Chopper Animals & Mayhem Machines Vol. 2 and

It’s cold in the Bikernet shop nearing the middle of December, and I’m behind as usual. I collect DVDs like a teenager collects unpaid parking tickets. They hang around haunting me until I break down and watch ‘em. It’s like this: I live and breathe motorcycles from the first thing in the morning until midnight every night. When I pull myself out of the shop or away from the buzzing computer, I like to kick back, have a drink, and watch an old movie. I don’t want to watch how-to bullshit, OCC drama, build-offs, or boring road tales. They piss me off. I spin the chamber on my .357 and threaten to assassinate my big screen.

So, on this cool, just-rained Sunday night, I broke down after posting the Sunday Post and Jaqhama’s review of Ewan McGregor’s Africa Ride. I’ve never watched one of those. I had this Kuba A Road Movie DVD, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t reviewed the latest Choppahead Mayhem DVD. So, let’s do it.

Choppahead Presents: Chopper Animals & Mayhem Machines Vol. 2

OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE: 8/20/07

This one is three-hours long! Footage from all over the globe! It starts with a bang and then slows to a snail’s pace. The music jams, but the pace lingers like an old woman getting dressed. I have a growing sense that if they keep this effort up, they’ll get the director’s gist, the drive, and the action in high gear.

I don’t know if I hung for all three hours of various builds around the vast planet, in dingy garages, pro-shops, semi-pro shops, back streets and you name it. If you want to see how a vast variety of passionate builders go about stringing a motorcycle together, this is the DVD for you; and if you fall asleep during any portion, just rewind the motherfucker and check it out.

I liked some of their madcap, industrial, gasoline-alley rides and antics; that part got me started. I sat forward in my chair in hopes of watching a film that would grab my balls and take me for a ride, like splitting lanes on a Hollywood freeway at 100 mph.

It didn’t do that; but if you want to laugh at how some builders fabricate but get the job done, this DVD will take you down some interesting, wrenchin’ roads.

The Choppahead producers also have a shop, and build their own notion of old-school scooters.

“We build anything from classic-styled Kustoms to raw, gritty, hardcore mayhem machines. And, we can work with almost any budget, whether you got 6k or 60k to drop! We are lowdown chopper trash ourselves, and don’t feel you should have to mortgage your house to discover a kool, Kustom motorcycle in your garage.

“We’ve been featured in national and international magazines like The Horse Backstreet Choppers, Hardcore Chopper, Chopper Underground, Wrench, etc. (see our media section coming soon to this site); and have taken numerous trophies at shows. Our bikes speak for themselves. So if you want a kick-ass Kustom ‘cycle built for you, shoot an e-mail to truth@choppahead.com, or call (617)283-5970 and we can get into the details.”

http://www.choppahead.com

What a sight for sore eyes. I’d ride with them anywhere. No shots were available for this review, so I dug up some from the Bob T. collection.

Kuba A Road Movie

“We’ve just finished the postproduction of the documentary Kuba A Road Movie, which belongs to a series we are producing: Road Movie Collection—Adventure Documentaries for TV,” said Enric Urrutia, the producer.

Five gentlemen from Spain flew to Cuba and hooked up with a bike restorer, who set them up with five rough but running, scraped-together, vintage Harleys for a cultural quest across the island. The rider who built the bikes was obviously passionate about his efforts to keep these bikes alive and on the road. Fenders were faded and dented. Headlights were busted and dinged. All the bikes were dressers, mostly rigid Panheads, but I noticed one Flathead.

This bike was packed like it was meant for a ride across Cuba, but it’s a tad early. The bikes they used were from the ‘40s.

The story contained little info about the ride and the machines. It focused predominately on the cultural human condition and passions of the people. There were very few hard facts, not much tour-guide shit or history, but I gleaned a strong sense of the plight of the people and their desires. From this film I discovered a deteriorating island, with pothole-strewn roads, chipped stucco buildings, rusting wrought-iron fences, faded walls, and poor appliances. Most equipment was old and must be repaired with even more decrepit components.

A woman doctor lives on a $230-a-month pension and must rent out her rooms to survive. “But then I get to help others,” she said. They take pride in a lack of starvation, but the television is still rampant of government propaganda, entreprenuers have no outlets, and billboards portray Bush as an equal to Hitler.

There was an Indian, of this vintage, featured in this film.

It’s interesting in its heartfelt perspective of the Cuban people, prostitution, and their desires for peace, harmony, and spiritual stability. The people were portrayed as generally friendly, musical, and artistic; and they danced in the streets to old, taped-together instruments. The cops, and even farmers with horse-drawn buggies, would stop to help the bikers. But, unfortunately, it’s not about the ride or the bikes, which would have fascinated me.

Sure, there were grandiose statements about the passions behind the rides, and the builder explained how to start the tank-shift Flathead in great detail, but that was the extent of it. It had a manual twist-retard grip on the bars, and asked that the rider start the bike and then warm it for a minute before advancing the distributor.

I would have enjoyed hearing about how he kept these bikes running, how he found parts, machined components, etc. The bikes were a trip and they broke down from time to time, but we weren’t afforded the details.

There you have it. If you want a trip across Cuba without learning the highway names, distances, and facts, it’s a cool picture of the life and times in a corrupt, dilapidated island society.

http://transdiscmusic.com/

Some shots from Bob T. Collection