Happy Thanksgiving

Project What's the Rush

Finally broke my builders block and settled in on bar design, tank style, and headlight size and placement on the '68 stroker long bike! 

I have the sissy bar basically finished and mounted the nice and thick Throttle Additction ribbed fender which let me roll it off the lift for a good on the ground mock up session. Now I gotta build the actual tank, finish the bars using a Cro Customs top clamp, put my thinking cap on and figure out rake and trail and build some rockers for the 18 over springer so it won't be heavy to steer. The seat on here is from my other shovel but will be in the same vain. Excited to make exhaust pipes, maybe I'll do em in stainless this time. Getting there! 

Before "The Blob"

I can't get the old Indian Chief I ran across here in rural NY off my mind.  Much poking around the internet has made me realize that chopped Chiefs aren't worth as much or as coveted as their Knucklehead counterparts of the era, but man, they're still really cool.

While researching chopped Chiefs I ran across a great article about Steve McQueen's bike "The Blob".  I'm sure that many of you are aware of this, but it turns out that McQueen's bike was actually a clone.  A gentleman named JD owned (and maybe still owns) the original version and McQueen tried to buy it from him, but he was unwilling to sell it, so McQueen just had him build a replica.  The rest is history. 

I don't want to paraphrase the original author's words, so please take a look here if you're interested in learning more.  With the red on the tank and the flatter fender, I like JD's bike just a little more than the version he built for McQueen, but both are still very cool.

 

Wild

We're getting our new house put together enough where I can start to unpack some of the boxes labeled "cool stuff".  Inbetween a humidor full of dried out Cuban cigars and my Wind-Up Bumble Boxers, I found this old Cycle Guide.

Every time I see a bike like this one featured in an old magazine I smile.  The die hadn't been cast for custom bikes back then - guys were just trying weird stuff and doing their thing. 

These days we have a lot of great reference material to work from, and there are tried and true recipes to build a killer bike from.  I'm not saying that makes it easier - it's still hard and takes a lot of fortitude (and money), but the guy who built the combo below - he was cooking from scratch and you can bet there was some Canabutter in his recipe.

far out stuff

I stumbled upon this real far out knucklehead and some more cool pans and and panel paint jobs built/painted by

Memo Ortega HERE

pretty neat, haven't seen it before.