2012 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

The 2012 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is almost here.

Are you ready?  Is your bike ready?  Is your girl ready?

Cause you gotta have all three hot and polished and ready to ride if you are going to Sturgis!

When:             August 6th thru 12th, 2012

Where:           Sturgis, South Dakota

They have a 2012 Sturgis Rally Guide Book and it’s available now here., they say you could search the entire internet for hours and hours and “you still won’t find all of the information contained within this guide…not even close.”  So get the Guide!!

Travel and lodging, visitor info with all of the restaurants, parks, everything is available on the Rally page.  They even have employment postings if you want to work the Sturgis Rally.

And get ready for all of the bikes and all of the hot girls.

And check out the 2011 results of the Bike Building Contest at Sturgis.  The ab solute best bikes get unveiled at Sturgis World Championship of Custom Bike Building!

Daytona Bike Week 2012

Image via Wikipedia

Daytona Bike Week 2012 is almost here.

Motorcycles motorcycles motorcycles.

Motorcycle heaven.

When:           March 9th – 18th

Where:          Daytona, Florida of course

Daytona is one of the biggest, baddest, wildest bike events each year.

Check the Master Event Calendar

Looking for a place to stay?  Here is a full list of hotels in Daytona and nearby.

And make sure you enter to win the Official 2012 Daytona Bike Week Bike!

This bike is worth $35,000 so make sure you ride it home.

Maybe because of the weather.  And the beach.  And the girls.

You often get a brief, cleansing downpour of Florida rain…and then that beautiful (humid) sunshine.

There’s a ton of bikers in Florida but the vibe is just different from Sturgis.  More accommodating to newbies and wannabes.

And more chicks.  Must be the weather.  More bikinis than in Sturgis too.

Sign up for the Official Newsletter.

You see every type of bike at Daytona.  Choppers, drag bikes, race bikes, vintage bikes, Rats….everything.  Japanese, Italian, British, German and of course good old American Steel

Don’t miss the Limpnickie Lot  Next-Gen motorcycle builders, and take part in Cathy’s  Help Ride on the 13th of March.

And the biggest Swap Meet I have even seen on March 16th.

Maybe you will run into some full-skirted Indian Chief, or beautiful old Henderson, or a bike I have never seen in person and am still searching for…a original Crocker.  Search under ever old palm tree out in that field.

I am a motorcycle nut and a history nut.  Do you know that between 1896 and 1953 there were like 250 American motorcycle manuafacturers?  And of those only Harley-Davidson remains.  It’s a good company and I am glad it lasted.  But I wish some of the others had made it thru.

Lots of Bike Week T-shirts and stuff..

Related articles

• Biketoberfest Fatalities Show Rise In Florida Motorcycle Passenger Fatalities; Lisa Levine, Fort Lauderdale Motorcycle Accident Attorney, Discusses Safety Concerns (prweb.com)
• Races at Daytona…in 1949! (motopreserve.wordpress.com)

The 32nd Annual Sweetheart Run

Image via Wikipedia

On February 12th, the 32nd Annual Sweetheart Run exploded thru the hills aove Sacramento.  Different types of motorcycles were seen and heard as riders participated in the Annual Valentines run.

The link aove will take you to some great photos in the Sacramento Bee.  You can buy individual photos from the Bee.

That’s a beautiful Indian!!

Hundreds of motorcycle riders took part in the run from Auburn with a ride to Georgetown and to Coloma.  This ride through California‘s gold country is beautiful even on a foggy winter day.

Riders were encouraged to ring or sign Valentines which will go to veterans at the Reno VA Hospital, Mather VA Hospital and Auburn VA Clinic.

Valentines will also e included in packages being mailed to active-duty service members in Afghanistan.

The Sweetheart run egan in 1989 with just 7 riders.  Last year 2,000 participated.

Custom Built Motorcycles

This post is a DRAFT until I say so.  Why?  Cuz I said so.

Custom built motorcycles.

Who doesn’t love custom motorcycles.  Choppers, Cafe Racers, Drag Racers, Bobbers, E-VOs, Rats.  I love ’em all.  I wish I owned one of each!  And I wish I could build my very own custom chopper.

That was my plan when I retired.  Build a bike like I want and save the money that labor costs.  A sweet cafe racer or chopper.

Then I got sick and injured and haven’t gotten back to a healthy spot that would allow me to build my dream.  But I still have the dream.

If you have the $35,000 to $100,000 that custom bikes cost…sweet!

HERE is a great list of custom motorcycle builders across the U.S.  It’s a great list of some really top-tier builders.  You will recognize a lot of the shop names on the Custom Cut List.  The list was posted to Twitter by @TheBarHopper1

If you want to build a motorcycle check out this list of Things to Consider from the good folks at motorcycleinsurance.com and @ToddHalterman.

 

Roger Goldammer: Motorcycle Builder

Roger Goldammer, Motorcycle Builder.

I’m not sure what happened to Goldammer.  From 2004 thru 2008 Goldammer lived at the very top of the motorcycle builders world.

He won three World Championships in a row.

He set world speed records on Bonneville riding his own creations.

Goldammer was known for his “futuristic” creations meaning that no one else was building bikes that could compete with his.

Goldammer’s Biker Build-off creation went up against the infamous Matt Hotch.  He won the speed contest and took home the trophy.

I really liked his bikes which showed the strength of influence from early boardtrack racers.

This gallery of pics off Goldammer’s bikes includes my favorite—“Trouble”, which won the 2005 builder-judged AMD Bike Show.

Goldammer’s bikes won nearly every type of trophy and championship possible.

How many builders win design contests, futuristic designs, builder judged Build-offs”, television build-offs, Las Vegas and AMD Bike Fest Championships, set Bonneville land-speed records…and on and on.

The Vancouver Motorcycle Show 2012

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1324331373.html

The 2012 Vancouver Motorcycle show is scheduled for:

January 19th thru January 22nd, 2012

Straight.com says

“Although the weather says otherwise, January means motorcycles in B.C. Specifically, the Vancouver Motorcycle Show, which takes place from next Thursday to Sunday (January 19 to 22) at the Tradex Centre in Abbotsford. As well as the usual array of new bikes, ATVs, clothing, and accessories, there will be other attractions such as a vintage-bike display, a stunt-rider show courtesy of the Westcoast Freestyle Stunt Team, touring seminars, a She Rides get-together for female riders, dynamometer shootouts, bike giveaways, and live music.”

How much??          $13 for Adults—$30 for the 4 day pass

$8 for youth, 8-15 years old

for more choices follow the link below

And you can buy your tix online HERE

It’s a very big show with more than 34,000 in attendance in 2011

Traveling to Vancouver?  The show hotel is the Best Western Regency Inn & Conference Center.  $95.99 (Canadian) for rooms .  Make reservations by January 17th to get the preferred rate of $95.99.    1-800-771-3077    or 604-853-3111 ext 436, and quote group code 605155

The Straight.com site has a list of many of the cool & interesting bikes you can expect to see.

 

 

Motorcycle Build-Off: Orange County Choppers vs Paul Junior Designs vs Jesse James West Coast Choppers

Television gives us a new motorcycle build-off to end 2011:

Who?      Orange County Choppers (OCC) with Paul Teutul Senior, Paul Junior Designs (PJD) with Paul Teutul Junior and West Coast Choppers with Jesse James.

When?    Monday and Tuesday, December 5th & 6th  9 pm both nights

Where?   Discovery Channel

December 5th the three will build their individual bikes and you can vote for your favorite.

December 6th will be a live show in Las Vegas and the winning bike will be revealed.

This event is on the Discovery Channel and the American Chopper series,  which didn’t invent motorcycle shows but certainly helped make them famous and set off the biker build-off events and shows of various stripes with the help of the King and the Mayor, Jesse James who did invent bike building television.

The Teutul’s got locked into building theme bikes, some really good-looking theme bikes for like the last twelve years.  But the show became all about Senior getting red in the face screaming at Junior.  That’s all the show really was until Senior fired Junior.  He seems to forget that he fired his own son (again) and says that Paul junior “left” or “got laid off”  or “forgot to come back to work”, but he fired Junior.

And after a year during which Paul Senior and OCC prevented Junior from being able to build a motorcycle, the Discovery Channel eventually promoted a Sr vs Jr build-off which Junior won handily and the Discovery Channel pretty much ignored.  Seems they had all their chips riding on Senior.

So now we have a three-way build-off.  Sounds interesting because PJD then builds some nice bikes and we have Jesse James….a real bike builder, in the mix.

I’m not sure what OCC is building.  They seem to spend most of their time on the show bad-mouthing Junior.  How long can you do that and what does it have to do with building quality bikes?

Jesse will bad-mouth them both, but he really is a bad boy.  Junior isn’t but doesn’t try to be.  Senior tries to be but it doesn’t fit.

My guess??  It will be PJD vs Jesse with OCC there for some color and trouble-making.

The winner?  Could go either way, but I think PJD could sneak a win here as the underdoggie.

We will be back here for the December 5th show and the December 6th unveiling in my 2nd home, Las Vegas.

I wish they would let the History Channel’s Danny ‘Count’ Koker join in on this building frenzy/fun.  That would make for a show.

Jesse James and West Coast Choppers

When it comes to bikes how can you not be a Jesse James fan?  For fabrication skills alone both Tuetuls should be scared cuz JJ will not take a back seat.  He planned from the start to fabricate every single piece of metal and frame by himself.  And that means manual machines.  No pretty-boy machinery in this shop.

Check out his photos from the build HERE   Nice bike.  I sure miss the old Monster Garage days.

A Frisco machine in all its’ glory.  Do you know the Frisco bikes?  Check out this article.  It explains how geography often determines a bike building style.  Car building too but thi is about bikes.

And definitely view the interview with Trevelen.  Besides being a bike-building genius the man know and lives his history.  Right on bbrother T.

And so it is that the old Frisco bikes became the West Coast choppers style all the way.

Paul Teutul Jr and PJD

Paulie was always much more skilled than Senior gave him credit for on the show.  I guess partly because it was a storyline in the show or partly because of Sr’s screwed up behavior.  But he learned to design and build some nice machines.  And even better ones at PJD as early as it still is.

Check his photos from the build HERE

Paul Sr and OCC

Nice show, getting old after a decade even with the split.  Lots of talented peeps here though but the “theme” focus limits their growth.  Must be hard to work at OCC.  Where else can you get the opportunity to build a lot of bikes, get on TV, make tons of money and get a rep of your own.  And it tastes so good you can’t leave even though you hate to go to work each day?

Check the OCC Build pics HERE

December 5th:

Jesse James is bringing out the big guns for tonights show

Have you been watching this all fucking day long American Chopper marathon?

I have been in and out all day, but each time I make it in the TV room the Teutul’s are still on.  That’s what more than a decade of TV shows will do.  plus how it would screw with your head.

I will watch tonight and tomorrow though, because I want to see the bikes…

Two nice bikes and one…whata-ya-call-it.  I like the OCC wuteva but it’s not a motorcycle.

So it’s between PJD and JJ.

JJ may be even a little crazier now but there were some funny ass moments.

I follow Jesse on Twitter but somehow I missed the video parody on Jr.  Too funny.

I like PJDs bike a lot.  The look is amazing  and there is only one thing I don’t care much for—the wood in the wheels.  I get it and it fits the theme.  To me it almost looks more like an old wood boat but that’s just me.

Jesse’s bike is sweet.  I would love to ride it.  And that red is amazingly deep.

Vote HERE

December 7th:

In case you missed it…

the winning bike was by Paul Jr Designs (PJD).  I didn’t watch the entire show last night had some other stuff going on but I did pick the winner after seeing all three machines.  check the link above.
All three were good builds but all were so different from design perspective all the way to technical build that it is almost ahmeful to pick one over the other.
I have to hand it to the OCC crew for coming up with something like their Track machine.  Amazing, didn’t think they had this in them.
And it is great to see the Mayor Jesse James building motorcycles again.  This is where he belongs and he built one sweet machine.  Plus he has grown up enough he admitted his ego got in the way a bit.  If he had realized this a bit earlier he might have won.
And nice job Paul Jr and the crew for another Discovery Channel Build-off win.
Now maybe we can stop these contrived Sr vs Jr bullshit buildoffs.  If Sr can’t admit what his son can do (win?) then take him off television.  His shit got old 4 years ago.
Good job to the metal boys and engine tuners on each team!!!

Here is an article from Inside TV.  Big TV ratings for the show especially last night (Part 2) so we can probably expect more of these contrivances.  It’s the 2nd highest rated episode EVER in the 10+ year history of the show.  So…

The article has some good full-size photos for you.

Guns and Motorcycles

Guns and Motorcycles.

They go together like….well, like guns and motorcycles.

Not all motorcycle lovers like guns, but many of us appreciate the art and craftsmanship of both products.

And, of course, there are some who take it further.

Like Sickshooter Motorcycle Parts.  Sickshooter builds and sells parts and many have a gun theme so you can outfit your ride with items like Gun Foot Pegs.

They build their custom pegs for Harley, Honda, Yamaha and others.  They have recently reduced their prices for these pegs.

Other Sickshooter products include:  50 Caliber Shift Peg, 32 Cal Valve Stem Caps, 6 shooter Barends and more.

Check out the parts catalog here.

9/11 Memorial Motorcycle Rides In California

Here are some of the 9/11 Memorial Rides in California for 2011:

The 10th Annual 9/11 Freedom Ride in Visalia

This is a free ride from Visalia to Morrow Bay, California.  The ride starts at 9 am sharp.

For more information: cvninjutsu@comcast.net or jpwilfong@yahoo.com

The 9/11 Cal-Vet Home Ride

This ride is in Canoga Park.  $15 to $25 per person. 10 am to 3 pm.

Please contact for more information:
-818.999.3355

Perry Rich / James Wilfong
Email Motorcycle Event Organizer

Kern River Ride, September 9-11,  Kernville

This is a free old school ride along the beautiful Kern River.  Tent camping is preferred.

1759 W. Ave. J 12, Kernville, CA

More info is at this link.

End of Summer Run, Hesperia

This ride benefits veterans thru the Wounded Warrior Project, the Barstow Veterans Home and the Children’s Ward at the Baloa Naval Hospital.

9-10-11  (Saturday) From: 12:00 PM, To: 05:00 PM

More info:  Brian  760-885-5509  Email Motorcycle Event Organizer

Sweetwater Motorcycle Swap, National City

11-Sep-2011 (Sunday) From: 09:00 AM, To: 03:00 PM

3201 Hoover Ave, National City, CA

This is not a memorial ride, but I am listing it for you folks in Southern California anyway.

 

More Motorcycle Blogs & Sites

You know I love choppers (actually most bikes) and hot rods, well here are a few more blogs & websites for you to check out.

The World Of Motorcycles

Vintage motorcycles, sport & racing motorcycles and custom motorcycles.  In addition to a ton of photos of great bikes, they have good writing.  Check out the history of Harley-Davidson .  It’s a great & detailed article and includes links to Harley racing sites and restoration sites.  Nice!

“The site also contains reference links to vintage British, Italian, and American parts suppliers, restorers, vintage motorcycle collectors, owner’s clubs, after-market manufacturers, vintage bike shows, auctions, reference books, and historical motorcycle websites.”

This is a 1913 Excelsior motorcycle from The World Of Motorcycles.

Darwin Motorcycles

Darwin partners with some world-class companies to build their Brass Balls Bobbers & Choppers.  You can find them on Twitter @brassballcycles.

This is the Digger Black Elite.

Bike EXIF

Bike EXIF describes their site:  “This site offers a dose of the coolest motorcycles, several days a week. That  means custom motorcycles, classic motorcycles, cafe racers, racing motorcycles  and style icons. I’m passionate about design, photography and classic  motorcycles, and Bike EXIF is a way to combine all three—and connect with other  people who share the same interests.”

I really like this site and I follow them on Twitter @BikeEXIF.  They offer daily updates by e-mail (sign up on their site) and they have a Facbook page.  Very connected!  And they love Moto-Guzzi‘s.  Check this one out.

Art In Motion

These folks build custom bikes & trikes and have a full-service shop in Florida.

This is their 1st Place 3 Wheeler from a Rat’s Hole event in 2008.

Asphalt & Rubber

A & R was founded in 2008 and has quickly become a leading voice covering news of the motorcycle industry including the business end of designing and building motorcycles.  They are becoming deeply involved in the budding electric motorcycle industry.  It is predicted that within 20 years the majority of bikes being built will be electric.  What a shocking change that will be.

Interested in the future of electric motorcycles?  One place to check out is Brammo   They are on Twitter @BrammoSays and @BrammoForum  I’m a motor head but they have some great looking bikes with surprisingly good specs.

I’m not a huge MotoGP fan but these Ducati’s are sweet.

V-Force Customs

Do you watch American Chopper on the Discovery Channel  You know these guys from Orange County Choppers.  Vinnie and Cody went with Paul Jr after the family meltdown and build bikes at Paul Jr Designs.

Vinnie always made me laugh when he was working at OCC and he is a master technician and mechanic.  He was instrumental, along with Rick Petko, in building those great custom theme bikes.  Cody joined OCC at like the age of 16 and they treated him like the youngest son including giving him a nice bike that Cody & Paul  Senior designed and built (Note:  I was wrong.  Cody is now suing OCC & Paul Sr for a number of reasons including the fact that he never was physically given the bike he built.  Sr “gave” the kid the bike on the TV show but apprently took it back or changed his mind or just never followed thru???  Hard to tell with Sr, but Cody didn’t get the bike so he is now suing as of February 2012) plus sending him to motorcycle mechanics school and taking him down to Daytona for Bike Week when he was still a teen.  What a ride for a kid.

Vinnie and Cody also build bikes under their own brand, V-Force Customs.  You often see Vinnie now wearing V-Force hats on the American Chopper show.

This is their V-Force Deuce.  Sweet bike.