...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.

photos for the future and from the show

On Sunday I had the amazing opportunity to meet up with Michael Schmidt to have him take some pictures and shoot film of the shovelhead. He used to see it as a pile of parts back in california when he was filming/shooting Kim for his sportster build, and now got to see a complete motorcycle. We took a few laps over the bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan and then found a great little wall to shoot the stills in front of on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn.

We were losing the light very quickly so hopefully the pictures come out as planned. Let's just say we had a ton of fun with everything from locations to wardrobe...photos to be featured in an upcoming issue of Dice Magazine.

Go ahead and check out Michael's work here.

back to the invitational:

since I only carried my iphone, AND more importantly, there were people with nice cameras at the show, I didn't really take many pictures. Here's a few links to some great pictures of the bikes that were at the Brooklyn Invintational:

45 Degree

Chop Cult

again, it was a great weekend. Great to catch up with friends from southern california. Great to see Walter and the rest of the Kickstart crew and great to hang with the NYC/Brooklyn crew of supportive dudes and dudettes.

Streets of Fire Big Twin

Very productive weekend. Hurricane prep, made a tail light, rode around a little bit, had some good times in Williamsburg, and of course talked about pictures of motorcycles. check saturday and sunday's posts for some info on the "xyzal light".

Speaking of that, here's Malcolm's bike as it is now. I'll let the picture say it all.

There's a lot more to come on this bike. With the change from the square shovel style swingarm to the round panhead style swingarm, the rear dropped almost 2" so now the fender that he cut up sits too low, just another thing to re-buy, re-work. Lots of parts to make, all the little stuff, and the race is on to make it for the Gypsy Run and Brooklyn Invitational.

people and places - photographers pt. 1

as the west coast crew that I miss already at boylecomm, benchmark, and 70moto (chris may never update his blog, but his links list is great!) are getting all prepped for Slab City, I couldn't help but think about how great riding motorcycles and building bikes really is. Not only for the gearhead things, but for the people you meet and the places that you get to see.

I feel lucky that my wife fully gets that. Its not about me trying to be a badass on a harley. Its not about me proving how manly I am by the amount of grease under my finger nails. Honestly, 8 years ago, I never would have thought I would own a motorcycle other than maybe one day getting my dad's 74 CB350. Its about hitting the open road with as little as possible and sharing amazing times with friends.

I lifted the following pictures from Walter's pictures from Kickstart Cycle's post on Chopcult. But since I never really posted much on the Brooklyn Invitational I figured it was ok.

Josh Kurpius is definitely one of those people that it was great to meet. I believe he was out shooting some photos down south just before heading to NYC. He lives in Chicago and is on a blog that wastes a ton of my time, Kemosabe and the Lodge. Check out the blog and his website here. he shoots photos for a living, not because it makes him a ton of money, but because he loves it.

I'll never try to be a photographer, but after seeing his antics shooting on a bike, it has definitely made me take my camera on as many rides as possible.....if only to capture the people and places.

tomorrow or tonight I will post on one of my favorite people in the world, even though we don't get to spend enough time together.....mr. steven stone.