Happy Haloween!

This is my kind of Costume!
Does the Vincent come with it?

My CPU is still down... sorry...

Computer troubles

Sorry for the lack of updates folks. I have been having loads of computer problems this last week and I looks like I'm not out the woods yet.
Will post ASAP.

Rouser Rob coming through again...

... with the sweet action pics!
You had to know I would gank this sucker Rob!
Nice shot!

You know... I still plan on finishing that interview some day... I swear!!!
No really Rob... was actually planning on doing a bit more work on it this weekend...and my desktop crashed!

Some day amigo... some day.

http://rouserworks.blogspot.com/

Key inspirational bikes: hard Life bikes Grandma shovelhead

So I guess it's called Grandma... could be named chopped liver for all I care.
Killer, killer bike.
I wont even go on my usual rant about more front brakes, or magnetos, or no batterys... I love this Shovel!

LIGHT, SKINNY, FAST, GROUND CLEARANCE, HANDLES GOOD, mid pegs, high pipes, jockey shift

Nice work dude.... make sure to some riding pics, or have somebody take some, or whatever... nevermind... just take pics.




http://hardlifebikes.blogspot.com/

Ask and you shall recieve! Lookie what I got!




Thanks man!

Key Inspirational bikes: Anonymous small displacement attack chopper

Ok, so I don't know any details about this one, but the pictures are by this gentleman:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ducktail964/
also on his blog:
http://freebikermag.blogspot.com/

Seriously though... look how FANTASTICALLY done this thing is!
Elegant.
Simple.
Clean.
Straight lines and balanced angles.
It screams mathematic perfection.
I don't know if that frame is a Golden triangle... but it sure seems like it could be to my eyes.

To quote Tom Rose: "It's beautiful like a haiku man!"

But that all Choppers where this purposefull and simple.

What do you suppose it weighs?
Obviously it isn't done...no pegs, controls or a headlight... good greif I hope they don't paint it!

LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT... DID I MENTION LIGHT? SKINNY, GROUND CLEARANCE, HANDLES GOOD, STOPS GOOD, magneto, no battery, fast?

Random inspirational bikes

More BSH goodness from Stuka!

Random inspirational bikes

Cool pic from the Donutthole blog.
Nice skinny Sporty and Shovel

Key Inspirational bikes: Turboed big block GSXR chopper

So I got some stuff from my buddy Stuka from Ireland today.
GOOD stuff.
Scans from Back Street Heros.
I was most taken by this little gem: a 260 horse Turboed big block GSXR chopper.

I think that is the very definition of "Attack".
Thanks Stuka!
LIGHT, SKINNY, INSANELY FAST, HANDLES GOOD, STOPS GOOD, ground clearance?, mid pegs

Why build and ride an Attack Chopper?

Photo of Jasin Phares by the Flying Dutchman

Years ago when I had ridden one of my choppers to a bike event of some sort, I had struck up a conversation with a sportbike rider while admiring his bike.
“…I could never ride a chopper.” He said to me with his nose stuck in the air.
“I like speed… I would be bored to tears on a chopper. Besides, I like corners, leaning over in the corners and stopping hard. I want a modern functioning motorcycle that WORKS. Choppers don’t ever work. They are a joke.
Clearly a sportbike is the superior motorcycle of the two.”

Are they really?
Well, the sportbike might be the superior motorcycle ON THE TRACK.
But to buy a bike for street use because a magazine says that it is the best bike available track bike is not only misguided, but ridiculous… since 99% of sportbike riders who buy a bike merely because it is this year’s latest and greatest track bike never even go to the track.
Instead they end up with an inferior motorcycle for street use, and a huge monthly payment.
But of course we aren’t talking about track use here.
And of course he is wrong about all choppers not working.
But what if the motivation for owning, building and riding a bike was not rooted in mere track performance? Or in listening to the magazine writers gush about the “new one/tenth of a percent of performance that Suzuki was able to squeeze out of this year’s GSXR1000”?
What if you wanted a STREET bike that did everything well, made your heart pump hard 100% of the time you were on it, and 100% of the time when you were looking at it?
A bike that had straight line performance, handling performance, stopping performance, parts counter performance, (easy to get parts) and curb performance. (According to Tom Rose that is when your bike is good looking enough sit down on the curb, anytime admire your bike and say: “Now THAT is a great looking bike.”)

So what we are looking for is a bike that doesn’t work on paper. It works on the STREET. It’s a lighter, tighter, lower, more focused, more vicious weapon for the street.
You will never hear a magazine journalist waxing poetic about how intelligent the design of this chopper is. Or what percentage of stopping power the new for this year radial mounted monoblock calipers have given this chopper. Or how he was disappointed that the forks are only adjustable for rebound. Or how this is a chopper for the thinking man. A refined chopper, that has the fit and finish that we have come to expect from the Honda motor company. (Oops! I did read that about the Honda Fury! Ha! What a joke.)
And that doesn’t play on paper. It also is too individualized to be marketable. Every Attack chopper is unique. It is fashioned, sculpted, researched, developed, tuned, refined and honed by its rider… FOR that rider. Not for anyone else. You can’t box that up and churn them out for the masses!
If you let someone have a test ride on your bike, and they tell you that it is a medieval torture device, but you find it to be perfectly comfortable and you can ride it at breakneck speeds in your riding environment and not crash… then that is a perfectly crafted personalized assault vehicle.
Do you really think that one size fits all? Can any one motorcycle from a factory be perfectly suited to everyone? And who gets to decide what is right for you? There is only one person qualified to make that decision… you.

And let’s face it people: this isn’t an intellectually motivated motorcycle. It’s a viscerally motivated motorcycle.
The first goal and motivation in building and riding an attack chopper should ALWAYS be visceral.
The desire to satisfy some primitive visceral need should be your PRIMARY motivator.
An Attack chopper should be fun, terrifying, and primal; you should be overwhelmed with the sensations of acceleration, speed, noise, vibration, fear, danger, freedom, and power.
You should be seeking the unique feeling of physical forces being applied to your body in huge quantities and sensations that you can’t even put words to or describe.
I quote myself from one of my earlier articles:

“I don’t know about you, but when I daydream of a nicely built and functioning attack chopper, I think about things like; WAY too much power, snarling nasty screaming burnouts, top gear wide open, high speed blasts, tons of sideways action, sliding and skidding to stops, pelting cars and other riders with rocks, gravel, and chunks of asphalt, insane full throttle lanesplitting , wheelies at every stop light, 2nd gear one handed jockey shift wheelies, drifting corners on gravel and dirt (and pavement!), unbelievably loud pipes spitting flames, jumping curbs and scattering pedestrians off of sidewalks, arm stretching acceleration , jumping intersections and hilltops, and scaring most stock motorcycle riders half to death. I think about running away from cops, from other bikes, about chasing people down and doing battle in traffic , always on that ragged edge of control, always going way too fast for the situation, always loud, always dangerous, always operating beyond normal standards, the motors always on the brink of exploding, transmissions one bad shift away from catastrophic failure, violent, scary, destructive power, barely contained and harnessed.”

You see? That is the sort of visceral overload I am looking for on a motorcycle. And no motorcycle can give that to me unless it is a well built, Attack Chopper.

But, I hear you saying:
“Can I not satisfy my visceral desires just as easily with a brand new sportbike, or any stock high performance motorcycle?
“Why go to the trouble to build a chopper in the first place?”
Because you cannot get the same visceral satisfaction with a sport bike that you can with a properly built and functioning attack chopper.

Choppers deliver a level of visceral sensation that is beyond the smooth and polished precision of a sewing machine on nitrous oxide.
It’s like a Merlin motor from a P-51 Mustang instead of a jet turbine.
Sure they both go fast…. but they are worlds apart in how they make power.
You get the sensation of speed, acceleration and horsepower in a very detached, glossed over, sanitized, shrink wrapped sort of way on a sport bike.
On an attack chopper, it’s like having a seat on the front row at the birth of horsepower… you feel the explosions in the cylinders, you feel the vibrations in your teeth, you feel the sound waves hitting your chest. It’s like the Space shuttle, dynamite at the rock quarry, the NHRA Nitro top fuel dragsters, the original 427 powered Ford GT-40, monster trucks., WWII Planes, supercharged big blocks, and guns.
And attack choppers have that same adrenalin dripping visceral punch to them. You don’t process that sensation with your mind… you process it with your gut, with your adrenal gland.
Sportbikes promise visceral performance that will melt your pleasure receptors, but deliver nothing for me.
YES… I can go accelerate fast.
YES… I can go around corners fast.
YES… I can stop quickly. (sometimes)
And YES… I am bored out of my mind with them.
All of this performance that they promise me is not realized on the street.
Speed?
Sure, but not the visceral performance that I crave.
Sportbikes are designed to perform on the sterile, perfect conditions of the track. Dry, smooth, banked, cleaned, perfect, wide, washed, beautiful, carefully planned out and poured pavement.
Places where there are no stop lights, where there are no crazy old women in K-cars and minivans.
No road damage, no gravel, no mud, no antifreeze or oil spills, no lane divisions, no oncoming traffic, no road construction and no road debris. Where you are trained and expected to lock the rear tire up once and while and you know what it is coming. Where you have run off areas and piles of tires to help protect you.
And a sportbike is designed for that application… the rake and trail are not conducive to much riding on anything that isn’t perfect.
I don’t know about you, but gravel and dirt are a regular part of my choppers diet around here.
Sportbikes are horrible on gravel.
How about when you come home, and you need to get you bike into the garage, or up on the porch and there is a car parked in your path. Your roommate/wife/friend/enemy/girlfriend parked without thinking of you… so you are forced to cut across the wet grass to get your bike put away… sportbikes suck in this situation.
Snow?
Ha… do I even need to talk about it?
Oil slicks, spilled water, antifreeze… things that terrify me on a sportbike… but with the Attack choppers low center of gravity, low weight, the right rake and trail…slippery surfaces become nothing more than a slightly different and fun way to get from one place to another.

So, you may agree with me at this point that you are seeking your visceral satisfaction in the package known as the chopper… but you aren’t sure about it working properly and functioning like a great motorcycle.
And that is totally understandable. Look at the examples you have been given for the last 30 years!
Let’s face facts: You have been told like everyone else … that choppers are long, spindly, fragile, unwieldy, goofy, ill conceived, badly executed death traps that are only slightly classier than Jed Clampet’s truck.
But, over the years there HAVE been exceptional bikes, and exceptional people who would not settle for a non-working rigid framed chopper. They are out there… I have done my best to show you all examples and to talk about the heroes of the faith on this very blog.
And right now, today… there are more of us than ever before. You have brethren, you have support, you are not alone, and you can find help and guidance.
But you must stand up and be counted. You must not be quiet, you must not let people tell YOU how badly your bike works, you must not be stereotyped as a non-thinking, mediocre, illogical, burnt out, redneck just because that person has never ridden a REAL attack chopper and experienced for themselves how well a rigid framed attack chopper can work!
So what are you going to do about it? Are you just going to sit there and mope about it? Or are you going dust off your calculators and start thinking and building carefully and creatively?
The greater the challenge the greater the glory.
The greatest men you can think of have all become great because of their response to a great challenge.
The road to enlightenment is not the wide and easy path… but the narrow and difficult.
But you can prevail. You can succeed. You can triumph. You can overcome. You can rise above… why am I so sure you ask?
Because you are the new race of Chopper building men.
We have built bad choppers that didn’t work for far too long. And we were divided and spread out by hordes of mediocre builders and cable shows. We have been alone and persecuted. But now we are united for a single cause:
To build the best functioning choppers we possibly can.
You posses a mind that is superior to all other mammals.
You are a creature of logic and reason.
BUT… we still are creatures who crave massive visceral input.
I crave having my senses overloaded by sensation and physical forces.
I lust after that feeling...that feeling that I am having FUN… not simply using a vehicle for transportation to another location at a high rate of speed.
I need the violence and brutality of an Attack Chopper … rather than the electric smoothness of a sportbike. Ayn Rand once said:
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed only with their own vision.”
So what is your vision my friend?
Is it to build a bike to get you down to the bar to get drunk?
Is it to build a bike to pick up chicks?
Is it to build a bike to be the coolest guy at your toy runs by virtue that it’s the only non-stock bike there?
Is it to build a bike that looks good and wins bike show trophies?
Is it to build a bike that is lower or longer than your buddy just to one up him?
Is it to build a bike to fit in with the other chopper riders in your town?
Is it to build a bike to stand out from the other chopper riders in your town?
These are all visions I have heard told to me by teary eyed riders as they share their deepest desires with me.
At which point I always stand tall, look them square in the eye and with as much contempt I can muster say:
“Let me tell you about MY vision. I see myself building the nastiest, lightest, hardest, fastest, most performance minded, most capable, most terrifyingly awesome rigid framed slice of death that I can possibly achieve within my means and my mental powers. I see myself flying everywhere jumping intersections, drifting corners, wheelieing past cops and sportbikes, taunting cars, taunting other riders, lanesplitting, doing burnouts, going 100 plus mph blasting down gravel roads, mud roads, across sand, and even snow.
But above all... I see myself blowing your lame chopper off the road.”

So, get out there and make it count people.
Life is too short to ride lame bikes.
Get out there and don’t settle for lame trashed springers, heavy parts, long front ends , 21” front wheels that have no solid performance backing up their existence.
Don’t tolerate bad brakes, or no brakes, poorly tuned motors, pipes that are merely made to look cool, bad riding positions, high centers of gravity, antiquated tire designs, no ground clearance, heavy batteries and starters, and things tacked on merely for “good looks”.
Never stop until your vision is achieved. Never compromise. Never let anyone tell you what your bike should be like or look like. Never let them tell you that a chopper can’t work, that it is all about looks, or that your chopper can’t handle, stop or go fast.
We are not the mediocre. The lame. The unthinking. The trend followers. The fashion conscious. The stupid. The second raters.
We are the elite.
We are the Attack chopper shock troops.
Now get out there and start chopping.


Photo of Jasin Phares taken by Adam Wright. Taken from the Church or Choppers blog.

My thanks goes out to Tom Rose and Flynch for their consulting services on this one!
You guys rule!

Aesthetics and the Attack Chopper

At this point I should probably address a fear that I may have left you all with.
You may be rather worried about what your Attack Chopper may look like if you toss aesthetics to the wind and merely concentrate on performance.
Well, never you mind. Attack choppers can be STUNNINGLY gorgeous motorcycles. And not only look good, but have very unique and special aesthetic that cannot be matched by any other kind of custom motorcycle.

To paraphrase Ayn Rand:
A chopper can have integrity just like a person, and just as seldom.
In what way you ask?
Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the chopper needs it- and for no other reason.
The major components make the shape.
The relation of the masses was determined by the space require to mount those major components and to space them apart so that they function properly.
The decoration was determined by the method of construction, an emphasis of the principles that make it work. You can see each stress, each support that meets it. Your own eyes go through a structural process when you look at the chopper, you can follow each step, you see it being built, and you know what makes it work and why it works.

But you’ve seen bikes with tubes that support nothing, with purposeless trinkets attached, with covers, louvers, cup holders, tassels, false rocker boxes, false kickers and other various gee-gaws.
As useless as the crystal poodle menagerie on your grandmas shelf.
Do you understand the difference?
A proper Attack chopper is made by its own needs.
Those other bikes are made by a need to impress.
The determining motive of an Attack Chopper is the rider and the environment it is ridden in.
The other bikes determining motive is in their audience.”

Seek function over form… and the form will come naturally, and it will be attractive.
Sure you still need to think carefully about each individual part and make sure it works with the rest of the bike aesthetically… but you will find that many of the major decisions will be made for you by function.
Handlebars will be chosen not by looks, but by function.
Pegs are where they are because they need to be… not because you want to look cool.
Parts look the way they look because they are strong and light… not because they needed more surface area to chrome, or because you wanted to hide a battery behind it, or to cover something up to make it look smooth.

And it isn’t just integrity in aesthetics. Or truth in design.
It’s about practical, concrete, absolute truth.
Truth or integrity in custom motorcycles may be a foreign concept to most of you, but whether or not you realize it you respond to it on a subconscious level. We all do.
Truth use to be universally appealing to everyone.
In the days of modern and pre modern though… truth was considered both obtainable AND desirable.
We now live and mostly post modern world where truth is viewed as NEITHER desirable nor obtainable.
But many of us still desire truth.
And the Attack Chopper is the most truthful of all the variations on the custom motorcycle.
The Attack Chopper philosophy is rooted firmly in truth.
The absolute truth of performance.
You can’t lie about whether your bike works well or not when you are pushing it as hard as you possibly can, when it’s at its limit. It’s handling limit, its acceleration limit, its braking limit, its top speed limit, any limit… you can’t lie.
You come face to face with the truth.
The question is: Is my bike good enough?
There is no relativity here. No subjectiveness… it is succeed or fail.
When that question is asked is your bike going to be found wanting?
We aren’t talking about merit for your chopper based on beliefs, feelings, or opinions of any person or group here… we are talking about factual, scientific reality:
DOES IT WORK?
CAN YOU GO FAST?
CAN YOU STOP?
CAN IT HANDLE?
WIL YOU DIE WHEN YOU RIDE IT FAST?
When you build a bike that can function as we have stated here… then you are dealing with truth.
Your bike has merit, TRULY… no matter what anyone believes, hopes, wishes, or feels.
This is the concrete and real not the fluid, relative, or subjective.
We are dealing with facts here people.
A real way of evaluating your bikes value and merit… based on performance.
Not the sway of the masses or of the style of the month.
You must determine YOUR absolute performance standards and YOU must meet them with all the powers at your disposal.
All that you have been told says that you are foolish to attempt to build a chopper that works like a real motorcycle.
But all that you have been told ALSO says that you need to go get a loan and start making payments on your dream bike: a brand new sportbike.

And we all know that’s a lie, now don’t we?

Random inspirational bikes

Cool shots stolen from the Chico Moto blog.
Good blog.
Go there.
http://chicomoto.blogspot.com/

Random inspirational bikes

land speed drop seat Jap chopper.
(I dont care for drop seat frames on the street at all...but on a top speed salt bike I can understand.)

Random awesome photos.

Photos from Pangea speed blog!
http://blog.pangeaspeed.com/
Lets hear it for beating on your rigid framed chopper!

Music

Ok, this is not normal for the blog, but I thought I would just throw this out there.
I dig a LOT of different music. From one end of the spectrum to the other.
And I do end up listening to some Hip hop and rap from time to time.
Not a lot of it really gets me that excited. It all sounds the same most of the time... weak rhymes and lack of creativity really annoy me.
But I found a great unsinged artist the other day and thought I would pass the link along.
The guy has some serious chops.

Mispronouncer.
http://www.myspace.com/prefixadim
I would recommend you start with "Negotiations break down".

Don't worry... I won't be doing music reviews very often.

Random inspirational bikes

Ok, folks... my memory is going, and it's been a REAL busy week. My posts have been suffering. People have been correcting me right and left.. (did you catch that one where I called an Evo a Knucklehead? Man, I dont' know WHAT happened there. I plead insanity.)
Anyway, my mind has been on vacation this last 20 posts or so... I have been losing track of where I have been finding shots and forgetting who I am, ect., ect.

So I can't recall where I found this shot. Mulligan Machine, Slice and dice customs, ebay?
Who knows. You just go check everybody's blog out OK?

Bottom line is this: I like it. And I can't remember where I got it.

You might notice a few more XS choppers on here lately.
That's because I have been getting closer to getting started on my next XS chopper.
Well, I got a email from Flynch this week, and he offered to sell me back my old XS chopper that I sold him years ago.
So, I guess once I round up the cash for it, I will be WAAAYYYY ahead of schedule and I will have a new project!
So, I have been looking at more Xs pics lately and they have ended up on here.

So.... all that just to say:
I like this project shot a lot.

Tight, tight little chopper project.

Random inspirational bikes

A Jesse James chopper in a CFL II "square tube" frame.

Random inspirational bikes

Swiped these from Mulligan Machine also. (Thanks!) This one used to be a de-raker, but it appears to have been redone.

Before:



After:

One of my brothers in the NFK went down yesterday.

JoyToy went down. Still waiting to hear from MotoYan exactly what happened, but he did say that he is ok.
Not sure about his bike however.
Best wishes brother. Heal up quick.