Cool type face...

I took a better look at the flyer of the RMC Choppershow... Yesterday, without seeing the flyer, I made this sticker for my oiltank... Yep... type face looks the same.

By the way; '69 is the year I was born in... so I consider myself a 69er. I will post some stuff what happend in 1969 as well... Here's a cover of a chopper mag from '69, have a look at that front fork.

(Source: abigblackharleybookontheshelf)

Cool booth...

Appears my friend Sik is busy, working his butt off, creating a booth for the up-coming RMC Choppershow next April. I'm sure he is gonna do a very good job and I can't wait to see it.

So in honour of him not being able to do a lot of posting on his blog... here is a pic of his bike in a previous stage. I think it was 2006, the day we went to... the RMC show.

Good luck Amigo!

Cool bike...

Here is pica of a cool bike on the 2008 Roques MC Choppershow at Easter here in The Netherlands. The show is the (eye)opener for a lot Dutch bikers. Clubs are there, vending stands and ofcourse a lot of 'wintertime-home-made-specials' interesting bikes. i go there almost every year and ofcourse take my camera for idears and this blog.

April 12th will be the next show... can't wait to see what people made this winter...

This is my friend Sik his bike, just (almost) finished for the show. You should check his blog as well... very interreseting as well, like his bike.

www.greaseheadquarters.blogspot.com

10 years ago...

Here's one from the old shoe box again... This time my own little shoe box. Here I am on my good old 1973 Sportster, doing my best to look cool ha ha ha. This picture was taken in 1999 at my old house in my old hometown...
Not much later I traded this old girl for a much younger...Softtail Custom.

(Source: my Old shoe box)

Tracksuit...?

Who is that in that tracksuit on that Sporty? Nice and blurry. Like Shaggy said: "It wasn't me...".

(Source: worldwideweb)

Ready to go...!

"Yes, Mike we're almost done..., just wait a little while longer." ...That's what I'm doning as well (waiting for the better days of spring), waiting 'cause

I'M READY TO GO !!!

(Source: worldwideweb)

1999 Caboolture Airshow...

Here is a cool pic I took ten years ago in 1999 when we were on the (pre-open) annually Caboolture Airshow, Queensland, Australia.

Before the show opened, my brother in law and sister took us to their local airstrip where also the WWII airplane museum is located. They took us for a tour over the show ground and we've seen a lot of very nice planes. Thisone belongs to friend of my brother in law's and he got me a flight in thisone, if it only wasn't for the formation practice flight... darn!

So we walked around some more and we visited some guys restoring a WWII mustang and some other dudes were restoring a two engine airplane with nice pin-up on the nose; "The Hustler". I found out some weeks ago that The Hustler a year later went back to Van Nuis airfield in Florida USA were she original was build, still waiting in a container for restoration since 2002... Here are some more of the pics I took on the grounds around the airshow...

(They aparently assembled the plane and sold it again within a year...)

Aussie bikers...

A couple of Aussie bikers with a proud little boy in the middle, 79 years ago...

(Photo source: theworldwideweb)

New findings...

Here are my new findings... at the local toy store... only 2 euro's each, but... way coooolll !!

Running bike...

Here's a nice chopper I found... It's a real running bike: no gas tank, no exhaust, flat rear tyre... have to do the running yourself!

(Source: worldwideweb)

Speeding...

I rather had this way of notification that I was speeding... Nowerdays female police officers saddly don't dress like that anymore. *snif*

(Source: worldwideweb)

Cool Japanese car...

Here is that same Toyota, now in more beautiful pose for a picture. It must be 1975 0r 76; in the car my parents ofcourse and in the back my youngest sister and my youngest brother and all the way in the back... little old me.

The thing I remember about this car is that the rear window was electric... that made a big impression on me.

Speeding in the year 2008/2009...

This speeding picture was taken in 1971, my dad was speeding... 15 km/h. He drove, in this Toyota - nice for a next topic- 65 where there is a 50 km/h limit. The fine was prob. about 30 guilders (15 euro's nowerdays).
This weekend I read an item in a magazine... The fines in scandinavia is income related. In Finland one of Nokia's top men was caught speeding on his Harley. He drove 25 km's faster than the limit. And here is what he had to pay... (hold on to your seat!!)... OneHundredandSixteenFuckingThousant Euro's ! ! ! Be carefull if you're going there !!

1967 Norton P-11 Scrambler...

Like the oldtimer's way of thinking as well... "Why make it so complicated?"
Instead of the (way to far thought through) Suzuki's "Way of Life" and "Total balance" or Yamaha's "Standing stil; a piece of art, riding; an experience", I like it plain and simple...

Dynamite on wheels !

Smart cookies in 1951...

There were some smart cookies in 1951 at Harley-Davidson marketing department. Looks like they were equipt with an eye for the future as well.

The letterly says: "What is costing you to drive your car to work? (...) It's a pretty penny (...).

Not only a cheaper way of transportation but also more flexible and 'a pretty' bit cooler (and wetter and colder but who cares, aslong as we get from A to B and back safely)!

(Source: worldwideweb)

The Cinderella story continues...

So now we were able to install the wider swing arm we needed for the wider rhim and tyre. Orderd a rear fender at Zodiac and customised it to the radius of the white wall of the 170 mm wide tyre (measures 180 mm because of the rhim and looks like 200 mm). The solid fenderstruths were cut in two places and welded together again to the width of the rearfender. Made 'from the inside bolt system' for the fender, looks smooth and cool. Just two holes for the bag supports are still visable. Taillight holes were drilled... All the platework was picked up by the painter for a 'dark black' layer (or two) of paint .

The front & rear fender and struths, the tanks and new tank dash were getting that special treatment with somekind of extra special strong paint... At the same time the handle bar controls, front and rear brake caliper, inner and outer primairy, mirror, raisers all were getting polished. For the rear brake we had a special idea; lower mount with custom made anchor, so it's hidden behind the exhaust.

Another special idea we had for the 'paint job; at first I wanted an Old School flames paint job on the tanks. Then my friend Sean pointed out the 'liquide-flames' to me and said that these might be cool as well. We desided to order the metal flake black ones... I think we were the first ones to order them 'cause MCS had to find an importer first to beable to order them. After a while they came in and we started the assemble right away. The tanks even look much bigger with the flames attached.

The assembly went quite quickly and without serious problems. We swopped the little bates headlight for an old springer version which was gettering dust on a shelf. Old style grips slided on the handle bar and taped rounded itself around it... All the polished shit was cleaned and re-assembled, we were almost done I guess. "Hey, what about a custom made seat..?" Hell, why not. We came across a secondhand limited fatboy seat and ripped it apart. After an afternoons work the new solo seat was ready to be recoved with black leather and stitched 'tug 'n' roll' style.

When finally... all stuff was assembled and double checked, dotted the i's and crossed the t's... oil back in transmission and oil tank. Gasoline in the tanks... one kick and she spun like a happy cat... Here is the result of a couple of months work and a lot of waiting on parts...

It was a lot of work enoyed whilst doing it, learned loads of new stuff mentored by Sean and I'm damned proud of the result, don't care if another hates it...

By the way; the story was cool enough to make it, full page, to the Dutch 'bikerlifestyl' magazine "BigTwin"...

(Thanx to Idex for some of the pictures...)

Cinderella is going to the ball too...

Ofcourse it should be two but hey, who cares... In the big overhaul of my 85 we also rebuild the transmission 'cause it was leaking from somewhere we could not even find with ultraviolet dy we did in the oil. After that we checked the underside with blacklight to see where the oiltrack was leading us... We desided to rebuild it.

First we took it apart totally and inspected all the bits and pieces, then we sandblasted it to ying-yang. We took it to a company called Dymotrack (does a lot of good things for and to engines/parts, they know what they are doing!) to get it 'line-bored', with an oversize.

We installed oversize bearings and bushings and re-assambled the whole thing. As a prove of we did this job we painted the top of the bolts red.

For the wider swing arm we needed an off-set of the transmission, an off-set ring on the carter of the engine and sprocket extension on the main axle.

Two months (!!) later the specially German made sprocket extension arrived... *sigh*. According to Motorcycle Storehouse it had to be specially made and it was difficult to make 'cause it was made of hardend steel.

Finally we could mount the transmission on the off-set plate (here's my friend Sean in action) and line it with the enigine.

Now we're getting somewhere...! The engine back in (only hyper cleaned the outside, was still running good and didn't use any oil), polished the nosecone and the kick-cover of the transmission.

Sure looks good to me... neat and clean (apart from the wirering).

The story will continue in our next episode of "Cinderella is going to the ball"

"Cinderella is going to the ball..."

This is how we started out, the big overhauling of my '85 FXST Softtail Custom at Bones Motorcycles where I worked at the time. No salary but my payment was in parts etc... The first things to end up in the dumpster were the fugly square indicators on the front fork. Next was the 'live to ride...' tank dash and the rack on the back. "Why don't we start with the wires through the handle bar...?"

"Whist we're at it..." So we took out the front and shaved (lost the ugly reflectors and the big blocks of aluminum) the lower leggs and high gloss polished them. Removed the black paint from the handle bar controls and polished them as well. Took the rest of the shit off, like tanks, fenders, sadle etc.. Assembled a new front wheel and putted some new rubber around it.

The back wheel; orded a new rhim used a spare hub and orded stainless steel spokes. A new 170 mm white wall tyre on it which is pulled out by the rhim to a (almost) 190 mm. To be able to put that wheel in the back we needed to do some magic to the (narrow)frame so we could install a more recent swing arm. Our 'WeldingWonder' Ed performed his magic, also on the main up-right tube so the transmission could shift over (o.75" off-set) to the left.

After a bit of sanding, the old black pray can came out of the box and after 30 minutes... Bob's your uncle.

So far this episode of "Cinderella is going to the ball", see you next time. Same place, same dude, same attitude.

Cool holiday destination...

How's this for a holiday destination hey? A couple of Riva Aquarama's laying there, just waiting for you... Outside temp around 27 degrees celsius, cold beer and wine in the cooler... Italy here we come for a nice holiday around this lake.
A man can dream, right?

(Picture source: Bones Engineering)

Cool BSA ad...

Thisone I found laying around somewhere on the WorldWideWeb. A cool 1967 BSA ad, the girl in it must be around her seventies now... oops. 192 Km/h from the box...? Nice !!!

Cool bobber...

On one of the annually "Oldtimer" meetings here in The Netherlands, I ran into this beautiful bobber. A bobbed WLA with a dual seat to take your girl with you... Nice work!

Moronday...

Some days when you are in traffic, it feels like moronday. Loads of people then show their real driving skills and drive like morons. This morning I found out why... Where do you learn to drive like an ass? Right...!

Old school...

Old school, I love old school stuff.

Old school, the building I work in in Amsterdam is an... old school.

The buidling was build in the 20's of the last century and till 1980 it was a craftsmen school. They where getting their hands dirty for sure... A couple of years ago little companies entered the building and there are a lot of creative companies in there, a bar/restaurant and even a famous ballet/dancing school.

The architecture is beautifull and a lot of original details are still there, like doors and door knobs , windows, dividing doors, real good stuff...etc. It's a very nice place to work in, very inspireing...

(this picture I named: 'Hooked on you')

It's itching... !!

The outside temp is just below freezing at the moment, just read my latest motorcycle mag and man... it started to itch again.
Dough I'm still riding in this winter weather (on my Transalp) it started to itch and it made me think... Carburator, minor, problem to fix... softtail shocks prob to check/solve... still have those imported forward controls... next to the 2in1 'supertrapps'... moving the oilfilter somewhere else on the bike... other taillight (maybe thombstone or beehive)...
WTF, a bikers job is never done!

I just wanna put all the camping shit on the back and go!