Shovel Head de Rob

after the unveiling of Purple Reign to the guys at the BCM garage, we hung out, sat on the driveway, talked bikes and Rob got his shovel put back together for a nice test ride.

so sweet, and still more to come on this pup. Lots of gas tanks to look at and figure out which way to go. I'm glad I'm not the only indecisive one in this group of guys.


Rob taking a break from the kick start ghost in the transmission.....you can see the look of 'almost defeat' in his face......5 minutes later, with a little love from Chris, she was purring down the road.

ask and ye shall receive

Yesterday was a big day. Awake at 4am, headed up to Long Beach Swap Meet with Chris, checked out a bunch of amazing bikes and some not so good projects, got back to oside by 9am, headed to San Diego from there, checked out a few more sportsters, and........

took this 2001 sporty home. welcome home purple nurple, aka purple rain, aka purple reign

and now the plans begin. I already took the bags off that came with the bike and those will be on craiglist by days end. she needs alot of loving in the looks deparment, i mean, just look at those risers!

Compared to the last bike with its wrinkle black coated engine, there lots of chrome here to work with this time around. I'll give a full profile of the bike this week along with its sordid history!

looking for...

yep, looking like its gonna be another sportster, post 1996 but pre 2004. If you know of one for sale with laced wheels, preferably 21 front 16 rear, let me know. Color don't matter.

I know that I could get one of these back to where I was with my last bike pretty quickly in order to have a daily running bike and then the plans from there....well lets just say some things are gonna change and some of the local crew will be helping out here and there after I hit them up enough!

my next bike

is not going to be as sweet as this pan, but I love pretty much everything about this bike.

Its funny how the right execution of parts can make you like certain things for the first time, such as the 2 into 1 exhaust. I've never been a fan of the way they look, but here, it's awesome. super clean how the two pipes come together.

Orange Bang's Final Voyage...with me

I woke up the other morning and went in the garage....and the Orange Bang spoke to me. She said, "matt, here I am with this new black gastank and fender, but I just don't think I'm the bike you want right now, I think I need to move on.....its not you, its me...we've tried new things here and there, but I just know its not going to work out.

I've heard those words before from a '64 Honda CT200, a '74 CB200, and now the '06 Sportster was giving me the infamous line....its not you, its me.

So tonight, I will be riding to her new owner, named Lloyd, who is driving in with a trailer in tow to bring her home. (I really hope his last name is Dobler) We've had good times, and this rip from Vista to El Cajon will be filled with the same joy that I've always gotten from this motorcycle.

This is a perfectly great motorcycle; reliable, slightly different looking, quick, sounds good, good ground clearance.... Maybe I miss the days of nuts and bolts coming loose, or breaking down on the side of the highway, or adjusting 'something' mid ride.....I guess only time will tell once I make my next moto purchase.

Good thing I'm going HERE tomorrow!

Event at DWR this Friday

If you're around downtown San Diego friday afternoon/early evening stop on by the Design Within Reach store where my lovely wife will be creating floral masterpieces for the home. Better yet, RSVP and they'll make sure you can get in for the sale!

She was asked by DWR to come for this event and she's going to be bringing a bunch of flowers direct from the local markets and showing people how to make arrangements for the home, pretty rad! Pretty good roster of companies for this event.

Check The Floral Lab blog out here and the company's website here.

Ok, I'm proud of her.....

Side Mount Speedo

Here's a few detail shots and how-to on my Side Mount Speedo. This idea actually came from Seth over at BoltsAction. I saw his speedo and loved the way he had it nice and low and out of the way and he emailed me some pics of his almost a year ago. I've had mine mounted here for a while and I can say, it has never come loose and still works fine! While some will say speedos are for suckers, its nice being able to clock your mileage on a road trip and know when its time to slow down near the fuzzzzzzz......

After removing your speedo from your riser mount, disconnect the wiring harness. Then with your angle grinder of choice (I rock Dewalt electrics for all my power tools in the garage) go ahead and cut that left mounting tab off and smooth it out with your flapper disc.

The only thing you actually have to fab would be this small little bracket which was just 1/8" thick x 1" wide flat bar stock. Measure it to the length you want and buy a set of nut, bolt and lock washer.

Loosen your engine mount bolt and put your new bracket in place, making sure your drilled hole will fit the engine's bolt. Position it in place so you can see it while riding, but its still tucked away nice. Last thing is to plug your wiring harness back in and then find a nice new spot to stash and hide it. Or of course, cut the harness out and hardwire everything together so you don't have all those big chunky connectors everywhere.

In the picture above, I unclipped my spark plug wire from the small little hole just to be able to show the new metal mount a bit better.....just fyi.

Once you go Black, you never go....

Made a few changes to the sporty this weekend. Still working out a few of the kinks, such as a proper and safe way to mount the new (old) tank to my frame, but nothing a few zip ties can't fix for now.

Rode over to BCM Kim's today and had some great conversations about bikes, life, relationships and watched him painfully get through his hangover. Good times!

Side view of the new look. 2.2 gallon 1991-ish gas tank. Has the number 5 on it for when the sportsters switched to 5 speed trannys.

3/4 View. The fender is still a bit higher than ideal, BUT when I'm actually riding, it's probably only an inch off the tire at most. Gotta keep doing some ride testing to see how much lower I can go to the tire. I did decide to keep with the front fender mounted as the rear fender for now. Signature move? not really.....stolen from this amazing bike.

A little Bench Mark love on the points cover. A sweet start to some colab projects coming from BCM Kim and CECNC Pat. Turns out my sportster has the same hole pattern as the old shovels and similar to that of the old Ironheads (turned 90 degrees).

Rear view. A wider rear fender (eventually) will help close the gap in between the width of the shock mounts. I also need a better/different rear view mirror. the stock one looks supes whack. and those forward controls are either going bye bye OR I might be shaving the width down by a few inches so they don't look so, so....out there?

Overall, a great moto-centric weekend.

happy friday

Please.....take a minute or three to kick off your weekend with some death metal Jonas Brothers.

You're welcome......

and another view...

tanks here and tanks there

started the search for a new/different gas tank for the sportster a few days ago.

here it is stock

and with one that I found at a local shop mounted up real quick. I would have to frisco mount it like this because the tunnel in the tank isn't wide enough for the backbone of my frame.

not too bad...

Wednesday 9/9/09 at U-31

Get Your Death On.

Yes, come and join us as we play along with 2 incredible SD bands, Modern Rifles and Boy Scout.

In the heart of North Park.

We probably go on in the 10 or 11pm range. See all you ASR'ers there!

back to work

cool little 'day in the life' video of Max Schaaf over at the Four Star website.

check it out here.

new Aluminum for your bicycle

I just finished up my trip to Taiwan and am hand carrying these first ride-test samples of the new products. purposely out of focus and perfect execution in function.

Mountain bikes will never the be the same after these puppies are released next year....