It's the weekend...

Surfing is the best. It just is. Checking the surf report, picking the right board from the quiver, checking out the waves as you suit up, paddling out, standing on a floating log and traveling 100 yards down the line in the open sea, yeah, pretty much an amazing series of events. And following a few hours in the water with burritos is the topper.

Last few days were the 9' longboards. Today was a 5'10" twin fish kind of day. Caught a few with young Aiden and even ran into Gouldie and caught a few with him as well.

Swap Meet Finds 2

picked up this great panhead brake set up. All original parts, but not sure if/when I can actually use it. The mounting plates for the master cylinder and brake pedals changed for the cone shovel motors and this one won't truly fit on my bike without modification. But the pedal got me thinking about how to improve my current set up.

Plust the asking price was way too good for everything you see below including the Wagner master cylinder. besides, if I don't use any of these parts on my bike, I now have the first few pieces of my new panhead that I don't plan on ever having...just in case though, I've started collecting these parts first.

some fun stuff right there. It looks great.

Swap Meet Finds 1

very fun and successful day at the Long Beach motorcycle swap meet on Sunday. Seeing old friends, talking (be it talking the talk, talking shit, or just talking about nothing), and checking out all the great old parts.

Chris is working on a new build and has a few very distinct details in mind. The first of which, maybe second after the motor, was that he wanted to use an S&S L-series carb. Yeah, the ones no longer in production. Well, lucky him, he found it. and got it for a great price. After bringing the aged and dirty fella home, he immediately headed to the polishing wheel and here's the look after the first pass...

yep, it looks like a foghorn. awesome. Anybody know anything about that G.E.M. cast velocity stack? Let me know. (yes, it says GEM, not G.M.E.) share the knowledge, share the love. One man's junk is another man's treasure. One man's swap meet purchase can equal another man's monthly rent.

cast carb, cast velocity stack and came with the cast S&S air horn cover. He polished that up too.....not too much, just right.

Ok, I'm tired.

is it bad to miss a machine?

maybe I'm just being sentimental here in socal, but I miss the shovel...all the way back in Brooklyn. (I'll be home soon enough, buddy...).

In the meantime, I'm slowly gathering little bits here and there that I've needed for it; new main crankshaft seal, UNI foam filter for my BCM air cleaner, spring for my brake pedal, and hopefully a straight kicker arm after the swap meet this weekend.

Also saw the *new and improved* Sreamliner bars from Pangea Speed and may have to pick up a set of those, and in some downtime going to work on some bars with Chris and Kim as well. You gotta have options and with the sportster almost sold, I think I need to move on from the modified window bar look alltogether...Lastly, looking forward to helping out some more with the Maximum Bob shovel seat set up!

Pannikin Coffee Run

Took the truck down to Pannikin for a few double lattes and to meet up with Chris and Dustin for some good conversation. Ran into mr. Todd Richards and caught up on life, his morning 'drop the kids off at school' routine, (that's literal, not the figurative dropping the kids off at the pool style joke), and we each started on our first coffee drink of the day. We assured one another that we would run into eachother again throughout the next few weeks.

I think I've got the solution down for the coffee to go when driving this beast. Bag up the coffee cup, tie a knot in said bag, drive the key through the knot and into the ignition and voila! Coffee cup holder.

do it in the dirt

Experienced a great pain in the knee on Saturday when Kim's high(ish) compression panhead kicker gear slipped as I was trying to start it. Yes, this is more of my fault than the bikes, as I didn't make sure it was fully engaged before putting 180 lbs of force straight down into an over etended knee, but I'll still blame it on the bike!

Either way we had a good time catching up and working on the pan shape for Maximum Bob's custom seat. check out a few photos over here at Kim's blog.

That night, I had dinner with Leigh Anne and her mom and then went back over to Kim's to watch the 2nd and 3rd motos in the big Million Dollar Supercross race. Wound up staying out late and got a text from Chris that we would be heading out early on Sunday to Barona for some dirtbike action of our own.

all loaded up

Aidan getting the hang of shifting from 1st to 2nd. (crazy iphone HDR processing effect)

Chris hopped on with Riley to get him comfy as well. (same iphone error....i mean...)

self portrait with the pro track in the background. yeah....I'm not quite comfy there yet...

Everyone rode in the morning. We took turns on the 450 and Duke geared up and shared Riley's bike for a few laps as well.

eventually a little after noon, we loaded back up and headed home. This is their Sunday family day....as I told Chris, Duke is a keeper.

A Chevy, a Bentley, and sunrise Surf

In that order or not. Feels nice to be back on the left coast for a little bit. No motorcycle out here this time which is odd. But this truck I'm driving has the same thought provoking challenges and head turning style as an old bike would so that is keeping me busy.

Hamsa - for good luck

While the Hamsa has many different sub-names, like the Hand of Fatima, Hand of Miriam or Hand of Mary, it still transcends most cultures and is an icon of great things. This one was given to me from my friend Shai. She ensured me that this one means 'good luck', so rather than having any other superstitious things on my bike, I decided to make it the keychain for the motorcyle so that anytime I'm on it, good luck is with me. So far, so good.

While I can read hebrew, I really can't translate or understand everything, but luckily Shai's parents are from Israel, which means that of course she can read the writing and ensured me, its all about good luck and fortune.

Read more about it here: The hamsa (Arabic: خمسة‎ khamsah, also romanized khamsa, meaning lit.

I'm not religious or anything like that. BUT, It feels good to have a little bit of goodness safeness on my side while riding. Plus, my grandma always wored a pendant with this one it so it can't be all that bad!

YC...the new MC

Rode up to Stony Point for lunch on Sunday up to Seaweed Yacht Club. The first picture shows my dad and step mom's clubhouse. It's sorta like the one on that SOA show (that I watch every week). Well, at least its their version. I'm thinking about prospecting.

The Hudson River got hit pretty hard with sewage and general grossness this summer. I grew up along this river and can tell you that I've never had a problem swimming in it, especially up in the Stony Point and West Point / Bear Mountain areas. But there was a sewage spill, the hurricane, and then they opened up all of the locks around the river and it just destroyed the water. It still looks gorgeous though just a few miles outside NYC.

Riding home, we took route 9W all the way to the GWB. Nice riding weather, some twisties, but then the west side highway was crazy, so we decided to take a coffee break outside of the SoHo House on the way. Then headed back to Brooklyn, went to Brad and Viki's ate and watched the Jets game. Yeah, this city is pretty great.

Now, I'll go back to Saturday......this weekend was the annual Di Enda Run out to Montauk. It was a great time last year and I was looking forward to meeting up with the Jersey, Long Island, CT and Massholes for another ride and night of fun at the eastern tip of Long Island.

Instead, what I was met with was yet again, a 500 lb paperweight. Kicker was just spinning through the clutch. No engagement, full slippage. Finally got it started on an off kick and decided to gas up and start heading east. BUT, after getting gas, same issue. So I did what I had to. I stopped.

I stopped and sat down next to the bike and thought about what it could be, and wondering if this was a sign to stay in BK and finally figure this one out. And that's what I did. Went over to Nelson's shop and he told me the simple fix to it. Adjusting the clutch pushrod screw. DUH. then it was on to dialing in the tiny amounts of rotation so that the clutch pedal doesn't release too quickly. Either way, a few hours of huffing and puffing and trying to rush around turned into a Saturday morning and afternoon of satisfaction.

...and some Invitational love (a 2 post morning?)

the gentlemen at Greasy Kulture did a little post on the bikes outside of the Brooklyn Invitational and the shovel and the sporty made it into two of them. I don't care whatcha say, its always fun to see when stuff you've worked on winds up on the interwebs somewhere. Or at least liked it enough to snap a picture and post it.

check out the post here: Greasy Kulture - invitational on the street

and the shovel in the 2nd picture is JD's. He is a true ruler and so is his bike. And so is his tank's paint job, oh and the seat.

yeah, I'm a nerd.

random living in NYC

posts have been too far few in between. It has been a busy busy week at work, but all of this non-posting has given me time to think about things that I want to post. For now though, here are some random pictures I've taken around the city in the last week.

head to head iPad gaming action. No this is not a tricky subway mirror. check the shoes. (also note the dude stuck in the corner behind them. he was probably tweeting the same picture)

picked up some new ground coffee from eataly. My goal is to try all of their drip varieties to figure out which will be my jam...shouldn't be hard at the rate I drink the liquid gold.

I'm hardly religious in the traditional sense, and definitely not a baptist, but I liked this saying. Maybe replace religion with the word LIFE. you gotta love living.

tank badge from walter's shop.

well, the Yankees bats may have been sleeping, but Coors Light definitely made some great new pint glasses at least.

plenty more to come. I should be heading to Montauk this weekend. Weather is looking great. Need to fix the exhaust on the shovel yet again before leaving tomorrow morning, but also need to head to the burbs tonight.

Aidan has a posse and could still use your help

Walter over at Kickstart Cycle is holding a raffle for an amazing, custom built and painted 24" S&M Cruiser bicycle. The benefit is for Aidan Seeger who has been diagnosed with having a rare brain disease called ALD. He is 7 years old. He comes from a great family and they all could use your help.

For info about Aidan, click here: Aidan's Story

Link to the raffle, click here: the bike

Aidan's parents own and run Indian Larry Motorcycles in Brooklyn. Local folks. Show them your love and who knows, maybe you'll be riding home and bunny hopping curbs the whole way...

$5 could help. thanks.

what a (little) dream

Larry's new ride. If you add up the CC's of all of his bikes, you'd still be a few hundred away from an 883 sporty.