Bars Back in STOCK!!!!

At LOOOOONG last we have the old NOISE Narrow Apes back in stock! They have a new name, FMA #2 Bars, but are still made in the USA and are available in raw mild steel or polished stainless steel. They have a nice comfortable 8-inch rise and are super narrow in the base, for risers with 3.5-inch center to center measurement only!
CLICK HERE to buy. 


Our friend Wil has had these on his Panhead for some time now(which also features a Harpoon Paint job and an FMA Velocity Stack).

tonight in Long Beach

Go to Tubb's new joint!

Street CHopper Party this Saturday

Head out to LA Speedshop on Saturday for the release of the new issue of Street CHopper. If you can't find a copy near you check out Lowbrow Customs, they stock it now!

New Hats!

man....been busy and sick, sorry for the absense, BUT we have something new to throw at you! We did our SPLITTING LANES IS NOT A CRIME design on hats! put it on your dome and let everyone know...choose either a white or black panel mesh hat, $20 each and like always every order gets stickers! CLICK HERE to order.

Sendai Update

i have been emailing back and forth with some of our friends in Japan since the earthquake and while most everyone we know is in the Tokyo area and west in Nagoya and Osaka, we've been anxiously waiting word from Sendai. Rikiya Katsuta (the owner of the shovelhead on the right in the photo) sent me a couple of email updates. Lucky for him, he lives in Tokyo near another friend of ours, Gaku Yokomizo from Hawgholic, and had been despiratly trying to reach Daisuke Miura (on the left of me) who built Rikiya's shovelhead at Cosmic in Sendai. this morning i woke up to another email from Rikiya saying he he found out Daisuke and also Osamu-san are ok. Their shop is in great disorder from the earthquake, but that them and their families are ok.

With all devastation in north east Japan and with thousands dead, it's good to know that at least a few that you know are ok. That's not to say that they don't have one hell of a road to go down from here to get back to some sort of normal. It's too bad that this kind of tragedy is what it takes for us to think more about those that are close to us and just how delicate life is.

I am lucky to come from a big family that apparently has good genes, we live a ling time and suffer from little to non-existent genetic troubles. My only problem is that i have been the better part of a thousand miles away from my family for over a decade now...following all my crazy hopes and dreams...which has worked for me for the most part, but the distance of family is the greatest cost. i am lucky to have great friends who i have considered my stand-in family for most of this time and think nothing of it now. I am coming close to having spent more holidays with friends both old and new than with my blood family which we usually connect via the phone during these times, but as some of the elder family members like my grand parents get older ( i think the 3 remaining are all in their 90's and grandpa John would still be with us i'm sure if it weren't for one reckless drunk driver in the early 1980s...

Anyway, make a call, write a letter, send an email, print a photo out and send it, flowers, etc to some of those you love. you can't take it with you, all these pictures on blogs, internet, crap in your garage, etc, because he who dies with the most toys is DEAD.

THis is all the more reason to be as passionate about what you love while you can, learn as much as possible, see the world because even language is a small barrier when you find a common ground with people halfway across the world.
I may have mentioned in some post before about feeling at an early age that i already wouldn't have enough time in life to do everything i wanted (even back when i was 16 or 17) let alone now that i am 31. Life is too short to be angry, to be jealous, to squander your time here in negativity. That to me is the biggest tragedy of all, wasting the most valuable thing you have that you didn't cost you anything.

Anyway, i am probably pretty far off base now, but we are all thinking about you in Japan.

Twenty-five bucks gets you this:

Get your poster/ticket HERE, what are you waiting for? This thing is NICE~~!!!
Turn it up!

Sendai City

I woke up to texts wondering if we in California were ok and not having TV for a couple of years now i wondered why and the replys told me about the threat of a sunami from a huge quake in Japan. News to me! so i hoped my crappy blackberry would find it's way to the internet while i was lay in bed this moring and read about the 8.9 quake that rocked Sendai City.

i imediatley thought about all our friends in Japan which are mostly in the Tokyo area and then out west in Nagoya. Sent some emails to them and luckily everyone says they are fine so far, but as Gaku from Hogholic told me, the city is chaos right now. I asked Gaku if he knew of anything from Rikiya of Cosmic CHoppers up in Sendai City and am still waiting to hear. Riki is one of the few people i know up in that area along with Shop Sam's and i can only hope for their safety. I met him at this last years Yokohama show and we talked for a while about things before i gave him and the bike my STREET CHOPPER MAGAZINE pick.
Hang in there guys, and let us know if you need anything....

THe Doctor is in

Ha, just found these pics i took at the Chino Fab shop one sunny day last year during the Born-Free Panhead build. Mr. Mike Davis doing it to it on this little guy, good form.
I was kinda hoping he'd use the first one as a header for his BLOG, but guess he didn't like it...or was being too humble and didn't want to make everyone jealous of his sweet moves.

stuff in stock

We have more Knucklehead rocker tin CORK gaskets in stock! These gaskets have always been made of thin paper which might have been fine over 70 years ago when Harley first came out with the knucklehead, but for those with motors still kickin we have these made out of high quality gasket grade cork to help stop those pesky leaks! Like all FMA parts these are made in the USA and are $40 a set. CLICK HERE TO BUY

Also, we have our Splitting Lanes is Not a Crime shirts in BLACK! A few mediums, larges, and XLs for now. We're doing more next week...sorry no pics on black, but you get the idea...CLICK for FMA online STORE

 

Born Free Knucklehead is almost done!

Spent my lunch hour checking in at the Garage Company where Kiyo is just about done with the Born-Free Knucklehead giveaway bike! Can't believe how nice and how quick it has come together! I am real happy not to be thrashing to finish it by Saturday...
All that is left is the tank which is probably there by now, A little more wiring, gas, and to light it off tomorrow. Harpoon is going to pinstripe it at the party for all to see and then it'll be ready to do wheelies down the 405!

Doctor Davis and Kiyo try the new seat on for size

Remember if you buy two or more poster/ticket combos between now and 7pm on saturday night you could take home the Lowbrow Customs Alien tank painted by Harpoon, see you at the Garage Company or buy your stuff HERE
The Garage Company is located at 956 W. Hyde Park BLVD, Inglewood, CA 90302

Greetings from Italy

Our pal Cyrus sends these in from Italy. Gotta be the only guy living on the boot to have a Crazy Franks fender. Dig his blog here

http://roadcrewfirenze.blogspot.com

My Brother

Is rockin the new shirt having a good time for all of us right now.

FMA knows how

To make an S&S carb look good

1947 WL custom

I have been going through older pictures and decided i going to do a few posts on some bikes i have built in the past the first bike i ever built is this 1947 WL. I built this bike in the summer of 2007 at Four Aces cycles. This bike meant alot for me. It was the first project bike that i had purchased with the idea of doing a full build on. Wes at Four Aces was asked to build a bike for the Horse's smoke out west build off and we decided that i would do this bike for it. The best part of this build was that i was able to meet someone who since has become one my closest friends, Frank Kaisler. He helped me so much with this bike, which in turn became the basis of all of the knowledge i've used to build my other bikes. The bike is a stock 47 WL motor and frame. The neck on the frame was raked quite a bit and with the stock length 45 springer the bike sits super low. Which looks great, but it wasnt great for riding. The trans is an early 50's rigid frame triumph 4 speed, it also uses a set of primarys from the same era triumph, that to me made the bike. To go with the mix of harley and triumph i made a carb adaptor to use an Amal carb. The bike was full of other little cool bits and pieces and the paint job was done by NickOteen. The bike is now somewhere over in japan.

For Mike Davis

do it in the dirt

CycleLodge update

Slaved away another day at the ol' Cyclelodge. Getting there, got a long to-do list for tomorrow...

blog jam...

Been working on getting the Cyclelodge fully operational...tired...too tired to be witty...was hoping to be in bed by now...don't even care that it is saturday night...getting up early to do it all over again....if you were one of the many patiently waiting for your FMA order, they went out today priority mail....thanks for hangin in there. The move threw a wrench in our shipping department AKA me and Clyde and Clyde did more sleeping than packing...

SHovster from the GNRS

Party Time! March 12 @ the Garage CO!

Hey kiddies tune up your old sled, Civic, or rollerskates, it doesn't matter how you get there (but riding is good!) come to the Garage Company in LA (956 Hyde Park Blvd. Inglewood CA. 90302) during the afternoon/evening on Saturday March 12 because we will be unveiling the Born-Free 3 1946 FL Harley Knucklehead Chopper which will be brand spankin new! The bike is just about done as i type so you can come see it completed in person and check out the awe inspiring Garage Company, plus there will be refreshments and food provided by our gracious host Yoshi.

PLUS! if you didn't hear elsewhere, if you buy two or more Born-Free 3 Knucklehead posters w/tickets between now and the party, you'll be entered to win a Lowbrow Customs Alien tank painted by Harpoon! We'll be pulling tickets for this at the party. You don't even have to be present to win the tank. But remember you must be at Born-Free 3 on June 25, 2011 to take home the knucklehead!
See you soon!

ipod help............

I have lost more hard drives and motherboards in my computer over the years, but my ipod holds true (knock on wood...). This means i have very little music on my actual iTunes, it's all on my iPod. My question is this, How do i get stuff off my ipod easily? To not only access it but to also back it up. Any help would be good...EDIT! Problem solved! Read below.

EDIT!!!!

WINNER! I had a ton of emails about this subject, thanks everyone! Frank Guerrero sent a simple free solution that actually worked and is all done without downloading or buying anything. THis is for a PC (which i have). 

Frank writes:

 After you've loaded Itunes onto your system you will need to plug in your Ipod. In Itunes click on your Ipod which will show up on the left hand side of Itunes. You should see a bunch of tabs, the first being Summary. This is the Tab I want you to look at. Underneath the "Check for Update" and "Restore" buttons are your options. I normally only have "Open ITunes When this iPod is connected" and "Manually manage music" and "Enable disk use." The "Enable disk use" will need to be checked in order to work. You may need to uncheck manually manage music in order for Enable disk use to not be greyed out. Once you've enabled disk use your Ipod is now seen by your computer as a hard drive.This is where all of your Ipod settings and music is kept. I must mention that I'm only dealing with a PC and not a Mac. I'm not familiar with Mac's. Double click on my computer and you should see your Ipod's name and a drive letter next to it. Double click on it and then double click on iPod_Control. You will see folders but we are only interested in the folder titled "Music." This folder contains all of the music on you Ipod. Right click on that folder and copy. Find a location and paste this folder onto your system. I would recommend placing it in your Itunes folder located under My Documents\My Music\iTunes. This is the default location where iTunes defaults to. Past the "Music" folder here. It may take a little while depending on how many Gigs of music you had. Once the copying process has completed you will need to right click on the "Music" folder and click on properties. The attributes at the bottom of the folder will probably be checked for Read only. Uncheck that and hit apply. It will ask if you want to apply changes to this folder only or to this folder,subfolders and files. Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files and click on ok. Click ok again and you will be out of the properties of the "Music" folder. Next you will need to open iTunes up and go to File>Add Folder to Library. Browse to My Documents\My Music\iTunes and double click on the "Music" folder. This should start importing all of your music off of your iPod and into your iTunes Library.
And as far as syncing your ipod and itunes library, just uncheck everything in your itunes library so it doesn't wipe your ipod.
Wow, simple and even worked. Once i hit copy i went to lunch and let it do its thing.
Thanks Frank!

Looking for a '47 knucklhead frame

Hey there in blogger land, a friend of ours is looking for a decent '47 Knucklhead bullneck frame, drop a line if you know of any...prefer something in socal, but not a deal breaker.

Tomorrow Night in Santa Ana, CA

If you are in the area, stop by the Memphis restaurant on Broadway between First and Second Street. Myself, and a few friends will be playing our favorite rock and roll records for you folks...there are food and drink specials...open late...no cover

I'll be playing everything from this:


to this:


to this:

Born-Free 3 Newz you can Uze

While we were at the Grand National Roadster Show a friend and coworker of mine named Dennis Pittsenbarger hit me up for an interview to tell people in the world of Hot Rod Magazine what Born-Free is all about, check it out!
For more footage of whats happening at Hot Rod, CLICK HERE

Remember for all the latest Born-Free news including some exciting promotions and show info, please tune into and bookmark the Born-Free Blog at www.bornfreeshow.com


Pay attention around the 1:25 mark for Mike Davis on the left in the background busting out the baby wipes.

More Asphalt Gods Books in

Get your copy of the second book in a series of 3...don't worry, number 1 isn't out yet, but will be soon! Once these babies are gone, they are dust!
CLICK HERE to buy yours. Each is signed and numbered. 

For those that don't know, this is a 77 page pictorial history of the Heathens Motorcycle Family from the '70s and '80s. Pictures came from original club members.

i have a little Canon G12 and have been tryin out the video on it...5 north bound

February chill

SOrry the rest of you have been freezing your buts off, but it's been pretty nice lately in the land of milk and honey...Poon, Jeff, and i had a few, good, fast miles yesterday. no superbowl, no tv, no drama, just simple fun.

the great outdoors

not sure what his name is yet, but we have a new mascott for the CycleLodge. Qute ain't he?

Thanks Hajime for the photo!
 

things that might have been...

you never know where a little light mock up will take you...

2 paintjobs

I completed ten paintjobs over the last year. it doesnt sound like much, but they are real hard to just crank out when you really care about the job, take your time and do the best work that you can. Here are two paintjobs that made their debut at the GNRS. Jeff Leightons 1938 Knucklehead "Violet Fantasy" and Chris Broders 1949 Chevy "Cyaneyed".

Violet Fantasy


About a year ago Jeff approached me about painting the ultimate mid-60's show chopper he was building. I gave him my input as to what he would need for that and he was down to compromise nothing. Down to completely ruin a real nice 56 straightleg with molding and metalflake.
I layed out a pattern on his tank and he made it happen in steel-the goal being that the molding would look like it was just part of the paintjob until you get up on it and see the concavity.

sometime during the course of the intense molding and metalflaking taking place i picked up a veiling gun(that i was looking for 12 years for) used it first on the triumph tank i sprayed for Shige, the big S behind all of mooneyes, and then used it to veil Jeff's entire frame tank and fender. what this gun does is spin the paint out in a spiral pattern-but it only works with modified lacquers-this is not cob-webbing.
after the veiling i fogged a purple kandy blend everywhere.
then the dished areas were sprayed in a murano pearl blend of magentas.

without really counting, Im gonna say that close to a gallon of clear went down on this job just to make everything nice, smooth and deep(plus countless hours of wetsanding)
special thanks goes out to my molding/polishing madman Gary Gastmeyer

Cyaneyed
then there is the 49 Chevy I painted for Chris Broders. It's too late tonite to talk about this now(seeing as how it became much more than just a paintjob) so dig these pictures and I'll make another post later all about the paint, the car, the client, the details, Larry Watson, Mox Miller, Dennis Rickleffs and the great job done by Circle City Hot Rods in building the car.

I grabbed these pix from Eric at Los Boulevardos from a link off the hamb. these guys really dig the custom cars built during the late 60's and it shows.

http://losboulevardos.blogspot.com/