NSRA Supernationals

Managed to get across to the Supernationals Sunday afternoon, loads of high class rods, almost as far as the eye could see. A Few bikes about, like Rob's 45.

I think this little Trumpet belongs to Jim, but I didn't see him to talk to.

Crackin' Iron Head Sporty, if I had to have a Harley this would do very nicely thank you.

Kicking Around

A few months ago Steve from the Stockers collective posted a cool kickstart pedal on the Dirty Bobbers forum. Really nice, and created from an old push bike pedal. Ilooked around to see if anybody was selling similar pedals and all that seem to be available resemble modified BMX items

The more I looked, the chances of finding something similar seemed more and more remote. Eventually, in desperation more than anything, an e-mail was sent to Steve, asking what the chances of buying one of his were.

After a minimal amount of e-mails back and forth it was worked out, and ten days later this little baby dropped through the door.
Stoked, made up, grinning like a fool....... what do you think!!!!
Thanks Steve, you're a star.

Rolands New Blog

Some of you may be familiar with Roland's work, he built the super clean Sporty, the build of which was covered on the Termaji blog. That bike belongs to a friend, now it's finished he can get back to finishing his B31. Progress can be viewed on his new blog outa control, it really is a blog worth following, his workmanship is sublime.

Light at the end of the muddy

After all the messing about with tail lights over the past couple of months, I came across this on the bay in the US. £4.59 plus postage, that's four pound bloody fifty nine!!! Made out of alloy with a glass lens it is about 2/3s the size of the current one on the mudguard. OK it needs a double filament bulb holder putting in, but they are readily available and something doing about the bling but otherwise the job is a good 'un.

Panther Insanity

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, I went to see the head honcho at Vintage Chop, Sumo to throw some wire at his Panther trike. He wasn't present for the first coupla hours, as he was picking up his frame from Briz at Custom Cycle Developments. No worries, wiring's a pretty lonely old task, anyway he turns up and with a little help, he hauls the major lumps of this out of the back of the motor. He stripped down what was there, as the frame was in raw chrome moly tubing as finished by Briz. He shot the frame in rattle can Red Oxo to prevent rust and reassembled it to what you see here. It can only be said that the workmanship on the frame is superb, the more you look, the more you see. Beautifully coped joints and first class welding. The quality of this great piece of engineering was demonstrated by the way it all slotted back together, no crowbars, podgers or hammers needed.
The bike, by the way, is Sumo's Land Speed Record contender, not the outright LSR but he can get into a class that only requires about 120 MPH to take the record. The provisional date of this all happening is 2012, watch this space for updates folks.

Ton Up Day

As expected the place was rammed, no idea of how many people and bikes were there. A lot of modern ass in the air stuff as you can imagine, and the usual mass of Evos and Twinkies, but luckily that was 'round the back. The front of the Caff was for traders and the show bikes.

Clive's Goldie engined Featherbed. This bike ticks over like a cooking single and goes like hell, all down to the big Mikuni Clive reckons.

Nice work for sure on this A10, not sure I could live with the mish mash of influences myself, but hey, it ain't my bike so who really cares what I think.

A different take on the TriBsa theme, looking raging 60's Cali style though, nice

Triton ya say!!!! Just open this picture up and look at this bike, class all the way.

If you're not doing anything better today.........

Haulin' ass up to this later on this morning, weather looks OK so it should be a good turnout. Get ready for some pix of shiny alloy bits tomorrow.

Oh yeah, this little Hot Rod gig is on just up the road as well today, bit of a bastard as the two events don't usually clash. Things might get a little hectic this afternoon doing 'em both.

Sumo's Trike

Spent the day getting a new wiring loom laid into Sumo's Panther Trike. Normally first in the queue to say "I don't like trikes" you've gotta be a hard ass not to like this, pretty little thing. Running a standard Ford Pop rear axle it's amazing how narrow it is.
There is another one in the works down in Kent I'm led to believe, so it may be catching.

The Finished Article

It is said that experience is only gained as a result of failure. Well that's certainly true in this case, Matt has done the job in a week and a half and it is what I was hoping for 3 months ago when I took it to the first bloke. He's done a cracking job, and added a little bit of curve action in the top pleated panel, nice touch Matt.
With craftsmanship available for probably less wedge than the big catalogue places knock seats out for, it seems like a no brainer to me.
Here's a single pad/p-pad combo that Matt offers at around £210 (USD 300)the pair.

So if there's anything you need in the seat department, make sure to check Matt out.

First Peek At the Seat

Matt at Caulfield Leather sent this little taster of the seat cover prior to attachment to the frame. Looks the business, if a little flabby, fixing it down to the seat frame should snug it in a fair bit. Spoke to Matt earlier today, he says it's all done, in the box and waiting for the courier to pick it up. Should be here on the morrow.

A Goldmine Lurking Out There........

Scarlett from Dirty Bobbers unearthed this little gem from the web. Mostly dealing with older Brit stuff it's the sort of information that is invaluable when trying to get the earlier bikes sorted.
Oh, and this would also make for a cool tee.

Vanguard come through

Being a medically certified sticker junkie, I was made up when this parcel of goodness dropped through the door. It's a big thumbs up to Aaron at Vanguard for shipping this lot over the pond. Nice one man, and thanks again

Engineering

As mentioned elsewhere, I am not the world's greatest fan of H-D's, no real reason, I don't dislike 'em it's just that most of 'em don't float my boat. Following a link from Dirty Bobbers led me to this, a Flathead bottom end with a Koslow o.h.v. conversion. Really good engineering and a pretty pukka looking period bike. The post with the picture reads as follows;

Andrew Koslow was an engineer and a competiton hillclimber for Excelsior Henderson in Chicago.
Of course you probably realize they were the Schwinn bicycle company as well.
The Koslow bicycle shop still exists in Chicago run by Andrew's 3rd and 4 th generation offspring!
After Schwinn stopped building motorcycles in 1931,
Koslow adapted the top ends from the factory hill climb race bikes to VL Harley and possibly other bottom ends.
My conversion is mounted on a UL flathead bottom end.
It displaces 84 cubic inches. It goes. The actual Koslow heads are very similar to the Super X hillclimbers but are bigger.
You may be aware of a legend named Pop Dreyer. He was a factory Indian racer.
He mastered the Flxi sidecar and was a genius welder and fabricator. He began as a teenager welding headers
in Duesenberg's race shop! Anyway, he also built quite a few midget race cars in the thirties and used Koslow top ends.
There is a picture in his biography ( written by his son and impossible to put down)
of him and his machinist in their shop preparing a Koslow . This is merely a precis of the entire story.

I guess that guys with this innate engineering ability still exist out there, but are their skills recognised or indeed required by the big multi-nationals nowadays. I reckon on looking for a copy of that biography though.

Stardom, in a funny kinda way................

Received an email off of Indianscot today, saying look at the picture very carefully, that one up there that is. Well I looked, and then I finally twigged it! it's the tee that he's wearing. Captioned up as "cuddly, in a barbed wire sorta way" it's your's truly aged 18, on my '69 Bonnie looking every inch the up and coming young Greaser. I posted this picture on a forum about 5 years ago and it keeps cropping up every now and again. Here it is again, just so you don't strain yer eyes.

Nice one Indi, had me laughin' like the village half wit, if anybody wants one let me know, I'll pass it on.

Rock legend

Great track from the 70s on the music page, almost go as far as to say classic.

California Dreamin'

Paul over at Show and Go is clearing out his stash of A65 parts that he has built up over the years. Not just the bike shown above, but a whole bunch of genuine old performance parts still in their boxes and loads of period accessories. Well the list goes on and on, check it out for yourself here. Reading through reveals that it is pick up only, hate to think of the cost of shipping that lot half way around the globe. Somebody on the West coast is going to be very happy, very soon.

Good Luck Bob,

Bob, the Stockers stalwart and photographer extrordinaire has taken the big step and is opening up Vintique Cycles, dealing mostly with H-D stuff, there's bound to be some stuff that will suit Ol' Brit Shit as well.
Us at BIW wish you all the best on your venture Bob, and will be following with interest.

SRV say no more.

A bit of Stevie for for ya listening pleasure....... right here

The Whore From Belgium

Well it was Offley on Saturday, the best day out 'round these parts by far. When it's over it's time to look forward to the next one. I was ready to tell y'all about the bikes, the people and the party that was until I bumped into her in the picture above!!!!!! Got there early and because the tent was on the back of the bike, got stuck into the brewski big style. Man you can colour me cattle trucked!!!!! Didn't even get the camera out.......

VMCC Night

Took a ride over to the local VMCC concours event last night, the good weather certainly drew them ol' spit an' polish boys out. There were something like 8 big Vincents over there, all looking impossibly shiny, no surprise as Stevenage is just up the road.

The tidy little M20 was shown in a much earlier post in the build up phase, good to see it out and about on the road and sounding very healthy

Freddy's clean Indian 741, he told me last night that he has recently added a 1929 H-D Model U to the stable.

Get the grinder Igor!!!!

They're not all bad

Well the suppliers have got a goal back, ordered the new fork legs for the A7 on Sunday morning, arrived today along with an overhaul kit and a few bolts. Nice.

It's Monday Again......

Well it's that time again, an Indie classic for ya on the Sounds page.

Herts NCC Show

Popped over to Harpenden with Sumo and some of the chaps to check out the latest instalment of the NCC show circuit, this is the Hertfordshire contingent's base. Not much over there other than Evo Harleys in various shapes and forms and a surprising number of Jap engined tackle.

This pretty little 500 Triumph really stood out to yours truly, certainly nice looking and sounded just right when it left.

Interesting take on the rear light set-up.

Still it's onwards and upwards...

In spite of the adversities placed in the way by suppliers, things are moving again. As can be seen, the rear light is in position and not looking too gross, at least White Van Man on his mobile phone might be able to see it. Don't get me wrong, as mentioned elsewhere on here, I like small neat rear lights as much as any of us, but not quite as much as I dislike getting butt plugged at junctions.

The legs that were in the forks were a pair bought some time ago and advertised at two inches over. Somewhere along the line they missed the plating and grinding stage of production. Although the bloke tried to say that they were fine - suppliers again - and will need chroming and grinding if they are to be used. Cost wise the plating came out at around the same price as a genuine pair of standard length Commando stanchions. The top uts were released to allow the forks to drop to a more standard like height, and the results are good. The engine fins are now back to a more horizontal plane which is always a bonus, and the whole bike takes on a more cobby look. So it'll be over to the Norvil site for a pair of standard lengthers this morning.

The font end is now out and stripped ready for various bits to be painted, plated and whatever. The next time they are together the forks will be finished.

Riddle me this..........

Those of you who have been here for the long haul, may remember that it all started with an A7 build. Progress there stalled for a while due to personal events that I shall not go into here. However things are now back on track, and the game is back on.
If you go back some weeks, I think it must be about 8, but I don't want to look 'cause it will do is piss me off, there's a post saying that the seat was off to the upholsterer. Well now, after how ever long it's been, it's back as can be seen below.
Wasn't sure about the colour when it was specced, but that's come out fine, the shape and the attitude on the bike is fine, the workmanship is shit!.
How is it, that after a two month wait, the whole job looks hurried? The stitching is not parallel in places, the rivets are not evenly placed and what I thought was going to be tuck and roll, pleats are rows of stitching. Not happy, but what to do? Pointless waiting another age to get the same guy to redo it, Contact Matt at Caulfield Leather I guess and send it up there to be done again....... what a bastard!!!!!

Worth checking out.........

Paul over at Show and Go Cycles has posted an interesting tale regarding the re-discovery of a little piece of history. It's worth taking the time out and reading about it Here.

The old stuff is still about

When I bought the rare and exotic pile of rusty bits that were once, and will be again, a B33, the drive side upper chain stay was bent and corroded. I phoned around a few places to find out what the chances of getting a replacement was. During this exercise I found out that the 1947 frame is more akin to pre-war stuff and the 1948 on rigid frame is a different animal.
So I started to seek out frame repairers, very odd people them, they advertise frame repairs and tube replacement and all that, but when I asked about, and sent photos of, the damage to the 33 frame, they all took one step smartly backwards. Can't really see why, surely if someone can build a frame from scratch, then chopping out and changing a couple of tubes is easy........ain't it?
Anyway, the other day Steve Jones from Yeomans in Bromsgrove 0121 453 8886 contacted me to say he'd scored a rear section at an autojumble, and do I want it. Well, Popes and funny hats, bears in the woods et al, course I want it. A deal was struck on the phone and it would be mine.
It arrived today, rusty but straight and the right one which is a bonus. I don't really intend to push this project along but it is becoming obvious that parts for this year are not as plentiful as the slightly later stuff. So it will be a case of picking bits up here and there as they crop up.