5-Ball Bonneville Racing

Here’s a strange one. I received an e-mail inviting the Bikernet.com Staff to a private screening of The World’s Fastest Indian movie. I missed the first one, with the cast, including Anthony Hopkins and all the motorcycle press. I grew up in Los Angeles. I have a burr in my boot for watching folks, press, […]

This industry is quirky, full of scoundrels and outlaws. A couple of guys from Bassani Exhaust took me to lunch recently to discuss advertising on Bikernet. Did they advertise, no. But they talked me out of the Salt Shaker, tempting me with a tall tale about some buxom blonde who could be my girl for

  This is a wacky year. I’ve blown through half it, and now I need to scramble. At times, I feel like I’m wading through mud, and it brings me down, then something minute happened and I was reenergized. So here’s the deal for June: Valerie Thompson is flying out next weekend for a final

Here’s a classic flathead from the racing days on Daytona Beach, courtesy of the Bob T. collection. Chassis Adjustment This year seems to be kicking off slowly. Lee Clemens’ Departure Bike Work’s team is buried in snow, bad cameras, and struggling with a slow economy. We finally rolled the Bonne Belle onto Andrew’s lift. Andrew

Bonne Belle UpdateAnother 5-Ball effort made progress. The 1940 WLD flathead, at Departure Bike Works in Richmond, Virginia witnessed true progress. Hidden in an Ozark Cave, until recently, were etched stones containing flathead speed secrets. Lee Clemens, the Boss of Departure, knows all who know anything about engines and performance. He had a distant drawn-and-

Ten years ago we installed this Morris mag on the Milwaukee Iron Dicey Knuckle. It still starts on the third kick. This is one of those features Bandit complains about then hands to me. He gets all the complete features and I get ones with shots and not text, or text and no shots. Or

I’m running back and forth between bikes fabricating shit, waiting for parts, dodging bullets and counting the days. Yesterday I received a note from David Zelma at Performance Machine. “We found the front caliper bracket,” he said and I sighed. I was beginning to wonder whether I dove into an odyssey to find the un-findable

This is nuts. But let me try to explain. We’re making progress fast. Even our Bonne Belle art improved from a Chris Kallas black-and-white line drawing to a colored rendition by the master. Rick Krost straightened and strengthened the frame last chapter and we ordered Paughco cups designed for this frame (with Timken bearings) with

In the last segment the crew of U.S. Choppers straightened the Bonne Belle, 1940 45 frame, but I asked Rick Krost, da boss, if he felt any gusseting was necessary. He pointed out all the strong factory gusseting in the front and even on the single down tube, but suggested that we gusset the rear

WednesdayThe key word was, “Today's the day.” We only had a day-and-a-half left! We changed the plugs to 4163 Autolites. We hadn't employed the Nitrous system, and I could see the need in Berry's eyes. He spent an entire year building this engine specifically for nitrous, to counteract the nature of the salt and lack