General Posts

The other morning riding to work I made my usual breakfast stop, I pulled out my phone and my friend Palmer from back in Virginia sent me a video. Palmer and his family owned Waugh Enterprises in Orange Virginia for years. In my opinion it was the best Harley dealership in Virginia. I purchased four Harleys from them. The dealership was family owned and had a great atmosphere. Back to the video, it was a clip from the movie EASYRIDERS showing Captain America and Billy along with Jack Nicholson riding bitch with Peter Fonda. In the background Born To be Wild by Steppenwolf played. I never get tired of seeing it or hearing it! As I listened I thought about my life and motorcycles and what it had all meant to me. Read more.

  But I received a call from the Supreme showman Prince Najar. He was responsible for all the custom aspects at the IMS motorcycle show series for a decade and now he’s involved in the AMD show series. His partner Bob Kay took over the IMS Show and I smell a conspiracy. Jeff organized custom elements for Sturgis shows, SmokeOuts and recently Harley Museum Ride In Shows custom portion. He’s also involved with the magnificent Marilyn Stemp of the Buffalo Chip for the Flying Piston Charity Builders’ Breakfast. So, when the Supreme Prince called me a month before the rally and said, “Make a totally unique sculpture for our charity auction or die trying.” Read more.

As a disciple of famous Swiss-Italian master designer Franco Sbarro, French designer Ludovic Lazareth now focuses his talents on the creation of prototypes and the manufacture of upscale, bespoke cars and motorcycles. Many of his over-the-top creations can be seen in European action films, but this Sporster 1200 is the first Harley Davidson the inventive builder set out to customize an American motorcycle. Read more.

Hey, It’s Sturgis Run week. The brothers, sisters, and the industry are headed to the Badlands for all the action, the parties and the shows. James the tile man came by yesterday to give me a bid on refurbishing a bathroom downstairs. When I mentioned Sturgis he got all starry-eyed. “I need to make that run before I’m any older and can’t raise some hell,” James said. Read more.

Well before WWII a talented engineer and designer unleashed a truly new motorcycle on the two-wheeled world. With only two cylinders and 26 horsepower, it might seem pretty damn tame by today’s standards. In 1937, however, a light and nimble motorcycle with as much or more power as many V-Twins was a big deal. When Edward Turner came to work at Triumph, his task was to modernized the line, which consisted of single-cylinder machines that might best be characterized by two words – durable, but boring. Additional chrome and bright paint made the old models look, if not new, at least fresh. Luckily, Turner didn’t stop there. Read more.

First let me say Smoke-Out 19 was very different for me, instead of just being a spectator and a Bikernet Correspondent, I was a bike show judge. This comes with a great deal of responsibility. I could not believe when I got the call and was asked if I would like to be a judge in the show! I jumped at the chance and took my job very seriously. Read more.

The Recidivist is a machine inspired by the art of permanent body adornment. Motorbikes are commonly adorned with tattoo motifs using an airbrush, however the uniqueness of The Recidivist lies in the fact that the bike’s entire construction is covered in tattooed skin branded directly onto the bike’s tires, tanks, seat, rear fender, lamp and many other smaller elements. Light colored cow hide leather – similar to the color of human skin – is engineered onto the bike. Artists from Polish tattoo studios applied traditional works of tattoo art onto the bike using. All of that makes The Recidivist world’s first tattooed motorcycle. Read more.

A little history. The motorcycle is a 2004 Electra-glide with some performance upgrades, one of which was a Screamin Eagle 6-speed installation. At the time of the failure there were only 33,000 calm miles on the trans. The day of the failure I was riding with a buddy and the bike gave no hints of a problem. The only thing I noticed was when I glanced at my speedo there were a couple times the needle would fall and then come back. I just attributed it to an electronic glitch, nothing to worry about right. We broke off on our separate routes home and I pulled off the freeway to get gas. As I was pulling into the gas station the bike started to make a hellacious screeching noise. I didn’t have a clue what the fuck it was. I put it in neutral and it still made the noise, so my first thought was a problem in the primary. I shut the bike off, pulled off the derby cover and chain inspection cover and didn’t see anything that was obviously wrong. I started the bike back up and the noise was gone, so I put the two covers back on, got my gas and took off figuring I’d deal with the noise later. I’m getting back on the freeway, going through the gears and everything seemed fine until I shifted into 5th gear, nothing. I thought I’d missed the gear, so I down shifted into 4th, back into 5th, nothing, shifted into 6th and nothing. I went back down into 4th and rode the bike home, that was a long 80 miles. Read more.