owners, are women. Among Boomer owners, women make up 9 percent.
Female Motorcyclist
The Owner Survey also revealed what type of bikes women prefer. Cruisers are the choice of 34 percent of female riders. Scooters rank a close second at 33 percent, followed by sport bikes at 10 percent. In the survey, of some 48,000 American households, women were also asked to share their top three reasons for riding motorcycles. They answered “fun and recreation,” followed by “sense of freedom” and “enjoy outdoors/nature.” When it comes to purchasing a motorcycle, women rate “Fuel Economy” and “Test Rides” as the most important decision-making factors.
The study revealed that female riders are safety-conscious. While 60 percent of women took a motorcycle safety course, only 42 percent of men had any formal training. In some state motorcycle safety training programs, women make up 30 percent of the student population.
Other key survey results:
• The median age for female motorcyclists is 39 versus 48 for males
• More than 49 percent of women motorcyclists perform their own maintenance or have a friend or relative do it, instead of taking their bikes to a shop
• New bikes are preferred over used by 57 percent of female riders
• 49 percent of female motorcyclists are married
• 47 percent of female motorcyclists have a college or post-graduate degree
The MIC Motorcycle Owner Survey is free to MIC members, but can be purchased by non-members for $12,500.
For more information: mic.org.
-Greg Jones
–Rogue
THE BIKERNET BAD JOKE LIBRARY IS STILL OPEN ON THE EVE OF XMAS–
With a very seductive voice a wife asked her husband, “Have you ever seen Twenty Dollars all crumpled up?”
“No” said her husband.
She gave him a sexy little smile, unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse and slowly reached down in her cleavage, and pulled out a crumpled Twenty Dollar bill.
He took the crumpled Twenty Dollar bill from her, and smiled approvingly.
She then asked, “Have you ever seen Fifty Dollars all crumpled up?”
“No I haven’t,” he said with an anxious tone in his voice.
She gave him another sexy little smile, unzipped her skirt, letting It drop to the floor and seductively reached into her panties and pulled out a crumpled Fifty Dollar bill.
He took the crumpled Fifty Dollar bill.
“Now,” she said, “Have you ever seen 50,000 Dollars all crumpled up?”
“No way!” he said, even more curious to what would happen next.
She replied: “Go look in the garage.”
BRAND New Bikernet Reader Comment!–
I’m a fan of the Brawler since it first came out and this GT is outstanding, right now its my favorite custom bike out there, handsdown!
Believe me if I could afford one I would buy it in a heartbeat. I sincerely congratulate Brass Balls for all of their bikes but specially for creating the “beautiful” Brawler GT……!!!
— Steve Biello
Cayey, PR
dpbiello@gmail.com
BIKERNET TOOL OF THE WEEK 12/24/2015–
JIMS No. 2043 Fork Nut Socket
When disassembling forks on Wide Glide front ends for service, the fork plug under the top triple tree can be difficult to remove. In fact, many backyard mechanics damage the plug with an adjustable wrench. JIMS No. 2043 Fork Nut Socket is designed to remove and install the metric cap without damaging the threaded plug. JIMS Fork Socket features a ½” drive, is made in the USA, and has JIMS lifetime tool warranty. The suggested list price is $62.65. For use on 1948-2005 Wide Glide, 1984-present Softail, and 1980-2013 FLHT models with 41mm fork tubes.
Charges upgraded in Neenah shooting–“We know you’re serious. We are scared to death.”
That’s what Michael L. “ML” Funk said after a gunman fired a warning shot into the ceiling during a hostage standoff Dec. 5 at Eagle Nation Cycles in Neenah.
The accused gunman, Brian T. Flatoff, replied, “You ought to be scared.”
Fellow hostage Ryan Moderson recounted the conversation in an amended criminal complaint filed against Flatoff on Wednesday in Winnebago County Circuit Court. He now faces 16 felony charges, including four homicide-related counts.
After police exchanged gunfire with Flatoff and retreated, Funk, 60, fled out the back door of the motorcycle shop.
Video footage shows Funk going out the door as Flatoff fired rounds at him. Police shot Funk when he left the shop. Authorities said Funk had a gun and didn’t follow commands to drop it. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
LET’S PARTY- -I need to dive away from the computer and relax. They gave me a new set of crutches, but I almost killed the Cat. The 5-Ball cane does the trick.
Have a helluva Xmas. The Sunday Post will be packed with action for next week.
All the best for the New Year, we’re going to need it!
–Bandit
