BIKERNET NEWS FLASH–GUNFIRE ROCKS THE HEADQUARTERSHey,

Life in the ghetto is never dull. I don’t know how to explain this, except to rattle on and hope you get the gist of the story. We had a box of chrome parts of good news this week. The Street Stalker is sold for enough to print Sam “Chopper” Orwell, so we’ll have books in the next two to three weeks. We’ve figured out how to mount and protect the dual 42 mm Mikuni carburetors on my ’48 Panhead. It could be running next week. A deal came through on some Pro Street frames so Nuutboy’s bike will see wheels over the next couple of months. Dr. Hamster, who recently had a station wagon cut him off and destroy his FXR, will have a new frame, and I may be able to start on a project that includes slipping an 88-Twin Cam into a Kenny Boyce Pro Street frame. The scores came from a friend of 30 years, Rogue in Florida. We’ve been posting his parts deals in the news over the last couple of weeks. There’s more to come.

On the home front, it was a quiet night Tuesday at about 11 p.m., until I heard a knock on the door. It was more like a caress, and I gladly let her in. She was sad, a bit tired from a hectic work week, and worried about something. We talked and drank wine, then she took a bath by candlelight and soaked her worries away. Energy seemed to spring forth and we were up to all hours, only to fall asleep at about 2 a.m., wiped out after another full, satisfying day.

At 3:45, I awoke. I have this nature, that if I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, I immediately lie still and wait to see if something is up. Then I heard it. A grunt and a door closing. That’s when the night took on a completely different demeanor. What once was star-light and love turned violent, but we better get to the news.

BIKERNET SEX CORRESPONDENT–Reporting from the Penthouse Website:

What was to be a simple editorial has turned into an extravaganza withvolumes of photos, video footage and editorial. Mostly pictorial driven,the Penthouse.com presentation will surely tell the story. Had I had free reign, certainly I would have had enough photos for two yearsworth of evolving editorial on the Penthouse site.The Penthouse.com presentation of Sturgis is set to go live Oct. 15.Will I be one of those free-spirited nymphs captured in glossy print? WillBandit be captured, chopper and all, in the chesty grip of a free-spiritednymph? Shhhhh – those secrets are safe with me.–Sasha

AUSTRALIAN BIKERNET CORRESPONDENT REVEALS SOUND CONTROVERSY– Ray Russell, an Australian businessman and rider, sent in the following story about a musician who rolled a Harley-Davidson into his studio and recorded it as part of a musical arrangement, then decided that he owns the sound of the Harley. The following is from a Melbourne newspaper:Bill Cook (Australian musician) owns the distinctive sound of the famous motorbike.Harley-Davidson’s legal department has worked for the past six years toreclaim ownership.But with the help of several other motorbike companies, including Honda andYamaha, Cook has maintained his grip on the bike’s distinctive rumble.

The 57-year-old stonemason-turned-musician took out the United Statescopyright for the bike’s syncopated sound in 1993 when making an albumcalled Steel Stallions.He recorded the idling engine of his vintage Harley-Davidson and made it therhythm section on several of the album’s tracks.

“I rode the Harley into the sound studio and the engineer poked hismicrophone in and around the engine while it was idling,” he said.”He then put it near the head so you could hear the valves falling back intotheir pockets. Then, near the carbie.All this coming through $10,000 speakers at full bore was music to my ears.The Harley sound as the drum track is unique and I believe I have a pieceof music I can sell to Harley riders.”

Manufacturer Harley-Davidson was surprised to find someone else owned thesound of its engine — and it filed an application with the U.S. Patent andTrademark Office to override Cook’s copyright.

Two months ago, Harley-Davidson dropped its six-year effort to patent thesound, saying it was tired of spending money with no end in sight.

This leaves Cook the undisputed owner of the Harley-Davidson sound.Cook says he does not care about the copyright and would “happily” hand itover to the Milwaukee bike manufacturer if it agreed to give away a copy ofhis album with every Harley sold.

Ehhh, I ain’t buyin’ it-Oz

JIMS AHDRA LAS VEGAS NATIONALS–JIMS is proud to host the 3rd annual AHDRA Las Vegas drag racing nationals, held Oct. 20-22. These races are the extreme in Harley-Davidson Drag Racing, and this year guarantees to be one of the best years ever. The event will be held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, on the brand-new, NHRA-certified drag strip.

JIMS is devoted to Harley-Davidson and racing. Don’t miss it at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. For more information go to the JIMS site: www.jimsusa.com.

RUNNING IN TIGHT CIRCLES–A couple of my straighter riding friends. Next to me is Angus King,governor of Maine, and next to him is Chief Justice DanWalthen. Two other Harley-riding guys out for an afternoon of fun withPaul.

HOT ROD BIKES INTERVIEW RECOGNITION– You’re starting to be a real interviewer; Stone Philips and BarbaraWalters better start watching their collective ass. Good interview withOliver. When he said what a pain in the ass people are when it comes tobackstage passes, I would have loved it if you had said “then go back tothe way it was in the early years at Calamingos Ranch, when there weren’tany.” The first Love Ride I went on was No. 5 and I remember being able togo back for thirds and fourths on the food line, and all the fresh fruit(apples, oranges, bananas) you could eat. Plus I don’t remember a”backstage.” It seems to me there wasn’t any segregation. Of course, like a lot of my memories that are more than three hours old,they tend to become somewhat unclear. Anyway, another good interview.

DARWIN AWARDS–It’s an annual honor given to the personwho provided the universal human gene pool the biggestservice by getting killed in the most extraordinarily stupidway. As always, competition this year has been keen.Some candidates appear to have trained their whole livesfor this event!

DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES 1. In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in2 feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewergrate to retrieve his car keys.

2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker whowas always “totally focused when he ran,” according to hiswife, accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his dailyrun.

3. Buxton, N.C.: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deephole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it.Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun,and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottomThursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying himbeneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach, on theouter banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to clawtheir way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, Va., butcould not reach him. It took rescue workers usingheavy equipment almost an hour to free him whileabout 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounceddead at a hospital.

SHOULD WE FEATURE IT?–This is a 1999 Ultra Custom, 113 inch S&S motor, Andrews gears, Crane Single Fire ignition, Supertrap exhaust, P & M brakes, stretch tanks and custom paint.

The proud owner is Mike Wagner of Florence, Ky.

Hey, should we feature a manufactured motorcycle as a custom? Let me know what you think. I’m under the impression that we need to honor the hard work of the individual and the talent and innovation of professional bike builders, but let me know your thoughts.

DEMOCRATIC PROCESS–We here at Bikernet want the best for our readers, that’s why we have a limit on the number of sponsors we will post on the site. We want our readers to come to a place where only the best is represented by companies that will back up their products.

In the future, we will create an editorial board made up of the staff and sponsors, so when we need a decision about a product or new sponsor, we’ll put it in front of the gang for a vote. In addition, like the above inquiry, we will throw these decisions out to you guys to let us know what you think. Hell, I’m not working on this puppy constantly to benefit my lost cat. We need to know what you think.

TIM CONDOR PROJECT– Here’s a brother who likes a good mystery. He tells me he’s going to build a Knucklehead called HELLBILLY and sends me a list of components, but no photos, no drawings, nada. Then he says, “Brother, could you help me get this in a magazine?”

Tim, give me a break. I love Knuckleheads. We want it on Bikernet.

* 88-inch S&S cone lower end
* FHP complete dual carb knuckle heads and cylinders
* Morris dual magnetos
* BDL 3-inch belt system
* Revtech 5 in a 4 speed
* Choppers Inc. 40 spoke, 8-inch rim with 4-inch black and birch white checkers /Avon 230
* Black 40 spoke, 21-inch spool rim with the round spool painted like aneight ball / Dunlop
* 3 gallon tanks
* Re-pop V-twin stock springer, black and chrome
* SJP/Weerd Bros. 230 “stock” knuckle frame
* Kennedy rotor brake
* drag bars welded onto dogbone steering head
* Headlight is a model A parking light with a PIAA light in it

* I have all the parts except the back fender (haven’t built it yet). Nolifters or blocks. No chain.I’ve got $17,000 in parts. I’ll sell it now as-is or finished. If Isell it done, it will be black with a jockey. The rims are paintedalready. Thanks again – Tim

DA MARRIAGE COUNSELOR– Everybody knows that no matter how much you’re in love when you get married, at one point or another the honeymoon is over. That’s when the excuses start. I’ve used them, you’ve used them and believe it or not, my wife has used them. Following is a top 10 list of some of the best excuses to get out of having sex with your significant other.

10. I’d love to honey, but I just banged your sister.
9. We’re out of paper bags for your head again.
8. You haven’t shaved in so long I’m afraid I’d feel I was making love to Big Foot.
7. You’re 20 bucks short.
6. We’re out of gin again.
5. I used my last sponge for the dishes.
4. Sorry, this isn’t a conjugal visit.
3. I can’t tonight, honey, I spent myself earlier today watching all those pornos.
2. Only if you put on this wig and talk like a Chinese hooker.

And the No. 1 excuse to not have sex: Your gynecologist just called – you still have crabs and you know how I don’t like seafood.

QUESTION, QUESTIONS?–Been up to my ass in alligators. Work’s been nuts and I’m trying to getcertified in Microsoft NTserver so I’ve had that shit to deal with. Theonly thing that’s keepin’ me sane is the riding. If it weren’t for that, I’dbe in one of those hotels with the padded rooms. How’s the movie comin’along? How’s”Burnin’ Daylight in L.A.” doin? Where’s “1%er”?–jr

I wish I had answer for ya. Marco the producer of “Burnin’ Daylight” took up with a coke whore and he doesn’t do coke and has no money. You can imagine how hard he’s workin’ to keep her tits in his face. Conrad Goode, the writer behind “Asphalt Cowboy” and once a player for the Buffalo Bills, was run over by walking pneumonia. He escaped to his homeland of Kansas for recuperation. Never heard from him again. And “1%” is looking at its 43rd rewrite. But Zebra makes his real money working for an ad house writing shit like, “got milk?” He wishes he wrote those two simple words. Following is his report:–Bandit

The Sturgis story is coming along well. I really dig it. It’s ethereal, yet real roady. A thinking piece.

Two questions; first, I’m thinking of giving Kearie a dozen “1%er” diamond patches to use as leave-behinds when she meets on the script. Know where or how I can get some made?

Oh Zebra, my man. Keep in mind that some clubs take 1%er patches real serious like.

Second, the agency over here is talking to Buell as a potential new client. They’re asking me to run up to Chicago with them to talk to the cats. Know anything about Buell, who runs it, what they’re like? They’re a division of H-D as I understand it, but these guys seem to think they’re independent.

That Zebra character is really up on motorcycle current events. This is what I told him: Buells were designed and manufactured by Eric Buell. Eric always had a tight relationship with H-D and used Sportster engines in his basically road racing chassis. He was the first to create an American Ninja. About three years ago, H-D bought the company from Eric and began to get serious. Jerry Wilke is the H-D V.P. in charge. Jerry is one of those guys who makes things happen. They put him in charge and he turns whatever division it is around and makes it work.

The problem with sales is perception. Racers have a tough time imagining a road racer in a Hog shop. It’s a different kind of customer, different kind of bike and the two have a tough time mixing, but they could. Now, many dealerships have one guy who is a racer of sorts, and a tech-head dedicated to selling the Buells, so that the Buell customer has someone to talk to. Guys who want to buy an H-D come in the dealership, pick a color and order the bike, or beg for one. The road racer wants to know what kind of performance shock is in a Buell, what kind of fasteners hold shit together, etc. They crawl around under the bike, poke and question. So this kid is comparing this 100 horse Sportster-powered Road Racer with a 180 mph Ninja or Katana from Yamaha, which are absolutely state-of-the-art. The highest tech machines in the world. How do they compete? How do they market these tough American machines?

So here’s a couple of points. Ninjas/ Katanas, whatever, are Jap bikes. They sound like Jap bikes, they run like sewing machines. Here’s a bike that handles like a Jap bike, but is American. It rumbles like an H-D, which makes it sexy and entertaining. Bubba Blackwell is a good example. This guy is breaking all of Evel K’s records. He says he could do it all day long on Jap bikes and no one gives a shit. But do it on a Harley and you have something exciting. He does a lot of stunts on Buells, and might make an interesting icon for a campaign.

These bikes need a fit, and I think if they got outrageous with some, customized them, they might find the spark. I want to build one and make it look like a jet fighter from WWII, bad as hell, and tough as nails. Give it that bad-to-the-bone road racer look and you’ll see outlaws riding ’em.

BRIGHT DECISIONS– 1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY STAND UP? AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. (Perhaps it’s not Walter who’s lacking intelligence.)

3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

HARLEY-DAVIDSON–WHEELS OF FREEDOM–
Overview:Enter a 3D virtual world and experience the freedom of the open road on aHarley, with stunning graphics and realistic handling physics. Featuringthree styles of rally races, multiple riders and the ability to customizeyour own Harley. Harley-Davidson Wheels of Freedom is sure to rule theroad. Players face rough pavement, dirt roads, drag races and more. Doyou have what it takes to meet the Harley challenge?

Features:
Multiple racing styles including Open Road challenge, Draggin’ in theDirt, and
Madman Hill Climb;
Create and ride your own fully customized Harley;
Choose from multiple riders, each with their own style and personality;
Dynamic crash sequences;
Race against others via LAN or the Internet;
Cruise to soundtrack of classic road songs.

Publisher: WizardWorks
Developer: G2M Games and Canopy Games
Release Date: September 2000
Platform: PC

Suggested Retail Price: $19.99

HEY, BANDITO–How’s things? I have been so busy and Sin has been too. We have hardlyhad a chance to hook up lately. Yesterday, we went to this tattoo shop(I’m thinking of getting something on my ass). Anyway, Sin comes out inthis tiny little skirt and skimpy low cut top showing all leg and nothingbut tits. When she sat on the seat, her skirt went above her crotch showingthe perfect little v-shape of her snatch. At first I thought that she justhad white panties on, but after a closer look I realized they were sheer.Because she shaves everything, it was all creamy color down there. Ireached over and ran my finger along… Well gotta get to work Senor Bandito,Talk at ya later!~Coral

P.S. Here’s a shot of the girls.

RAY PRICE LEGENDS OF HARLEY DRAG RACING MUSEUM OPENS– The Ray Price Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum opened Sept. 23 in a brief, but impressive ceremony.

Several hundred local race fans and a host of drag racers were on hand for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the first installation of the museum.

The ceremony included the “sound of freedom” presented by the Raleigh HOG chapter, invocation by Bruce Brown, chaplain of the Raleigh HOG Chapter. A U. S. Marine color guard presented the colors, Debbie Johnson sang the national anthem and Jamie Emery, the youngest Top Fuel racer, did a burnout making the guests and dignitaries feel like they were at the races.

Ray Price and Jean Price were beaming with pride as Jim Hartley, IHRA chaplain, gave the prayer and dedication. Mary Lou Brewton, the museum’s curator, read the mission statement .

“It is our goal at the Ray Price Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum to preserve and conserve the history and heritage of the sport of drag racing Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It is our intent to provide a spectacular location for generations to come to view the machines and documentation of, to this point, 50 years of Harley-Davidson drag racing.”

The museum is free and open to the public during normal business hours. The first installation will begin to change in three months and the display cases will change quarterly.

Ray Price Harley-Davidson – (919) 832-2261www.rayprice.com

BREEZE DEPARTS–You’re about to lose one of your highly paidwriting staff for a while. Fall is in the air and it’s timefor me to get back in the breeze. Don’t know for howlong or what way (other than south toward warmweather). Usually don’t know until after I throw my legover and touch it off. I have been thinking of headingto Lynchburg for Mr. Jack’s 150th birthday party andthen on to Nashville for the run to Biketoberfest.FTW,Stroker

Goddamnit, report in, over. Come in, over? Shit, lost another one.–Bandit

BIG DOG ANNOUNCES SALES GROWTH AND FIRST PROFITABLE 6-MONTH PERIOD–Could be one of the few companies of this type making money. Sales for the first half of 2000 were up 30 percent, representing the fifth consecutive year of high double-digit sales growth. “We have been patiently building a company capable of long term, sustainable growth. We continue to focus on being the brand of choice in the premium cruiser niche. Big Dog offers a blend of aggressive custom style, individualized paint and powerful engines. These are motorcycles made to ride in the real world. Now that our volume has reached critical mass, we can press on improving component design. Our profitability allows us to spend more money on key strategies such as embedding a new level of mechanical and sales expertise at the dealer level,” said Sheldon Coleman, CEO and founder of Big Dog Motorcycles.

“We focus on dramatic and continual product improvements cornerstoned by our powerful yet smooth 107-inch drivetrain, and we partnered with many of the industry’s highest quality suppliers and developed exclusive relationships and products,” said Nick Messer, president of Big Dog. “Finally, we strive to create a work environment where our employees enjoy their jobs and realize that they are the keys to any success we may enjoy.”

“…embedding a new level of mechanical and sales expertise at the dealer level.” Sheldon, what the hell does that mean? Are you going to torture these guys? I’ve got to say that out of all the bikes of this nature that I’ve ridden, that 107-inch drivetrain is absolutely one that will make your hair stand on end, and give you the confidence to cut across country without batting an eye.–Bandit

ORWELL FOR SALE–We’re now confident that we will have books in stock in the next two to three weeks. You can now get a copy of Sam Chopper Orwell for $3 off the regular price and receive a free vinyl Bikernet sticker as part of the deal. Click Here for details!

URGENT LEGISLATIVE ALERT–In response to vehicle equipment safety concerns raised by the recentFirestone tire recalls, the U.S. Congress is moving quickly to enactlegislation that could affect manufacturers, dealers and installers of allautomotive equipment. These bills would dramatically increase reportingrequirements for all automotive product safety defects, add newrecord keeping requirements, create tougher recall rules, instituteincreased civil penalties and severe new criminal penalties fornon-compliance and direct the National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration (NHTSA) to update its Federal tire standard.

SEMA is concerned that Congress, facing an early October adjournment, isrushing through complicated and controversial legislation (S.B. 3059/H.R.5164).

Key new obligations under S. 3059/H.R. 5164:- Vehicle equipment manufacturers may not certify compliance with federalstandards unless compliance has been established through testing orengineering.

– Statutory time period for safety recalls of vehicle equipment increasedfrom 8 to 10 years (3 to 5 years for tires.)

– Vehicle equipment manufacturers must report overseas recall orders,accidents and trends that result in injury or death, as well as legalactions and warranty complaints to the Department of Transportation (DOT).

– The DOT may share confidential vehicle equipment manufacturer informationwith foreign governments, without clearly guaranteeing the confidentialityof product information.

– The DOT may require record keeping and reporting on foreign and domesticconsumer complaints, equipment defect information and communicationsbetween dealers and manufacturers relating to equipment safety- relateddefects or recalls.

– Civil penalties for non-compliance with federal vehicle safety and recallstandards would increase from $1,000 to $5,000 for each violation, whilethe maximum fine would rise from $800,000 to as much as $15,000,000. Nomaximum fine would apply in instances of willful and intentional violation.

– New criminal penalties would be enacted making a director, officer or”agent” of a manufacturer (possibly dealers and installers) subject to afine of up to $50,000, 15 years in jail or both for willful and knowingviolations.

Contact your senators and congressional representative to urge furtherstudy of this legislation.For assistance in determining who your legislators are, please contact theCapitol Hill operator at (202) 225-3121, or you can access this informationvia the Internet at http://www.sema.org/fedleg/legislatorrequest. We haveincluded links to sample letters for your use.

KING MAKES IT FOUR FOR FOUR IN FORMULA USA SERIES–The regular participants in the Formula USAdirt-track series are probably thankful that Team Harley’s Rich King has raced in only half ofthe races this season. King has entered four races and won them all.

Number four came Saturday at the Cal-Expo State Fairgrounds in Sacramento,Calif. King battled briefly with Joe Kopp, Jay Springsteen and Chris Carrbefore grabbing the lead for good on lap three. The track was in poorcondition but King’s motorcycle was perfectly tuned and he skillfullymaneuvered around the rough spots to cruise to a half-straightaway victory.Kopp (H-D of Missouri) finished second and Springsteen (Bartels’ H-D) tookthird.

Like almost all of the dirt trackers this year, King has participated inboth the Formula USA Series and the AMA U.S. Flat Track Championships. Someof the races from the two series have fallen on the same weekends, however.King’s commitment has been to the AMA series, which is the reason he hasraced in only four Formula USA events.

With the win, King has bragging rights up to this point. When combining thenumber of wins from both series, King’s total of five is the most by anyracer this season. Will Davis and Carr have won four events, and Kopp haswon two.

Unfortunately King’s success will not lead to a championship in eitherseries. King sits in sixth place in the Formula USA standings with two racesto go, and is in fourth place with third place in his sights with one raceto go in the AMA series.The next dirt-track race is a Formula USA event scheduled for Sept. 30 atManzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

BIKERS SQUARE OFF WITH GANG BANGERS IN CHILD ABUSE CASE–Know a kid who’s been abused? Often when a child has been abused, they are asked to testify against their attacker, a terrifying thing for most victims and often one they simply cannot face. The sorry part is, if the child can’t or won’t testify, the criminal piece of shit who messed them up goes free.

That’s where Bikers Against Child Abuse comes in. BACA is a national organization with chapters across the United States. I spoke with several BACA members in Sturgis this year and asked them about their organization. They related a story to me about a young boy who had been brutally attacked by big-city gangbangers. When it came time to testify, the gang bangers openly threatened the boy and his family with deadly reprisal. For obvious reasons, the boy was too terrorized to take the witness stand and put the cowardly little fucker who jumped him in the hole where he belongs. Until BACA showed up.

BACA bros spent time with the boy, won his confidence and told him that they would be there, in court with him, watching his back and that he could rest assured that his new biker bros would not let anyone lay a finger on him- period.

The day of the trial came and a large group of gang bangers showed up and sat in the audience in an effort to scare the boy out of sending his attacker to prison. The boy and his parents were fast losing their nerve when the thunder of big American iron shook the courthouse. A massive group of brotherhood in the form of no-bullshit bros walked into the courtroom and proceeded to sit every-other-one between the gang bangers, who shriveled in the face of real fighters. The courtroom was packed with bikers.

The bros mere appearance gave the boy the courage to take the stand and testify against his assailant, who is now doing hard time. The boy was not bothered again.

If there’s ever been an organization to support, this is it. I’ve not found many subjects bikers agree on more unanimously than the notion that motherfuckers who lay a hand on a child richly deserve hanging. The bros website is www.bacausa.com.–Special Agent Zebra,Biketnet.com East

BRENDA FOX PARTIES WITH MADONNA–That’s right, after a grueling day with the Bikernet team at the Rod Stewart music video tape, Brenda wasn’t satisfied. She jumped on her new Duece and hit the showers, or maybe not, and rushed to the Hollywood Hills for an intimate evening with the queen of blondes and other celebs.

Next we will report on Ms. Fox’s relationship with Joker Machine. Like a true chopper rider, her brand new 2001 model is facing major modifications through Joker Machine and West Coast Choppers. More coming shortly.

DID YOU GET YOUR WHEELS?–In 1997 and ’98, a company by the name of Rau Marketing ‘BIKERS’ located inCosta Mesa, Calif.,was advertising a wheel called the ‘Nifty Fifty’. It had an aluminum rim,aluminum billet hub and 50 radially laced 3/8-inch diameter stainless steelspokes. When the owners of the company were put in federal prison oncharges of being responsible for the closure of a bank in NewportBeach, Calif., they left a lot of people screwed.

I’m looking into thepossibility of having mail fraud charges brought against them. What Ineed is to hear from anybody who ordered or paid for these wheels THROUGHthe mail, and never got them or a refund and still has the necessarypaper work to prove it. If you or someone you know were cheated by thesepeople, please contact me at -sbauman2@juno.com or at (949) 586-9468–Steve Bauman, the Vigilante.

CANDY KISS–It was a little boy’s first day in school and the teacher was going to play a “guessing” game.

She passed out different items to each of the students and proceeded to ask each student what the item was thatthey received. Whenit was the new boy, Jimmy’s turn, the teacher gave him a candy kiss. She asked, “Do you know what it is?”

Jimmy replied “No.”

The teacher said,”Go ahead and open it up and taste it.” Little Jimmy did so. The teacherthen asked, “Now do you know what it is?”

Little Jimmy said “Nooooo.”

The teacher said, “I’ll give you a hint…it is something your daddy wants from your mommy every morning before he goes to work.

” A little girl in the back of the class jumps up and screams, “JIMMY, SPITITOUT…….IT’S A PIECE OF ASS!”

A MAN AND A WOMAN– were driving down the road arguing about his deplorable infidelity. He takes out his penis, waves it at her and tellsher she knows what she can do.

Suddenly the womanreaches over and slices off the man’s peckerbeforetossing it out the window of the car.

Drivingbehind the car is a guy in a pickup truck with his 10-year-old daughter chatting away beside him. All of a sudden, the flesh-javelin smacks thepickup’s windshield, sticks for a moment, thenfliesoff.

Surprised, the daughter asks, “Daddy, what inthe heck was that?” Not wanting to expose his daughter to sex at such a tender age, and having no way of explaining the horrible act thathad transpired in the car ahead, he replies, “Itwas only a bug, honey.”

The daughter gets a confusedlook on her face, and after a minute she says, “It surehad a big dick!”

HALLMARK CARDS ARE MAKING–Hallmark is making a Christmas tree ornament this year of noneother than HARLEY BARBIE. They come out next month and I telephoned afew stores to reserve one for Rosalie and discovered they are sellingout fast. A couple of stores in Vancouver are already sold out…

Contact your Hallmark store NOW if you want one. In Canada they cost$19.95.

HAMSTER GETS ROLL WITH WILLIS–Check this link out and scroll down to back issues library, type in Sept. 16, 2000, and go to the article Gresham Man Rides Harley into role of new Bruce Willis movie, The Outlook Online – Gresham, East Multnomah County and Oregon news. Skip Pillow, a Hamster from Oregon, is in the movie as a “featured extra.” Check it out.

THE CHIEF STAYS HOT–The deal with Fox 2000 to adapt Sonny’s autobiography for a major motion picture was the buzz in Hollywood last week, and you can read all about it and the players on the new movie page athttp://sonnybarger.com/nav_movie.html

THUNDER OVER DIXIE, GONE INTERNATIONAL–That’s the ticket. The ride that will take riders on a dealer-to-dealer, rocking country-western music run from Nashville to Biketoberfest now has sign-ups from Canada. Other riders are splitting from California to meet up with the Cajun Crawl out of Nashville. If you want the ride of a lifetime, contact the former editor of Big Twin at (949) 645-8036, or head over to Thunderoverdixie.com for more info.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS HOOK UP WITH VICTORY–A new American motorcycle will lead the Vikings to Victory this season. At the season opener, Victory Motorcycles announced its new rough and tumble sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings with traditional biker style.

Former Vikings’ greats and motorcycle enthusiasts Carl Eller and Jim Marshall, along with Polaris CEO Tom Tiller and Vikings mascot Ragnar, led the team onto the field riding four thundering Victory motorcycles. One was painted Viking colors purple and gold.”Victory Motorcycles is proud to be a bike leading the Vikings onto the field this season,” said Polaris Industry’s CEO Tom Tiller.

ESCAPE HATCH–So the misty night was creeping in on the harbor as I crawled quietly out of the sack and crept down the hall to the Bikernet galley where the window over the sink gave me a panoramic view of the side street. It was quiet and dark and no one was roaming the street. We have a number of vagrants and homeless that meander the seaside avenues of Pedro. There are druggies, bums and escaped prisoners stealing bicycles from kids to get the hell out of dodge, but they always come back. I didn’t see a thing until my bleary focus came upon the dark-haired one’s van park neatly against the curb. Someone was in her van. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The kid was working furiously over the steering wheel and cussing at the length of time it was taking him.

I dashed to the rear entrance of the headquarters but security is high and it was locked. I made my way to the front and it was locked also. I scrambled for the key, then to a cabinet for a gun. It’s mandatory at headquarters that a loaded weapon is located in every closet, drawer and cubbyhole. In my boxers, I scrambled into the street. The kid was still fumbling madly over the steering column and I aimed the gun at the windshield. The weapon was cocked. I could have made that kid a salami sandwich in a split second, but chose to raise the weapon skyward and fire. The kid sat up straight as a rail and looked at me like his mom had just caught him with his hand in the cash drawer. He jumped from the cab and raised his arms skyward. “I was just looking for a place to sleep,” he shouted.

That pissed me off. The sonuvabitch was caught red-handed, why couldn’t he just admit that he was fucked instead of lie. “You lying mutha-fucker,” I said as I lowered the site to the center of his young gangsta features and cocked the weapon again.

Well, I’m currently under investigation by the San Pedro Police Department. So tell me, what would you do if you caught someone stealing your car? Shoot ’em, arrest ’em, let ’em go? Run and call the cops? Chase ’em around the car with a baseball bat? Tie ’em to the bumper and drive to the cop shop to turn ’em in? And maybe you jailhouse lawyers will know the answer to this: What does the book say you should do? Quietly pull the shades, call the local law enforcement and pace the kitchen hoping that the cops will come before your vehicle leaves?Your Shot

Send your suggestions to the Free Bandit Fund. In the meantime, if you’re in Southern California this weekend, don’t miss the Al Martinez Custom Bike and Truck Show in Irvine, Calif. Ride forever–Bandit

BIKERNET NEWS FLASH–TITAN OFFERS TO BUY GENERAL MOTORS!

The week started calmly enough. I hit the Ink Slingers Ball with the dark-haired one and enjoyed the vast array of tattoo art. I was most impressed with the Cori Miller crew’s work from Six Feet Under Tattoo in Upland, Calif.

Samson exhaust system came on board and we’ll be scrambling to produce a line of exhaustive exhaust installation techs to assist riders in deciding which blastin’ pipe system to go with and how to make it purr. I slipped up an antique of mine from Milwaukee Iron, a ’39 WLDR — check it out. Then a call came in from Brenda Fox. “Wind ’em up,” she shouted over the phone. Ever since she got her dream job with Bill Bartels at his Marina del Rey dealership, she talks that biker shit all day.

I ran out and started my touring chopper on he spot. “What now Brenda?” I asked. I always do exactly what the Fox tells me, immediately. “We’ve got a music video to star in,” she said, the deep syrupy-sweet voice dripping down the side of the receiver. “Be at the dealership at 6:30 a.m.” Then she hung up. I was hoping it would be something about me and her in a bed someplace in a cozy studio in Hollywood. That wasn’t the case, and conditions worsened as the day proceeded, but we better get to the news:

THE BARGER REPORT–Sonny will be in Reno this weekend for Street Vibrations. In October he will visit Cleveland, Rochester, N.Y., and Salem, Ore., for book signings, as well as Daytona for Biketoberfest. Check the Meet Sonny page for dates and locations.http://sonnybarger.com/nav_tour.htmlIf you still have not read Hell’s Angel, you can read the 5000-word excerpt online at Penthouse.com. Follow the link at the bottom of the Press/Media page:http://sonnybarger.com/nav_press.html

CLASSIFIED AD DEPT.–Following is a slimy group of classifieds from newspapers across the land. But before we go there, I want to remind you that Bikernet has a place for your motorcycle-related classifieds and personals. They’re free, damnit. So go for it.
TIRED OF WORKING FOR ONLY
$9.75 PER HOUR? WE OFFER PROFIT-
SHARING AND FLEXIBLE HOURS.
STARTING PAY: $7 – $9 PER HOUR.

EXERCISE EQUIPMENT:
QUEEN SIZE MATTRESS & BOX SPRINGS
– $175.

OUR SOFA SEATS THE WHOLE MOB
AND IT’S MADE OF 100% ITALIAN LEATHER.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
MUST SELL WASHER & DRYER
> $300.

RIDER SELLS CUSTOM MAG LIGHTS FOR BEANS–C.J. Allan is an old rider of some hidden fame and one of the finest engravers in the world. C.J., who made the Blue Flame point cover that rode with me to Sturgis, is hand engraving mag lights for sale on Bikernet.

If you need something engraved for your scoot, your truck, your gun, your ol’ lady’s purse, a money clip, a belt buckle, boot tips, you name it, C.J. is the man. Check his Web site at http://www.cjs-engraving.com, or give him a call at (270) 492-6209.

Think about it…..don’t think too fuckin’ long though, cause if something don’t happen aroundhis place pretty damn soon, he’s hangin’ up all this bullshit art work, an’ tryin to be a good guy, and goin’ back into thuggery.

SOCAL HAMSTERS AND BIKERNET CREW PERFORM COMMUNITY SERVICE–Dateline San Pedro: Bikernet Crew members and Hamsters from Los Angeles participated in an annual beach cleanup program. Twice a year, once just before the summer season and once at the end of the year, volunteer citizens from all over the coastal regions of any state with a beach line march onto the sand to pick up debris left by the unkempt and unworthy. This program includes international beaches such as the topless sand boxes in Rio and the Mederian. The material is recycled and documented to help government agencies understand the needs of beach dwellers.This year, Bikernet and the So Cal Hamsters came forward to assist on weekend cleaning of the Cabrillo community beaches and parks. With headquarter-made pokers in hand, the squad of motorcyclists scoured the beaches and parks for spare change so we could party later.

A GUY ARRIVES AT THE PEARLY GATES– waiting to be admitted. St. Peter is reading through the Big Book to see if the guy’s name is written in it. After several minutes, St. Peter closes the book, furrows his brow, and says, “I’m sorry, I don’t see your name written in the Book.”

“How current is your copy?” he asks.

“I get a download every 10 minutes,” St. Peter replies. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was always the stubborn type. It was not until my death was imminent that I cried out to God, so my name probably hasn’t arrived to your copy yet.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Pete says, “but while we’re waiting for the update to come through, can you tell me about a really good deed that you did in your life?”

The guy thinks for a moment and says, “Hmm, well, there was this one time when I was driving down a road and I saw a group of biker gang members harassing this poor girl. I slowed down, and sure enough, there they were, about 20 of them harassing this poor woman. Infuriated, I got out my car, grabbed a tire iron out of my trunk, and walked up to the leader of the gang. He was a huge guy; 6-foot-4, 260 pounds, with a studded leather jacket and a chain running from his nose to his ears. As I walked up to the leader, the bikers formed a circle around me and told me to get lost or I’d be next.”

“So I ripped the leader’s chain out of his face and smashed him over the head with the tire iron. Then I turned around and yelled to the rest of them, “Leave this poor innocent girl alone! You’re all a bunch of SICK, deranged animals! Go home before I really teach you a lesson in PAIN!”

St. Peter, duly impressed, says “Wow! When did this happen?”

“About three minutes ago.”

THUNDER OVER DIXIE NEWS– of the hour…..Biker Billy and the Burpee Seed Co. Flame Throwing Harley are joining us on the ride!! Biker Billy will do two shows a day along the route. That’s right folks, crazed maniacs and tainted chefs will be joining the madcap romp from Nashville, Tenn., to Biketoberfest in October. For information on how you can attend the charity ride of a lifetime, call the Dixi–ette at (949) 645-8036.

LANDMARK $433M GUN SUIT DISMISSED– (By Mike Robinson, Associated Press Writer) Mayor Richard M. Daley’s $433 million lawsuit against the firearms industry was dismissed Friday by a judge who said the mayor might do better to combat city crime through law enforcement methods and legislation.

Cook County Circuit Judge Stephen Schiller questioned the city’s use of statistics showing that many guns used in gang shootings in Chicago have actually been purchased at suburban gun shops, many by so-called straw purchasers who bought them for resale to criminals.

Schiller said the statistics represent the kind of evidence that calls for legislation rather than court action.

More than 30 cities and counties across the country have filed lawsuits against the firearms industry, with mixed results. Last October, a state judge allowed Atlanta’s lawsuit to proceed, while an Ohio judge dismissed Cincinnati’s lawsuit.

Daley pledged to appeal the decision and said Schiller, a former criminal court judge, should have understood the need for the lawsuit. “Who in his right mind is going to be having this on the street in front of your child?” he asked, holding up a rifle.

Daley’s lawsuit was filed in November 1998 following an undercover investigation by Chicago police officers who posed as straw purchasers ? people with state firearms owners identification cards who buy guns for those who lack such cards, usually because they have criminal records and are ineligible. Daley said the $433 million was related to the cost of police, medical and other services over a four-year period.

Named as defendants were 22 gun manufacturers, including such major names as Beretta, Colt, Smith & Wesson and Browning. James Valentino, an attorney for defendant Universal Firearms Ltd., said the decision was important for all businesses, not just gun makers. “If the manufacturer of a product can be held liable because somebody uses his product illegally, then no manufacturer is safe,” he said. He said police should concentrate their efforts on straw purchasers.

STALKER HAUNTS HEADQUARTERS– Hey Bandit! I know that you just can’t get enough of me. I check up on you from time to time. Okay, pick a favorite from this…Type in: http://www.whiterabbitstudio.com/GOTHGIRL.htm

I am watching you, bad biker boy. Your evil GOTH D.D.M.C.

Who’s in charge of Bikernet security, anyway?–Bandit

THE AGENT REPORTS–I’ll kick over a bunch more lines when I get out of the weeds on “1%er,” which will be sometime later this week. We can pick our favorites, burn the rest. Made the Poker Run this last weekend. Key West. Key West was incredible. Saw Hemmingway’s house. Got some shots. Pretty big moment. Been trying to see Papa’s place for 10 years. Finally got there. They got about 8,000 bikes. The hurricane spooked a few off. I’ll try to punch out a story with photos.

I’m still working on the Sturgis story. I wrote about half of it, then tore it down to change the direction some. Key West was perfect until the hurricane passed about 100 miles off shore. Then the entire island went under water. Sea water. I got the bike up into restaurant which boarded the doors. Saw two new dressers with wakes going over the seats. The 7- Mile bridge was a spooky devil. Ten stories up, huge gale winds, roaring seas below, 2-foot cement railing. High fun.All is well. Rubber side down, rolling.

CALLING ALL SOCAL BIKERS–I am on the board of directors for Childrens Hospital of Orange County and we are having our inaugural Biker Run for Kids, on SUNDAY, SEPT. 24. We are expecting as many as 1,200 bikers for this event, with all proceeds going to a real worthwhile cause.This is a poker run down the beach and through the canyons with the final stop being Sloppy Joe’s at the Irvine Spectrum (where I-5 and I-405 meet.) Sign in at 8 a.m.; 9:30 a.m. at Sloppy Joe’s with all riders due back no later than 12:30 p.m. for food and a live band playing blues, soul and rock ‘n’ roll.Music will play from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m..Rather than get too wordy please visit the website for this event at www.minimailers.com/CHOCRUN. As co-chair for this event, I have asked that an area be roped off for about 15-20 show bikes.We have a celebrity from the TV series Home Improvement who will be auctioning off items. We will also be having drawings for goods as well. Some of the fine people donating to this cause are Danny Gray, Arlen Ness, Phil Day and Gary Bang.Please call Manny at the this toll free number for details if you too are interested in helping those children less fortunate than others, (888) 245-8083. — Manny Montanez

A WOMAN HAS A DOG THAT SNORES IN HIS SLEEP– Annoyed, because she can’t sleep, she goes to the vet to see if he can help. The vet tells the woman to tie a ribbon around the dog’s testicles and he will stop snoring.

A few hours after going to bed the dog is snoring as usual. Finally, unable to sleep, she goes to the closet and grabs a piece of ribbon and ties it around the dog’s testicles….sure enough, the dog stops snoring. The woman is amazed!

Later that night, her husband returns home drunk from being out with his buddies. He climbs into bed, falls asleep and begins snoring very loudly.

The woman thinks maybe the ribbon will work on him. So she goes to the closet again, grabs a piece of ribbon, and ties it around her husband’s testicles. Amazingly, it also works on him! The woman sleeps very soundly.

The next morning, the husband wakes up very hung over. He stumbles into the bathroom to urinate. As he is standing in front of the toilet, he looks in the mirror and sees a blue ribbon attached to his testicles. He is very confused and as he walks back into the bedroom, he notices a red ribbon attached to his dog’s testicles. He shakes his head and looks at the dog and says: “Boy, I don’t remember where we were or what we did but by God we got first and second place!”

MORE PHOTOS– I see you have given us some more coverage, so here are a couple more photos of my girlfriend, Charley, and another of my rig. Feel free to use them. Could you please mention our Website (iworeit.com)? It’s a buisness we own. Check it out if you haven’t already. I am sure your readers will love it.

I am going to start on a new bike project, so, I am going to be selling the Silver Slut. If you know anyone who would like it, and they buy it, I will give you a $250 finder’s fee. Plus, we still want to be in the damn movie. Charley will even smile when we get the part………Rourke

MO’ PARTS–1 Delkron FXR TVR2 5 Speed Spline Shaft Transmission Complete with Pulley$1100.00.
1 4 Speed Harley Transmission fits 1965 – 1984 Big Twin (rebuilt)$1000.00.
1 Roadstar 16 inch spoke wheel in box, $250.00.
3 Rev Tech 16x 3 Front Rally Style Billet Wheel complete, $300.00each.
4 Sturgis 16x 3 1/2 Front Vision Style Billet Wheels complete, $300.00each.
2 Sturgis 16x 3 1/2 Front Vision Style Billet Rims (no hubs),$150.00 each.
1 Sturgis 16x 5 1/4 Rear Attitude Style Billet Wheel complete,$350.00.
1 Sturgis 16x 3 1/2 Front Attitude Style Billet Wheel complete,$300.00.
2 Sturgis 16x 3 1/2 Front Roadstar Style Billet Wheel complete,$300.00 each.
2 Sturgis 16x 5 1/4 Rear Roadstar Style Billet Rims (no hubs),$200.00 each.
1 Sturgis 16x 3 1/2 Front Billet Wheel complete,$300.00.
2 Sturgis Vision Rear Belt Pulleys,$200.00 each.
2 Sturgis Attitude Rear Belt Pulleys,$200.00 each.
1 Sturgis Roadstar Rear Belt Pulley,$200.00.
2 Wire Wheel Style Rear Belt Pulleys,$200.00 each.
8 Billet Inner Primary to fit FXR,$200.00 each.
5 Billet Outer Primary covers to fit FXR,$200.00 each.
6 Rear S&S 3 5/8 Bore and 5.375 tall Cylinders Std bore loose, $50.00each.
4 Front S&S 3 5/8 Bore and 5.375 tall Cylinders Std bore loose, $50.00each.
7 Front 4 Valve Heads some have worn guides,others 5/16 helicoil $75.00,each.
1 Rear 4 Valve head same as above,$75.00.
10 Sets of 4140 Steel EVO connecting rods,$50.00 set.
10 New Harley Davidson factory wrinkle black starters 84 up EVO, $125.00each.
3 S&S Cam Covers late model single cam (nose cone),$50.00 each.
2 Dyna DS6-2 Electronic Ignitions,$50.00 each.
3 5 Speed Harley Davidson taper shaft Diaphragm clutch assembly withKevelar clutch plates, $ 400.00 each.
7 Heavy Billet 5 Speed transmission doors polished & bearings,$150.00 each.
7 Jims pinion gears 24045-78 Green to ’89$30.00 each
3 JIMS pinion gears 24043-78 red to ’89,$30.00 each.
1 CCI 09-930 mini floorboards,$75.00.
2 CCI 12-997 floorboads,$25.00 each.
4 Dunlop 491 Elite MT90B16 front tires,$60.00 each.
1 Dunlop 491 Elite 160/80 B16 75H rear tire,$60.00.
1 Dunlop 591 Elite 140/90/16 65V rear tire,$60.00.
1 Metzler Perfect ME99A 150/80/V16 rear tire, $60.00.
For info: [mailto:rogue@bikerrogue.com]

THERE ARE TWO INDIANS– and a cowboy walking along together in the desert when, all of a sudden, one of the Indians took off and ran up a steep hill to the mouth of a cave. He stopped and hollered into the entrance, ” Woooooo! Woooooo! Woooooo!” And, then listened very closely until he heard an answer…….

“Woooooo! Woooooo! Woooooo!” He then tore off his clothes and ran into the cave.

The cowboy was puzzled and asked the other Indian what that was all about…was that Indian goofy or something?

“No,” said the other Indian. “It is mating time for us Indians and when you see a cave and holler, ‘Woooooo! Woooooo! Woooooo!’ and get an answer back, that means she is in there waiting for you.”

Well, just about that time the other Indian spotted another cave. He took off, ran to the cave, stopped & hollered, “Wooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!” When he heard a reply “Woooooo! Woooooo! Woooooo!” off came his clothes and into the cave he goes.

The cowboy started running around the desert looking for a cave to find these women that the Indians had talked about. Suddenly, he looked up and saw this great big cave. He was amazed at the size and thought, “Man! It’s bigger than the caves those Indians found. There must be something special inside. Well, he darted up the hill at great speed with hopes of ecstasy and grandeur. He got in front of the cave and yelled, “Woooooo! Woooooo! Woooooo!” He was thrilled when he heard the answering call of “WOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOO!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!” He quickly took off his clothes. With a happy face he raced into the cave.

The headlines in the next day’s newspaper stated: NAKED COWBOY RUN OVER BY FREIGHT TRAIN

QUICKEST PRO STOCK HARLEY IN THE WORLD–Hannon Racing might not be making the NHRA Pro Stock Bike Program, but they are making some numbers. This weekend at MOHNTON, Pa. in Pro Stock Bike Division at the 16th annual Keystone Nationals, Dan Baisley set the Harley world on fire.

Baisley, Portland, Or., turned a 7.802 at 166.21 on his first pass, then a 7.769 at 163.14, then a record breaking 7.667 at 169.10, the 1/8 mile on this pass was 4.80 ET at 146 mph.

Team owner, Bill Hannon thrilled with their results, “we have a lot left in the bike. We’ll be pulling back to Pennsylvania in two weeks for the AHDRA race, then straight to Rockingham for the Eastern Finals at Rockingham, NC. We are really excited about going to NHRA at Houston where weather conditions are traditionally optimal and our equipment should be as well.”

“We can’t thank our sponsors enough, it was tough rebuilding the program after Daytona, but we don’t have any regrets now.”

Sept. 30 AHDRA Maple Grove, Pa.
Oct. 7-8 AHDRA Rockingham, NC
Oct. 26-29 NHRA Houston, Tx.

Hannon Racing is supported on their national circuit by Axtell Sales, Inc., Baisley Hi-Performance, D & G Chassis, Harley Davidson of Ft. Myers, The Landings Realty, Inc., Red Line Oil, MRE, BPM Racing Engines, and Dyna Tek, RK Chain, Bandit Clutch, Vanson Leathers, & Mastercam. Hannon 941-463-2778, www.hannonracing.com.

WARNING!–Hey….keep your head outa the paint booth man!

That’s Naples, Fla., and you can’t even recognize oneof your own highly paid writing staff?

Speaking of writing, your editing always gives me agood laugh. What, you don’t like “good to go!”OK…OK… “get the fuck out” does have a little morepunch to it, but I know I won’t be sending you anymoretechnical stuff. You make me sound like an idiot. Youcan’t remove a clutch buy pulling against the clutch. You have to pull against the transmission main shaft. Since you can’t do that directly without taking achance of damaging it, you have to pull against the”clutch hub nut” (after loosening it). Just like I wrote it!

I used to be a technical writer and hated getting badinformation. Old habits die hard, eh… Mr. Editor!

As long as I?m bitchin’, why doesn’t your movie man(madam) have an email address to send wannaberesumes?

You don’t think I’m gona fork out 32 cents for a chanceto not be in your movie do ya!

No….so I’ll just send it to you.*******************************************

Resume
Last Name: Stroker
First Name: Stroker

Qualifications:
1) I Ride
2) I’m still breathing
3) I Ride

Experience:
I don’t know, nor do I pretend to know the first fuckin’thing about acting, taking direction or anything else todo with the movie industry.

References:
K. Randall Ball
I’m one of his highly paid writing staff.

I know you can’t wait to sign me to a big buck deal. Don’t worry I’ll get back with ya.

THE CHIEF’S FILM–Announcement today that “Hell’s Angel” “authorized film history based on Barger’s life” will become theatrical film from Fox 2000 (part of 20thCF). Tony Scott directing; Anthony Zuicker writing. Says film wilL include all the violence, sex and “carefree” living of the bike club and won’t shy away from Barger’s legal problems. One of the producers is Fritz Clapp, who is the longtime lawyer for HA & Barger. Tony Scott has 5 bikes.

ONE LINERS– Ah, yes, divorce……., from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet,” — Robin Williams

“Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself,” — Roseanne

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place,” — Billy Crystal

THE INFAMOUS BIKES & SPIKES MOTORCYCLE MAGAZINE IS NOW ONLINE!–Notorious Motors Inc. brings Bikes & Spikes magazine online!!! You saw it in print, now you need to see it online at www.bikesandspikes.com – your virtual motorcycle rally! Our mission at Notorious Motors Inc. is to inform, entertain and tease, in that order. Not just those females and males who ride, but also those who won’t resist looking in on the fun. We are becoming the authoritative e-commerce guide to fulfilling every need in the bike world and we invite you all to come on in and get to know what goes on in this colorful culture we call motorcycling.

MOTORCYCLES. STREETWEAR. ENTERTAINMENT. YOU.
Motorcycles: Bikes & Spikes will continue to bring you articles on racing, beginning with the Isle of Man, the most dangerous road racing in the world; bike features – first and foremost the 1930 Harley-Davidson VL restored to original condition, purchased and used by the Minnesota State Patrol in 1930 and retired in the mid- to late 30’s; bike maintenance; riders’ experiences; book and movie reviews and more.

Streetwear: COMING SOON is Notorious Motors’ leather collection as leather has never been seen before, featuring its Heavy Metal Tramps & Thieves line and the Alfa Female Native American collection. Our ever-growing catalog will provide you with the latest in everything you need and want for the road, including all those unique rally finds for men AND women.

Entertainment: Besides a large amount of visuals, we’ll bring you biker music and hot spots and events around the nation. WARNING: We’ll ALSO tantalize you via the Bikes & Spikes calling card – our tastefully-done male centerfold, with The Ice Cream Man From Hell as our first online teaser. He’s wild, he’s sexy and he’s a riot! Don’t miss the continuing Sex & Machine saga, our humorous Rally Rebel (she’s too sexy for her chaps!) and many other personalities.

You: We’ve implemented a bulletin board, chat room and profile page for you to post photos, secrets, whatever, and meet other riders in your part of the world. We need your input and interaction. Pass the word! Tap into www.bikesandspikes.com now! It’s for all of you whether you ride your own bike, like the view from the back or just want a glimpse of what you’re missing!

BIKERNET PATCHES–Yes, you can now purchase a Bikernet patch that’s so cool you’ll actually sew it on your favorite jacket. Check ’em out in the Bikernet gift shop. And check out the other crazed products from Bikernet. There’s got to be something from aunt Tilley there.

FEAR– If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.

BACK AT THE MUSIC VIDEO–Back at the music video. Eleven of us rode out from Bartels’ Harley-Davidson toward downtown Los Angeles. I had recruited Indian John from Walkers’ Cafe in San Pedro to ride with us. We met at the headquarters at 5:30 a.m. and headed along the coast in the morning fog for the other side of the point. John was riding his ’46 custom Indian Chief. Sort of a rat-bike, it ran well, except the bushings in the stock original Indian girder that held the risers for his bars were crumbling and his bar twisted at an odd angle from the front end. His kicker had also rubbed a hole in his front exhaust upsweep pipe and he was losing performance. I told him I would braze it when we returned.

It was supposed to be a half-day gig, but Hollywood doesn’t have the same clocks as the rest of the world. It takes half a day to set up the lights and say hello, then you have makeup, wardrobe, camera equipment to crap out and waiting time for the stars to arrive.

Let’s set the scene. Downtown LA is a strange place. It’s as though Californians saw something bad happening in downtown and abandoned it. There are some theaters and the courthouse is east of downtown, but that’s the end of it. The high rises are packed with thousands of jewelry stores run by India’s finest, the restaurants are all Chinese, and the rest of the area is the ghetto central and dying industrial buildings. The abandoned brick buildings are being gobbled up by studios that surround them with chain link and concertina wire and heavily armed security guards. Weaving through the downtown region is the L.A. river bed that’s nothing more that a massive storm drain. It’s all concrete 30 yards wide with tall sloping walls of more concrete and a 10-foot verticle wall at the top. This particular cement segment is adorned with various graffiti for as far as the eye can see. Some if it is damn nice stuff.So all 11 of us pulled up to this abadoned brick sweat shop and were met by a muscled security guard who looked to be guarding a building in Bosnia. Shortly thereafter, two Los Angeles motor cops arrived to take on traffic control and additional security duties. After it was determined that we couldn’t ride into the mostly dry river bed, a stake-bed truck was called to assist. Seems the river, for some unknown reason, was rising. The inch of rumbling water slithering over the pavement made for the perfect moss-growing atmosphere, and the cement surface was slicker than snot. Upstream though, there was a patch of dry pavement a quarter-mile long. The scene was this vast open concrete alley way with nothing in sight until you came across this cluster of tents and equipment in the middle of nowhere. Rod was perched in a super-long stretch limo while his band was pushed up and down the river bottom always chasing a set of long legs walking away from Rod. The model’s face was never caught on film, just her mini-skirt, legs and and army boots. At one point, all 11 bikes followed those legs along the river bed. Indian John, The Fox and I didn’t see San Pedro until 8:30 that night.

Where the party began… It’s a new day, let’s ride.–Bandit

BIKERNET NEWS FLASH–HARLEY-DAVIDSON AWARDS BIKERNET FIRST TWIN CAM, 100-INCH FXR–CONGRATULATIONS MEN!

It’s a dewy morning. Last night a blanket of fog rolled in over the hot harbor. It was a bizarre sight, like some sort of acid rain headed our way. First the coastline was covered, then the massive container cranes, then the channel, then the sagging palm trees across the street, then… then the fuckin’ phone rang and an escape was opened up to hit the Gentry Montgomery concert, backstage for a party with the band. Then a call about a ride for a Rod Stewart video. Could I escape the fog? The touring chopper rumbled at the site of the dense mist hanging over the smooth swells rolling slowly into the jetty. I had fixed the shocks so I could pack someone, but who would be brave enough to slice through the evil cloud for a ride? I would soon find out. We better get to the news:

A TRIUMPH RESTORATION SOURCE– Since I had no luck selling my TR-6 from 1958, I was glad to have it back in its rightful spot. Now I can try to help another guy sell his: I have a 67 TR6-650 chopper. My question, can I post my Trump?

For what it’s worth, here’s a little bit about my biz…I have a littleM/C paint shop in Hawthorne where I do restorations, customs andcollision repair. I keep pretty busy, as I get business from severallocal M/C shops (including Cindy at Century in San Pedro) and walk-in traffic.

If anyone wishes to contact me:

Jim’s Cycle Painting
3822 W. 139th St., unit 13
Hawthorne, Calif. 90250
(cross streets: Prairie & Rosecrans)
(310) 679-1011

We have no problem with Triumphs–Bandit.

INTERNATIONAL AUTOSHOW COMES TO BIKERNET– Over two years of dedicated work have come to fruition as the Canadian International AutoShow (CIAS) prepares for its debut on the world stage, in February 2001, as an “international” show, sanctioned by the Organization Internationale des Constructeurs d’Automobiles (OICA).

The CIAS is pleased to announce that Michelin North America Inc. has agreed to help make the international debut a success by being the official sponsor of the media center for the 2001 show. This latest laurel places Toronto in the same company as the established major international auto shows in Detroit, Geneva, Paris and Tokyo, where the Michelin Media Centres have set the standard for media services to the international automotive press worldwide.

“Michelin is pleased to become a strategic partner with the Canadian International AutoShow,” said Michael Fanning, vice president of public relations and government affairs for Michelin North America. “When Michelin becomes involved in a major international event, we don’t just put our name on a sign. We become true partners, helping to serve as a sounding board for the show and bringing the benefit of our international perspective and experience. We are pleased to join with the outstanding leadership in Toronto in bringing their exciting plans for the 2001 CIAS to reality.”

“The purpose of our Michelin Media Centres is to assist the show organizers, media and manufacturers in covering the tremendous amount of news which these major international events generate,” said Dani?le Dufour, manager of public relations for Michelin North America (Canada). “We are proud to add Canada to the roster of major international automotive events which we support with a Michelin Media Centre.”

The Canadian International AutoShow captures the best elements of auto shows throughout the world and packages them as a “Total Automotive Experience”. Traditional features such as a 4×4 Test Track, a “Cars of the Century” classic car display, and a salute to Canadian motorsports have consistently attracted close to 300,000 visitors to exhibits covering 80,000 square meters in three inter-connected venues located in Toronto’s city center.

For more information or to pre-register for media events, please visit the CIAS web site at www.autoshow.ca, or contact the show organizers directly at (905) 940-2800 or cias@autoshow.ca.

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, TODAY–Fox touched by ‘Angel.’ Fox 2000 acquires feature rights to “Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club,” for Tony Scott to direct and produce.

STAGES OF SUCCESS–
At age 4….success is….not peeing in your pants.
At age 12…success is….having friends.
At age 15…success is….having a drivers license.
At age 20…success is….having sex.
At age 35…success is….having money.
At age 50…success is….having money.
At age 60…success is….having sex.
At age 70…success is….having a drivers license.
At age 75…success is….having friends.
At age 80…success is….not peeing in your pants.

PARTS FOR SALE–
Three Kenny Boyce (Quantum) Pro Street Frames – Powder coated – minorscratches-Black-Red-Blue, $250 each.
Three sets of stretched gas tanks, long front fender, long rear fender and dash.Painted one yellow and two green, $200 per set.
One set of stretched gas tanks, short front fender, short rear fender and dash–painted purple, $200 per set
10 Billet aluminum inner primarys to fit rubber mount FXR. The aluminum cost$500 and the same amount to machine them. Ideal for muscle engines.
Six Billet outer covers mate to above same material and price $100.
10 Rear S&S 3 5/8 bore and 5.375 Tall Cylinders standard bore (used on 88 cubic inch single cam engines) been run so cleanup bore necessary, $50 each.
Eight front S&S 3 5/8 bore and 5.375 Tall Cylinders standard bore, same as above, $50 each.
Five front 4 Valve Heads. Some have worn guides, others need 5/16 Helicoil tomount rocker box. Very minor work. $75 each.
Five rear 4 valve heads, same as above, $75 each.
One Delkron EV1-UBB Evolution 3 5/8 bore engine cases. New, in original box, $450.
Three S&S cam covers, late-model single cam EVO, $50 each.
10 sets of 4140 Steel EVO connecting rods, $50 set.
10 new Harley-Davidson factory wrinkle black starters. Fits 84 up EVO$125 each.
Two Dyna DS6-2 electronic ignitions, $50 each.
Dunlop 491 Elite MT90B16 front tire, $75.
Dunlop 491 Elite 160/80B16 75H rear tire, $75.
Metzler perfect ME99A 150/80/V16 rear tire, $75.
One chrome swingarm for above frames FXR, $150.
One Delkron FXR TVR2 5-speed splined shaft transmission, complete, $1100.
Three 5-speed Harley-Davidson taper shaft diaphragm clutch assembly with Kevlarplates, $400.
One 4-speed Harley transmission, fits 1965-1984 Big Twin chrome kicker andcover, converted to 1984 1/2 mainshaft to accept diaphragm clutch,$1000.
One 4-speed Harley transmission fits 1965-1984 Big Twin – rebuilt, $1000.
Contact rogue@bikerrogue.com

WARNING, WARNING, WARNING!–The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., announced today the president has proven that you CAN get sex from aides!

Jennifer Flowers was asked if her relationship with Bill Clinton was anything like the Monica Lewinsky affair. She supposedly replied, “Close but no cigar.”

The FBI has coined a technical term for the stains found on Monica’s dress: “Presidue”

President Clinton now recruits interns from only four colleges: Moorhead, Oral Roberts, Ball State and Brigham Young.

Did you know that Bill Clinton is considering changing the Democratic seal from a donkey to a condom? It represents inflation, halts production and gives you a false sense of security while you are being screwed.

Washington has come up with a solution for the Clinton situation. They added the 11th commandment: “Thou shall not put thy rod in thy staff.”

BIKERNET PUBLISHES JAPANESE BIKE REFERENCE–COULD BE THE END–FastDates.com sponsors EBSCO Suzukibeginning at Willow Springs 24 Hour Endurance this month.Team EBSCO Suzuki, the former AMA Supersport and Formula Extreme Championsin the mid-1990s are back after a three-year hiatus. Fast Dates.com is one ofthe team’s principal sponsors beginning this weekend at the Willow Springs24 Hour National Endurance Race, Sept. 18-20. Team owner LandersSevier will be fielding a two-bike team of Corona beer- sponsored GSXR750s.One bike will be raced by a sportbike magazine team that includes theeditors from the British magazines Sport Bike and Superbike, and theAmerican magazine Sport Rider. The other bike will be ridden by a crew ofprofessional racers to include Scott Brown, Curtis Adams, Jimmy Moore, CalRayborn, James Randolph and Matt Wait as a stand-in alternate.

Additional information and photos online at http://www.ebscosuzuki.comand at http://www.FastDates.com/PitLaneNews.htm

For additional information and photography contactJim Gianatsis at (818) 223-8550

CYBER CYCLE BIKE SHOW COMES TO BIKERNET.COM– Yes-siree. We now have a bike show running continuously on Bikernet. We plan to change some of the categories to afford religious Rat bikes a shot at a trophy. Wrench insists that we have a category for the long distance bike, and Renegade will make certain that full or radical customs are now allowed in the street custom category.

It’s a breeze to enter. Send us a sharp, clear, uncluttered shot of both sides of your bike and a brief rundown of modifications, plus a measly five buck entry fee. We’ll post the entrants for a month and then award winners. We plan you use the above logo for our specially designed trophies. Plus through our esteemed sponsors we will be awarding the winners valuable prizes.

Watch for changes coming shortly and for the image of the delicious mistress of ceremonies–Sundance. She’s your connection for the winner’s circle.

DEVIL DOLLS INVESTIGATED FOR INDECENT EXPOSURE– Hey evil one! The Road Rebels show is awesome. They gave our Web site a plus as well, and we have been slammed with responses and orders. Oh my gawd…I have a copy of the show. It is great. We Devil Dolls are really pleased with how it came out. Check the MSNBC website, under MSNBC Investigates, and it should show when it is going to air again. They keep showing it ‘cuz after every time, I receive 1 billion more e-mails…

Stay out of trouble, or I shall come after you. Hehe

GOTHGIRL

D.D.M.C.

THUNDER PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES DAYTONA HARLEY-DAVIDSON’S THUNDER OVER DIXIE 2000– The roar on Oct. 15 will be heard throughout the Southeast as a diverse group of country entertainers, professional wrestlers, NASCAR drivers and Harley-Davidson enthusiasts from around the country converge on Nashville, Tenn., to begin Daytona Harley-Davidson’s Thunder Over Dixie 2000.

Event creator Beau Pacheco brings 20 years of experience in the entertainment and motorcycle worlds to create the ultimate motorcycle touring event and concert to benefit the Boggy Creek Gang Camp, a year-round camping facility for chronically ill children and their families. “It’s a ride with the camaraderie and star attraction of the Love Ride, scenery the equal of Sturgis and the fun of Biketoberfest.

On Oct. 16, the earth will shake again as the entire group departs Harley-Davidson of Cool Springs to meet hundreds of riders attending the day’s events at Steel Harley-Davidson in Chattanooga, Tenn. Then it’s on to Killer Creek Harley-Davidson in Atlanta, Ga., on Oct. 17 and C&R Harley-Davidson in Savannah, Ga., on Oct. 18 before following the ocean shore to a hero’s welcome at Biketoberfest’s Party Central, Daytona Harley-Davidson on Oct. 19 while the fest is in full swing.

To register or to find out more about Thunder Over Dixie 2000, call (949) 645-8036 or e-mail ThunDix@aol.com.

CORAL SLINKY COLUMN– I haven’t seen Sin that much lately since she startedworking for you. I guess you get to see her more now. I’m jealous. On the other hand, are you getting alittle jealous of Sin and I? Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all aboutour encounters. I’m waiting for the day whenyou’re watching us.

We came over to your house last night. Wecould hear music and see some candles lit in the bedroom so we decided notto knock. What was going on Bandit? We want to see this dark-hairedbeauty you keep talking about.

The other night Sin had some ideas shewanted to try. She said she was helping some guy out with ideas for theperfect sexual encounter. Supposedly he’s doing a tech article for you. Sin has surprised me with her sexualcreativity. She wanted to try bondage and spanking. It was great but wedefinitely need another girl. Well, gotta go. You should ask your readers for their favorite sexual encounters.~Coral

KING RULES AT VERNON DOWNS–Team Harley’s Rich King dominated the field Saturday andcaptured his first win of the season in the AMA U.S. Flat TrackChampionships.King grabbed the lead on the second lap and never looked back. He stretchedhis lead throughout the race and was all alone when he crossed the finishline for the easy victory. Joe Kopp (H-D of Missouri) finished second andJohnny Murphree (Coziahr H-D) placed third.

King’s first Grand National win of the season raises his dirt-track victorytotal to four this year. King has won three times in the Formula USA DirtTrack Series. With the win, King moved to within two points of third place in the FlatTrack standings.

Kopp sits atop the standings with a 15-point lead over WillDavis (Moroney’s H-D).

The next U.S. Flat Track race, the final event of the season, is scheduledfor Oct. 15 at DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in DuQuoin, Ill.

HAMSTER’S DAUGHTER RIDE VICTORY–Of course she works there as one of the major marketing players. Darcy has worked in the industry for years following in the footsteps of her dad, Jim Betlach. Of course her mom, Meredith, also works in the industry as the general of all the event car banks (featured on Bikernet). Damn, they’re everywhere.

BIKERNET CARIBBEAN REPORT– While burning the midnight oil, reading Bikernet.com and the Sturgisadventure, I couldn’t hit the sack. Rather I decided to gun the 113- inchchopper to life, heading toward the cobblestones of the old city, and its beer andpiss smelling bars.

To my right is the Atlantic Ocean. It’s 15 miles or so frommy home to the old city, always to my right. Few cars are rolling on thestreets, the few parked on the side get their alarm sirens going by therumble of the pipes, even a few shops blast away. The night is cool,tradewinds lead the way, shit this is better than melatonin, better than ashrink. Lady luck is smiling, as the helmet dangles from the forearm and thefew cops on the road just wave, sometimes it’s great to live on a smallisland.

The old city is still going on, most bars are open and will betill morning. Most drunks and Bohemians are still leaning, talking to thebartenders. The 230-tire slips a bit on the moist cobblestones, the canyon wallsof the city echo the blast of the pipes, a few angry residents shake theirfist at me. Enough, time to head back, now the Atlantic is always to myleft.

Now for the news: The local HOG chapter participated in the Labor Day MDA telethon. Over300 bikes showed up, forking some hard-earned money into their coffers. It waskind of cool to allow other clubs and custom bikes to join in this event.

There is something brewing here. A new line of Chopper Wear is beingcreated in San Juan, only for people who ride choppers (and wannabees), starting with T-shirts and such. As soon as the first come out I will sendphotos. (Hey Bandit, maybe we can add them to the Bazaar?)

Caribbean Custom Cycles is opening a showroom in the city (San Juan),about 6,000 square feet of shop and parking lot (to do burnouts and BBQs).This shop has all the top brands in the aftermarket industry plus is theexclusive distributor for Bourget Bike Works in Latin America-Caribbean. Ifyou happen to be down in Puerto Rico, come by and check the shop.

The Big HOG Caribbean ride is coming down the street. I don’t have theexact dates yet but it’s around November. Most prices include the ride, partiesand more rides. One downside, there are no bikes for rent in PR, so find alocal shop that might want to rent one or figure how to ship them.

That’s it, for now, gotta go get the boat ready for Roger Bourget. He’sshowing up in a couple of days and wants to catch that Blue Marlin that gotaway last year–cool, that the boat owner also has a BBW chopper. BTW anyquestions about PR let me know–Jose.

STREET STALKER FOR SALE–We hauled it out of California Harley-Davidson in Harbor City and took a cruise to San Diego Harley-Davidson. That store is open every day, has no new bikes on the floor, we know the owner and it’s hopping. Hell, I even spoke to a girl who knows the owner. All she had to do was whisper that I should take it to Dago Harley, and I was convinced. Brenda knows. If you’re interested in the glistening road runner with a Bartels’ hopped motor, wide tire kit and custom paint, call Mike Trussell at (888) 8-CYCLES.

MC CLURE SETS NEW SCREAMIN’ EAGLE NOTRO HARLEY RECORD–Jim McClure went north looking for some big numbers and for a while he was right on track. McClure qualified No. 1 in the IHRA’s Screamin’ Eagle Nitro Harley division at the 5th annual Amalie Oil Northern Nationals, Epping, N.H.

McClure quickly set the new mph standard with a scorching qualifying pass at 6.558 ET 216.76 mph. In the final round of qualifying McClure locked in the new record with a 6.502 at 214.76 mph holding the No. 1 spot on the ladder.

But in round one, McClure broke against Jack Romine of Homewood Harley- Davidson. McClure packed up and now prepares to burn some midnight oil preparing his newest bike for a 2000 debut. “The new bike will be out this season, and we want to get this one to go a little faster. I’ve got a number in my head and we’re not quite there yet.”
Look for McClure at:
Sept. 21-23 IHRA Rockingham, N.C.
Sept. 28-30 IHRA Budds Creek, Md.

McClure is supported on his national tour by Rivera Engineering, Primo Products, Red Line Synthetic Oil, ACCEL, Hampton Roads H-D, Southside H-D, F & S H-D, S & S Cycle Inc., Performance Machine, Axtell, Autolite & Vanson Leathers –www.jimmcclureracing.com

Don’t forget to watch IHRA on TNN on Sunday nights at 10:30 pm EST.

THE WORST FOURSOME IN GOLF–
1. MONICA LEWINSKY
2. O.J. SIMPSON
3. TED KENNEDY
4. BILL CLINTON

WHY? YOU MIGHT ASK. WELL…….
1. MONICA IS A HOOKER
2. O.J. IS A SLICER
3. TED CAN’T DRIVE OVER WATER, AND….
4. BILL CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH HOLE HE PLAYED LAST!

1% UPDATE–“1%er”, Special Agent Zebra’s fourth feature film script, is a fiction drama based on a character who is the king of the outlaw world, Duke Hale. Upon his release from federal prison after a 10-year sentence for rape, Duke sets out to discover who framed him.

Duke is innocent. His men are hell-bent on revenge, but Duke has other plans. He wants justice, but he’s not interested in going right back to prison to get it. But when both the civilian world and law enforcement back Duke and his men into a corner, Duke comes out swinging and he and his club set out to exact justice by any means necessary. It’s an incredible story that spans the entire country, from Washington to Key West, Fla.

Zebra has called upon his 15 years riding and writing experience in the creation of “1%er” with his writing partner, director Ian Truitner. Zebra has written over the years for Easyriders, VQ and Biker, as well as Bikernet.com.

“I’ve tried to work closely with friends and associates in various 1%er clubs in order to make “1%er” as realistic as possible, while still creating a drama which studios will buy and audiences can understand. I’ve had some outstanding input from 1%ers around the country and am grateful for their comments and personal stories,” Zebra told Bikernet from his home in Miami Beach. “Ian and I have done one hell of a lot of work. We’ve ridden thousands of miles, spoken to hundreds of bikers, written dozens of drafts. We’re very excited about “1%er”. We’ve got several A-list producers on board with serious track records. Our goal is to create a script which will get made and make bikers, both club members and everyone else, proud to ride.”–The esteemed Special Agent Zebra, Bikernet.com.(Special Agent Zebra is represented by Smith Entertainment in Los Angeles.)

THE STURGIS FOUR AND GALLERY–Yep, it’s up. All four glorious chapters, plus a gallery of miscellaneous drunken photographs from Sturgis 2000. The above shot is from Eddie Trotta’s shop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. What the hell does it have to do with Sturgis? Well, if it wasn’t for Eddie, Agent Zebra would never have left Florida, Bandit would never have broken-in his bike properly and no one in Miami would be able to buy a decent custom motorcycle. Check out Thunder Designs if you’re in the neighborhood.

PRICE QUALIFIES AT EPPING–Ray Price of Raleigh, N.C., had a very interesting trip to Epping, N.H., for the IHRA’s 5th annual Amalie Oil Northern Nationals, qualifying despite some long odds and plenty of adversity.

Price had planned to return from a dealer advisory board meeting in Milwaukee, Wis., on Tuesday evening and leave Raleigh with crew chief Nick Richendollar and crew member Ronnie Johnson in the Blue Bird on Wednesday, making the long trip to the far side of New England. But another meeting caused Price to hop a flight back to Milwaukee, flying to Manchester, N.H., Thursday after more meetings.

Meanwhile, Richendollar and Johnson were almost to Washington, D.C., before the trailer frame broke and they were seriously delayed. Late flights, broken parts, traffic from hell, but they finally all got it all together at the track, but too late to qualify Friday.

Price did qualify on Saturday for the Screamin’ Eagle Nitro Harley division in 7th with 6.931 ET 196.53 mph. Then in the first round, Price was matched against No. 2 qualifier Doug Vancil of Albuquerque, N.M. Although it didn’t turn out to be Price’s win, it was the closest match of the weekend. Vancil’s margin of victory was only .009. Vancil ran a 0.506 RT with a 6.621 ET and 214.62 mph as Price was runner up with reaction time of 0.516 at 6.620 ET and 205.79 mph.

Price and team are heading back to Raleigh to prepare for the Ray Price Legends of Harley Drag Racing Museum Dedication on Sept. 24 and Race Promotion Week prior to the IHRA CAR Quest Autumn Nationals in Rockingham, N.C., onSept. 21-23.

Ray Price Racing is supported by Ray Price Harley- Davidson, Raleigh HOG, S & S Cycle, Power Arc Ignition Co., Ultra Pro Machining, JIMS, Royal Purple Synthetic Motor Oil, Shumaker Racing, Performance Machine, Barnett Tool & Engineering, Vanson’s, Carolina Cobras, and Wilder’s Inc. www.rayprice.com,(919) 832-2261.(Don’t forget to watch IHRA on TNN on Sunday nights at 10:30 p.m. EST.)

FINALLY WISED UP–Ginny told me she contacted you regarding our Web site. Y’know, the Web site you advised us (the girls from Bikes and Spikes to concentrate on so long ago? We had to learn the hard way that you were right.

Anyway, in case she didn’t remember to let you know, we’re including a review of your book, Prize Possession, in our “Review” section, contained in the “In Every Issue” portion of the site.

If you get some time, check out our site and let me know what you think. I’ll value your input.
–Denise BrownBikes & Spikes Online,www.bikesandspikes.com

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR–

AMEBA SUCKIN’ SLUG PYROMANIAC APPREHENDED IN S.D.–The Ol’ Man got word that some ameba sucking slug with a major attitude problem torched off a part of his country, causing over 63,000 acres to go up in flames in the Black Hills. Hope he enjoys his stay behind the iron doors. Fifteen minutes alone with this asshole would get me a life sentence, I’m sure.

Brothers, don’t fear, the Hills are alive and well and next year’s rally is probably unaffected. Most of the burn is in a remote southwestern area just west of Custer, where the true asphalt bikers don’t go.

The fire is so close to the Ol’ Man’s campground that the Man sent over an evacuation order. Damn, run off by the law again !

It didn’t take long to fire up the Ram Dually, hook up the portable garage and head off to the fire lines on a rescue mission. After long deliberations with his lady on the way, they decided to take what was important and anything that was not replaceable–to hell with the rest. The closer they got the shorter the list.

Within seven miles of the camp, he encountered the first of what turned out to be 150 “Smokies” who wanted to see I.D. Shit, it was like trying to buy beer 35 years ago. Finally arriving, they were greeted by a smoke-filled valley, soot and ashes floating in the air and an absence of all the forest critters–too damn quiet. Even the flies were smart enough to bail out.

It all happened as smooth as a new Harley, in order of priority. The Ol’ Man loaded his 53 Pan into the dragen wagon, grabbed a six-pack of Red Dog (thank God the power was still on and it was cold), took a package of ball parks from the fridge and found a small flame to roast them on, while his lady proceeded to grab pictures of the kids, a couple pieces of furniture left to her from her grandma and a few of her Harley pins which haven’t been attached to her bags yet.

On the way out, one of the Smokies mentioned that it would only depend on which way the wind was going to blow. The way the Ol’ Man sees it, if we all met in the valley, turned our backs to the fire, and revved the scoots to about four grand each, we could have blown the damn fire out.

MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?”– the bartender asked Kelly as he hobbled in on a crutch, one arm in a cast.
I got in a tiff with Riley.”
Riley? He’s just a wee fellow,” the barkeep said, surprised. “He must have had something in his hand.”
Aye,.. that he did,” Kelly said. “A shovel it was.”
Dear Lord,… didn’t you have anything in YOUR hand?”
“Aye, that I did — Mrs. Riley’s tit.” Kelly said. “And a beautiful thing it was, but not much use in a fight!”

AH, THE MYSTERY ANSWERED–We wondered who Rourke was. We knew how his sweet thing looked, although she never smiles completely. Just the wry little grin that sets a man’s mind to wondering. Obviously a fan of Harley-Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Rourke’s bike has similar styling and finish.

KING CLIMBS TO FOURTH AFTER WEEKEND TRIPLEHEADER IN SPRINGFIELD– Team Harley’s Rich King had a productive weekend inSpringfield, Ill., the site of dirt track’s most prestigious and busiest,event of the season.King came into the Labor Day weekend in sixth place in the point standingsin the AMA’s U.S. Flat Track Championships. By the end of three straightdays of racing in Springfield, he had moved up to fourth.

The weekend event began on Friday with the Springfield Short Track Shootoutheld on the new track at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. King finishedfourth behind Nicky Hayden (MI H-D Dealers Association), Will Davis(Moroney’s H-D), and Joe Kopp (H-D of Missouri), who went one, two, three onthe podium.

On Saturday, the racers were juiced for the third annual running of theworld’s richest dirt-track motorcycle event, the Springfield Hall of FameGrand National. Once again, King finished fourth. Davis won the race, andmore than $18,000, by beating Kopp to the wire in a thriller. Terry Poovey(USC Racing) was third.Adding to the race’s excitement was the inclusion of Scott Parker,the semi-retired dirt-track legend to the lineup. Parker struggled to a12th-place finish.

On Sunday, Parker shook off the rust and gave the fans what they came to seein the Springfield Mile. Parker was a factor right from the start. As therace wore on, Parker, King, Kopp and Johnny Murphree (Coziahr H-D)distanced themselves from the pack. With two laps remaining, Parker went low off turn four while King, Kopp andMurphree stayed on the higher line near the wall. On the final lap, Parkerrepeated his move, but this time Kopp followed him and both riders slingshotpast King at the finish line.

It was Parker’s 94th career Grand National victory. Remarkably, 14 of thosewins have come in Springfield. Kopp finished second. His third straightpodium finish pushed him into first place in the standings, five pointsahead of Davis. The third time was the charm for King, who captured thefinal podium spot after finishing fourth two races in a row.

In the Harley-Davidson Sportster Performance Series held in Springfield,Paul Morgan III (Moroney’s H-D) won his second race of the season. Roger LeeHayden (Moroney’s H-D) and James Hart (Dale’s H-D) finished second and thirdrespectively. With one race remaining, Willie McCoy (Tilley H-D) leads ScottStump (Frieze’s H-D) by six points in the standings.The next U.S. Flat Track event is scheduled for Sept. 9 at Vernon Downs inVernon, N.Y.

CLASSIFIEDS FROM BONKERS, N.Y.–

FREE 1 CAN OF PORK & BEANS WITH PURCHASE OF 3 BR 2 BATH HOME.

NORDIC TRACK $300 HARDLY USED, CALL CHUBBY

BILL’S SEPTIC CLEANING “WE HAUL AMERICAN MADE PRODUCTS”

SHAKESPEARE’S PIZZA – FREE CHOPSTICKS

NICE PARACHUTE: NEVER OPENED – USED ONCE

QUOTE OF THE WEEK–Passion is born the moment you catch a glimpse of the potential.
(Zig Ziglar at Success 98)

Naples Hotel

DOES THIS PHOTO MEAN SOMETHING TO YOU?– I was raised in the small community of Naples, so small of an island that I know there isn’t a motel there with that name.

THAT’S IT–WE’RE BURNIN’ DAYLIGHT–We’ve bolted the twin 42 mm Mikunis on the ’48 Pan and you’ll see a report shortly. BDL is a new sponsor and you can see a BDL, 3-inch exposed belt installation right now, and Huey Schweb’s highbar chopper which sports a BDL unit. We’re beginning to accumulate bike features for the site and along with a gallery of my old scoots, there’s a feature on Huey’s bobbed Softail. Orwell will go to print next week, if the gods of outlaw iron are willing.

So what happened last night? Well, I can’t fill you in on the lurid details, but she did arrive and slipped quietly onto my couch. We had a glass of wine and a bite to eat, then she slipped into the tub to soak those tender curves. Or did she soak, then we slipped into the comfort of the couch with a glass of wine? I remember looking at my watch and at the dewy mist hanging treacherously over the harbor. We were burning valuable minutes. The band was warming up. Her lips were as red as the touring chop. Damn, life is full of wonderful dilemmas. Have a helluva weekend–Bandit

BIKERNET NEWS FLASH–GORE PROMISES TO ABOLISH ALL HELMET LAWS–YIPEE!Why are there always spectacular sunrises over the harbor? She rolled on top of me this morning before either one of us was awake. Where did she come from? Did she slip into the headquarters in the night? I couldn’t figure it out, but suddenly I didn’t need to know anything except her softness. So the morning began on a high note with the sun creeping in the windows, plans for putting the ’48 Panhead back together and the dark-haired wonder straddling me. A perfect Thursday. Let’s get to the news:

VIRGINIA GOVERNOR SIGNS PRO-BIKER MEASURES James Gilmore, governor of Virginia, recently signed into law two bills that support that state’s motorcycling population, the AMA reports. One, HB 430, requires all drivers education programs in public schools to include motorcycle awareness training as part of the curriculum. The governor also signed into law a bill allowing the sale of special license plates that support Motorcycle Rider Safety Training programs. Under HB 429, plates bearing the slogan “Share the Road” will be sold, with $15 of the $25 special plate fee deposited into the motorcycle safety training program fund.

HOLLY CARBURETOR FROM HARLEY-DAVIDSON–That’s it, a shot of the new Holly carburetor from the factory. So lovely Brenda’s new Duece will be sporting one of these puppies and we’ll show you how it’s done. She’s working for Bartels’ Harley-Davidson in Marina del Rey and put up with Forrest long enough to pull a deal on a new bike. Way to go Brenda. Now we’ll see what we can do with it.

MCCLURE STILL IN THE THICK OF THINGS–Jim McClure of Williamsburg, Va., is still in the championship chase at the far end of mid season. McClure is currently sixth in the IHRA Screamin’ Eagle Nitro Harley division, third in the ADBA Top Fuel Series, and fourth in the JIMS Top Fuel Series with AHDRA.

McClure was very pleased with his final round appearance at the IHRA 23rd annual Mopar Parts World Nationals presented by Ethanol Performs. It was held last week at Norwalk, Ohio.

“The bike is coming around just as it’s ready to be sold. It’s been a tough season, the travel, the new truck and just the quality of the field in IHRA. We’re going to pick up the new bike on our way to Epping, I guess that’ll give ’em something to look at next weekend. We’re hoping to have it finished and on the track, maybe by Gainesville.”

“We are hoping that the television coverage will work to our advantage and help bring in a new sponsor that we’re currently negotiating with. The coverage is great and the airtime is impressive. We getting lots of calls and hope the potential sponsors will see the advantage of our marketing offer,” McClure said.

McClure intends to compete:

Sept. 8-10 IHRA Epping, N.H.

Sept. 21-23 IHRA Rockingham, N.C.

Sept. 28-30 IHRA Budds Creek, Md.

McClure is supported on his national tour by Rivera Engineering, Primo Products, Red Line Synthetic Oil, ACCEL, Hampton Roads HD, Southside HD, F & S HD, S & S Cycle Inc., Performance Machine, Axtell, Autolite & Vanson Leathers –www.jimmcclureracing.com(Don’t forget to watch IHRA on TNN on Sunday nights at 10:30 p.m. EST.)

BANDIT’S STREET STALKER FOR SALE–That’s right, for a mere $17,000 you can own one of the first Street Stalkers to be formed out of a Fatboy. Its black out style was featured in Easyriders and rode to Sturgis 1998. The bike was hopped-up by Dave at Bartel’s H-D and runs at the top of its game for an 80-inch motor. If you want to talk to me about it, send an e-mail to bandit@bikernet.com, or go see the bike at California Harley-Davidson on Pacific Coast Highway in Harbor City; (310) 539-3366 and ask for Joel.

DEPARTURE BIKE WORKS–I often recommend this shop to riders in the east and south. It’s been a family-owned shop for more than 750 years. Yes, the owner, Lee Clemens, is a crusty old fart, but he knows Harleys (even before H-D started) and performance. His shop in Richmond, Va., which is run by his lovely wife Brenda, now handles Panzer motorcycles for the guys who want today’s reliability with the old-world character of the Panhead and Knucklehead. Check out Lee’s idle-brained ramblings on their site: www.departure.com.

THERE ONCE WAS A MAN– who was so proud of the fact that he had six kids that he insisted on calling his wife “mother of six.” His wife hated this name and asked him repeatedly not to call her that, but he was a stubborn man and was very proud that he had six kids.

One evening they were at a dinner party for his company and it was getting close to the time that they should be leaving. The husband yelled from across the room to his wife, “Mother of six, are you ready to go?” Annoyed with his question, she responded, “In a minute, father of four.”

ASPHALT COWBOY REPORT–Actually, I have nothing to report, but I came across this photo of the lady of one of the guys who has been inquiring about the movie. His name is Rourke, and he sent in this shot of his girl for consideration. Seems the writer, Conrad Goode, has contracted pneunomia and is hiding in the hill trying to get over it. He needs to get off drugs and get back to town for a part in another movie. MC is also in the midst of working another movie while the producers try to line up a director. Hopefully we’ll have more to report in the near future.

BIKETOBERFEST IN STYLE–Have you always dreamed of rolling into Biketoberfest on your bike, but don’t know how to arrange it? Well we’ve got connections for the ride of a lifetime. It starts in Nashville and rolls from one wild country western party to another H-D dealership and heads east until the final beach party lights up the sparkling Atlantic on the Florida coast. The run is called Thunder Over Dixie and the man behind the crackling in the sky is Beau Pacheco. The price of the run includes handling and service charges (whatever the hell that is); rooms in Nashville, Chataanooga, Rosewell and Savannah; dinners at dealerships along the way; guest loot package; $50 donation to Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Charities; preferred bike parking at each venue; admission and VIP treatment at each venue and concert, bikedom’s greatest party in Daytona; and a week’s membership in Motorcycling Touring Service, to cover any emergencies, such as alligator bites. For more information, contact Vickie at (949) 645-8036.

KWIK-STANDS FOR LIFTING BIKES–Here’s a notion, but unfortunately I’m lacking images here. I’m looking for a new extra-long ramp that breaks down for my new pickup. No, I can’t afford the damn truck, but as soon as I find a junker that runs, I’m gonna need a ramp. Anyway, this company, Custom Weldings, builds lightweight bike lifts for the garage. These are the type of tubular lifts that can be hauled anyplace (12-25 pounds) and lift the bike six to eight inches off the ground in seconds. They’re located at 1983 SW Biltmore St., Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34984; (877) 879-6928.The Surgical Banner

RONNIE MONTROSE PATENTS THE SOUND OF A STEED MOTORCYCLE–Guitar legend Ronnie Montrose and motorcycle designer John Covington teamed up to make Heavy Metal Thunder while recording the official theme song for www.surgicalsteeds.com. The two American Motorcycle enthusiasts recorded a soundtrack for Surgical-Steeds’ motorcycle Web site. Inspired by the ’70s Montrose classic “Bad Motorscooter,” the three-minute, 40-second original theme quickly plays in a streaming-audio format on Surgical-Steeds site and also is available as a free download on the Montrose site http://www.ronnieland.com in the MP3 format.The Steed-Theme was conceived when Covington, president of Surgical-Steeds Classic American Motorcycles Inc., met Montrose through a mutual friend. “I was in the middle of building our Web site when I met Ronnie,” he said. “I asked him if I could use ‘Bad Motorscooter’ as a soundtrack for the site when Ronnie one-upped me and offered to compose and produce an original score for us. Ronnie found out that I also played drums and invited me to jam with him on the track. It was a real pleasure pounding the drums while Ronnie did his guitar hero thing. He’s a monster in the rock world, and a really great guy to hang with.”The Steed-Theme was recorded live on Sept. 25 at The Producers House Studio in North Hollywood, Calif. Joining the jam were bassist Dave Henzerling and vocalist Bobby Gaylor. Alex “Knobs” Woltman took on the engineering duties during the performance. “We recorded the song in the afternoon, went out for dinner and mixed it the same night. It was really a magical performance by Ronnie and the whole gang,” Covington said. “We all had a blast and it brings a personal custom touch to my Web site.”

HILLTOPPERS RIOT AND GANG RAPE–Even before outlaws, there were clubs that flourished throughout the country. They were more like clans or tribes. Some were cannibals and ate their young. Even us dope-smoking, gun-toting outlaws were afraid of the older clan. Well, they’ve calmed down some, ’cause they’re so fuckin’ old. But you can still witness what went on behind the scenes at the Hilltoppers 55th year reunion at the Golden Sails/Best Western Restaurant and Hotel on Sept. 9, from 6 p.m. until the hotel burns down. 6285 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, Calif. If you need info, call dangerous Pee Wee Thomas at (714) 898-4557.

AMTRAK AND BIKERS HAUL TO NORTH DAKOTA– This week’s Bikernet news had a note from Steven Iglesias about Amtrak and bikes. This Associated Press story was printed inthe Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald on Aug. 8: East Coast group gets to S.D. by way of Minot and a train. A special train, welcomed by Mayor Carroll Erickson and Amtrak officials, stopped here with more than 180 motorcycles and nearly 250 passengers headed for the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D.

The majority of the bikers began theirjourney in Laconia, N.H., while others came from Vermont, Maine,Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. They rodeinto Boston on Friday and took Amtrak to Minot.

“Taking bikes on the train is a newrevenue, and we’re filling a niche,” said Gary Erford, theproduct line director for Amtrak’s Empire Builder in Seattle. The motorcycles were carried on speciallydesigned pallets.

“This trip has been great. It’s agreat way to travel,” said Charlie St. Clair, head of theLaconia Motorcycle Rally, the East Coast equivalent to the Sturgisrally. “What’s nice in coming to Minot is, it’s a good wayfor us to get to Sturgis. It beats driving a vehicle and towingyour bike. We’d like to get feeder trains from allover to do this,” St. Clair said. “And we expect tocontinue to make our drop at Minot.”–Matt Hammer

IT’S EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS CHEER, BUT WE THOUGHT YOU SHOULD READ THESE–Dear Santa, I have been a good girl all year, and the only thing I askfor is peace and joy in the world for everybody!Love, Sarah

Dear Sarah, Your parents smoked pot when they had you, didn’t they?

–Santa

Santa Dear Santa, I’ve written you for three years now asking for a firetruck. Please,I really, really want a fire truck this year!Love, Joey

Dear Joey, Let me make it up to you. While you sleep, I’m gonna torchyour house. You’ll have more fire trucks than you’ll know what to do with.

–Santa

Dear Santa, I don’t know if you can do this, but for Christmas, I’d likefor my mommy and daddy to get back together. Please see what you can do.Love, Teddy

Dear Teddy, What, and ruin that hot affair your dad’s still having withthe babysitter? He’s banging her like a screen door in a hurricane, son!Let me get you some nice Legos instead.

–Santa

BELT DRIVES LIMITED– Suggests that when you install the clutch hub on the main shaft splines that you fill the splines with Loctite to prevent rattling. So what happens when you want to slip off that hub? Break out a blow torch? Nope. There is a cheap solution.Go to your local NAPA dealer and ask for a steering wheel puller #BK775-9064, then hand them $8.99 and get the fuck out of there. You will need a longer set of bolts for the front pulley. So go find that box of miscellaneous shit that you dump all over the floor whenever you need a nut. If you can’t find a pair, you’ll have to hit the hardware store. You’ll also need a hunk of iron to put across the clutch to pull against. That’s it, you’ll be shittin’ in tall cotton.–Stroker.

YO, BANDIT– I don’t know if I ever told you I hada boyfriend, but I do. He likes to buy me wigs and lingerie and Ibecome different women for him. Have you ever tried role playing? It canreally be nasty if you use your imagination. We have this openrelationship. As long as I’m only with girls, he’s OK with me foolingaround cause I get great inspiration from women. I become these women forhim, he gets to have affairs but with me. Usually I don’t get mygirlfriends involved with my boyfriend but he got a look at Sin and likedwhat he saw, almost as much as I do.

Sin came over the other night. My boyfriend,let’s just call him….Fred, he made us drinks then went and picked upChinese food and videos for us. While he was gone I showed Sin the toys Ibought. She was a little tipsy and was pretending to suck on the dildo.

We got pretty nasty and by the time Fred got back we were… Man I thought he was going to cum in his pants. Sindidn’t seem to mind him standing there, she actually seemed to get alittle nastier.

What a night!!!Too bad you spend your nights with someone other than Sin, she’s wild!

Well gotta go, Sin and I are going to Hollywood for the afternoon. Shewants to go to one of those “toy” stores. Watch out Bandit.–Coral

BIKERNET CARIBBEAN REPORT– OK, so now the dust is sort of settled between the Sturgis 2000 race,Agent Zebra vs. Bandit. By they way, who won? Now this one is to fatten upthe ante.

For the guys that are still bitchin’ about sore asses, rain and cops,for those who love to bitch and moan about trailers (yeah, you with the “Irode to trailer week shirt!”) Check this shit out:

It all starts one month prior to the Sturgis dates, loading up thetrailer, getting all the paperwork ready, inspections, sweet talking cops,lots of T-shirts, posters and stickers to our local tax man (sort of IRS)and a lot of planning. We ship the bikes for 1,500 miles toJacksonville on a cargo ship. They get there one week later–are you following?

We must fly to Florida, pick up the truck, trailer and bikes anddrive straight to the Black Hills, 2,000 more miles, in a hurry, which takesthree or four days. When we get to the Black Hills, trailer gets unloaded, bikesout, ready to ride, another 1,500 miles added, (we ride all over thewicked hills). At the end, re-load the bikes, repack and drive back 2,000miles to Florida to ship the whole thing back, another week until it getsto PR and a couple days until we do all the paperwork to get them out ofthe docks. All this with a 44-foot trailer loaded with 12 bikes and a Chevydually towing the whole thing !

Moneywise, forget about it ! Shit, ridingfrom anywere in the States would be a breeze…..So next time you bitchabout some trailer queen, think about how easy or hard it may be…..andWhy. Man, we can run end to end in our island 500 times with the mileagewe do get, and in, the Black Hills……And we do four to five events a year…….shit ! A 14-foot trailer sounds reallygood right now, hmm, maybe a diesel truck? Did I tell you the time we didthe Love Ride in L.A.??? Oh well, that’s another story….See ya were it’s always summer. –Jose

THE 1%er MOVIE PROJECT–Agent Zebra has been flying from Miami to Los Angeles every other weekend to talk up his movie script “1%er” to various agents, managers, producers and bums on the streets of Hollywood. Right this second they are hammering away on the 34th draft. If they ever get it right, you’ll hear about it here. Watch the Projector Room for reports.

FREE CLASSIFIEDS– Yep that’s right. Bikernet classifieds are fully interactive, updated and edited daily, and they come in full color with animation and music. Yes, you too can run a classified. Plus, today only, you’ll receive a sparkling set of chromed Gin Su knives as an introductory offer. All right, I got carried off the ship. But the ads are free and that’s as cheap as we could make ’em for our brothers and sisters. If we can get a couple of shops to run banners and pay for ’em, I’ve been told by the Digital Ganster that it’s possible to slap up images of the scoots you want to sell, like the one above.

THE MATH TEACHER– gets called to the principal’s office one day and the principal says to him, “We need a new sex-ed teacher and you are it.”

The math teacher exclaims, “But I have never taught sex-ed before. What am I going do?”

The principal replies, “Well, you have until Monday to think of something, because that is when the class starts.”

The math teacher decides that he is going to use flash cards to teach the class because they have worked extremely well in teaching his math class.

On Monday morning, the teacher is feeling very confident. He walks into the room and begins to teach the class. He holds up the first flash card and asks, “Can anybody tell me what this is?”

Little Jill stands up and replies, “That’s a breast and my mommy has two.”

The math teacher says, “That’s right Jill! It is a breast, and your mommy does have two.”

The math teacher grabs the next flash card and asks,”Can anybody tell me what this is?

Little Bobby raises his hand and replies, “I know. That is a dick, and my daddy has two.”

The math teacher says, “That’s right Bobby it is a dick,but your daddy only has one.”

Little Bobby stands up and says, “Nope my daddy has two! He has a small one that he uses to pee, and a big one that he brushes mommy’s teeth with.”

SONNY BARGER TOURS ENGLAND SIGNING BOOKS–After a day of press interviews and signing books in London, he was a special guest at the Bulldog Bash. Barger joined about 15,000 bikers at the party hosted by HAMC England. His autobiography shot straight to the British bestseller lists.

Visit and click on the links on the Press/Media page.Listen to the 18-minute interview with BBC Radio at (requires RealAudio).

Sonny has been a legend among bikers for a long time, but now the “mainstream” is learning about his awesome life and commenting (with some reluctance) about his respectable principles and values.

Since returning from England, Sonny has appeared for book signings in Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Littleton, Colo., and the Four Corners rally.

In the next two months, he will be at Street Vibrations in Reno, Nev., Cleveland, Ohio, Rochester, N.Y., and at Biketoberfest in Daytona, Fla. Check the Meet Sonny page for details, and tell your friends who may want to meet him in person.

QUICKEST HARLEY AT U.S. NATIONALS–Bill Hannon loves a drag racing crowd. And that made the NHRA/U.S. Nationals at Indy the place to be.

“We almost packed the bike up, still hot from its last test pass at Gainesville, and headed directly to Indy. We didn’t have time to finish the lettering and for that we apologize to our sponsors. We thought the weather conditions would give us a break in the Midwest, but it was just like home, hot and humid, only 3,500 feet above sea level.”

“There was a great field at Indy and we know the Harleys are still a long shot to make the field, but we don’t want to miss a chance to cut some numbers. We didn’t make the qualifying field but Dan Baisley did cut the quickest and fastest times among the Harleys with a 7.80 ET and 165.77 mph. If we can get the back half to match up with our front half numbers, we’re there.”

Hannon Racing is scheduled to attend:

Sept. 8-10 IHRA Epping, N.H.

Sept. 14-17 NHRA Reading, Pa.

Sept. 30 AHDRA Maple Grove, Pa.

Oct. 7-8 AHDRA Rockingham, N.C.

Oct. 26-29 NHRA Houston, Tx.

Hannon Racing is supported on their national circuit by Axtell Sales Inc., Baisley Hi-Performance, D & G Chassis, Harley Davidson of Ft. Myers, The Landings Realty Inc., Red Line Oil, MRE, BPM Racing Engines, and Dyna Tek, RK Chain, Bandit Clutch, Vanson Leathers, & Mastercam.

Hannon 941-463-2778 www.hannonracing.com

BIKERNET WEST–STURGIS 2000 COMING–Sometime today the first segment of the Sturgis 2000 saga will hit Bikernet in the garage and the fiction/non-fiction feature department. That first segment will take you through the five-week build of Bandit’s Daytec Chopper. Watch for the wild ride. The bike is currently at the Paul Yaffe Original’s studio being fitted for a new tank. We can’t tell you much more, who was at fault, if there was a girl involved (isn’t there always?), or what the problem is until all four chapters of Sturgis 2000 are posted. Keep checkin’ back.

WHY IS SEX–Why is sex like a game of bridge? If you have a good hand, you don’t need a partner.

What do a coffin and a condom have in common? They’re both filled with stiffs, but you come in one, and go in the other!

Can you say three, two-letter words that denote small? Is it in?

THAT’S IT–I’m actually getting caught up after Sturgis gangster-slapped my wallet and time piece. It’s been non-stop. But in the near future you’ll need to get your bike polished and shot, then submit it to our own Cyber Cycles bike show. We’ll have new catagories that include non-traditional show bikes, like rat bikes, and bikes that have seen the most miles. Prizes will be awarded monthly and the Best of Show will get a full-on bike feature on Bikernet. In the next week we’ll be rambling on about the Weerd Bros. in Phoenix who assemble and distribute quality front ends, and you’ll get some tips on Mikuni Carb installation. We are looking into, and hold on for this one, a right-hand drive Baker six-speed transmission. If you go into Wrench’s bike barn in the next couple days, you’ll find a new bike feature by Huey Schwebs. Look for more bikes in the near future.

I can’t handle much more, so I’m going out to the garage this afternoon and start to put my ’48 Pan back together with dual carbs, 42 mm Mikuni’s. Giggie from Compu-fire has promised to come over for the tuning process. You’ll see progress reports on the site in the near future.Shit, it’s almost noon and Sin may be strolling past. I better clean up, make her her favorite drink and wonder why I’m so fuckin’ lucky. Let’s ride, we’re burnin’ daylight. –Bandit

Unlike many years in the past, I didn’t rely on any builders to make the deadline for the trek to the Bad Lands. The Bikernet crew handled building two road-sizzling chops in two and a half months. I’ve got to tell you that it felt good to get back in the garage amongst the socket sets, grinders and torches. Although the drunken work ethic was strong, several times during late-night wrench fests I came mighty close to firing myself. However, since I was one of a very small crew of volunteer wrench merchants, it didn’t make solid sense. Nutboy was there until he couldn’t handle the clogged pressure cooker in the garage, so he grabbed 30 college coeds and flew to Ireland. Never did get the meaning of all that, but it sounded like good fun. Agent Zebra flew in from Miami to pitch his movie 1%er for the 43rd time and came by the Bikernet headquarters to assist with his bike. I quickly discovered that the bull riding champion/survivalist can’t turn a doorknob, never mind a wrench. Renegade lost his patience and we kicked him out of the garage and told him to return to Hollywood and, “Don’t come back without a contract.” Wrench was constantly on hand, Snake was constantly drunk and Oz could never get away from his computer monitor long enough to help, but he was a constant source of phone-advice. Renegade came to the garage daily to criticize everything from finish choices to components. That bastard would make a kid cry about going to Disneyland. He hasn’t had a good word to say since I met him in 1972, but he’s my brother. Whatta ya gonna do? Our challenge was to build two bikes and ride to Sturgis for the first Sturgis Bikernet Chop-Off, a bike-building competition between Bikernet East and Bikernet West. Great plans don’t always pan out, yet become blessings in disguise. We finally turned one world-class custom, which was not the road bike we needed, into two distinctly different asphalt gobblers. Were we up for the task? Did we have the skills and tools to build the bikes? Would they run once they were completed? Had I lost my eye for solid choppers or my mechanical touch? Keep in mind as this saga unfolds that this (Bikernet) is a start-up business, competition and life change. I’ve been helping people get their businesses, projects and products off the launching pad for almost 30 years. Now, faced with no paycheck and no expense account we attempted to build two bikes from the ground up just months before Sturgis 2000. In addition, we would be judged on who had the coolest chop and whipped the other son of a bitch from its designated homeland, namely Miami and San Pedro in Los Angeles, to South Dakota. With the Bandit II dismantled, we stood back and evaluated the situation. We had another set of wheels hanging around in the garage and miscellaneous other parts. Agent Zebra is a short, wiry asshole, so the Paughco frame went to him, along with a set of H-D custom wheels and rotors. We split the P.M. brakes between the two bikes. We checked our leaking bank accounts and began ordering parts. Since the frame for my ride had to be ordered from Daytec, we started on the Agent’s bike first. The original Bandit II narrow glide went back on the stretched Paughco Softail along with P.M. brakes and Harley Thunderstar wheels and rotors. The 88-inch CCI engine slipped into place along with the Baker five-speed transmission. As the days rolled along, we plucked more parts from my pile just to keep the starving Agent’s project rolling. The frame was still painted with the Bandit II theme, along with the tank, so we stuck with it. A Fatboy rear fender was fitted over the 160 Avon Tyre and sent to Phil Stadden for paint along with the West Coast Choppers front fender. The completeness of the 88-inch Rev Tech engines made the project much smoother. The Baker Transmission was a jewel to deal with and improved the ride immensely. With a few odds and ends from the extensive, “if you need it – they have it,” Custom Chrome catalog, the Zebra special was coming together. We had a minor clearance problem with the frame and engine. Fitting the 160 tire under the fender was tight and making the brakes work was a bit of a challenge. In no time, the bike was running and on a custom-painted Gold Rush Semi heading to Miami for the Agent. We shipped it to Eddie Trotta at Thunder Designs in Fort Lauderdale for break-in, a seat from the infamous Keith and tweaking. Of course the Agent couldn’t leave well enough alone and he decided to have special panels painted on the sides of the tank and fender announcing his arrival. The paint work was handled by Eddie Meeks in record time, but it still sliced away at Zebra’s time for break-in. The crew at Thunder Cycle, with less than a week before kick-off, pulled burn-outs up and down the tourist-packed streets of Fort Lauderdale in an effort to spin the miles onto his new odometer. All right, you’re beginning to get the picture, but there are more obstacles to come. The young muscular Zebra had this Germanic girlfriend. She was tall and thin, with super-model looks, natural blond hair and blue eyes like you only see in Scandinavia. She had a whisper of a voice and could speak very little English. Unbeknownst to the Agent, he was in love. He bought her furniture, a car, took care of her expenses, etc. while he was working. Suddenly his Los Angeles highlife went into the shitter and he was forced to move quickly to Miami and set up a crack house in the middle of Cuban controlled South Beach. The competition didn’t take to the blond boy from Kansas, and they dropped a pill in lovely Nicole’s soup. She immediately fell out of love with Zebra and the world stopped. Not only did he lose his girl, but his access to a car and all the furniture in his pad. His massive, attack-trained Malinwa dog, Apache, went homeless on the streets of Miami while Zebra panhandled for coins along the route to the Badlands. On the other hand, my life was a circus of broken promises. Calling in a favor, I contacted Milwaukee Iron for fenders. I had helped Randy build his business from the beginning, yet when the fenders arrived, the UPS dude stood there with a unexpected C.O.D. request, and there I was, in the middle of a financial no man’s land. That scenario happened more than once. We even had a Bikernet sponsor sign our contract then go back on their signature. But “give up” is not written in the Bikernet mantra, so we rolled up our sleeves and kept wrenching. For every time I felt screwed, there was a bright star, a blessing in disguise, a pearl in our soup. The Weerd Bros. from Phoenix not only were helpful beyond our wildest dreams, but their product turned out to be a superb ride and a life saver. Harold Pontarelli, owner of H-D Performance, called me one day about a year and a half ago, while I was still at Easyriders, and said that for running some of his bikes in the mag and for being a friend, he wanted to comp me a paint job. I thanked him profusely, but never expected to take him up on the offer because I knew my days at the page factory were numbered. A couple of months after I left, Harold called me to say his promise was good whether I ever did a thing for him again or not. I was blissfully floored. Custom Cycle Engineering, which you can see featured on the site in our Panhead project section, has always been a good friend. I run their rubbermounted dogbone risers on all my bikes. Finally, Ron at Paughco never hesitates to assist in any way he can. So for every screwing, there was a blessing. Finally, a company I had never had a chance to work with came to my rescue in the final hour. It’s odd that some of the companies I had assisted for years couldn’t step up. Yet the folks at Joker Machine, whom I hadn’t worked with, went out of their way to assist. Geoff and Diane were there when I needed them and I will be forever grateful. Their machine shop is impeccable, the product precise and well thought through, and examples showed up on the road to Sturgis from time to time. They take particular care with polish and chrome. Being flexible is a necessary evil to building a custom. When the bell tolled and the slick-as-a-perfectly-curved-tit Daytec frame arrived, we had five weeks to build the Blue Flame from the ground up. The custom Daytec rigid was ideal for the 14-over Weerd Bros. front end. Tony Day said of the specifications, “An Eddie Trotta formula frame.” Eddie from Thunder Designs in Fort Lauderdale builds a hard-riding stretched Softail chopper that makes riding like first-time sex. The question at that point was whether to send the frame with the sheet metal to Harold in Vacaville, Calif., or to powdercoat in three days and have the chassis building underway while the sheet metal was under the spray gun. Powder has its color limitations. It’s tremendously durable and strong, but comes in few colors. We found a company in Orange County, Primo Powder Coating (Huntington Beach, that has an unheard-of two-stage powder, so I was relieved not to build another fucking black bike. I love black scoots, but I’ve built one too many, including the Excelsior-Henderson last year and the ’97 Street Stalker from the prior year. It was time for a change. While waiting for the welds to cool, we debated whether to powder coat. While wondering, we narrowed a ’50s cop-bike solo seat one inch and Nuutboy fabricated a steel frame and pivot point. A bracket on the frame was modified to allow the seat to glide up and down with rear spring action. Two studs were welded in the center of the frame rails to correspond with the studs on the underside of the seat, but what about springs? The old Bates springs were never strong enough to carry the weight of a man. I had to find a set of 4-inch tapered coil springs that would handle my ass to the Bad Lands. It was June and the sun was as hot as my love life. Something sparked and a dark-haired bundle of intrigue entered my lonely existence in the middle of a bar fight. Although the pressure was on, she remained a soft-spoken Valium in tight pants. She was like finding a jewel in a trash bag full of crushed beer cans. Initially I was concerned, curious and watchful as she roamed in and out of my days, bringing coffee cake in the morning and sex at night. Her schedule fit well with work on the Web site, books and bikes. She showed up on my doorstep at 10 p.m. and slipped out at midnight. She had an 11-year-old daughter whose school was up the street from the Bikernet headquarters. She’d swing by in the morning on her way to work with packs of oatmeal and creamers, stay a few minutes and disappear out the door. She didn’t ask questions, didn’t seem bothered by anything and loved sex — my kind of woman. But I was focused on the goal to build the bikes and driven to ride to Sturgis. I was about to reach for the phone book one morning, on an ass-saving spring hunt, when the mail arrived with an invitation to the Harley-Davidson new-model announcement. At that point I was spending every extra moment in the garage and interruptions were a problem. But the factory has always been supportive and I couldn’t miss the new bike review so I signed on for the event. It took place in Pasadena and all the moto-journalists from the Southern California region were on hand. Occasionally during the presentation I would peer at the list in my pocket and go to the dingy corner where the heads were to make a call about chrome or parts, or I’d call headquarters to check in with the crew. Some years the Harley announcements indicate business as usual at the factory with only minor changes. This year was a vast contrast to the status quo. It was immediately evident the company was making strides to capture a larger segment of the aftermarket with its accessory production pace and the focus on custom parts. The models radiated custom touches. They had finally truly lowered a bike, the new Lowrider Dyna. Road Glides were getting much more engineering attention. Performance was advancing quickly with a Holley Carb introduction and big-inch motor kits. Some of the new paint schemes reached deeply into the custom culture for colors and designs.     Then they came to the new narrower, lighter, police model for 2001. Cop bikes didn’t mean a hill of beans to me, but I scanned the more agile machine that is now available for individual sales and they’re cheap. Dan Ackroyd should get a new one. I noticed springs under the solo cop saddle and immediately jumped to my feet. Two representatives from the factory rushed to my side. “Can we help you answer any questions about the new police model?” one of the engineers asked. I started babbling about this stretched rigid I was going to ride to Sturgis and the two contemporary thinkers backed away as if my radical concept might rub off on them. I ordered a set later that day. They proved to be … well you’ll see. The frame was sent to the powdercoater, the chrome went out and the sheet metal was shipped to Harold’s. The waiting game began while I chased any missing parts. By the time the sun was blazing in the single window of our tiny headquarters, the frame was back in the garage and up on a towel-covered lift. The chromer made me wait another day. I was in the midst of a bolting-together orgy when the dark-haired one appeared in the doorway of the Bikernet den, peeling out of her threads. Her alabaster skin looked like cream flowing into a hot cup of coffee. The satin shaved surface was too delicate to touch. What the hell is a biker to do when heaven is standing nude in the doorway? The crew was looking at 34 days until departure. I was looking at green eyes, a sensitive smile and … priorities men, priorities. It was a factor of hours and parts availability, plus watching for problems. Everything was seriously locktite drenched, tightened and tightened again. I notice a weak link immediately in the wheel spacing. This was an odd, uncalled-for operation. You buy wheels, they come with spacers. You install them and it’s a done deal. You go for a ride. So what was the problem? The tubes had been cut and collars added to assist with holding the grease near the bearings, and to hold the spacer centered when the axle was removed. They weren’t shabby. The dilemma made me second-guess my installation. I checked and rechecked the life-threatening problem. If I left them alone, I would certainly be a candidate for a high-speed wobble. If I set them up too tight, I could burn up the bearings in the desert and be left alongside the road to fry in the sun. Something had to be done to correct the wheels or find out where I went astray. With spacers the correct length, the wheels and brakes could be installed for the last time and anything that could reach final assembly made me smile and saved time. We were frustrated. I centered the wheel and began to space the P.M. Calipers. Something wasn’t right. There was .020 slop in the center spacer that pre-loads the Timken bearings. I was blown away and stayed up until 2 a.m. with a sheet of glass and wet and dry sand paper trimming the spacer down while insuring the flat parallel surface to the bearing race as left intact. I finished uncertain of the tolerances. Later I found that the tolerance prescribed by the factory is .004 to .014. It is recommended that with aluminum hubs you should lead your figure to the .004 side. There was another weak link and Harold mentioned it as soon as he received the mounted Sportster Tank. “That tab system is a little shaky, Bandit.” What could I do? I had two 1/8-inch-thick straps that ran the entire length of the tank and out both ends by three inches. At the last minute I eliminated one because I felt it would be too difficult to bondo. The tank was now in Harold’s hands and time was running out. If I had sent the bare frame to Harold, he would have mounted the gas tank by his proven method. The decision had been made and I would be forced to live with it. We kept moving. Ah, but there was another adjustment that lurked in the back of my mind, although Giggie from Compu-fire checked my installation and gave it a thumbs up. I was sketchy about the primary drive adjustment. I had slipped the original inner-primary O-ring between the engine cases and the motor plate for vibration relief. Bad move. The BDL belt was too tight. There was no slack in the belt and I wanted some. I had to loosen the transmission, unbolt the motor-plate from the engine and move the tranny forward as much as possible. It worked out perfectly, but just in case, I ordered a spare belt (I broke a primary belt in ’97 outside Denver). Giggie from Compu-fire helped kick off the wiring with the installation and timing of the Compu-fire single fire ignition. With it in place sans the Voes switch (this is a chopper, right?). About that time, a tall Asian in a flowered bikini and a black towel strolled past the headquarters on her way to secluded Cabrillo Beach. The entire crew was distracted. It wouldn’t be the last time Sin Wu captured my concentration. She became our lunch time mascot, dropping in from time to time to check the progress and tantalize us. The rear wheel had yet to be spaced properly. It suffered from the same malady as the front wheel and the last thing I wanted storming through my brain at 5 a.m. on a highway in the middle of nowhere was my wheel spacers. We were forced to remove the rear wheel again. I had built in a stud for the hydraulic brake switch behind an exhaust pipe as part of the exhaust bracket. The notion was to hide that ugly bastard yet make it accessible if need be. As it turned out, Joker Machine builds a micro brake switch into their forward controls. Ultimately a dice was drilled and tapped to conceal the stud. Just as I finished the wiring, the paint was delivered. Harold and I discussed the paint scheme at length. The first problem was the frame paint. We were limited to a bright metallic blue. I sent Harold a chunk of square tubing painted the same color to match. He studied it and went to work. We discussed white pearl or cream colored flames and he decided to add a silver accent. We couldn’t decided what color to pinstripe with. We discussed red, pink (no way), even green, but nothing jumped out at us. When Harold called and said he’d pinstriped it gray, I choked. It sounded drab, lifeless. A week later, after clear coating and drying, the paint was shipped. I had become best of pals with the UPS guy, who showed up daily. When he showed up with a small package he’d be greeted with a long face from a disappointed crew member. “We need bigger boxes and more of ’em,” Wrench told him one morning. We did. We were biting our nails, watching the clock and the calendar. The plan called for a running motorcycle two weeks before the takeoff date. The first stretch of road to Phoenix was 450 miles of blistering desert and I was riding alone. I needed a break-in period. Most years we had little or no break-in time. Last year the Excelsior-Henderson had no miles on it after High Tech Custom Cycles customized the rowdy 85-inch monster. I had it for two days before leaving. The first day the front brake kept locking up and we discovered chrome chips in the front master cylinder. With that fixed, I thought I was good to go until the starter motor blew up in my face the night before takeoff. We made arrangements with Bert’s Cycle Mall in Azusa to fix it. I hired a guy to drive my truck, my bike and me to Bert’s, where we sat for half the afternoon while they replaced the starter and some fried bushings, then retuned the bike with a new computer program. Dr. Hamster and I sat in their waiting room with our gear and waited patiently for the verdict. It finally came with a road test by the main mechanic. He rolled out of the parking lot without making eye contact with either of us.    We were as anxious as a man about to undress his girl for the first time as we stood waiting in the parking lot with our gear in our arms. When he rolled back, his dower mug hidden by a full-faced helmet, he buzzed directly into the service department. I followed. “Well?” “It’s good to go,” he finally said without looking up. In the midst of rush-hour traffic, we rolled onto the freeway toward Sturgis.        The year before that, it was the street stalker built essentially by Bartels’ Harley-Davidson. Before that, it was the touring chopper built by Jesse James. All of the above are professionals who are constantly building bikes, have mechanics and extensive tools and supplies. I’m not, and my guys all work on old Panheads. So when we took on these projects as non-professional, skirt-chasing, beer-drinking geeks, we wanted more time to correct all the bullshit mistakes we would make. As it turned out, we didn’t make any more mistakes than the pros had in the past. Plus the feeble, leaning Bikernet headquarters held nearly every tool we needed to keep the operation going. As the sheet metal arrived, Sin Wu and I slipped into the basement of the vast Bikernet headquarters to un-box, un-peanut, un-bubble wrap and un-cellophane the paint. The gray pinstripe was perfect, the finish clean and classic. We made love in the basement in celebration and as a tribute to the notion that this underground slab of concrete would soon become the international Bikernet shipping and receiving department. Fuck, life can be exciting. Sin went home and the brothers began to install the tank and sheet metal. We were moving fast. Time was running out and days seemed to disappear. At one point, we had the grandiose notion that the bike would be ready for the Exceptional Childrens’ Beach Ride in Ventura, California. We couldn’t make it. Then the Calendar Girl Show loomed. What was once the Mikuni Bike Show at the Santa Monica Airport had transcended into the Calendar Girl/White Bros. Show in a small park near the looming bow of the Queen Mary. Cool location, but could we have the bike up in time? Wiring went easy with the internal tubing installed in the frame by Daytec. Tubes ran from the back of the seat post to the top motormount and down the seat tube to the oil pump. I quickly discovered that I could run two switches in the top motormount and Giggie suggested a polished aluminum plate to conceal the switch backs and the single circuit breaker. Giggie emphasized that we use mil spec (military specification) or Marine switches. I had purchased plastic Marine switches but wasn’t confident in them. I wanted to head over to Neptunes Electronics for some heavy duty mil spec metal units, but it never happened. The wiring continued with two switches to control all the electronics on the bike. An on/off switch turned on the ignition and the brake and tail lights and energized the high/low beam switch. The on-off-on switch controlled the headlight and that was all. For the starter switch we used Custom Cycle Engineering’s new mechanical push button, which mounts directly to the starter solenoid of the Compu-Fire starter. It’s the cleanest switch in the world and works like a champ, but if your pipes come anywhere close to the switch, watch out. It’s easy to burn your mitt when the bike is hot. Plus the switch is bolted to the right side of the bike and down low. If that’s going to be a problem with the carb and reaching the throttle, you need to consider those obstacles. It worked like a champ on this rigid with the pipes we chose. For our pipes, we picked a set of Samson 2 1/8-inch drag pipes for a Dyna Glide because they don’t make pipes for rigid frames. From a performance standpoint, I wanted the 98-inch S&S stroker motor to run as effortlessly as possible. I had discovered by mounting a Compu-Fire single-fire ignition system on the touring chopper that it calmed that stroker motor, so I did the same on this one. I wanted to even the exhaust system for firing balance. One pipe was 12 inches longer than the other and hung down too far, which would hamper ground clearance. We took two inches out of the down stroke. Wrench gas-welded it back together with a coat hanger. Then we cut the pipe to even the lengths to 27 inches. That seemed precariously short for the diameter of the exhaust, so we took two Samson exhaust muffler baffles, cut them in half and installed them. Finally, for styling purposes, we asked James Famigatti to scallop the ends of the pipes to contour the shape of the Milwaukee Iron fenders. We called Mikuni America and asked about the carburetor. Lee, the man responsible for every Mikuni carburetor that flies into the states for motorcycles, asked, “For your bike?” “Yep,” I said. “You’re going to install it?” “Yep,” I said. “Forget it,” he said, “Bring the bike to me. We’ll make sure the intake is correct and the cables match, and that the bike runs.” I didn’t know what to make of it, but I did as I was told and delivered the bike to the Mikuni factory. With the swift action of Barnett cables, S&S and American Iron Horse, the correct intake was procured for the tall barrel S&S stroker engine that tucked the polished 42-mm slide carburetor in close to the engine. They fired and tuned the bike for the first time. The technician, Bryan, warned us to back out the air mixture screw half a turn when I reached the altitudes of Denver. They also installed a large tear-drop, exposed K&N air cleaner that would afford the engine all the air it wished to gulp. Time was running out. We still needed miles on the bike but we had no speedometer and no idea where to put it. The cable was in the garage and the drive unit had been installed on the front wheel, but the actual speedometer was nowhere to be found. Then it dawned on me that the ’84 Shovelhead in Dallas had just the speedometer we needed, but planned not to use. I called and asked the crew at Dallas Easyriders to ship the unit quick and it was on its way. We were as anxious as a man about to undress his girl for the first time as we stood waiting in the parking lot with our gear in our arms. When he rolled back, his dower mug hidden by a full-faced helmet, he buzzed directly into the service department. I followed. “Well?” “It’s good to go,” he finally said without looking up. In the midst of rush-hour traffic, we rolled onto the freeway toward Sturgis.   The year before that, it was the street stalker built essentially by Bartels’ Harley-Davidson. Before that, it was the touring chopper built by Jesse James. All of the above are professionals who are constantly building bikes, have mechanics and extensive tools and supplies. I’m not, and my guys all work on old Panheads. So when we took on these projects as non-professional, skirt-chasing, beer-drinking geeks, we wanted more time to correct all the bullshit mistakes we would make. As it turned out, we didn’t make any more mistakes than the pros had in the past. Plus the feeble, leaning Bikernet headquarters held nearly every tool we needed to keep the operation going. As the sheet metal arrived, Sin Wu and I slipped into the basement of the vast Bikernet headquarters to un-box, un-peanut, un-bubble wrap and un-cellophane the paint. The gray pinstripe was perfect, the finish clean and classic. We made love in the basement in celebration and as a tribute to the notion that this underground slab of concrete would soon become the international Bikernet shipping and receiving department. Fuck, life can be exciting. Sin went home and the brothers began to install the tank and sheet metal. We were moving fast. Time was running out and days seemed to disappear. At one point, we had the grandiose notion that the bike would be ready for the Exceptional Childrens’ Beach Ride in Ventura, California. We couldn’t make it. Then the Calendar Girl Show loomed. What was once the Mikuni Bike Show at the Santa Monica Airport had transcended into the Calendar Girl/White Bros. Show in a small park near the looming bow of the Queen Mary. Cool location, but could we have the bike up in time? Wiring went easy with the internal tubing installed in the frame by Daytec. Tubes ran from the back of the seat post to the top motormount and down the seat tube to the oil pump. I quickly discovered that I could run two switches in the top motormount and Giggie suggested a polished aluminum plate to conceal the switch backs and the single circuit breaker. Giggie emphasized that we use mil spec (military specification) or Marine switches. I had purchased plastic Marine switches but wasn’t confident in them. I wanted to head over to Neptunes Electronics for some heavy duty mil spec metal units, but it never happened. The wiring continued with two switches to control all the electronics on the bike. An on/off switch turned on the ignition and the brake and tail lights and energized the high/low beam switch. The on-off-on switch controlled the headlight and that was all. For the starter switch we used Custom Cycle Engineering’s new mechanical push button, which mounts directly to the starter solenoid of the Compu-Fire starter. It’s the cleanest switch in the world and works like a champ, but if your pipes come anywhere close to the switch, watch out. It’s easy to burn your mitt when the bike is hot. Plus the switch is bolted to the right side of the bike and down low. If that’s going to be a problem with the carb and reaching the throttle, you need to consider those obstacles. It worked like a champ on this rigid with the pipes we chose. For our pipes, we picked a set of Samson 2 1/8-inch drag pipes for a Dyna Glide because they don’t make pipes for rigid frames. From a performance standpoint, I wanted the 98-inch S&S stroker motor to run as effortlessly as possible. I had discovered by mounting a Compu-Fire single-fire ignition system on the touring chopper that it calmed that stroker motor, so I did the same on this one. I wanted to even the exhaust system for firing balance. One pipe was 12 inches longer than the other and hung down too far, which would hamper ground clearance. We took two inches out of the down stroke. Wrench gas-welded it back together with a coat hanger. Then we cut the pipe to even the lengths to 27 inches. That seemed precariously short for the diameter of the exhaust, so we took two Samson exhaust muffler baffles, cut them in half and installed them. Finally, for styling purposes, we asked James Famigatti to scallop the ends of the pipes to contour the shape of the Milwaukee Iron fenders. We called Mikuni America and asked about the carburetor. Lee, the man responsible for every Mikuni carburetor that flies into the states for motorcycles, asked, “For your bike?” “Yep,” I said. “You’re going to install it?” “Yep,” I said. “Forget it,” he said, “Bring the bike to me. We’ll make sure the intake is correct and the cables match, and that the bike runs.” I didn’t know what to make of it, but I did as I was told and delivered the bike to the Mikuni factory. With the swift action of Barnett cables, S&S and American Iron Horse, the correct intake was procured for the tall barrel S&S stroker engine that tucked the polished 42-mm slide carburetor in close to the engine. They fired and tuned the bike for the first time. The technician, Bryan, warned us to back out the air mixture screw half a turn when I reached the altitudes of Denver. They also installed a large tear-drop, exposed K&N air cleaner that would afford the engine all the air it wished to gulp. Time was running out. We still needed miles on the bike but we had no speedometer and no idea where to put it. The cable was in the garage and the drive unit had been installed on the front wheel, but the actual speedometer was nowhere to be found. Then it dawned on me that the ’84 Shovelhead in Dallas had just the speedometer we needed, but planned not to use. I called and asked the crew at Dallas Easyriders to ship the unit quick and it was on its way.       With a couple weeks left, I called Joker Machine daily. I didn’t want to press, but I was going out of my mind. My contact, Geoff, had faced some health problems and decided that smoking was his cure. I didn’t want to add to the stress of building high-precision, very costly components that were already on back order. I considered myself a nuisance so I was trying to tread lightly. The staff at Joker was more than helpful and I finally got the call from Geoff. “Come on out and we can bolt on the parts right here. I’ve even found a guy around the corner at Greased Lightening who will make up the brake lines. We finally got the stuff back from chrome, but as usual, all the elements aren’t perfect. You’ll have to roll with one polished piece. The others were sent back to be rechromed.” I respected his desire for perfection and that he had paying customers breathing down his neck, so I was perfectly happy to take whatever he had. Jay from Station 34 in San Pedro, a cool restoration shop built in an old gas station down the street, volunteered to haul me out to Azusa to the Joker Machine facility. Jay from Japan works with the Japanese Easyriders Magazine and wheels and deals with bikes back and forth to Japan. He was also building a rigid to ride to Japan until I helped him make a contact with the Harley-Davidson fleet center and he was able to borrow a Road Glide. The cheater. Anyway, we loaded the Blue Flame into the back of Jay’s ’79 ranchero and hauled it out to Joker, where we installed the forward controls. Then we rolled a couple blocks to Greased Lightening where the owner, Mike Ingle, custom made the hydraulic brake lines for the front and rear brakes. We bled and tested them and loaded the bike for the return trip to Pedro and the first start up. Mike’s shop is small, but his engine building facility is well equipped. He’s experienced and ready now to take on building engines for a larger clientele. He told us that when bleeding brakes, smearing a tad of grease on the threads of the bleeder nipple prevents air bubbles from creeping around the threads and results in a more positive bleed. An hour later, we pulled up in front of the hot rod body and paint joint around the corner from the headquarters. Henry the proprietor and Bob, the owner of one of Henry’s creations, came scrambling out of the corrugated steel building to check the metallic blue monster sticking way out of the back of the baby blue Ranchero. Using Henry’s driveway for an assist to Jay’s ramp, we unloaded the bike easily and fired it to life for the first time. In the back of my mind I planned to use Eddie Trotta’s break-in scenario where he rides the bike for one mile then tweaks, the next day he rides it for 10 miles and tweaks some more, then 50 miles, and so on. I liked the notion and the bike rumbled easily but idled too high. I rode it around the block and discovered a number of tweaks that needed to be addressed immediately. The formula was working. We pulled the bike into the garage as the dark-haired beauty arrived. We celebrated the occasion with more than just a drink. The night was gone in a blur of sex, sweetness and excitement at bringing the beast to life. I’ve been building bikes for 30 years and the exhilaration of a metallic accomplishment that can carry you across the country is still the same. It’s something like sex and winning the lottery. Although nothing compares to sex, like, well … more sex. We’ll leave that for another discussion. I had less than 10 days left when I took the bike for its 10-mile excursion. It ran fine, but the tightness of the belt was bothersome. Something was rubbing on the final belt. The rear wheel spacing was slack and there was still no speedometer. The rear fender was finding its home and the bolts needed to be tightened. The new front brake line needed to be secured and we discovered some industrial wire cable ties with rubber inserts that would do the trick. We removed the inserts and polished the aluminum, and we had a couple of custom hydraulic hose guides. I mounted one to the Weerd Bros. lower triple tree by drilling and tapping a small hole, but I made sure to go in about an inch so I had plenty of thread depth. I also made sure I had enough fasteners to have them match if and when I ran the speedometer drive. I had 10 days to put 500 miles on the bike and dial it in for the 2000-mile jaunt across the desert to the Black Hills. With another round of tweaking under my belt, I rode the bike down the coast for breakfast an put another 50 miles on it. I pulled into a gas station to refill and couldn’t get the gas cap off the Sportster tank. It was a carefully manufactured super clean custom cap that fit right down on the surface of the tank. Damn it looked clean, but the gripping edge of the cap was less than an 1/8-inch thick and a hair off the surface of the new paint. With little surface to grip, it wouldn’t budge. I stood in the station perplexed. I knew I would run out of fuel before I returned to headquarters. Unlike most of the stations in L.A., this one actually had a technician, and a wrench who spoke English. On top of that, the man was generous with his tools, another rarity. I borrowed his largest pair of channel-locks and a rag that I draped over the cap and the top of the tank. The cap came loose. Another item to be tweaked. When the weekend came for the calendar show, the bike had a couple hundred miles on it and I had less than a week until departure. There was still no speedometer but the bike was running fine. I had yet to respace the rear wheel, but two women wanted my company at the show and how could I possibly resist? The sun was ablaze as the girls followed me into the check-in area where I planned to display the bike with Joker Machine’s fine rides and then at the Mikuni booth, which sat alone on the edge of the water without any bikes or babes around it to draw the crowds to their product. I ran into a girl who I had once come very close to dating on a regular basis, Lexy, a blond bomb shell with tiny feet and a skirt that could have been made out of one of my Hawaiian shirt sleeves. She dripped with sexiness as I greeted her. The dark-haired beauty at my side stared at the youngster in the stretched-on skirt and her emerald eyes glistened with some mysterious feminine emotion. Sweat beaded on my forehead and the sun hadn’t even crested the horizon yet. The show was flawless and I escaped early to log on more miles and spend some quality time with the lovelies who chaperoned me through the bikinis and chrome. I continued to ride whenever I could while making arrangements for the trip. A noise nagged me and I suspected the BDL system, which is the easiest thing in the world to install if you watch the spacing and the initial alignment. If I ever install one again, I’ll know just how to go after it, and the thing will be a breeze. I also noted some aluminum shavings in the clutch basket. I kept riding, adjusting and tightening the Joker Machine mirror, which was very flexible and sturdy. The Joker controls worked perfectly and I found a couple CCI frame clamps to hold the clutch cable in proper alignment. Two days before departure I pulled the rear wheel for balancing and fixing the spacing. This time a neighbor had loaned me a flat belt and disc sander and I immediately took too much off the spacer and had to take it to the local shop for shims. The next morning I was at Century Motors first thing. When I asked about shims, the mechanic looked at me with disgruntled eyes, stroked his long beard and said, “I’ll check the washer drawer.” I jumped in the flamed Bikernet T-bird and hauled over to California H-D for an assortment of shims, which I quickly took back to Century Motors. With the proper alignment and the wheel carefully balanced, I returned to the garage for installation. Then I decided the noise was coming from the clutch and began to dismantle it. I couldn’t seem to knock the clutch nut loose and more loose ends began to appear. It was Wednesday, with a day left before a crack-of-dawn departure on Friday, but the signs were pointing at a postponement until Saturday morning. Thursday morning I had lists in my pockets and notes on the Panhead Desk. The spare bedroom was becoming the packing department with my bedroll, my HA leather vest, a Prison Blues denim jacket from Chrome Specialties, my ditty bag, extra sunglasses and shirts. The bedroll was rapidly being buried under shit I threw on the bed every time I wandered down the hallowed Bikernet hall.  With each new creak of the feeble hardwood floor, I thought of something else. Sun Block, bungee cords and the battery charger for the cell phone. Just before noon, as I was writing news for the Web site, the UPS man showed up with a small square box. It contained the Custom Chrome Speedometer. I stopped to sign for the package, confirmed what it was, then headed to the garage. The Blue Flame stood majestically in the dim light as I studied its sleek form. She was beautiful and gave off a sense of alertness and anxiousness to hit the road. I wanted to load up and cut a dusty trail that minute, but I had lists to check off, calls to make, the news to finish. I was waiting for Bikernet patches to arrive. The UPS man had already left. If I waited one more day, perhaps? I looked at the speedo and set it on the bench. I went back to the glass Panhead and kept hammering on the news, although my heart was heading for the door.  That afternoon, I finished the weekly update and jammed for the tilting garage. Nuutboy had already broken under the extreme pressure and hauled ass for foreign shores. Wrench checked into rehab for the 24th time. He had been awake for three weeks and was beginning to look like the guy from the “Living Dead.” Japanese Jay threw up his hands, jumped on the bike from the Harley fleet center, and hauled ass for the border. Renegade bitched and moaned, but under his breath, after smoking several joints, said, “Nice bike.” We knew then I was good to go. I dialed Giggie in a frenzy, “Could I have knocked the clutch hub loose?” “Don’t sweat it,” he said, “It’s tight, but what about the plates?” We had installed a plate wrong and metal-to-metal grating was taking place. With that fixed, I moved on to a shim to prevent the starter jackshaft from peeling away the aluminum on the inside of the BDL support bracket. I was beginning to feel that tight feeling of a motorcycle without any loose ends, except for the speedometer, which I was holding in my hand behind the top triple tree. It seemed to fit and I ran the cable. No problem except the cap holding the cable into the bottom of the speedo didn’t seem to work. It came with another cap and that didn’t work either. My mind raced with options. Throw it into the street and forget it? Find something with the correct thread size and make a cap? That seemed to be an option and I jumped into the flamed T-Chicken and roared to the marine store.  The threads were fine and the same size as any toggle switch nut, except nothing was available except toggle switch waver nuts. I tried the hardware store. The owner who never smiles, then the employees, the Asian with one bad arm who doesn’t speak, and the Hispanic who is always eating burritos no matter what time of day it is pointed at the fastener wall and ignored me. I searched and searched until I had to ask for help. They shook their heads and I searched some more. I screamed, they hid behind paint cans. I couldn’t believe that they would have every size 1/2-inch nut except this one. I roared off to Neptune’s electronics. The owner, in the shop that hadn’t changed since the ’50s, looked at me and said, “Yep, had some of those, but I don’t know where.” He didn’t and I left feeling dejected. It was almost 4:30 as I tore along the harbor while dialing the cell phone. “Phil,” I said gritting my teeth, “You know anything about speedo cables?” “Yep,” he said, as he eyed my CCI cable, “it’s easy to get these things wrong,” and referred me to Drag Bike Engineering on Artesia Boulevard in Gardena. I drove up Western Boulevard, which sucks. It runs north and south through the middle of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It’s a four-lane boulevard that’s bordered by every goddamn franchise jip joint, fast food place, square boring store front on the planet. The only item it contains more of is stop lights. So I drove, and stopped and drove, and the street narrowed.  I rolled out of San Pedro into Lomita, then Torrance and into some places I had never heard of when I finally hit Artesia. I hung a left and there was Drag Bike Engineering, a clean, well-stocked shop. Phil told me to ask for Jim and I did. Only two knowledgeable riders were in the pristine shop and one said, “Don’t I know you?” I looked at him hard and thought about all 30-some years I’ve been riding and stumbling in and out of events, parties and runs. I hadn’t a clue. “Yeah, a couple of years ago at Kern River,” he said, smiling. The most vivid memory of the Kern was hitting a guy in the face with a bottle of Cuervo Gold ’cause he pulled a knife on one of our guys for the second time. I warned him the first. It wasn’t him, thank God. I introduced myself again, apologized for not remembering anything except what was on my check-off list for Sturgis and asked about the cable.   Jim came out from the back. “Yep, those cables are tough to match.” He wandered over to his rack, pulled off another CCI cable and tossed it on the counter. “See if this will do the trick.” I pulled my knife and began to slice at the plastic wrapper, immediately slitting my thumb wide open. Maybe the pressure was getting to me. The cable was perfect and I bled all over his counter. Jim gave me a Band-aid as his partner put a plastic coating over the braided cable and I hit the road. Good byes are tough, sometimes, and we bounced joyously into the wee hours before she slipped from my arms and into the harbor night. Blissfully high on several stimulants, I attempted to mount the speedo. I had to drill a 3/8-inch hole in the top triple tree. I did so crooked and with that disappointment dampening a near-perfect evening, I went to bed. I was beginning to cut into overtime. Had the Agent left from the east coast? I could care less. He had his bike a month ago. If he chose to dick around, well that was his problem. I had my list to contend with. The final nights were spent saying goodbye to a woman who had made my summer come alive. She was different than so many women I had met. There was no pretense. She had been born and raised in San Pedro and she could give a shit less about Hollywood, stardom or money. She lived a simple life as a single mother of three kids while looking after her aging father. She had roots and was securely attached to them. There appeared to be no agenda, although since splitting from her abusive biker, druggie husband of 15 years she felt ripped off by him and life. She wanted the family /husband and ordinary home and hated the fact that it all was torn from her.         There was also something nasty about this woman who seemed to glide along on tender feet. Her dark wavy hair looked wonderful no matter how she combed it. It seemed astonishing that if she grabbed it and shoved it into a rubber band she suddenly took on a whole new look, yet just as beautiful as the one before. She also had a thirst that once unleashed seemed to permeate her being. If I cared for her, she blossomed, like a brilliant sunlit bloom. And so her sexual appetite was replanted in fresh soil to flourish. It’s as if a woman needs only to have the door carefully opened and the bud goes wild. As I sat back and watched this flower bloom again and again, I relished the minutes we had together. Although my body was floating on air, my mind was aghast with the trivial elements of the trip. I awoke with a start. Only 24 hours to go. She held on as I threw socks over my shoulder into the pile burying the Bandit’s bed roll and began a hectic countdown. The morning began with calls to the patch maker. He gave me some bullshit story about a supplier overseas after the son of a bitch told me they did all their work in-house. I made my way to the garage and reinstalled the speedo several times, corrected the clutch and then hit the spare bedroom and the pile of laundry over the bedroll. I loaded it and unloaded it, checked and rechecked. Then I slipped the heavy bag above my headlight. Tie wraps usually work well to hold it in place, but sometimes not well enough. It seemed to shift six inches off center as soon as I stood the bike upright. I fired the loaded bike in the late afternoon and headed for a refueling station. The Blue Flame had less than two miles on the new speedo when I pulled it back into the garage for final tightening. It was good to go and she was about to come. I locked the back door. The next time I would open it would be to head out at the crack of dawn the next morning. I had planned to wake up at 4 a.m. and leave at 5, but when she rolled on top of me, for some reason I couldn’t move or toss her aside. I didn’t struggle, but as the sun broke above the harbor like a fresh egg cracked into a hot frying pan, I pushed the rigid into the growing warmth and fired her to life. I pushed off with a full tank of gas and no idea of my capacity or mileage. I rolled along the harbor as the 18-wheelers were beginning to rumble in and out of the teeming container docks. The tug whistle blasted above the sound of my modified drag pipes as I rolled onto the freeway heading north to the 91 and north again to the 605 and north again to the 10, where I would set for 430 miles, heading east to Phoenix. I have a code, that I like to cut through at least 100 miles the first leg out. Depending on the length of the day, I slice off smaller chunks as the day dwindles. You know the saying: “Let’s ride, we’re burnin’ daylight.” My first stop was 101 miles out and the tilted, 3.2- gallon gas tank took 1.841 gallons. That was 54 miles to the gallon. I stopped just past Yucaipa, and I thought of Rip and all his trips from Yucaipa to the Valley. ‘Bout 100 miles in rush hour traffic to work on a motorcycle is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s surprising that something other than motorcycles killed him. As I fueled, I started to strip off the outer layers. Since it was cool when I left, I had on thermal undies, Wranglers, an Excelsior-Henderson sweatshirt, the Prison Blues denim and little Joe’s leather vest, except this one I ordered in brown. I had to wear something different and it was cut larger than the first black one. I would like to be able to afford another lambskin shirt out of brown, also. In the process of stripping off the jacket and strapping it to my bedroll along with a spare primary belt, I bungeed the bedroll to the trees and bars and it quit bouncing around.         I rode another 30 miles and came across Hadley’s, a famous spot for date shakes. Unlike my usual gotta-get-there demeanor, I pulled off the freeway and took a break. Already I was feeling solid about the bike as I stood and watched the sun turn up the amps. The outlook for flat Phoenix was 115 degrees of misery, and I would be riding into the pressure cooker just when the flame reached its max. Behind the scheduled departure time by one hour, I felt both the pressure to keep moving and the release of being on vacation. Yet was this competition with the bastard on the far coast a vacation? Or was it an endurance contest to test my cracked and bruised bones to the Black Hills on a rigid? A rigid? I pondered the question. I hadn’t noticed any discernible terror permeating my 52-year-old muscles or frame by the rigidity of the structure I was riding. Was I deceiving myself about the ride or was it acceptable? Without checking a damn thing on the bike, I gulped down the mixture of dates, bananas and ice cream and hit the road. Damn, that was delicious, but I had a desert to cross on a new motorcycle, through a no-man’s land during the sizzling summer. I kept telling myself that this Sturgis would be different. I was riding a rigid. I would take it easy. The bike needed a break-in period, it needed to be checked out, watched over and I wasn’t no spring chicken. Fuck all that shit. I had worked hard all summer building two bikes. I’d been riding bikes before I drove a car so I wasn’t going to change my style. I rode hard and the bike was going to be forced to handle it. I kept moving up the freeway, through Palm Springs toward Blythe, on the border of the sunshine state and Arizona. For me, Blythe represents reaching the outskirts of Los Angeles and escaping into the forgotten lands of a desert, of Indian reservations and not much else. I like that. I enjoyed the two-lane road that meandered through the low shrubbery and intermittent cactus, surrounded by miles of fine white sand that stings your eyes and catches in the sweat on your sunburnt brow. There’s a silence out there, a solitude that’s hard to find in L.A. Sure, once out of the city there are other counties, other communities, but it’s all the same. One franchise after another, shouting at travelers from the sides of the freeway. I needed to get away and I don’t feel as if I’ve gone a mile until I hit Blythe. It’s a small, sun-bleached truck stop in the middle of nowhere where a biker can refuel and have a meal, then ride a mile to the border and shit-can his helmet. The remainder of the trip would be helmet free. I pulled in under a canopy at the Chevron and refueled. It was hot and I took my slicker, spare drive belt and Prison Blues jacket off my bedroll and unzipped the tool pouch. I have a pack of Allen wrenches in the pocket. I went in the station after refueling and stretched in the cool air of the interior. The two girls behind the counter gawked at the road warrior standing before them and hurriedly gave me the change for my jug of chilled water. I could feel them checking me sideways as I walked into the sun. I had passed a caravan of VW drivers on some sort of product test. The group of Europeans compared notes about the cars and tried to discuss my stretched chopper with me. I don’t speak German. Hell, even my Spanish is rough, but I made do.         I tried my best while adjusting the peg angle on the Joker machine forward controls, to tell them the code of the west and how choppers had taken California from the Spanish. They wandered off pointing at the Blue Flame in amazement. The bike was handling well and the ride was superb. For A rigid, I seemed to be floating on air. I must give the H-D folks the credit and Nuutboy, the man responsible for narrowing the seat pan and building a support frame under the seat. There was no side-to-side slack. The up and down movement was unhampered and the springs carried my weight without a problem. When I first hit the road, I was concerned about my fat-assed weight on the two spindly coil springs and tried to sit forward on the seat to prevent fatigue and over extending their life. I realized before long that there was no way I was going to put my riding position behind the longevity of the springs. I couldn’t stay focused on preventing trucks from running over me. The Joker Machine pegs were well designed and executed. The were designed to allow me to change the angle in case my feet were vibrating off the pegs and change the pivot angle. I made one of the pegs flat and slightly lifted the heel rest on the other. It was a test. The polished chrome surface of the pegs was slick and my old Niki hiking boots were dancing off the surface, precariously close to bouncing off the brutally abrasive concrete below. I chose to wear these leather, low-cut boots for a couple reasons. I generally wear leather cowboy boots. Here’s why: If you wear tennis shoes or rubber soled boots and need to put your foot on the pavement while the bike is rolling, anything that sticks will shove off to the rear and you’ll immediately find yourself bouncing along on your knee. If you can’t put your foot down in an emergency, what the fuck good are you? Many riders wear rubber-soled boots for a specific reason: They’re resistant to oil and chemicals. If you’re in dust or dirt and trying to push your machining around, you get better traction (you should be riding, not pushing). But that’s slow-speed shit. To me, it’s the fast shit you need to concern yourself with. Your boots should have tough but slick leather soles for serious survival. So when picking my wardrobe for the run, I wanted something with some give for the slick foot pegs. Leather soled boots would glide right off. On the other hand, I wanted something hard enough to be less than tire-sticky on the pavement. These hardened Nikis seemed to do the job. Fortunately I never had to test their high-speed capabilities. With the pegs adjusted and enough water in my gullet to keep me from passing out in the heat, I rolled out from under the shade of the gas station canopy and back into the blistering sun. I pulled off the side of the highway under a sprawling billboard welcoming me to the Arizona desert ahead. The sign said freedom to me. I wanted to yank off the jockey-styled helmet and throw it in the gulley with the creosote, tumbleweed and empty junk food containers that line Interstate 10 all the way to the east coast. I let my helmet go a couple of years ago in Utah on my way to the rally, but this year my budget was tight. It took every dime to build the bikes and pay the bills before I headed out. I left Los Angeles with only a $100 bill in my Wrangler pocket. My brother in Phoenix would refill my run fund because I had put our Sturgis motel on my credit card. I would take his cut in cash. Enough cash to keep me going, I hoped. With 160 miles left to make the 429 to Phoenix, I kept rolling. I was already confident that I could make 100 miles without hitting reserve, so I cleared the trip gauge before I left each gas station and it acted as my gas gauge. As I rolled into the desert, the sun was reaching noon high and I thought about the machine beneath me. There’s a sense of fight and might or doom and gloom in each machine I ride. You just know after a couple hundred miles whether the bike is good for the long haul, hanging on for dear life or crumbling under your feet. It’s a matter of sound, vibration and a feel for the driveline balance. I had worked hard to keep the driveline poised, but I had no concept of how the Daytec frame, the Weerd Bros. front end or the Road Wings wheels would stand up under the continued strain. I had been disturbed at the poor pre-load spacing of the Timken bearings in the wheels. The company seemed to be floundering. A collapsed wheel at 80 mph would make me wish I had skis strapped to my ankles. I had allowed a longtime friend of mine and a man who understands and owns long bikes ride my bike during the break-in period. I rode along side him on his black West Coast stretch. I concentrated on watching the frame and front end on the uneven surface of the Santa Monica Freeway. I was surprised to see a 14-over front end work that well. The polished aluminum tubes glided effortlessly up and down after I had installed six ounces of heavyweight Rev Tech oil in each already-wet tube. If the front end had been dry, we would have poured eight ounces in each. The wheels were hard to read. I hadn’t balanced the front, but it didn’t seem to hop on the grated concrete. When the pavement was smooth, the bike appeared to glide along. As I reached the California border, I knew I had over 500 miles on the engine and could raise the speed limit. Until that point, I had kept the revs alternating and not locked on any particular speed, but now it was time to start checking the vibration barriers. I wanted the engine and driveline to hang tight up to about 80 mph and so far the vibration was minimal past 70, so I worked up the speed slightly to test the resonance. Some 20 miles past the border, I began a 75-80 mph test.  The adjustment to the foot peg angle worked perfectly. No longer was I forced to put slight pressure on the outside of my feet to hold the hiking boots on the pegs. The back and forth pivot adjustment seemed to afford me a better position for resting my feet. At times though, I wished for mid controls. I could push it to 80 mph and my feet stayed on the pegs. I began rolling at a constant 75-85 mph range. The driveline appeared to be tight. I would need to check fasteners once I rolled into Phoenix. They would tell me how the frame felt about the ride.  Something else milled around in my feeble brain cells, besides my melting forehead and Agent Zebra on the east coast with a two week head start. I knew how he rode, how he abused motorcycles. He would be lucky to make it to the Florida state line. Aside from a mental check list of a myriad mechanical considerations, there was another woman seeping into my consciousness. A silky-haired Asian woman with dark eyes and a taller-than-average form. We had never discussed a relationship like I had with the dark-haired beauty. Sin would just stop by from time to time at lunch and crawl into bed almost without a word. She was emotionally soft and timid. She studied at Cal State Long Beach, something about sea life, seals, otters and such, but she grew up in San Pedro. She was young, in her late 20s, and I knew she would be moving on when the summer ended. She was a bashful volcano, waiting to erupt on several fronts. As Sturgis neared, I had become so caught up in what had to be done that I didn’t pay attention to what was going on around me. Sin became suddenly sullen about a month out. She didn’t say anything as I babbled about the bikes, the Web site and the trip. At first she seemed preoccupied with a buxom blond named Coral, whom she met at the beach a half mile away.  Coral was obviously bi and aggressive and was tempting Sin into a fling. The encounter became hot bedtime talk and our love making hit an all-time fevered pitch. Sin was aware that she was attracted to the hot blond with the bubbly personality and tits to match. Sin wanted me to watch out for her and began to talk about a tryst at the headquarters. Although quiet and bashful, Sin had a complete back tattoo with a Geisha girl at the center. A mermaid covered one shoulder, but the Geisha girl, fully clothed with a gown that flowed down her spine, was the center of intrigue. The woman in the tattoo seemed torn, yet proud and centered. As Sin bent over the bed, she talked about Coral’s body and her touch. I looked at the permanent illustration of the Geisha and could see the questioning in her eyes. I had told Sin about the dark-haired one and she respected my involvement and didn’t pressure me. This was all supposed to be fun but I sensed her attraction to Coral was growing, and I knew from Coral’s e-mails that she was hungry for Sin’s tall form, milky skin and big boob-job tits. The mixture was pure ecstasy for me. I was dancing on a dangerous cloud and as I headed across the desert, gradually twisting the Joker machine throttle farther and farther past the 85-mph line, I realized that emotions were beginning to reach a collision point. Coral was introducing herself into my life, one that was being shared by the unknowing dark-haired beauty with a quiet stillness about her and Sin, a women so beautiful I knew the thought of keeping her was out of the question. It was a firy bouquet that couldn’t bloom for long.  An 18-wheeler retread exploded and pieces of tire jettisoned in every direction. The truck directly behind the offending vehicle veered and for a few treacherous moments it acted as a steel snake slithering in and out of my lane. I may fall apart in some situations, but in an impending accident I become calm and watchful, hoping to make the appropriate maneuvers. I kept my eyes open for a slight movement, an escape hatch, or another idiot to become involved. I blasted through a cloud of dust and returned to my thoughts of Sin’s tits bouncing below me, her sleek youthful fingertips taunting her nipples, and her words of lust toward another woman drawing me to the brink. Many times I craved for the bikes to be completed so I could have Sin over more. Tonopah finally showed up on a sign as I careened past at 85 mph and the ambient temperature passed 100 degrees. I pulled in and refueled. I was still pulling down 50 mpg, which blew me away. Theoretically I could get 150 miles out of this shapely 3.2-gallon Sportster tank. One of these days, I would like to take two weeks to get to the Bad Lands. I’d like to ride like a fuckin’ tourist, taking all the small roads, gawking at the tundra and pulling off at the viewpoints to check out the majestic canyons. Instead, I ride like I have one day left to live, like I will receive a ten spot for every vehicle I pass, and I want to make a million in a day. It’s fun, I can’t deny it. On the other hand it’s ridiculous. A small Lexus will do 160-mph without blinking an eye and could out-accelerate, out-maneuver and outrun my ass, yet I’m the one pushing the limits. Guess I’ll never learn. I had an ice cream in Tonapah and every son of a bitch I passed over the last 100 miles gently rolled by while kids in the back listened to CD’s and the folks bitched about loud bikes, promising to write their senator when they returned from vacation. Truckers I had blown past rolled on by and by the time I got back on the road I could ride for all I was worth (not much at the moment), and I could just catch ’em before I hit the city limits of Phoenix. But goddamnit, I was going to give it a helluva try. I fired up the Blue Flame, dropped the clutch and wheelied onto the freeway. “Look out you bastards, I’m comin’,” I screamed as I hit 80 mph and merged into the No. 2 lane. I have yet to read a map before entering the Phoenix freeway system. I always roll in and wonder where the fuck I am. I ask around and finally find the way to Easyriders of Scottsdale. This time, the I-10 interchange was closed and I was forced to exit. As I pulled off the freeway, I asked a bunch of Native Americans in the pickup next to me how to get to Scottsdale. They looked at each other in bewilderment, pointed in several directions and finally the driver gave me directions that I couldn’t understand and was dubious to believe. I’m more and more surprised when asking directions of locals, the percentage who don’t know where the fuck they are. Most can’t speak English, especially kids. I asked one kid where Broadway was in Phoenix. He didn’t have the slightest. Ironically, the gas station he was working in was on Broadway. I finally got the word that I could take a big busy street directly into Scottsdale or take another one that led me through a bad section of the area on the way to my destination. It was 115 degrees when I pulled off the freeway and started bouncing from one stop light to another. My informant failed to tell me that the street I chose lead me directly into the international airport, so I suddenly found myself weaving in and out of terminal traffic. I came out of the airport unscathed and was dropped onto a freeway. I was fuckin’ lost. The freeway lead me directly to the one and only Scottsdale offramp and I gladly jumped off the freeway. I knew I didn’t have far to go to get to downtown, but I could sense the engine was tiring of the 118-degree heat and needed a break. It had performed perfectly and deserved to relax. I pulled into Myron’s Easyriders store adjacent to his Billet Bar, coasted under a canopy and shut off the engine. It ticked a sigh of metal relief as I walked into the shop and shouted for service. Fonz, the parts man, and Myron stood basking in a frosty level of air conditioning. Brownie, a veteran mechanic, immediately checked out the Blue Flame, changed the oil to straight 60 weight as prescribed by the manual for consistent temps above 80 degrees and recommended an alternator plug strap. I had made a mental note to bolt one in place several times, but never acted upon it. One of the guys handed Brownie the strap and he eyed it suspiciously and looked at me. “You like this one or do you want me to use one that works?”         “Needs to work,” I said, and they found a Custom Chrome strap that I hadn’t seen before. It is held on by two case bolts and the plug can’t move.         Myron owns the ER store, the bar next door and the Scottsdale Worlds gym, so when I’m in town, I have Brownie work on my bike while I hide under the misters in the Billet Bar patio and play pool. When the master of disaster can get away, we head to his gym. I was behind in my workouts so we hit it hard — chest, triceps, back, biceps and abs. I spent two hours trying to make up for sporadic workouts over the last two months. Myron’s gym doesn’t have that day spa look of soft tones and plush carpeting. It’s more reminiscent of the iron pit at San Quentin, if they allow them anymore. There’s lots of chain link separating various areas of equipment. Lots of mirrors, black rubber padding and polished diamond plate. The ceiling is high and industrial and the brother spends 11 grand a month on air-conditioning in the summer. Cindy, Myron’s wife, runs it and teaches aerobics. That evening, I had dinner with Myron and Cindy at their home, with three snarling dogs at my side throughout the meal. I wasn’t sure if they wanted me or the marinated chicken breasts on my plate. I sat very still and tried to make idle conversation before I returned to Karl’s house for the night. Karl is the fire chief for the rural metro area of greater Phoenix. He’s about 6-foot-3, 250 pounds, an ox of a man with a constant smile. Although it was 118 degrees during the day, the thunderstorms rolled in by the late afternoon and hit hard in the evening. Just as we were about to bed down, lightning rocked the windows and slabs of sideways rain slammed against the stucco home. Tree branches broke off, filling the pool with pine needles. Ten minutes into the gale, the lights went out and Karl went into action. He’s been trained to be calm when the shit hits the fan and he did just that. He gave orders, checked for electrical outages and possible fire hazards, then settled the rattled family down. His wife, the bouncing beautiful Cheri, is an emotional whirlwind unplugged, which seems to control big Karl. I was trying to sleep on the couch while the women screamed at the crackle of lightning and the crash of timbers. Flashlight beams crisscrossed in the darkness. I like Arizona, but the heat coupled with violent storms had me itchin’ to get the fuck out of Dodge. It was time to move.  The next morning, after breakfast at Stan’s diner in Scottsdale, we rolled north toward Payson on our way to Holbrook. Stan’s is a small joint in a dull rectangular building downtown, that Stan tried to spruce up with adobe chairs and tables. A skinny waitress came to take our order but since this was Myron’s regular digs, he went directly to the chef in back and nodded. That was enough. The chef knew what to do. Karl and I attempted to order with smiles on our unshaven mugs but the waitress was dry as toast, and edgy. The cactus twig of a woman could not comply. We had been trying the low carb regimen and Karl had lost 40 pounds, but she couldn’t allow us to substitute potatoes for tomato slices or cottage cheese for toast. We ended up ordering everything a la carte. At first our easy-going hackles were raised because we wanted to hit the road early and slice away some dusty miles, then eat in some strange hole-in-the-wall joint in nowheresville, Arizona. But the more we irritated her, the more fun we had. She was spitting in our scrambled eggs by the time we finished with her, but it was worth it. Phoenix is a strange city. Surface streets are straight and packed with stoplights. We headed out a country road through one boulevard stop after another. Suddenly we were out of the flat city and into the country, winding into the Mazatzal Mountains on Highway 87. At one point we pulled off the highway at an All-Bike junkyard Rye, Ariz., a town with a population of 300. There were acres of bikes rotting in the elements. At this point there were four of us. Myron was riding his black, detailed 2000 Dyna with a 95-inch kit, stretched tanks and a custom windshield. As usual, his bike was immaculate with chromed Harley mags and diamond cut cylinder fins. He had soft bags beside the rear wheel and a bolt-on sissy bar with bags attached. He was one comfortable mutha as we cut through the canyons. The man generally wears a long sleeved T-shirt with a regular T-shirt over it and his HAL vest, plus a scarf. He rides fast and tight. Myron has always reminded me of longtime friend George Christie, the president of the Ventura chapter of the Hells Angels. Although Myron is a massive weight lifter, and George trains in martial arts, the two men are similar height with jet-black hair (graying some, now). Both men are born leaders and strong riders. Karl was on his lowered Softail with drag pipes and drag bars, with his buoyant wife of 25 years at his back. The couple have raised three gigantic kids, consequently Karl doesn’t have new bikes yearly, custom paint jobs and chrome. He’s saddled with a non-working mother and three money-soaking monsters to raise and he’s proud of every minute he can keep the clan in college, clothes and wheels. I respect the fact that Cheri stays home with the kids. It’s a full time vocation and perhaps the most important job on the planet. The mountains were striking and I’m constantly amazed at the Arizona beauty. The state is diverse and open. No wonder people are lining up to move there. It’s a killer place to live. The diversity is unreal, from the arid, open, hot-as-a-mutha desert to the rolling, pine-strewn mountains and the Grand Canyon area. We stopped in Payson for gas. I had clocked 87 miles and took 1.9 gallons. I was still rolling along even in erratic terrain and getting 45 mpg. I bought a cheap tire gauge and checked my tire pressure. Brownie had jacked it up per the tire specs, but I was more flexible and had another priority — the ride. The front tire being on an extended front end didn’t need 50 pounds of pressure and the rear 180-18 Avon needed to be as soft as possible, so I dropped the 40 pounds to less than 30. As I stood there, Cheri chatted away about one thing or another, constantly making sexual references to the most absurd articles. She somehow found honey mustard dressing sexual, or elevators, though I could understand her phallic reference to pickles. As we moved into the hills, the incline felt good to the 98-inch S&S motor. Rumbling up a winding incline, we found ourselves behind several motor homes and a logging truck. When we hit a passing lane, two tourists melded to the right and the logging truck and one camper stayed to the left as if in a 1/4 mile they could pass the other dog-slow travelers. I down shifted and poured the fuel to the stroker, which climbed on the other vehicles like they were standing still. The lumber truck was barely reaching the rear bumper of the motor home when I split between them. I blasted over the rise ahead and began a high-speed decline. I slowed slightly to let the others catch me, but they didn’t come. I slowed some more, then suddenly noticed a thundering 18-wheeler bearing down on me. I had upset the trucker and he planned to flatten my ass. The rigid Blue is light, and I was discovering lightning-fast throttle response. I bolted forward. I spun the throttle, again, and it came alive like the crack from a high velocity .22. Then I noticed a new vibration. It was coming from the tank. The truck was trying to gain on me again, and I slipped the polished 42-mm Mikuni more fuel and she responded like a tongue to a sensitive clit. The bike jumped and roared ahead. Again, a rattling screamed at me from the top of the frame and I pulled my gloved hand off the left grip and put it on top of Harold’s paint work, which glistened in the sun. My teeth immediately responded to the touch. Something was wrong, but I had a semi barreling down on me and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to pull over and give him an open target so I pressed on the tank with my left hand and pushed harder on the throttle with my right. I raced past the signs indicating a dangerous decline ahead and warning truckers to check their brakes. The guy behind me had no notion of using his as he sped to catch me. Fortunately, I could outrun him, if I were riding a bike built for mountain riding. This was my first opportunity to test the handling of the 38-degree raked frame with the 6 degrees in the Weerd Bros. front end. I had specifically built in plenty of ground clearance by cutting the Samson pipes and lifting the front header. There was nothing on the left to interfere with the road and I had a solid six inches of ground clearance underneath the frame. As I leaned I felt the bike want to tumble so I poured more fuel and the front wheel tracked the corner smoothly. The next corner was well marked for speed and curvature. I dipped low and accelerated. Although the rake generally, with speed, wants to force the bike to go straight, the additional rake in the triple trees minimized the trail and the front end adjusted easily to the turn, but I was trying to hold on to my vibrating gas tank at the same time. Another series of turns were dead ahead and the screaming logger was shifting gears 30 feet from my rear Avon. He knew the road better than I did. I took the shift as a signal of manageable turns ahead and turned the throttle. The bike jumped forward and I released the tank to handle the curve. To my left were open oncoming lanes through sliced mountains. To my right was a sheer precipice and a majestic valley a couple thousand feet below. I pushed the Blue Flame and it responded like a thoroughbred. It felt strange. I had ridden choppers for years, but in the last decade I hadn’t ridden a bike with this length of front tubes. The Jesse James touring chopper had a severe turning radius restriction with the bags, but this machine seemed to have no bumpers, no drag, no pegs that prevented me from leaning it closer to the asphalt, so I pushed. The only thing that would hold me back from making the next turn was Avon traction, a flexing Daytec frame or a squirrely front-end. I seemed to handle turns to the right easier than to the left, and I dipped as the curve unveiled itself. The truck was right on my ass as I hit the 35 mph turn at 60. The most terrifying aspect of any turn is the visual. Can you see the chamfer and the complete arch? Is there a mountain on the inside preventing visibility? Are you heading downhill? Downhill racing is the worst. You can let up on the throttle and the bike won’t slow down. That’s the last thing you need when you realize that your bike cannot make the corner. I needed deceleration and it wasn’t there. I had pulled away from the truck, but the tank was singing a violent tune. I ignored the horrible vibration and dipped the machine to the right. To my amazement, it went over easily. Nothing scraped, skipped, twisted or jiggled. The tire remained firmly planted to the road’s surface and I accelerated through the turn and into the next one. The truck loomed behind me except it wasn’t barreling after me this time. The postings along the side of the mountain warned of the steep slope, brake testing and slow trucks. The driver had chosen to ignore the warnings and careened after me, but now in the rearview mirror the trucker’s load seemed out of balance. The massive logs were jostled. The truck leaned at an odd angle. The driver had abandoned the pursuit in favor of saving his own neck. Smoke poured from the brakes as he tried to control the 80,000-pound vehicle before he encountered another curve along the perilous slope. I glanced at the valley below and decided he was more of a threat now than when he was pissed and in control. I turned up the heat and headed quickly away from the collision-bound truck. We had several junctions ahead, including 377 to Holbrook, 277 to Snowflake and 260 to Show Low. With each curve I was forced to test, I became more confident in the Daytec chassis and long Weerd Bros. wide glide front end. I had never owned a chopper that handled with this much ease. I seemed to be able to dip the flaming scoot over so far that my calf was parallel with the pavement. I hit the town of Heber where we had planned to stop for a piece of peach pie, but I blew right through. I passed the 377 turn off and prayed that the trucker survived, but was on his way to Snowflake. I split off on 260 toward Show Low and quickly found a safe place to pull over to check my tank and wait for the others. The rear tab on the tank had broken and the vibration between the remaining tab was eerie, but with the 3M weather stripping holding the tank to the frame backbone and the front tab in place, all appeared secure. Myron pulled up with Karl and the emotional Cheri shouted, “That truck was after your ass.” We only had another 30 miles to go but we hit a hardware store and, based on expert breakdown recommendations from Karl and Myron, I picked up more 3M stripping, JB Weld, sand paper and some grommets. I rode carefully for the final 30 miles into Holbrook where we copped a couple of rooms and prepared to operate on the Blue Flame. I almost had to pry the tank off. The rear tab was toast and I spent an hour cleaning it. I mixed and spread the JB weld, put down new 3M weather stripping and reinstalled the tank. It was time for happy hour and we walked to the local cowboy/sports bar across the highway. There’s an odd sensation that comes over a rider with a busted machine. It’s as if you know you must hike to the top of the hill, but you’re bleeding. You know you’re going for it, but not sure how you’ll make it. Still you keep moving forward. Holbrook was our stopping point about 250 miles out. The bar was cool and for some reason, perhaps the unrelenting heat, we ordered margarita after margarita, then chicken wings, chicken tenders and more wings. Those little puppies were smoldering but went down like chips at a Mexican restaurant. We munched as if we weren’t going to eat for a week, then went in search of peach pie. Why is it that once out of California, fresh vegetables and fruit seem impossible to come by. If I couldn’t have sex, I wanted peach pie, and for some odd reason, it seemed as rare as a whore in church. The next morning, Myron and I got our asses in gear and loaded our scoots. Karl and Cheri were returning to Phoenix the long way through the mountains and Flag before getting home. We said our goodbyes and headed out. It was odd, or maybe not, that Myron and I were travelin’ without maps this year. We remembered the time we rode into Colorado by mistake and Mark the Warrior was mapped to the max. This was going to be an odd trip without a map. Sorta like sailing to Hawaii without a compass. We were flying by the seat of our pants. I babied the Blue Flame onto I-40 and tested it with my left glove. Not an ounce of vibration. It felt as if it was welded to the frame. I took it easy for another 40 miles then rolled it on. I had an entire fuckin’ tool box in the compartment of my handy-dandy bedroll. Hell, if it broke, I’d fix it. We rode to Gallup, N.M., some 98 miles to the east, pulled in and gassed up. A big Indian behind the counter told us, “Just stay on this street til you get to the Mexican restaurant — best food in town. Hang a right there and you’re on 666 heading north to Shiprock. Should take you about 2 hours.” “How about peach pie?” I asked. He just shrugged. An older gentleman dressed in Indian attire and turquoise jewelry looked at us through squinted eyes surrounded by leather-tough skin. “Two hundred miles,” he said. We looked at him, then at the younger man who ignored the bent over old dude with the knowing eyes. Something wasn’t right. We copped out and Myron bought a map. We rode the lumpy street for five miles until we came across the turn for 666 and the restaurant. Inside, we opened the map. He had purchased a perfectly good map of Utah. We weren’t going there, so I folded it and set it beside my napkin while I ate huevos rancheros, then asked the waitress how far Cortez, Colo., was. I’m not sure she knew what state she was in, but she delivered some mean salsa. After eating, we strolled out to the bikes and the waiter followed us. “You forget this, senors,” he said, handing me the map. I waited for him to return to the restaurant then shit-canned the map. We don’t need no stinkin’ maps. Myron’s wheel was clicking and it felt strange in the turns, so we had pulled it apart in Holbrook and found nothing. It sounded even worse as we pulled onto Highway 666 heading north, unaware of how far Cortez or Shiprock were. We just kept riding. The straight stretch from Gallop north was dry and hot, just under 100 degrees as we plowed into a junk yard of a town called Shiprock, named after one of the massive outcroppings in the desert. The roads were torn up like they were when we came through in ’97. We tried to find peach pie, but struck out, so we stopped at a McDonald’s for a shake. We were befriended by a small young Indian man wearing a camouflage hat and pants, a Vietnam ribbon and a tightly pressed denim shirt. He sat across from us, bent over in our direction and started the conversation like he had access to a couple of slices of black market peach pie. He glanced around the plastic franchise nervous like. His voice was slow and low and he peered at me like I was a passenger in De Niro’s “Taxi” movie. His eyes were deep and haunting. He whispered about the Harley he wanted to own more than anything, a Sportster he was planning to leave his wife and kids to get. I got it. If anyone heard him tell that story and it got back to his wife, he was toast. We pulled our chairs closer to the young man and listened intently as he explained his dream. I gave him a Bikernet sticker while wishing I had a Sportster in my bedroll. I would have gladly given it to the man. You could see the intensity in his eyes, the longing and the desperation. Apart from 15 liquor stores and the big Mac, the town had little to offer. On the outskirts there was a track of desolate homes indicative of the area. Each structure was about the size of a single, shoe-box mobile home. They were all painted brick red with white gravel roofs. A winding gravel path wound between them and small tufts of cactus. That was it. No garages, decks, driveways or carports. Each one was worn down by the sun and the wind that kept them engulfed in a cloud of dust. We noted the depressing atmosphere that loomed like acid rain over dying crops and got the fuck outta there. It was only 31 miles to Cortez. We rolled in before 3 p.m. and pulled up to the Best Western inhabited by the Hamsters. In fact, so many of the furry beasts were riding out that they had taken over two motels. My first impression as we pulled into the parking lot packed with dressers was a question. Where were all the custom bikes? The Hamsters have a reputation for being rich and riding nothing but $50,000 customs. From the looks of the parking lot, and the lines of black dressers, I had run into a HOG chapter on its way to the rally. My version of the dubious Hamster mantra has always been a club for custom builders and custom bike enthusiasts. As far as I’m concerned, that’s still the case, although as the guys get older, most can afford something comfortable for the long haul. Arlen Ness still rides a full custom all the way to the Bad Lands. And as far as being wealthy, most of these guys weren’t born that way. They worked for it, building a business that finally became successful. So now they have some money and deserve it. They also employ many riders, like Phil and Karen Day of Daytec. You couldn’t meet more down-to-Earth people. Arlen began his working life as a postman while building bikes in his garage. It’s only idiots like myself who decide to drop everything, go through a divorce and write books for a living who are on the brink of poverty. At least I can say I’m not a yuppie. The tank was still in place, Myron’s wheel continued to be round and roll as we pulled in just before a thunderstorm. Adjacent to the motel was a run down but functioning gym. Although the equipment was rickety and loose we hammered our bodies until we couldn’t walk and beat feet out of there. Every year on the way to Sturgis, Thomas throws a major party for his wife, Cheryl. Tom and Cheryl ride from the Bay area to Sturgis annually on one of Arlen’s luxury liners. He pushes that black beast with red and orange flames, with his wife on the back throughout the entire trip, keeping up with us hot rods. Quiet and unassuming, they plow down the freeway each year dressed in all black, riding hell bent to reach the Bad Lands. Each year at one stop, Thomas makes arrangements to feed and pour for all the Hamsters to celebrate Cheryl’s birth and their relationship. I don’t need to eat or drink that night. It’s enough to watch Cheryl’s face glow as he introduces her once more to the rabid clan. She glows with appreciation and love for her man. The “wind ’em up” call came at 7 a.m. the next day and a handful of riders jammed to breakfast, scarfed their eggs and omelets, asked for peach pie without success and rushed back to the motel to be with the gang as they rode out. We had 320 miles to go through Durango, over the pass into Silverton, up to Delta and into the mountains leading to Aspen. About 30 of us rode out together. There’s nothing more boring than riding in a pack. You can’t look around, check out the girls or look for peach pie. You can’t stop to pick your teeth, scratch your ass or look at the valley below. You can’t fuck around and do wheelies or someone will vote you out of the club. Well, we learned this the first year and then gradually worked our way to the front of the pack and disappeared over the horizon ahead. If a club wants to look impressive, they should meet five miles from their destination and ride together into town. Riding in a pack is fuckin’ dangerous but damn, it looks impressive. It’s the slow guy in the middle of the pack who falls asleep and wipes out the rest. Since I was still testing the handling of the blue chopper, I held back as we entered the mountainous curves leading out of Durango along the narrow gauge railroad into the steep mountains ahead. The tank held fast as we rolled through the sweeping bends and I warmed up to the morning sun. Soon I was trying to drag something as I careened around one curve after another, reminiscing about the touring chopper four years ago and how I had to shift my weight to keep the bike as upright as possible until I could get to a welder at a gas station in Silverton.   As I cruised into the old mining town, I pulled into that same gas station and two of the guys who helped weld the swingarm into place were still there. One showed me his Knucklehead chop at the house behind the station. Some of the guys who hadn’t eaten breakfast were chowing down — another reason packs are a pain. So I grabbed my work gloves, saddled up and headed out of town with one Hamster wannabe behind me on his dresser. Little did I know that this would become a day to remember. We blew out of town and into the hills beyond. The trip at that point was perhaps the most picturesque, with rivers running through the pines below as we rolled through Montrose, then Delta and off at 133 toward Carbondale. We were making good time until we came to a small canyon outside of Carbondale, where the road was torn down to the dirt, grated and driven on enough to become washboard. The rigid handled it well, but I didn’t like the jarring impact on the tank. It seemed to scream as I bounced from one pothole to the next ridge and gully for three long miles. When we finally pulled onto the smooth pavement, I knew I was in trouble. I had a new series of vibrations screaming at me. Another 30 miles and we stopped for gas in Carbondale. We had covered 122 miles. Although I was richening the mixture due to the altitude, I put a mere 2.216 gallons in the chopper for 55 mpg. Aspen wasn’t far off. All we needed was fuel and 23 miles and we would be staring at a Jacuzzi, a pool and drinks. I looked at my cellular phone entrepreneur partner, Milo, and at my tank. Both the front and the rear tabs were broken and basically the tin tank with 25 pounds of gasoline stored inside was being held on with a piece of 3M tape a 1/2-inch wide. Milo shook his head, but I had to jinx the situation. “No problem,” I said, “I had to pry off the tape the last time. It’ll hold.” Yeah, right. Half way up the hill toward Aspen, I went over a slight bump in the road and the tank landed in my lap. Milo was in front and I lost him. I held onto the tank and pulled over. Setting it back in place, I stared at the wonderful paint work by Harold Pontarelli and pondered my situation. I wasn’t thinking immediate fixes. I was thinking about tomorrow and finding a welder, about the outcome of this run, and finally about Agent Zebra and the east coast contingent that was barreling up from the southeast. I had to make it, to fix the fucking tank and keep rolling. I was riding the first rigid chopper to Sturgis in, well, there were perhaps infinite rigids converging on the Bad Lands, so what was my point, anyway. Finally, I awoke from my nightmare, dug out a bungee cord from my bedroll, ran it over the tank, behind the gas cap and down to the front legs of the frame. It seemed to be stable so I rode on into town holding the tank with one hand. We were staying at a swank hotel in the center of trendy Aspen, but all the glitter and class only told me there wasn’t a welding shop in town. I had a mission. I unloaded my shit, checked into my room and picked up the phone. Myron came in about the same time, went to the room and tried to turn on the television. It didn’t work. That was a precursor to the events that lay ahead. I made call after call until I found a welder in Basalt, some 30 miles away. While I was calling all over the valley, Myron attempted to order something to eat, but the swank lodge didn’t start room service until 6 p.m. The welder I was looking for couldn’t be squeamish about welding gas tanks and I made sure to mention that pitfall immediately while calling around. With the welder lined up and a plan in place, I went to the bar to get a drink to calm my nerves. The bar didn’t open for another hour, but Myron and I glared at the barkeep until he found a couple glasses and filled them with Jack. We opted for an early dinner in town, so we attempted to clean up for the event. In the head, I stepped on a piece of glass and bled all over the slate floor. Then I attempted to iron a shirt, but the iron didn’t work. Myron, Milo and I went to dinner with Randy Aron of Cycle Visions in San Diego. I offered to pay for dinner, since Randy was going to run my ass around Aspen to find a welder, but my credit card was turned down. Plus the restaurant didn’t have any peach pie. Hell, the shitty tabs on the tank were my fault, not Randy’s. I was beginning to feel jinxed. El Swank Aspen hotel seemed OK. What else could go wrong? I discovered later that Wachovia bank was trying to track me down. Seems some biker had accosted my card and was riding to Sturgis on my dime, ‘cept that crazed thief was me. Randy, a young, stylish sorta rider is one of those Hamsters everyone complains about. He doesn’t look like the average biker. He drives a new truck and builds world class custom motorcycles. He’s talented and good looking but how did he get there? He started a plumbing business 20 years ago and worked his ass off. He took the risks, learned the trade, found customers, dealt with employees and finally became successful. Let’s shoot the mutha fucker. While the rest of the crew slept in their little sawdust Hamster Beds, I crept out at 6 a.m. and loaded the long chop next to Randy’s hand- formed dresser in his truck. We paid close attention to my sketchy directions and rolled out of the mountain pass down to Basalt where we took a right on Frying Pan Road and found a small industrial building. I pulled up to 3-D Iron and Mike Horn, a skinny, wrinkled man, greeted us with the bad news.   Peering up at me through thick glasses, he said, “If it’s a gas tank, we won’t weld it.” Reaching for the tank that we had taken off the frame, wrapped in towel and duct taped for security, I noticed that liquid had filled the corner of the truck bed. On second glance, I became rudely aware that the petcock had come open and it was gas that soaked my clothes and my bedroll. I rolled my eyes and asked if we could pay for the equipment and weld it ourselves. “Nope, can’t do it. Insurance liability, you know,” he said. “But I will make a strap for the tank.” While I stared at the old welder in astonishment and tried to explain that I spoke to someone who had given me the green light, I knew it was futile. I could see a guy in the back of the shop bent over a bare metal trailer frame. He would only glance in my direction from time to time. Perhaps it was the guilty culprit who said to bring the tank down. Randy stood beside the truck and greeted several guys from the sheet metal shop next door.   Most of the middle-aged workers were going to Sturgis and they readily struck up a conversation. The shop was neat and most of the guys had salt-and-pepper hair pulled into pony tails. Randy tapped me on the shoulder. “These guys will let me use their mig welder,” he said, referring to the team at T&E Marshall Enterprises Inc., makers of custom sheet metal and heating systems. We finally had a formula for success. The old guy from the crappie shop made the strap and drilled the holes while we emptied the tank and readied it for welding. Randy flushed the tin container with water, then held the tank mouth against the exhaust pipe of his truck until the carbon monoxide dissipated any gasoline fumes. The tank smelled clean and he fired his lighter above the mouth. Nothing. In a matter of five minutes, it was ready to weld safely. Randy tested the welder on a piece of scrap. The mig would do the job, but he wasn’t as comfortable as if he had his tig. The mig would have to do. Welding dissimilar metals together is a trick I was once very adept at. The 16-gauge material of the Sportster tank had to be mated to the 1/4-inch thickness of the strap and Randy went to work. Sparks flew, metal crackled and paint sizzled as he welded the tab in several places.   Since I had brazed the original tabs in place, the braze melted and flowed into the welds, causing them to sputter. We let the tank cool and filled it with water. It leaked, my worst nightmare. Even worse than breaking tabs or having a loose tank was the threat of a leak. Randy tried again, but the leaks were coming from under the tab where it was impossible to reach with the welder. In an attempt to fix the existing leaks, Randy blew a hole in the tank. He worked on the hole, then I suggested that we braze over the welds to seal them. It wasn’t a bad idea, but a torch and braze was going to generate much more heat to a wider area and Randy was considering the damage to the paint. So far, Harold’s creativity was unscathed. Finally, Randy and I began an hour job that could have taken 15 minutes. Because of the bondo smoke and the steam from the wet rag Randy held close to the area I was attempting to braze, the torch kept blowing out. It took forever to coat some of the welds with brass. We checked the tank again with water. It seemed to have sealed. We packed up and headed north. Checking tank leaks with water is like filtering your gas with screen door mesh. It’s an indicator, but not a good one. I felt that the only way to guard against gas seeping through the welds was to seal the tank. We had some discussion about saving the tank and welding on it in the future with sealant inside, but finally settled on trying to find some Custom Chrome Tank Creme, a three-stage process. We went to a small diner for lunch and I got back on the phone. The Harley shop in Green River didn’t have it, nor did any of the other bike shops in the valley, but there was a shop in Aspen. It wasn’t in the phone book and couldn’t be reached by directory assistance. I called the Harley shop back and was given the number for Aspen Custom Motorcycles. I dialed and there was only an answering machine. Tired and dejected, we rambled back toward town. During one of our last installation attempts, we broke off the stud that held the rear tab in place. Now we needed an auto parts store for a large hose clamp and some rubber insulation to prevent the clamp from tearing through the durable powder coating finish. We pulled up in front of a Napa auto parts store and parked beside a blue and silver pickup with Krylon letters across the back window, “Aspen Custom Motorcycles.” Inside, a thin man with dark hair and youthful features leaned over the counter wearing a black Aspen Custom Motorcycles T-shirt. I introduced myself and he asked us to follow him. Two blocks away, this guy had his shop set up in a single storage unit stall (970) 544-9419. His undercover shop was complete with three stage creme sealer and we bought his only kit, thanked him and hauled ass for the Swank Hotel. In front of our room was an outdoor corridor leading to the bar and outdoor pool. I picked up several towels, borrowed a large bucket and we went to work. The first stage was a mixture of water and a strong detergent that was supposed to soak in the tank for four hours. We didn’t have the time and let it set for an hour. In the meantime, the guys in Randy’s room where having trouble with the plumbing. After I flushed the toxic mixture into a bucket, I poured it down the toilet in Randy’s room. I knew I should have stopped, but I was beyond the point of no return. I returned to the bike for stage two – flushing the tank with a strong solvent. Again the remnants of the explosive liquid were drained into the toilet. Meanwhile, hotel maintenance men and managers descended on Randy’s room, where a couple of riders had set up their joint rolling station. Plungers, tools and snakes were moved from room to room. Four rooms were effected and they were going to have to snake down from the roof. Randy shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said and poured the final stage of thick milky fluid into the tank. This process included sloshing the creamy liquid around the tank for 10 minutes, letting it set for 20, then sloshing again before draining. Randy sloshed and coated the lining of the tank for what seemed to be hours, making sure every crevice received its fair share. By this time evening was upon us. The tank was supposed to dry for 24 hours. I didn’t have time and Randy suggested that we use a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. The instructions specifically warned against the use of hair dryers because the final process was extremely flammable. Randy continued draining the thickening substance back into the bottle it came from, as we pondered the question. At one point, we tried putting the tank in front of the air conditioner to augment the flow, but there had to be a better way. Finally someone hit up the maintenance crew for a shop vac. As the sun sank, we started sucking the fumes from the tank outside our room.   At one point, two girls showed up, one 22 and the other 27. They wanted to smoke a joint and party some, but the fumes held them at bay. Both were wearing shorts and tank tops and carrying shopping bags. One included a couple pairs of spiked heels that they quickly unwrapped and promised to sport for us. One had on a top buttoned up the front over no bra, and her tits were pressed so hard against the mint green fabric that the heavenly mounds creased the material. When she leaned over to slip on the shoes, we gasped in unison. Whatever it is that makes a woman’s body magic to a man, is a wonderful thing unless abused by either party. If a woman minds that a man gawks at the flesh exposed by too little clothing, she should cover herself. These girls didn’t mind. In fact, they enjoyed it and wanted more. We could have given in to them except we had a mission and a deadline. After the girls asked some probing questions and we didn’t respond appropriately, they rolled themselves a doobie and departed. There was another problem with nubile girls finding their evil ways into our lives. We were staying with 100 of our closest, most gossipy friends in the same goddamn hotel. Speaking of gossip, I hadn’t heard from Zebra for two days. He was supposed to hook up with a pack of riders in Tennessee, and perhaps they roasted him instead of a pig. I didn’t know his whereabouts, but I kept calling his cell phone hoping to hear the number had been permanently disconnected. At 6 a.m. Friday, the phone rang. Larry the mobile mud slide maker was leaving his room to meet me in the parking lot to lend me gas. I was hoping to sleep in, but noooo. I wrestled my ass out of bed and out to the bike with the tank. After setting it on the bike, it was difficult to tell that it had been through hell the previous day. I mounted it, hooked up the lines and went back to bed. I told Larry never to call me at 6 a.m. again and to keep his gas. I wanted to let it air for a couple more hours. At 9 a.m. we put gas in it for the first time from Howard’s truck, just a quart. We loaded up and hit the first station. We were Denver bound. Some of the guys were heading into the pass above, but rumor was that the straight shot was down to Green River, over to the 70 Freeway and into Denver. It was 30 miles out of the way, but we chose the straightest shot. The freeway is only two lanes wide but it meanders along railroad tracks and rivers toward Vail. We stopped for gas in Eagle and were passed by 30 Hamsters blasting onto the freeway. How they beat us I will never know, but I sent my navigator his walking papers the next day. We caught the furry beasts outside Vail. Traffic began to bunch up and we kept riding faster, splitting lanes and running the gauntlet between the very fast cars and extremely slow trucks. Treachery was all around us as we crested a pass and could see the dots of a pack of bikes in the distance. The tank was holding and the bike hadn’t burped, coughed or sputtered. It could handle anything I dished out. I turned the throttle and it responded. About 25 miles outside Denver we blew past the guys in yellow and another couple miles down the road it began to rain, then hail. We ducked off the freeway, pulled on our slickers and found a log cabin watering hole.   That last 25 miles were the worst of the trip. It rained off and on as the traffic became thick as mud on your boots. Lane splitting is not allowed and when we attempted to play ignorant travelers, motorists tried to hit us. As the sun broke over the parking lot of cars, the humidity rose with the mercury. Of course we got lost at one point, found the Two-Wheelers shop and ultimately the hotel. There was a major party planned for the 25th anniversary of the shop, but the threat of rain and the 450- mile trip to Sturgis the next morning forced us to take it easy and hit the hay early. We tried a local restaurant for grub, but they still didn’t serve peach pie. The next morning, Myron and I were on the road by 4:30. An odd feeling swept over us as we rode Highway 25 in the dark. In the rolling fields and wide open spaces of Colorado, it was as if we were lodged on the brink of the city. There wasn’t a row of houses or an industrial park once we turned north and it felt good. We rumbled for 90 miles until we arrived at Cheyenne, Wyo., for breakfast. We hit the road for another 75 miles and pulled off in Wheatland where we refueled and had one of Myron’s safety meals and coffee. He works out constantly and feels that his success in the gym is attributable to his intake of protein. He doesn’t eat a lot or poorly, but often and bushels of protein. As we walked out of the restaurant, we were met by Cheryl. Tom’s bike had a broken shift lever and he was working on it. “How the hell did you get here?” Myron asked. “Uh,” Cheryl muttered, not sure what to say. “What time did you leave?” I asked. “6:30,” she said. We looked at each other in dismay. Myron jerked on his gloves. “Let’s ride,” he shouted, “We’re burnin’ daylight.” We spit dust and rocks as we blasted out of the gravel lot and onto the highway. Suddenly he was hell bent for leather. We stopped just for gas in Orin and headed east on 20/18, blasting toward the small town of Lusk, Wyo.   At the end of town we stopped for another safety meal. We had 130 miles to go to get to Sturgis, but the roads would narrow and we’d have to slow down. Across the street the bikes were lined up in front of the western bar. I liked this town. It’s small but has some action going for it. As we turned toward the door of the Del Rey Cafe, Milo strolled out the door pickin’ his teeth with a tooth pick. “Damn!” Myron said and almost abandoned his safety meal stop. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Milo shrugged, straddled his all-black dresser and took off. The waitress would melt a good man’s bones with her silky, fair complexion, even lighter hair and brilliant blue eyes. My words were stumbling when I asked for peach pie, but I lost all interest when I discovered that she had just run out. “You mean you didn’t save me a slice?” I shouted, throwing my tan gloves on the table. In Newcastle we stopped momentarily for gas, but as we paid our ticket we noticed Hamster Jeff pull into the station. Myron grabbed his gloves and headed for his Dyna. “Fuck the peach pie,” he shouted again, “Let’s ride.” I tried to holler to Jeff as we headed out of the station and hit the highway toward Four Corners. We were in a race now, and although Myron said to most riders as we left them in bars and gas stops, “Keep it under a hundred,” this time it was different. If we had open straight roads ahead, throttles would be pegged to the stops. He couldn’t figure out how these bastards who left the motel two hours after we did were catching up. Hell, we were rumbling along at 85 plus, but we had 14 meals to their one cup of coffee. What the fuck? Now we were in narrow canyons weaving through packs of bikers heading to their homeland. Again the chopper handled the curves as if I were on a rice rocket, dipping and bending with each bank. Each gas stop was spoke to spoke with lines of motorcycles to refuel. Each bar looked like a popular biker hangout from Southern Calif. on a Sunday afternoon.   They were coming from all directions. The rumor of afternoon thunderstorms had us pushing the envelope. Our bikes were a mess, but they were running and we were ready to hit the home stretch for our abode in the Bad Lands. Finally, in Spearfish Canyon 15 miles from home, we slowed and enjoyed the Jack Pines and the bustling brooks that bordered the winding road. We were home. Home to the biker, the outlaw, the bandit and to every fucking rider in the world who enjoys open roads, beer, broads and peach pie. Now if we could only find the girl, or at least a piece of pie.   –Bandit

Continued from page 1…… I was about to reach for the phone book one morning, on an ass-saving spring hunt, when the mail arrived with an invitation to the Harley-Davidson new-model announcement. At that point I was spending every extra moment in the garage and interruptions were a problem. But the factory has always been supportive and I couldn’t miss the new bike review so I signed on for the event. It took place in Pasadena and all the moto-journalists from the Southern California region were on hand. Occasionally during the presentation I would peer at the list in my pocket and go to the dingy corner where the heads were to make a call about chrome or parts, or I’d call headquarters to check in with the crew. Some years the Harley announcements indicate business as usual at the factory with only minor changes. This year was a vast contrast to the status quo. It was immediately evident the company was making strides to capture a larger segment of the aftermarket with its accessory production pace and the focus on custom parts. The models radiated custom touches. They had finally truly lowered a bike, the new Lowrider Dyna. Road Glides were getting much more engineering attention. Performance was advancing quickly with a Holley Carb introduction and big-inch motor kits. Some of the new paint schemes reached deeply into the custom culture for colors and designs.   Then they came to the new narrower, lighter, police model for 2001. Cop bikes didn’t mean a hill of beans to me, but I scanned the more agile machine that is now available for individual sales and they’re cheap. Dan Ackroyd should get a new one. I noticed springs under the solo cop saddle and immediately jumped to my feet. Two representatives from the factory rushed to my side. “Can we help you answer any questions about the new police model?” one of the engineers asked. I started babbling about this stretched rigid I was going to ride to Sturgis and the two contemporary thinkers backed away as if my radical concept might rub off on them. I ordered a set later that day. They proved to be … well you’ll see. The frame was sent to the powdercoater, the chrome went out and the sheet metal was shipped to Harold’s. The waiting game began while I chased any missing parts. By the time the sun was blazing in the single window of our tiny headquarters, the frame was back in the garage and up on a towel-covered lift. The chromer made me wait another day. I was in the midst of a bolting-together orgy when the dark-haired one appeared in the doorway of the Bikernet den, peeling out of her threads. Her alabaster skin looked like cream flowing into a hot cup of coffee. The satin shaved surface was too delicate to touch. What the hell is a biker to do when heaven is standing nude in the doorway? The crew was looking at 34 days until departure. I was looking at green eyes, a sensitive smile and … priorities men, priorities. It was a factor of hours and parts availability, plus watching for problems. Everything was seriously locktite drenched, tightened and tightened again. I notice a weak link immediately in the wheel spacing. This was an odd, uncalled-for operation. You buy wheels, they come with spacers. You install them and it’s a done deal. You go for a ride. So what was the problem? The tubes had been cut and collars added to assist with holding the grease near the bearings, and to hold the spacer centered when the axle was removed. They weren’t shabby. The dilemma made me second-guess my installation. I checked and rechecked the life-threatening problem. If I left them alone, I would certainly be a candidate for a high-speed wobble. If I set them up too tight, I could burn up the bearings in the desert and be left alongside the road to fry in the sun. Something had to be done to correct the wheels or find out where I went astray. With spacers the correct length, the wheels and brakes could be installed for the last time and anything that could reach final assembly made me smile and saved time. We were frustrated. I centered the wheel and began to space the P.M. Calipers. Something wasn’t right. There was .020 slop in the center spacer that pre-loads the Timken bearings. I was blown away and stayed up until 2 a.m. with a sheet of glass and wet and dry sand paper trimming the spacer down while insuring the flat parallel surface to the bearing race as left intact. I finished uncertain of the tolerances. Later I found that the tolerance prescribed by the factory is .004 to .014. It is recommended that with aluminum hubs you should lead your figure to the .004 side. There was another weak link and Harold mentioned it as soon as he received the mounted Sportster Tank. “That tab system is a little shaky, Bandit.” What could I do? I had two 1/8-inch-thick straps that ran the entire length of the tank and out both ends by three inches. At the last minute I eliminated one because I felt it would be too difficult to bondo. The tank was now in Harold’s hands and time was running out. If I had sent the bare frame to Harold, he would have mounted the gas tank by his proven method. The decision had been made and I would be forced to live with it. We kept moving. Ah, but there was another adjustment that lurked in the back of my mind, although Giggie from Compu-fire checked my installation and gave it a thumbs up. I was sketchy about the primary drive adjustment. I had slipped the original inner-primary O-ring between the engine cases and the motor plate for vibration relief. Bad move. The BDL belt was too tight. There was no slack in the belt and I wanted some. I had to loosen the transmission, unbolt the motor-plate from the engine and move the tranny forward as much as possible. It worked out perfectly, but just in case, I ordered a spare belt (I broke a primary belt in ’97 outside Denver). Giggie from Compu-fire helped kick off the wiring with the installation and timing of the Compu-fire single fire ignition. With it in place sans the Voes switch (this is a chopper, right?). About that time, a tall Asian in a flowered bikini and a black towel strolled past the headquarters on her way to secluded Cabrillo Beach. The entire crew was distracted. It wouldn’t be the last time Sin Wu captured my concentration. She became our lunch time mascot, dropping in from time to time to check the progress and tantalize us. The rear wheel had yet to be spaced properly. It suffered from the same malady as the front wheel and the last thing I wanted storming through my brain at 5 a.m. on a highway in the middle of nowhere was my wheel spacers. We were forced to remove the rear wheel again. I had built in a stud for the hydraulic brake switch behind an exhaust pipe as part of the exhaust bracket. The notion was to hide that ugly bastard yet make it accessible if need be. As it turned out, Joker Machine builds a micro brake switch into their forward controls. Ultimately a dice was drilled and tapped to conceal the stud. Just as I finished the wiring, the paint was delivered. Harold and I discussed the paint scheme at length. The first problem was the frame paint. We were limited to a bright metallic blue. I sent Harold a chunk of square tubing painted the same color to match. He studied it and went to work. We discussed white pearl or cream colored flames and he decided to add a silver accent. We couldn’t decided what color to pinstripe with. We discussed red, pink (no way), even green, but nothing jumped out at us. When Harold called and said he’d pinstriped it gray, I choked. It sounded drab, lifeless. A week later, after clear coating and drying, the paint was shipped. I had become best of pals with the UPS guy, who showed up daily. When he showed up with a small package he’d be greeted with a long face from a disappointed crew member. “We need bigger boxes and more of ’em,” Wrench told him one morning. We did. We were biting our nails, watching the clock and the calendar. The plan called for a running motorcycle two weeks before the takeoff date. The first stretch of road to Phoenix was 450 miles of blistering desert and I was riding alone. I needed a break-in period. Most years we had little or no break-in time. Last year the Excelsior-Henderson had no miles on it after High Tech Custom Cycles customized the rowdy 85-inch monster. I had it for two days before leaving. The first day the front brake kept locking up and we discovered chrome chips in the front master cylinder. With that fixed, I thought I was good to go until the starter motor blew up in my face the night before takeoff. We made arrangements with Bert’s Cycle Mall in Azusa to fix it. I hired a guy to drive my truck, my bike and me to Bert’s, where we sat for half the afternoon while they replaced the starter and some fried bushings, then retuned the bike with a new computer program. Dr. Hamster and I sat in their waiting room with our gear and waited patiently for the verdict. It finally came with a road test by the main mechanic. He rolled out of the parking lot without making eye contact with either of us.    We were as anxious as a man about to undress his girl for the first time as we stood waiting in the parking lot with our gear in our arms. When he rolled back, his dower mug hidden by a full-faced helmet, he buzzed directly into the service department. I followed. “Well?” “It’s good to go,” he finally said without looking up. In the midst of rush-hour traffic, we rolled onto the freeway toward Sturgis.        The year before that, it was the street stalker built essentially by Bartels’ Harley-Davidson. Before that, it was the touring chopper built by Jesse James. All of the above are professionals who are constantly building bikes, have mechanics and extensive tools and supplies. I’m not, and my guys all work on old Panheads. So when we took on these projects as non-professional, skirt-chasing, beer-drinking geeks, we wanted more time to correct all the bullshit mistakes we would make. As it turned out, we didn’t make any more mistakes than the pros had in the past. Plus the feeble, leaning Bikernet headquarters held nearly every tool we needed to keep the operation going. As the sheet metal arrived, Sin Wu and I slipped into the basement of the vast Bikernet headquarters to un-box, un-peanut, un-bubble wrap and un-cellophane the paint. The gray pinstripe was perfect, the finish clean and classic. We made love in the basement in celebration and as a tribute to the notion that this underground slab of concrete would soon become the international Bikernet shipping and receiving department. Fuck, life can be exciting. Sin went home and the brothers began to install the tank and sheet metal. We were moving fast. Time was running out and days seemed to disappear. At one point, we had the grandiose notion that the bike would be ready for the Exceptional Childrens’ Beach Ride in Ventura, California. We couldn’t make it. Then the Calendar Girl Show loomed. What was once the Mikuni Bike Show at the Santa Monica Airport had transcended into the Calendar Girl/White Bros. Show in a small park near the looming bow of the Queen Mary. Cool location, but could we have the bike up in time? Wiring went easy with the internal tubing installed in the frame by Daytec. Tubes ran from the back of the seat post to the top motormount and down the seat tube to the oil pump. I quickly discovered that I could run two switches in the top motormount and Giggie suggested a polished aluminum plate to conceal the switch backs and the single circuit breaker. Giggie emphasized that we use mil spec (military specification) or Marine switches. I had purchased plastic Marine switches but wasn’t confident in them. I wanted to head over to Neptunes Electronics for some heavy duty mil spec metal units, but it never happened. The wiring continued with two switches to control all the electronics on the bike. An on/off switch turned on the ignition and the brake and tail lights and energized the high/low beam switch. The on-off-on switch controlled the headlight and that was all. For the starter switch we used Custom Cycle Engineering’s new mechanical push button, which mounts directly to the starter solenoid of the Compu-Fire starter. It’s the cleanest switch in the world and works like a champ, but if your pipes come anywhere close to the switch, watch out. It’s easy to burn your mitt when the bike is hot. Plus the switch is bolted to the right side of the bike and down low. If that’s going to be a problem with the carb and reaching the throttle, you need to consider those obstacles. It worked like a champ on this rigid with the pipes we chose. For our pipes, we picked a set of Samson 2 1/8-inch drag pipes for a Dyna Glide because they don’t make pipes for rigid frames. From a performance standpoint, I wanted the 98-inch S&S stroker motor to run as effortlessly as possible. I had discovered by mounting a Compu-Fire single-fire ignition system on the touring chopper that it calmed that stroker motor, so I did the same on this one. I wanted to even the exhaust system for firing balance. One pipe was 12 inches longer than the other and hung down too far, which would hamper ground clearance. We took two inches out of the down stroke. Wrench gas-welded it back together with a coat hanger. Then we cut the pipe to even the lengths to 27 inches. That seemed precariously short for the diameter of the exhaust, so we took two Samson exhaust muffler baffles, cut them in half and installed them. Finally, for styling purposes, we asked James Famigatti to scallop the ends of the pipes to contour the shape of the Milwaukee Iron fenders. We called Mikuni America and asked about the carburetor. Lee, the man responsible for every Mikuni carburetor that flies into the states for motorcycles, asked, “For your bike?” “Yep,” I said. “You’re going to install it?” “Yep,” I said. “Forget it,” he said, “Bring the bike to me. We’ll make sure the intake is correct and the cables match, and that the bike runs.” I didn’t know what to make of it, but I did as I was told and delivered the bike to the Mikuni factory. With the swift action of Barnett cables, S&S and American Iron Horse, the correct intake was procured for the tall barrel S&S stroker engine that tucked the polished 42-mm slide carburetor in close to the engine. They fired and tuned the bike for the first time. The technician, Bryan, warned us to back out the air mixture screw half a turn when I reached the altitudes of Denver. They also installed a large tear-drop, exposed K&N air cleaner that would afford the engine all the air it wished to gulp. Time was running out. We still needed miles on the bike but we had no speedometer and no idea where to put it. The cable was in the garage and the drive unit had been installed on the front wheel, but the actual speedometer was nowhere to be found. Then it dawned on me that the ’84 Shovelhead in Dallas had just the speedometer we needed, but planned not to use. I called and asked the crew at Dallas Easyriders to ship the unit quick and it was on its way.

That afternoon, I finished the weekly update and jammed for the tilting garage. Nuutboy had already broken under the extreme pressure and hauled ass for foreign shores. Wrench checked into rehab for the 24th time. He had been awake for three weeks and was beginning to look like the guy from the “Living Dead.” Japanese Jay threw up his hands, jumped on the bike from the Harley fleet center, and hauled ass for the border. Renegade bitched and moaned, but under his breath, after smoking several joints, said, “Nice bike.” We knew then I was good to go. I dialed Giggie in a frenzy, “Could I have knocked the clutch hub loose?” “Don’t sweat it,” he said, “It’s tight, but what about the plates?” We had installed a plate wrong and metal-to-metal grating was taking place. With that fixed, I moved on to a shim to prevent the starter jackshaft from peeling away the aluminum on the inside of the BDL support bracket. I was beginning to feel that tight feeling of a motorcycle without any loose ends, except for the speedometer, which I was holding in my hand behind the top triple tree. It seemed to fit and I ran the cable. No problem except the cap holding the cable into the bottom of the speedo didn’t seem to work. It came with another cap and that didn’t work either. My mind raced with options. Throw it into the street and forget it? Find something with the correct thread size and make a cap? That seemed to be an option and I jumped into the flamed T-Chicken and roared to the marine store.  The threads were fine and the same size as any toggle switch nut, except nothing was available except toggle switch waver nuts. I tried the hardware store. The owner who never smiles, then the employees, the Asian with one bad arm who doesn’t speak, and the Hispanic who is always eating burritos no matter what time of day it is pointed at the fastener wall and ignored me. I searched and searched until I had to ask for help. They shook their heads and I searched some more. I screamed, they hid behind paint cans. I couldn’t believe that they would have every size 1/2-inch nut except this one. I roared off to Neptune’s electronics. The owner, in the shop that hadn’t changed since the ’50s, looked at me and said, “Yep, had some of those, but I don’t know where.” He didn’t and I left feeling dejected. It was almost 4:30 as I tore along the harbor while dialing the cell phone. “Phil,” I said gritting my teeth, “You know anything about speedo cables?” “Yep,” he said, as he eyed my CCI cable, “it’s easy to get these things wrong,” and referred me to Drag Bike Engineering on Artesia Boulevard in Gardena. I drove up Western Boulevard, which sucks. It runs north and south through the middle of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It’s a four-lane boulevard that’s bordered by every goddamn franchise jip joint, fast food place, square boring store front on the planet. The only item it contains more of is stop lights. So I drove, and stopped and drove, and the street narrowed.  I rolled out of San Pedro into Lomita, then Torrance and into some places I had never heard of when I finally hit Artesia. I hung a left and there was Drag Bike Engineering, a clean, well-stocked shop. Phil told me to ask for Jim and I did. Only two knowledgeable riders were in the pristine shop and one said, “Don’t I know you?” I looked at him hard and thought about all 30-some years I’ve been riding and stumbling in and out of events, parties and runs. I hadn’t a clue. “Yeah, a couple of years ago at Kern River,” he said, smiling. The most vivid memory of the Kern was hitting a guy in the face with a bottle of Cuervo Gold ’cause he pulled a knife on one of our guys for the second time. I warned him the first. It wasn’t him, thank God. I introduced myself again, apologized for not remembering anything except what was on my check-off list for Sturgis and asked about the cable.   Jim came out from the back. “Yep, those cables are tough to match.” He wandered over to his rack, pulled off another CCI cable and tossed it on the counter. “See if this will do the trick.” I pulled my knife and began to slice at the plastic wrapper, immediately slitting my thumb wide open. Maybe the pressure was getting to me. The cable was perfect and I bled all over his counter. Jim gave me a Band-aid as his partner put a plastic coating over the braided cable and I hit the road. Good byes are tough, sometimes, and we bounced joyously into the wee hours before she slipped from my arms and into the harbor night. Blissfully high on several stimulants, I attempted to mount the speedo. I had to drill a 3/8-inch hole in the top triple tree. I did so crooked and with that disappointment dampening a near-perfect evening, I went to bed. I was beginning to cut into overtime. Had the Agent left from the east coast? I could care less. He had his bike a month ago. If he chose to dick around, well that was his problem. I had my list to contend with. The final nights were spent saying goodbye to a woman who had made my summer come alive. She was different than so many women I had met. There was no pretense. She had been born and raised in San Pedro and she could give a shit less about Hollywood, stardom or money. She lived a simple life as a single mother of three kids while looking after her aging father. She had roots and was securely attached to them. There appeared to be no agenda, although since splitting from her abusive biker, druggie husband of 15 years she felt ripped off by him and life. She wanted the family /husband and ordinary home and hated the fact that it all was torn from her.         There was also something nasty about this woman who seemed to glide along on tender feet. Her dark wavy hair looked wonderful no matter how she combed it. It seemed astonishing that if she grabbed it and shoved it into a rubber band she suddenly took on a whole new look, yet just as beautiful as the one before. She also had a thirst that once unleashed seemed to permeate her being. If I cared for her, she blossomed, like a brilliant sunlit bloom. And so her sexual appetite was replanted in fresh soil to flourish. It’s as if a woman needs only to have the door carefully opened and the bud goes wild. As I sat back and watched this flower bloom again and again, I relished the minutes we had together. Although my body was floating on air, my mind was aghast with the trivial elements of the trip. I awoke with a start. Only 24 hours to go. She held on as I threw socks over my shoulder into the pile burying the Bandit’s bed roll and began a hectic countdown. The morning began with calls to the patch maker. He gave me some bullshit story about a supplier overseas after the son of a bitch told me they did all their work in-house. I made my way to the garage and reinstalled the speedo several times, corrected the clutch and then hit the spare bedroom and the pile of laundry over the bedroll. I loaded it and unloaded it, checked and rechecked. Then I slipped the heavy bag above my headlight. Tie wraps usually work well to hold it in place, but sometimes not well enough. It seemed to shift six inches off center as soon as I stood the bike upright. I fired the loaded bike in the late afternoon and headed for a refueling station. The Blue Flame had less than two miles on the new speedo when I pulled it back into the garage for final tightening. It was good to go and she was about to come. I locked the back door. The next time I would open it would be to head out at the crack of dawn the next morning. I had planned to wake up at 4 a.m. and leave at 5, but when she rolled on top of me, for some reason I couldn’t move or toss her aside. I didn’t struggle, but as the sun broke above the harbor like a fresh egg cracked into a hot frying pan, I pushed the rigid into the growing warmth and fired her to life. I pushed off with a full tank of gas and no idea of my capacity or mileage. I rolled along the harbor as the 18-wheelers were beginning to rumble in and out of the teeming container docks. The tug whistle blasted above the sound of my modified drag pipes as I rolled onto the freeway heading north to the 91 and north again to the 605 and north again to the 10, where I would set for 430 miles, heading east to Phoenix. I have a code, that I like to cut through at least 100 miles the first leg out. Depending on the length of the day, I slice off smaller chunks as the day dwindles. You know the saying: “Let’s ride, we’re burnin’ daylight.” My first stop was 101 miles out and the tilted, 3.2- gallon gas tank took 1.841 gallons. That was 54 miles to the gallon. I stopped just past Yucaipa, and I thought of Rip and all his trips from Yucaipa to the Valley. ‘Bout 100 miles in rush hour traffic to work on a motorcycle is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s surprising that something other than motorcycles killed him. As I fueled, I started to strip off the outer layers. Since it was cool when I left, I had on thermal undies, Wranglers, an Excelsior-Henderson sweatshirt, the Prison Blues denim and little Joe’s leather vest, except this one I ordered in brown. I had to wear something different and it was cut larger than the first black one. I would like to be able to afford another lambskin shirt out of brown, also. In the process of stripping off the jacket and strapping it to my bedroll along with a spare primary belt, I bungeed the bedroll to the trees and bars and it quit bouncing around.         I rode another 30 miles and came across Hadley’s, a famous spot for date shakes. Unlike my usual gotta-get-there demeanor, I pulled off the freeway and took a break. Already I was feeling solid about the bike as I stood and watched the sun turn up the amps. The outlook for flat Phoenix was 115 degrees of misery, and I would be riding into the pressure cooker just when the flame reached its max. Behind the scheduled departure time by one hour, I felt both the pressure to keep moving and the release of being on vacation. Yet was this competition with the bastard on the far coast a vacation? Or was it an endurance contest to test my cracked and bruised bones to the Black Hills on a rigid? A rigid? I pondered the question. I hadn’t noticed any discernible terror permeating my 52-year-old muscles or frame by the rigidity of the structure I was riding. Was I deceiving myself about the ride or was it acceptable? Without checking a damn thing on the bike, I gulped down the mixture of dates, bananas and ice cream and hit the road. Damn, that was delicious, but I had a desert to cross on a new motorcycle, through a no-man’s land during the sizzling summer. I kept telling myself that this Sturgis would be different. I was riding a rigid. I would take it easy. The bike needed a break-in period, it needed to be checked out, watched over and I wasn’t no spring chicken. Fuck all that shit. I had worked hard all summer building two bikes. I’d been riding bikes before I drove a car so I wasn’t going to change my style. I rode hard and the bike was going to be forced to handle it. I kept moving up the freeway, through Palm Springs toward Blythe, on the border of the sunshine state and Arizona. For me, Blythe represents reaching the outskirts of Los Angeles and escaping into the forgotten lands of a desert, of Indian reservations and not much else. I like that. I enjoyed the two-lane road that meandered through the low shrubbery and intermittent cactus, surrounded by miles of fine white sand that stings your eyes and catches in the sweat on your sunburnt brow. There’s a silence out there, a solitude that’s hard to find in L.A. Sure, once out of the city there are other counties, other communities, but it’s all the same. One franchise after another, shouting at travelers from the sides of the freeway. I needed to get away and I don’t feel as if I’ve gone a mile until I hit Blythe. It’s a small, sun-bleached truck stop in the middle of nowhere where a biker can refuel and have a meal, then ride a mile to the border and shit-can his helmet. The remainder of the trip would be helmet free. I pulled in under a canopy at the Chevron and refueled. It was hot and I took my slicker, spare drive belt and Prison Blues jacket off my bedroll and unzipped the tool pouch. I have a pack of Allen wrenches in the pocket. I went in the station after refueling and stretched in the cool air of the interior. The two girls behind the counter gawked at the road warrior standing before them and hurriedly gave me the change for my jug of chilled water. I could feel them checking me sideways as I walked into the sun. I had passed a caravan of VW drivers on some sort of product test. The group of Europeans compared notes about the cars and tried to discuss my stretched chopper with me. I don’t speak German. Hell, even my Spanish is rough, but I made do.         I tried my best while adjusting the peg angle on the Joker machine forward controls, to tell them the code of the west and how choppers had taken California from the Spanish. They wandered off pointing at the Blue Flame in amazement. The bike was handling well and the ride was superb. For A rigid, I seemed to be floating on air. I must give the H-D folks the credit and Nuutboy, the man responsible for narrowing the seat pan and building a support frame under the seat. There was no side-to-side slack. The up and down movement was unhampered and the springs carried my weight without a problem. When I first hit the road, I was concerned about my fat-assed weight on the two spindly coil springs and tried to sit forward on the seat to prevent fatigue and over extending their life. I realized before long that there was no way I was going to put my riding position behind the longevity of the springs. I couldn’t stay focused on preventing trucks from running over me. The Joker Machine pegs were well designed and executed. The were designed to allow me to change the angle in case my feet were vibrating off the pegs and change the pivot angle. I made one of the pegs flat and slightly lifted the heel rest on the other. It was a test. The polished chrome surface of the pegs was slick and my old Niki hiking boots were dancing off the surface, precariously close to bouncing off the brutally abrasive concrete below. I chose to wear these leather, low-cut boots for a couple reasons. I generally wear leather cowboy boots. Here’s why: If you wear tennis shoes or rubber soled boots and need to put your foot on the pavement while the bike is rolling, anything that sticks will shove off to the rear and you’ll immediately find yourself bouncing along on your knee. If you can’t put your foot down in an emergency, what the fuck good are you? Many riders wear rubber-soled boots for a specific reason: They’re resistant to oil and chemicals. If you’re in dust or dirt and trying to push your machining around, you get better traction (you should be riding, not pushing). But that’s slow-speed shit. To me, it’s the fast shit you need to concern yourself with. Your boots should have tough but slick leather soles for serious survival. So when picking my wardrobe for the run, I wanted something with some give for the slick foot pegs. Leather soled boots would glide right off. On the other hand, I wanted something hard enough to be less than tire-sticky on the pavement. These hardened Nikis seemed to do the job. Fortunately I never had to test their high-speed capabilities. With the pegs adjusted and enough water in my gullet to keep me from passing out in the heat, I rolled out from under the shade of the gas station canopy and back into the blistering sun. I pulled off the side of the highway under a sprawling billboard welcoming me to the Arizona desert ahead. The sign said freedom to me. I wanted to yank off the jockey-styled helmet and throw it in the gulley with the creosote, tumbleweed and empty junk food containers that line Interstate 10 all the way to the east coast. I let my helmet go a couple of years ago in Utah on my way to the rally, but this year my budget was tight. It took every dime to build the bikes and pay the bills before I headed out. I left Los Angeles with only a $100 bill in my Wrangler pocket. My brother in Phoenix would refill my run fund because I had put our Sturgis motel on my credit card. I would take his cut in cash. Enough cash to keep me going, I hoped. With 160 miles left to make the 429 to Phoenix, I kept rolling. I was already confident that I could make 100 miles without hitting reserve, so I cleared the trip gauge before I left each gas station and it acted as my gas gauge. As I rolled into the desert, the sun was reaching noon high and I thought about the machine beneath me. There’s a sense of fight and might or doom and gloom in each machine I ride. You just know after a couple hundred miles whether the bike is good for the long haul, hanging on for dear life or crumbling under your feet. It’s a matter of sound, vibration and a feel for the driveline balance. I had worked hard to keep the driveline poised, but I had no concept of how the Daytec frame, the Weerd Bros. front end or the Road Wings wheels would stand up under the continued strain. I had been disturbed at the poor pre-load spacing of the Timken bearings in the wheels. The company seemed to be floundering. A collapsed wheel at 80 mph would make me wish I had skis strapped to my ankles. I had allowed a longtime friend of mine and a man who understands and owns long bikes ride my bike during the break-in period. I rode along side him on his black West Coast stretch. I concentrated on watching the frame and front end on the uneven surface of the Santa Monica Freeway. I was surprised to see a 14-over front end work that well. The polished aluminum tubes glided effortlessly up and down after I had installed six ounces of heavyweight Rev Tech oil in each already-wet tube. If the front end had been dry, we would have poured eight ounces in each. The wheels were hard to read. I hadn’t balanced the front, but it didn’t seem to hop on the grated concrete. When the pavement was smooth, the bike appeared to glide along. As I reached the California border, I knew I had over 500 miles on the engine and could raise the speed limit. Until that point, I had kept the revs alternating and not locked on any particular speed, but now it was time to start checking the vibration barriers. I wanted the engine and driveline to hang tight up to about 80 mph and so far the vibration was minimal past 70, so I worked up the speed slightly to test the resonance. Some 20 miles past the border, I began a 75-80 mph test.  The adjustment to the foot peg angle worked perfectly. No longer was I forced to put slight pressure on the outside of my feet to hold the hiking boots on the pegs. The back and forth pivot adjustment seemed to afford me a better position for resting my feet. At times though, I wished for mid controls. I could push it to 80 mph and my feet stayed on the pegs. I began rolling at a constant 75-85 mph range. The driveline appeared to be tight. I would need to check fasteners once I rolled into Phoenix. They would tell me how the frame felt about the ride.  Something else milled around in my feeble brain cells, besides my melting forehead and Agent Zebra on the east coast with a two week head start. I knew how he rode, how he abused motorcycles. He would be lucky to make it to the Florida state line. Aside from a mental check list of a myriad mechanical considerations, there was another woman seeping into my consciousness. A silky-haired Asian woman with dark eyes and a taller-than-average form. We had never discussed a relationship like I had with the dark-haired beauty. Sin would just stop by from time to time at lunch and crawl into bed almost without a word. She was emotionally soft and timid. She studied at Cal State Long Beach, something about sea life, seals, otters and such, but she grew up in San Pedro. She was young, in her late 20s, and I knew she would be moving on when the summer ended. She was a bashful volcano, waiting to erupt on several fronts. As Sturgis neared, I had become so caught up in what had to be done that I didn’t pay attention to what was going on around me. Sin became suddenly sullen about a month out. She didn’t say anything as I babbled about the bikes, the Web site and the trip. At first she seemed preoccupied with a buxom blond named Coral, whom she met at the beach a half mile away.  Coral was obviously bi and aggressive and was tempting Sin into a fling. The encounter became hot bedtime talk and our love making hit an all-time fevered pitch. Sin was aware that she was attracted to the hot blond with the bubbly personality and tits to match. Sin wanted me to watch out for her and began to talk about a tryst at the headquarters. Although quiet and bashful, Sin had a complete back tattoo with a Geisha girl at the center. A mermaid covered one shoulder, but the Geisha girl, fully clothed with a gown that flowed down her spine, was the center of intrigue. The woman in the tattoo seemed torn, yet proud and centered. As Sin bent over the bed, she talked about Coral’s body and her touch. I looked at the permanent illustration of the Geisha and could see the questioning in her eyes. I had told Sin about the dark-haired one and she respected my involvement and didn’t pressure me. This was all supposed to be fun but I sensed her attraction to Coral was growing, and I knew from Coral’s e-mails that she was hungry for Sin’s tall form, milky skin and big boob-job tits. The mixture was pure ecstasy for me. I was dancing on a dangerous cloud and as I headed across the desert, gradually twisting the Joker machine throttle farther and farther past the 85-mph line, I realized that emotions were beginning to reach a collision point. Coral was introducing herself into my life, one that was being shared by the unknowing dark-haired beauty with a quiet stillness about her and Sin, a women so beautiful I knew the thought of keeping her was out of the question. It was a firy bouquet that couldn’t bloom for long.  An 18-wheeler retread exploded and pieces of tire jettisoned in every direction. The truck directly behind the offending vehicle veered and for a few treacherous moments it acted as a steel snake slithering in and out of my lane. I may fall apart in some situations, but in an impending accident I become calm and watchful, hoping to make the appropriate maneuvers. I kept my eyes open for a slight movement, an escape hatch, or another idiot to become involved. I blasted through a cloud of dust and returned to my thoughts of Sin’s tits bouncing below me, her sleek youthful fingertips taunting her nipples, and her words of lust toward another woman drawing me to the brink. Many times I craved for the bikes to be completed so I could have Sin over more. Tonopah finally showed up on a sign as I careened past at 85 mph and the ambient temperature passed 100 degrees. I pulled in and refueled. I was still pulling down 50 mpg, which blew me away. Theoretically I could get 150 miles out of this shapely 3.2-gallon Sportster tank. One of these days, I would like to take two weeks to get to the Bad Lands. I’d like to ride like a fuckin’ tourist, taking all the small roads, gawking at the tundra and pulling off at the viewpoints to check out the majestic canyons. Instead, I ride like I have one day left to live, like I will receive a ten spot for every vehicle I pass, and I want to make a million in a day. It’s fun, I can’t deny it. On the other hand it’s ridiculous. A small Lexus will do 160-mph without blinking an eye and could out-accelerate, out-maneuver and outrun my ass, yet I’m the one pushing the limits. Guess I’ll never learn. I had an ice cream in Tonapah and every son of a bitch I passed over the last 100 miles gently rolled by while kids in the back listened to CD’s and the folks bitched about loud bikes, promising to write their senator when they returned from vacation. Truckers I had blown past rolled on by and by the time I got back on the road I could ride for all I was worth (not much at the moment), and I could just catch ’em before I hit the city limits of Phoenix. But goddamnit, I was going to give it a helluva try. I fired up the Blue Flame, dropped the clutch and wheelied onto the freeway. “Look out you bastards, I’m comin’,” I screamed as I hit 80 mph and merged into the No. 2 lane. I have yet to read a map before entering the Phoenix freeway system. I always roll in and wonder where the fuck I am. I ask around and finally find the way to Easyriders of Scottsdale. This time, the I-10 interchange was closed and I was forced to exit. As I pulled off the freeway, I asked a bunch of Native Americans in the pickup next to me how to get to Scottsdale. They looked at each other in bewilderment, pointed in several directions and finally the driver gave me directions that I couldn’t understand and was dubious to believe. I’m more and more surprised when asking directions of locals, the percentage who don’t know where the fuck they are. Most can’t speak English, especially kids. I asked one kid where Broadway was in Phoenix. He didn’t have the slightest. Ironically, the gas station he was working in was on Broadway. I finally got the word that I could take a big busy street directly into Scottsdale or take another one that led me through a bad section of the area on the way to my destination. It was 115 degrees when I pulled off the freeway and started bouncing from one stop light to another. My informant failed to tell me that the street I chose lead me directly into the international airport, so I suddenly found myself weaving in and out of terminal traffic. I came out of the airport unscathed and was dropped onto a freeway. I was fuckin’ lost. The freeway lead me directly to the one and only Scottsdale offramp and I gladly jumped off the freeway. I knew I didn’t have far to go to get to downtown, but I could sense the engine was tiring of the 118-degree heat and needed a break. It had performed perfectly and deserved to relax. I pulled into Myron’s Easyriders store adjacent to his Billet Bar, coasted under a canopy and shut off the engine. It ticked a sigh of metal relief as I walked into the shop and shouted for service. Fonz, the parts man, and Myron stood basking in a frosty level of air conditioning. Brownie, a veteran mechanic, immediately checked out the Blue Flame, changed the oil to straight 60 weight as prescribed by the manual for consistent temps above 80 degrees and recommended an alternator plug strap. I had made a mental note to bolt one in place several times, but never acted upon it. One of the guys handed Brownie the strap and he eyed it suspiciously and looked at me. “You like this one or do you want me to use one that works?”         “Needs to work,” I said, and they found a Custom Chrome strap that I hadn’t seen before. It is held on by two case bolts and the plug can’t move.         Myron owns the ER store, the bar next door and the Scottsdale Worlds gym, so when I’m in town, I have Brownie work on my bike while I hide under the misters in the Billet Bar patio and play pool. When the master of disaster can get away, we head to his gym. I was behind in my workouts so we hit it hard — chest, triceps, back, biceps and abs. I spent two hours trying to make up for sporadic workouts over the last two months. Myron’s gym doesn’t have that day spa look of soft tones and plush carpeting. It’s more reminiscent of the iron pit at San Quentin, if they allow them anymore. There’s lots of chain link separating various areas of equipment. Lots of mirrors, black rubber padding and polished diamond plate. The ceiling is high and industrial and the brother spends 11 grand a month on air-conditioning in the summer. Cindy, Myron’s wife, runs it and teaches aerobics. That evening, I had dinner with Myron and Cindy at their home, with three snarling dogs at my side throughout the meal. I wasn’t sure if they wanted me or the marinated chicken breasts on my plate. I sat very still and tried to make idle conversation before I returned to Karl’s house for the night. Karl is the fire chief for the rural metro area of greater Phoenix. He’s about 6-foot-3, 250 pounds, an ox of a man with a constant smile. Although it was 118 degrees during the day, the thunderstorms rolled in by the late afternoon and hit hard in the evening. Just as we were about to bed down, lightning rocked the windows and slabs of sideways rain slammed against the stucco home. Tree branches broke off, filling the pool with pine needles. Ten minutes into the gale, the lights went out and Karl went into action. He’s been trained to be calm when the shit hits the fan and he did just that. He gave orders, checked for electrical outages and possible fire hazards, then settled the rattled family down. His wife, the bouncing beautiful Cheri, is an emotional whirlwind unplugged, which seems to control big Karl. I was trying to sleep on the couch while the women screamed at the crackle of lightning and the crash of timbers. Flashlight beams crisscrossed in the darkness. I like Arizona, but the heat coupled with violent storms had me itchin’ to get the fuck out of Dodge. It was time to move.

The next morning, after breakfast at Stan’s diner in Scottsdale, we rolled north toward Payson on our way to Holbrook. Stan’s is a small joint in a dull rectangular building downtown, that Stan tried to spruce up with adobe chairs and tables. A skinny waitress came to take our order but since this was Myron’s regular digs, he went directly to the chef in back and nodded. That was enough. The chef knew what to do. Karl and I attempted to order with smiles on our unshaven mugs but the waitress was dry as toast, and edgy. The cactus twig of a woman could not comply. We had been trying the low carb regimen and Karl had lost 40 pounds, but she couldn’t allow us to substitute potatoes for tomato slices or cottage cheese for toast. We ended up ordering everything a la carte. At first our easy-going hackles were raised because we wanted to hit the road early and slice away some dusty miles, then eat in some strange hole-in-the-wall joint in nowheresville, Arizona. But the more we irritated her, the more fun we had. She was spitting in our scrambled eggs by the time we finished with her, but it was worth it. Phoenix is a strange city. Surface streets are straight and packed with stoplights. We headed out a country road through one boulevard stop after another. Suddenly we were out of the flat city and into the country, winding into the Mazatzal Mountains on Highway 87. At one point we pulled off the highway at an All-Bike junkyard Rye, Ariz., a town with a population of 300. There were acres of bikes rotting in the elements. At this point there were four of us. Myron was riding his black, detailed 2000 Dyna with a 95-inch kit, stretched tanks and a custom windshield. As usual, his bike was immaculate with chromed Harley mags and diamond cut cylinder fins. He had soft bags beside the rear wheel and a bolt-on sissy bar with bags attached. He was one comfortable mutha as we cut through the canyons. The man generally wears a long sleeved T-shirt with a regular T-shirt over it and his HAL vest, plus a scarf. He rides fast and tight. Myron has always reminded me of longtime friend George Christie, the president of the Ventura chapter of the Hells Angels. Although Myron is a massive weight lifter, and George trains in martial arts, the two men are similar height with jet-black hair (graying some, now). Both men are born leaders and strong riders. Karl was on his lowered Softail with drag pipes and drag bars, with his buoyant wife of 25 years at his back. The couple have raised three gigantic kids, consequently Karl doesn’t have new bikes yearly, custom paint jobs and chrome. He’s saddled with a non-working mother and three money-soaking monsters to raise and he’s proud of every minute he can keep the clan in college, clothes and wheels. I respect the fact that Cheri stays home with the kids. It’s a full time vocation and perhaps the most important job on the planet. The mountains were striking and I’m constantly amazed at the Arizona beauty. The state is diverse and open. No wonder people are lining up to move there. It’s a killer place to live. The diversity is unreal, from the arid, open, hot-as-a-mutha desert to the rolling, pine-strewn mountains and the Grand Canyon area. We stopped in Payson for gas. I had clocked 87 miles and took 1.9 gallons. I was still rolling along even in erratic terrain and getting 45 mpg. I bought a cheap tire gauge and checked my tire pressure. Brownie had jacked it up per the tire specs, but I was more flexible and had another priority — the ride. The front tire being on an extended front end didn’t need 50 pounds of pressure and the rear 180-18 Avon needed to be as soft as possible, so I dropped the 40 pounds to less than 30. As I stood there, Cheri chatted away about one thing or another, constantly making sexual references to the most absurd articles. She somehow found honey mustard dressing sexual, or elevators, though I could understand her phallic reference to pickles. As we moved into the hills, the incline felt good to the 98-inch S&S motor. Rumbling up a winding incline, we found ourselves behind several motor homes and a logging truck. When we hit a passing lane, two tourists melded to the right and the logging truck and one camper stayed to the left as if in a 1/4 mile they could pass the other dog-slow travelers. I down shifted and poured the fuel to the stroker, which climbed on the other vehicles like they were standing still. The lumber truck was barely reaching the rear bumper of the motor home when I split between them. I blasted over the rise ahead and began a high-speed decline. I slowed slightly to let the others catch me, but they didn’t come. I slowed some more, then suddenly noticed a thundering 18-wheeler bearing down on me. I had upset the trucker and he planned to flatten my ass. The rigid Blue is light, and I was discovering lightning-fast throttle response. I bolted forward. I spun the throttle, again, and it came alive like the crack from a high velocity .22. Then I noticed a new vibration. It was coming from the tank. The truck was trying to gain on me again, and I slipped the polished 42-mm Mikuni more fuel and she responded like a tongue to a sensitive clit. The bike jumped and roared ahead. Again, a rattling screamed at me from the top of the frame and I pulled my gloved hand off the left grip and put it on top of Harold’s paint work, which glistened in the sun. My teeth immediately responded to the touch. Something was wrong, but I had a semi barreling down on me and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to pull over and give him an open target so I pressed on the tank with my left hand and pushed harder on the throttle with my right. I raced past the signs indicating a dangerous decline ahead and warning truckers to check their brakes. The guy behind me had no notion of using his as he sped to catch me. Fortunately, I could outrun him, if I were riding a bike built for mountain riding. This was my first opportunity to test the handling of the 38-degree raked frame with the 6 degrees in the Weerd Bros. front end. I had specifically built in plenty of ground clearance by cutting the Samson pipes and lifting the front header. There was nothing on the left to interfere with the road and I had a solid six inches of ground clearance underneath the frame. As I leaned I felt the bike want to tumble so I poured more fuel and the front wheel tracked the corner smoothly. The next corner was well marked for speed and curvature. I dipped low and accelerated. Although the rake generally, with speed, wants to force the bike to go straight, the additional rake in the triple trees minimized the trail and the front end adjusted easily to the turn, but I was trying to hold on to my vibrating gas tank at the same time. Another series of turns were dead ahead and the screaming logger was shifting gears 30 feet from my rear Avon. He knew the road better than I did. I took the shift as a signal of manageable turns ahead and turned the throttle. The bike jumped forward and I released the tank to handle the curve. To my left were open oncoming lanes through sliced mountains. To my right was a sheer precipice and a majestic valley a couple thousand feet below. I pushed the Blue Flame and it responded like a thoroughbred. It felt strange. I had ridden choppers for years, but in the last decade I hadn’t ridden a bike with this length of front tubes. The Jesse James touring chopper had a severe turning radius restriction with the bags, but this machine seemed to have no bumpers, no drag, no pegs that prevented me from leaning it closer to the asphalt, so I pushed. The only thing that would hold me back from making the next turn was Avon traction, a flexing Daytec frame or a squirrely front-end. I seemed to handle turns to the right easier than to the left, and I dipped as the curve unveiled itself. The truck was right on my ass as I hit the 35 mph turn at 60. The most terrifying aspect of any turn is the visual. Can you see the chamfer and the complete arch? Is there a mountain on the inside preventing visibility? Are you heading downhill? Downhill racing is the worst. You can let up on the throttle and the bike won’t slow down. That’s the last thing you need when you realize that your bike cannot make the corner. I needed deceleration and it wasn’t there. I had pulled away from the truck, but the tank was singing a violent tune. I ignored the horrible vibration and dipped the machine to the right. To my amazement, it went over easily. Nothing scraped, skipped, twisted or jiggled. The tire remained firmly planted to the road’s surface and I accelerated through the turn and into the next one. The truck loomed behind me except it wasn’t barreling after me this time. The postings along the side of the mountain warned of the steep slope, brake testing and slow trucks. The driver had chosen to ignore the warnings and careened after me, but now in the rearview mirror the trucker’s load seemed out of balance. The massive logs were jostled. The truck leaned at an odd angle. The driver had abandoned the pursuit in favor of saving his own neck. Smoke poured from the brakes as he tried to control the 80,000-pound vehicle before he encountered another curve along the perilous slope. I glanced at the valley below and decided he was more of a threat now than when he was pissed and in control. I turned up the heat and headed quickly away from the collision-bound truck. We had several junctions ahead, including 377 to Holbrook, 277 to Snowflake and 260 to Show Low. With each curve I was forced to test, I became more confident in the Daytec chassis and long Weerd Bros. wide glide front end. I had never owned a chopper that handled with this much ease. I seemed to be able to dip the flaming scoot over so far that my calf was parallel with the pavement. I hit the town of Heber where we had planned to stop for a piece of peach pie, but I blew right through. I passed the 377 turn off and prayed that the trucker survived, but was on his way to Snowflake. I split off on 260 toward Show Low and quickly found a safe place to pull over to check my tank and wait for the others. The rear tab on the tank had broken and the vibration between the remaining tab was eerie, but with the 3M weather stripping holding the tank to the frame backbone and the front tab in place, all appeared secure. Myron pulled up with Karl and the emotional Cheri shouted, “That truck was after your ass.” We only had another 30 miles to go but we hit a hardware store and, based on expert breakdown recommendations from Karl and Myron, I picked up more 3M stripping, JB Weld, sand paper and some grommets. I rode carefully for the final 30 miles into Holbrook where we copped a couple of rooms and prepared to operate on the Blue Flame. I almost had to pry the tank off. The rear tab was toast and I spent an hour cleaning it. I mixed and spread the JB weld, put down new 3M weather stripping and reinstalled the tank. It was time for happy hour and we walked to the local cowboy/sports bar across the highway. There’s an odd sensation that comes over a rider with a busted machine. It’s as if you know you must hike to the top of the hill, but you’re bleeding. You know you’re going for it, but not sure how you’ll make it. Still you keep moving forward. Holbrook was our stopping point about 250 miles out. The bar was cool and for some reason, perhaps the unrelenting heat, we ordered margarita after margarita, then chicken wings, chicken tenders and more wings. Those little puppies were smoldering but went down like chips at a Mexican restaurant. We munched as if we weren’t going to eat for a week, then went in search of peach pie. Why is it that once out of California, fresh vegetables and fruit seem impossible to come by. If I couldn’t have sex, I wanted peach pie, and for some odd reason, it seemed as rare as a whore in church.

The next morning, Myron and I got our asses in gear and loaded our scoots. Karl and Cheri were returning to Phoenix the long way through the mountains and Flag before getting home. We said our goodbyes and headed out. It was odd, or maybe not, that Myron and I were travelin’ without maps this year. We remembered the time we rode into Colorado by mistake and Mark the Warrior was mapped to the max. This was going to be an odd trip without a map. Sorta like sailing to Hawaii without a compass. We were flying by the seat of our pants. I babied the Blue Flame onto I-40 and tested it with my left glove. Not an ounce of vibration. It felt as if it was welded to the frame. I took it easy for another 40 miles then rolled it on. I had an entire fuckin’ tool box in the compartment of my handy-dandy bedroll. Hell, if it broke, I’d fix it. We rode to Gallup, N.M., some 98 miles to the east, pulled in and gassed up. A big Indian behind the counter told us, “Just stay on this street til you get to the Mexican restaurant — best food in town. Hang a right there and you’re on 666 heading north to Shiprock. Should take you about 2 hours.” “How about peach pie?” I asked. He just shrugged. An older gentleman dressed in Indian attire and turquoise jewelry looked at us through squinted eyes surrounded by leather-tough skin. “Two hundred miles,” he said. We looked at him, then at the younger man who ignored the bent over old dude with the knowing eyes. Something wasn’t right. We copped out and Myron bought a map. We rode the lumpy street for five miles until we came across the turn for 666 and the restaurant. Inside, we opened the map. He had purchased a perfectly good map of Utah. We weren’t going there, so I folded it and set it beside my napkin while I ate huevos rancheros, then asked the waitress how far Cortez, Colo., was. I’m not sure she knew what state she was in, but she delivered some mean salsa. After eating, we strolled out to the bikes and the waiter followed us. “You forget this, senors,” he said, handing me the map. I waited for him to return to the restaurant then shit-canned the map. We don’t need no stinkin’ maps. Myron’s wheel was clicking and it felt strange in the turns, so we had pulled it apart in Holbrook and found nothing. It sounded even worse as we pulled onto Highway 666 heading north, unaware of how far Cortez or Shiprock were. We just kept riding. The straight stretch from Gallop north was dry and hot, just under 100 degrees as we plowed into a junk yard of a town called Shiprock, named after one of the massive outcroppings in the desert. The roads were torn up like they were when we came through in ’97. We tried to find peach pie, but struck out, so we stopped at a McDonald’s for a shake. We were befriended by a small young Indian man wearing a camouflage hat and pants, a Vietnam ribbon and a tightly pressed denim shirt. He sat across from us, bent over in our direction and started the conversation like he had access to a couple of slices of black market peach pie. He glanced around the plastic franchise nervous like. His voice was slow and low and he peered at me like I was a passenger in De Niro’s “Taxi” movie. His eyes were deep and haunting. He whispered about the Harley he wanted to own more than anything, a Sportster he was planning to leave his wife and kids to get. I got it. If anyone heard him tell that story and it got back to his wife, he was toast. We pulled our chairs closer to the young man and listened intently as he explained his dream. I gave him a Bikernet sticker while wishing I had a Sportster in my bedroll. I would have gladly given it to the man. You could see the intensity in his eyes, the longing and the desperation. Apart from 15 liquor stores and the big Mac, the town had little to offer. On the outskirts there was a track of desolate homes indicative of the area. Each structure was about the size of a single, shoe-box mobile home. They were all painted brick red with white gravel roofs. A winding gravel path wound between them and small tufts of cactus. That was it. No garages, decks, driveways or carports. Each one was worn down by the sun and the wind that kept them engulfed in a cloud of dust. We noted the depressing atmosphere that loomed like acid rain over dying crops and got the fuck outta there. It was only 31 miles to Cortez. We rolled in before 3 p.m. and pulled up to the Best Western inhabited by the Hamsters. In fact, so many of the furry beasts were riding out that they had taken over two motels. My first impression as we pulled into the parking lot packed with dressers was a question. Where were all the custom bikes? The Hamsters have a reputation for being rich and riding nothing but $50,000 customs. From the looks of the parking lot, and the lines of black dressers, I had run into a HOG chapter on its way to the rally. My version of the dubious Hamster mantra has always been a club for custom builders and custom bike enthusiasts. As far as I’m concerned, that’s still the case, although as the guys get older, most can afford something comfortable for the long haul. Arlen Ness still rides a full custom all the way to the Bad Lands. And as far as being wealthy, most of these guys weren’t born that way. They worked for it, building a business that finally became successful. So now they have some money and deserve it. They also employ many riders, like Phil and Karen Day of Daytec. You couldn’t meet more down-to-Earth people. Arlen began his working life as a postman while building bikes in his garage. It’s only idiots like myself who decide to drop everything, go through a divorce and write books for a living who are on the brink of poverty. At least I can say I’m not a yuppie. The tank was still in place, Myron’s wheel continued to be round and roll as we pulled in just before a thunderstorm. Adjacent to the motel was a run down but functioning gym. Although the equipment was rickety and loose we hammered our bodies until we couldn’t walk and beat feet out of there. Every year on the way to Sturgis, Thomas throws a major party for his wife, Cheryl. Tom and Cheryl ride from the Bay area to Sturgis annually on one of Arlen’s luxury liners. He pushes that black beast with red and orange flames, with his wife on the back throughout the entire trip, keeping up with us hot rods. Quiet and unassuming, they plow down the freeway each year dressed in all black, riding hell bent to reach the Bad Lands. Each year at one stop, Thomas makes arrangements to feed and pour for all the Hamsters to celebrate Cheryl’s birth and their relationship. I don’t need to eat or drink that night. It’s enough to watch Cheryl’s face glow as he introduces her once more to the rabid clan. She glows with appreciation and love for her man. The “wind ’em up” call came at 7 a.m. the next day and a handful of riders jammed to breakfast, scarfed their eggs and omelets, asked for peach pie without success and rushed back to the motel to be with the gang as they rode out. We had 320 miles to go through Durango, over the pass into Silverton, up to Delta and into the mountains leading to Aspen. About 30 of us rode out together. There’s nothing more boring than riding in a pack. You can’t look around, check out the girls or look for peach pie. You can’t stop to pick your teeth, scratch your ass or look at the valley below. You can’t fuck around and do wheelies or someone will vote you out of the club. Well, we learned this the first year and then gradually worked our way to the front of the pack and disappeared over the horizon ahead. If a club wants to look impressive, they should meet five miles from their destination and ride together into town. Riding in a pack is fuckin’ dangerous but damn, it looks impressive. It’s the slow guy in the middle of the pack who falls asleep and wipes out the rest. Since I was still testing the handling of the blue chopper, I held back as we entered the mountainous curves leading out of Durango along the narrow gauge railroad into the steep mountains ahead. The tank held fast as we rolled through the sweeping bends and I warmed up to the morning sun. Soon I was trying to drag something as I careened around one curve after another, reminiscing about the touring chopper four years ago and how I had to shift my weight to keep the bike as upright as possible until I could get to a welder at a gas station in Silverton.   As I cruised into the old mining town, I pulled into that same gas station and two of the guys who helped weld the swingarm into place were still there. One showed me his Knucklehead chop at the house behind the station. Some of the guys who hadn’t eaten breakfast were chowing down — another reason packs are a pain. So I grabbed my work gloves, saddled up and headed out of town with one Hamster wannabe behind me on his dresser. Little did I know that this would become a day to remember. We blew out of town and into the hills beyond. The trip at that point was perhaps the most picturesque, with rivers running through the pines below as we rolled through Montrose, then Delta and off at 133 toward Carbondale. We were making good time until we came to a small canyon outside of Carbondale, where the road was torn down to the dirt, grated and driven on enough to become washboard. The rigid handled it well, but I didn’t like the jarring impact on the tank. It seemed to scream as I bounced from one pothole to the next ridge and gully for three long miles. When we finally pulled onto the smooth pavement, I knew I was in trouble. I had a new series of vibrations screaming at me. Another 30 miles and we stopped for gas in Carbondale. We had covered 122 miles. Although I was richening the mixture due to the altitude, I put a mere 2.216 gallons in the chopper for 55 mpg. Aspen wasn’t far off. All we needed was fuel and 23 miles and we would be staring at a Jacuzzi, a pool and drinks. I looked at my cellular phone entrepreneur partner, Milo, and at my tank. Both the front and the rear tabs were broken and basically the tin tank with 25 pounds of gasoline stored inside was being held on with a piece of 3M tape a 1/2-inch wide. Milo shook his head, but I had to jinx the situation. “No problem,” I said, “I had to pry off the tape the last time. It’ll hold.” Yeah, right. Half way up the hill toward Aspen, I went over a slight bump in the road and the tank landed in my lap. Milo was in front and I lost him. I held onto the tank and pulled over. Setting it back in place, I stared at the wonderful paint work by Harold Pontarelli and pondered my situation. I wasn’t thinking immediate fixes. I was thinking about tomorrow and finding a welder, about the outcome of this run, and finally about Agent Zebra and the east coast contingent that was barreling up from the southeast. I had to make it, to fix the fucking tank and keep rolling. I was riding the first rigid chopper to Sturgis in, well, there were perhaps infinite rigids converging on the Bad Lands, so what was my point, anyway. Finally, I awoke from my nightmare, dug out a bungee cord from my bedroll, ran it over the tank, behind the gas cap and down to the front legs of the frame. It seemed to be stable so I rode on into town holding the tank with one hand. We were staying at a swank hotel in the center of trendy Aspen, but all the glitter and class only told me there wasn’t a welding shop in town. I had a mission. I unloaded my shit, checked into my room and picked up the phone. Myron came in about the same time, went to the room and tried to turn on the television. It didn’t work. That was a precursor to the events that lay ahead. I made call after call until I found a welder in Basalt, some 30 miles away. While I was calling all over the valley, Myron attempted to order something to eat, but the swank lodge didn’t start room service until 6 p.m. The welder I was looking for couldn’t be squeamish about welding gas tanks and I made sure to mention that pitfall immediately while calling around. With the welder lined up and a plan in place, I went to the bar to get a drink to calm my nerves. The bar didn’t open for another hour, but Myron and I glared at the barkeep until he found a couple glasses and filled them with Jack. We opted for an early dinner in town, so we attempted to clean up for the event. In the head, I stepped on a piece of glass and bled all over the slate floor. Then I attempted to iron a shirt, but the iron didn’t work. Myron, Milo and I went to dinner with Randy Aron of Cycle Visions in San Diego. I offered to pay for dinner, since Randy was going to run my ass around Aspen to find a welder, but my credit card was turned down. Plus the restaurant didn’t have any peach pie. Hell, the shitty tabs on the tank were my fault, not Randy’s. I was beginning to feel jinxed. El Swank Aspen hotel seemed OK. What else could go wrong? I discovered later that Wachovia bank was trying to track me down. Seems some biker had accosted my card and was riding to Sturgis on my dime, ‘cept that crazed thief was me. Randy, a young, stylish sorta rider is one of those Hamsters everyone complains about. He doesn’t look like the average biker. He drives a new truck and builds world class custom motorcycles. He’s talented and good looking but how did he get there? He started a plumbing business 20 years ago and worked his ass off. He took the risks, learned the trade, found customers, dealt with employees and finally became successful. Let’s shoot the mutha fucker. While the rest of the crew slept in their little sawdust Hamster Beds, I crept out at 6 a.m. and loaded the long chop next to Randy’s hand- formed dresser in his truck. We paid close attention to my sketchy directions and rolled out of the mountain pass down to Basalt where we took a right on Frying Pan Road and found a small industrial building. I pulled up to 3-D Iron and Mike Horn, a skinny, wrinkled man, greeted us with the bad news.   Peering up at me through thick glasses, he said, “If it’s a gas tank, we won’t weld it.” Reaching for the tank that we had taken off the frame, wrapped in towel and duct taped for security, I noticed that liquid had filled the corner of the truck bed. On second glance, I became rudely aware that the petcock had come open and it was gas that soaked my clothes and my bedroll. I rolled my eyes and asked if we could pay for the equipment and weld it ourselves. “Nope, can’t do it. Insurance liability, you know,” he said. “But I will make a strap for the tank.” While I stared at the old welder in astonishment and tried to explain that I spoke to someone who had given me the green light, I knew it was futile. I could see a guy in the back of the shop bent over a bare metal trailer frame. He would only glance in my direction from time to time. Perhaps it was the guilty culprit who said to bring the tank down. Randy stood beside the truck and greeted several guys from the sheet metal shop next door.   Most of the middle-aged workers were going to Sturgis and they readily struck up a conversation. The shop was neat and most of the guys had salt-and-pepper hair pulled into pony tails. Randy tapped me on the shoulder. “These guys will let me use their mig welder,” he said, referring to the team at T&E Marshall Enterprises Inc., makers of custom sheet metal and heating systems. We finally had a formula for success. The old guy from the crappie shop made the strap and drilled the holes while we emptied the tank and readied it for welding. Randy flushed the tin container with water, then held the tank mouth against the exhaust pipe of his truck until the carbon monoxide dissipated any gasoline fumes. The tank smelled clean and he fired his lighter above the mouth. Nothing. In a matter of five minutes, it was ready to weld safely. Randy tested the welder on a piece of scrap. The mig would do the job, but he wasn’t as comfortable as if he had his tig. The mig would have to do. Welding dissimilar metals together is a trick I was once very adept at. The 16-gauge material of the Sportster tank had to be mated to the 1/4-inch thickness of the strap and Randy went to work. Sparks flew, metal crackled and paint sizzled as he welded the tab in several places.   Since I had brazed the original tabs in place, the braze melted and flowed into the welds, causing them to sputter. We let the tank cool and filled it with water. It leaked, my worst nightmare. Even worse than breaking tabs or having a loose tank was the threat of a leak. Randy tried again, but the leaks were coming from under the tab where it was impossible to reach with the welder. In an attempt to fix the existing leaks, Randy blew a hole in the tank. He worked on the hole, then I suggested that we braze over the welds to seal them. It wasn’t a bad idea, but a torch and braze was going to generate much more heat to a wider area and Randy was considering the damage to the paint. So far, Harold’s creativity was unscathed. Finally, Randy and I began an hour job that could have taken 15 minutes. Because of the bondo smoke and the steam from the wet rag Randy held close to the area I was attempting to braze, the torch kept blowing out. It took forever to coat some of the welds with brass. We checked the tank again with water. It seemed to have sealed. We packed up and headed north. Checking tank leaks with water is like filtering your gas with screen door mesh. It’s an indicator, but not a good one. I felt that the only way to guard against gas seeping through the welds was to seal the tank. We had some discussion about saving the tank and welding on it in the future with sealant inside, but finally settled on trying to find some Custom Chrome Tank Creme, a three-stage process. We went to a small diner for lunch and I got back on the phone.

The Harley shop in Green River didn’t have it, nor did any of the other bike shops in the valley, but there was a shop in Aspen. It wasn’t in the phone book and couldn’t be reached by directory assistance. I called the Harley shop back and was given the number for Aspen Custom Motorcycles. I dialed and there was only an answering machine. Tired and dejected, we rambled back toward town. During one of our last installation attempts, we broke off the stud that held the rear tab in place. Now we needed an auto parts store for a large hose clamp and some rubber insulation to prevent the clamp from tearing through the durable powder coating finish. We pulled up in front of a Napa auto parts store and parked beside a blue and silver pickup with Krylon letters across the back window, “Aspen Custom Motorcycles.” Inside, a thin man with dark hair and youthful features leaned over the counter wearing a black Aspen Custom Motorcycles T-shirt. I introduced myself and he asked us to follow him. Two blocks away, this guy had his shop set up in a single storage unit stall (970) 544-9419. His undercover shop was complete with three stage creme sealer and we bought his only kit, thanked him and hauled ass for the Swank Hotel. In front of our room was an outdoor corridor leading to the bar and outdoor pool. I picked up several towels, borrowed a large bucket and we went to work. The first stage was a mixture of water and a strong detergent that was supposed to soak in the tank for four hours. We didn’t have the time and let it set for an hour. In the meantime, the guys in Randy’s room where having trouble with the plumbing. After I flushed the toxic mixture into a bucket, I poured it down the toilet in Randy’s room. I knew I should have stopped, but I was beyond the point of no return. I returned to the bike for stage two – flushing the tank with a strong solvent. Again the remnants of the explosive liquid were drained into the toilet. Meanwhile, hotel maintenance men and managers descended on Randy’s room, where a couple of riders had set up their joint rolling station. Plungers, tools and snakes were moved from room to room. Four rooms were effected and they were going to have to snake down from the roof. Randy shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said and poured the final stage of thick milky fluid into the tank. This process included sloshing the creamy liquid around the tank for 10 minutes, letting it set for 20, then sloshing again before draining. Randy sloshed and coated the lining of the tank for what seemed to be hours, making sure every crevice received its fair share. By this time evening was upon us. The tank was supposed to dry for 24 hours. I didn’t have time and Randy suggested that we use a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. The instructions specifically warned against the use of hair dryers because the final process was extremely flammable. Randy continued draining the thickening substance back into the bottle it came from, as we pondered the question. At one point, we tried putting the tank in front of the air conditioner to augment the flow, but there had to be a better way. Finally someone hit up the maintenance crew for a shop vac. As the sun sank, we started sucking the fumes from the tank outside our room.   At one point, two girls showed up, one 22 and the other 27. They wanted to smoke a joint and party some, but the fumes held them at bay. Both were wearing shorts and tank tops and carrying shopping bags. One included a couple pairs of spiked heels that they quickly unwrapped and promised to sport for us. One had on a top buttoned up the front over no bra, and her tits were pressed so hard against the mint green fabric that the heavenly mounds creased the material. When she leaned over to slip on the shoes, we gasped in unison. Whatever it is that makes a woman’s body magic to a man, is a wonderful thing unless abused by either party. If a woman minds that a man gawks at the flesh exposed by too little clothing, she should cover herself. These girls didn’t mind. In fact, they enjoyed it and wanted more. We could have given in to them except we had a mission and a deadline. After the girls asked some probing questions and we didn’t respond appropriately, they rolled themselves a doobie and departed. There was another problem with nubile girls finding their evil ways into our lives. We were staying with 100 of our closest, most gossipy friends in the same goddamn hotel. Speaking of gossip, I hadn’t heard from Zebra for two days. He was supposed to hook up with a pack of riders in Tennessee, and perhaps they roasted him instead of a pig. I didn’t know his whereabouts, but I kept calling his cell phone hoping to hear the number had been permanently disconnected. At 6 a.m. Friday, the phone rang. Larry the mobile mud slide maker was leaving his room to meet me in the parking lot to lend me gas. I was hoping to sleep in, but noooo. I wrestled my ass out of bed and out to the bike with the tank. After setting it on the bike, it was difficult to tell that it had been through hell the previous day. I mounted it, hooked up the lines and went back to bed. I told Larry never to call me at 6 a.m. again and to keep his gas. I wanted to let it air for a couple more hours. At 9 a.m. we put gas in it for the first time from Howard’s truck, just a quart. We loaded up and hit the first station. We were Denver bound. Some of the guys were heading into the pass above, but rumor was that the straight shot was down to Green River, over to the 70 Freeway and into Denver. It was 30 miles out of the way, but we chose the straightest shot. The freeway is only two lanes wide but it meanders along railroad tracks and rivers toward Vail. We stopped for gas in Eagle and were passed by 30 Hamsters blasting onto the freeway. How they beat us I will never know, but I sent my navigator his walking papers the next day. We caught the furry beasts outside Vail. Traffic began to bunch up and we kept riding faster, splitting lanes and running the gauntlet between the very fast cars and extremely slow trucks. Treachery was all around us as we crested a pass and could see the dots of a pack of bikes in the distance. The tank was holding and the bike hadn’t burped, coughed or sputtered. It could handle anything I dished out. I turned the throttle and it responded. About 25 miles outside Denver we blew past the guys in yellow and another couple miles down the road it began to rain, then hail. We ducked off the freeway, pulled on our slickers and found a log cabin watering hole.