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BIKERNET CARIBBEAN REPORT– Well I guess the New Year is already looking brighter, it’s a whole new world out there for us who like choppers and home building. The Discovery series is already rolling their cameras, the new shop is looking better and there are so many plans and events on the list, I even heard that ” The Factory” is jumping in the Choppers band wagon. I really hope that it’s not true. In reality, too much of a good thing can turn to shit. Mainstream is not the way to go when you dig doing your own stuff, being part of a unique clique who is not that unique anymore. Still there’s a slight balance between being good for business and being way over exposed.
Like people believing all choppers are ultra high dollar items with corny themes when in reality is as far from the truth as possible. As we all know, choppers are unique in the sense that they are bare, just what is actually needed is used, the lesser the gadgets the better. I don’t consider myself a salesman, I don’t push people to buy stuff and to top it off most of the time I tell them not to get the stuff that they came into my shop to buy, weird ain’t it? But now days anyone with a checkbook and some fake information can become a dealer and sell parts, not anyone can imagine and create something from what?s available, or from raw materials. Once more, (and I guess I’ve said it before) Frank Lloyd Wright was right, less is more!
We are all so deep into this consumerism shit, buy, buy, buy…… Hire this guy for something, let this guy do something else, while we lay on our respective fat asses and watch the world go by via cable TV.I like this industry, in part because it makes and has people working on their things (bikes). They give a chance to be able to add or subtract anything that we damn well please, because there’s a custom builder hiding in the garage, putting something together that makes sense to him with the money available to him. Then, more so, since I have the chance to be at many different places every year, I get the chance to see a lot of bikes that are quite impressive, and you bet, lots of them are home built.
Sure there’s a need for what I do (without shooting myself in the foot) since tools, time and experience are expensive and hard to come by. Ideas and keeping things fresh are even harder to obtain and pass onto the task at hand, but I have gotten to a point were I take the bike as it is and just try to improve, use and redo what it already has. Some of you would be amazed what can be done with a Sportser and 5 grand (sometimes even less, but frames are not cheap now days). If you really think about it, a used Sporty can be found for less than 5 grand, so the whopping total of your next chopper could be less than 10 grand. That’s 30 to 50 thousand less than any Custom factory chopper today. The problem is that people tend to get carried away and try to buy everything that they see shinning in the pages of the latest magazine, then believing that it all complements each other.
For ages chopper builders have been inventive, if not frugal with what they do. True some are downright cheap, but mostly because we see potential in what others consider junk. Let’s use an example; I have been using black components all over the chops for years, one because I have never been a fan of chrome everything and second because we live in a place that is brutal to chrome. And with all the EPA restrictions today, the old reliable chromers have gone to greener pastures. But really think about it, you can accent parts of your bike with powder coating for a lot less money than the price of one billet goodie, even paint will solve this and last, some time, even if it chips or whatever you can always re-spray cheaply.
Here at Bikernet, there’s very good examples of what you can do with some imagination and little money to make a bike look really good. We also have the blessing in disguise of the Web. There?s so many places that you can check what other people are doing and incorporate those ideas (your own way) to your next build.
The problem with all the exposure that we are getting is that the Chopper will become the item to have in the following years, the must have status symbol. But on the other hand, we will always find ways to separate ourselves from the mere followers and mass media absorbers. We have skills that the rest don’t. We have good examples on TV and magazines of what we can do, or what should be avoided at all costs. In choppers as in music, there?s nothing new under the sun. Just many ways to re-invent it. Last but not least, Choppers are built to be ridden the shit out of, not to display them in your living room for coffee talk, nor a catalog of the latest billet-for -U display.
See you next week…
Jose Caribbean Bikernet report….
ROGUE SUSPECTED OF POLICE INVOLVEMENT–Bad Cop Report states department cannot control “Rogue” cops. Pennsylvania – Philadelphia police have so seriously failed to control rogue officers that an outside agency should take charge of the disciplinary system, the department’s anticorruption czar said yesterday in a report to a federal judge.
The 50-page report filed with U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell, who is overseeing police changes promised in a 1996 civil-rights court settlement with the city, is one of the most damning criticisms of the department in recent history.
The report, written by former Assistant District Attorney Ellen Green-Ceisler, said: “The disciplinary system in the Philadelphia Police Department remains fundamentally ineffective, inadequate and unpredictable.”
The report cited 50 of the 1,237 cases handled by the police disciplinary system between January 2000 and May 2002. The report, which did not name the accused officers, said:Three Vice Squad officers were caught making illegal arrests, and “routinely prepared and submitted false police reports to support other illegal arrests.” Prosecutors have withdrawn charges in numerous cases handled by the three. Two of the officers were given written reprimands, one of the department’s lightest punishments. They are still assigned to the unit. The third received a two-day suspension and was transferred.
Two officers speeding down a one-way street caused a five-car accident, seriously injuring several civilians. The supervising sergeant and lieutenant tried to stage a cover-up, ordering a subordinate to falsify the police report. The officers were given reprimands.
When department investigators checked police parking lots around the city, they found 55 officers’ cars with expired inspections and registrations. There was no discipline for 39 of the officers; 11 were given reprimands, and two received one-day suspensions. Only three were ticketed and fined.
A top-ranking police commander was involved in a romantic affair with a female officer. The commander collected overtime while the couple were involved in non-police activities. No disciplinary action was taken against either.
An off-duty officer rear-ended another motorist, fled, and was caught by another officer. The off-duty officer then lied about the accident. The penalty: a one-day suspension.
Three officers from the elite Highway Patrol unit falsified arrest reports and forged signatures in an effort to win bravery and heroism commendations. Penalty: 15-day suspensions for two and a five-day suspension for the third.
“You look at the large picture, it’s very troubling,” said University of Pennsylvania law professor David Rudovsky. “We are anxious to hear from the city as to its view of the accuracy of the report.”
Bad Cop… No Doughnut!
–Rogue
DFO CONNECTION– This was pure luck that I found this info. I was listening to a “Son House” CD when I fired up the puter. Read the e-mail. In this move of mine from Charlotte to Hickory all my “Stuff” has been scattered. Driving me nuts I tell you. I found a scribbled note with this info on the back of a business card. Try
The M/C section didn’t load for me for some reason (fucking grimlins)!! Their ph # 702-558-5142 or 877-764-3337 emails: mailto:Info@techlusions.com>Info@techlusions.com
Hard to get great gas mileage with H-D’s fuel injection. So far a CV carb modified by Trock gives the best gas mileage on a Hi Perf. H-D engine.
Son House is done, now it’s on to “the Paul Butterfield Blues band” CD (Blues Harp Smith)!!
–Pablo
SNITCHES POSED AS CLUB MEMBERS–The president of the North Beach chapter of the Hells Angels has pleaded guilty to federal drug and gun charges.
Thirty-eight year old John Beal of Dunkirk is scheduled to be sentenced March 24th in federal court in Greenbelt. He faces up to 20 years in prison for distribution of cocaine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Beal was arrested last July after an undercover investigation of another motorcycle gang, the Warlocks.
Prosecutors say federal agents posed as Warlocks and went to a Hells Angels party in Calvert County. They saw semiautomatic pistols that Beal said has been strategically placed so gang members could use them immediately for protection.
Prosecutors say Beal was also seen giving cocaine to a Warlocks member and told one of the ATF agents he could provide the agent with cocaine.
–from Rogue
WILD PRODUCTS OF THE WEEK–The mean looking leather accessories we sell are made from Cane Toad hides.These critter were introduced into Queensland many decades ago to controlthe Sugar Cane Beetle but got out of control. Now they’re spreading likewild fire in plague proportins and all attempts to stop them have failed sofar.
Cane Toad skin is strong and flexible and, after tanning, it retains thesequalities but also becomes softer and more supple. It makes up intoexcellent leather goods and when backed with pigskin (which they are) isboth tough and durable.
We have leather goodies ranging from key purses to fanny packs to sun visorsall with real toads heads on them – only the eyes are not real.
These toadskin items are on http://www.roopooco.com/toad_intro.htm but theother part of the site ( www.roopooco.com ) sells such oddities as genuineKangaroo poo in paperweights, koala bear poo earrings and gilded TasmanianDevil poo paperweights. It’s very funny without being crude.
–Peter
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