swingarm bobbers

so, there is a 77 shovelhead for sale in my hometown for $4k. it's pretty ugly. but i'm ever so tempted to buy it and make it look like this:

*edit- more swingarm bobbers.

if you're reading this and have some pictures of your own swingarm bobber, please send them and i will post them to this entry. i will also give you credit and a link to your site if you have one. all of the pics below were found on shovelhead.us.

this is slowly becoming a collection of bikes that i find inspiring as i continue to customize my own. i love these old 4-speed frames and i'm really lucky to have one.

And below is my favorite. I first saw this bike on shovelhead.us and posted the pictures here. I recently found a blog called The BDAC that the owner contributes to and clicked the "follow" button with a quickness. This bike is great.

compensator nut

pray that you never have to remove this on your shovelhead. it was a pain right in the ass. the previous owner had about a gallon of red loctite on there.



what makes it suck even harder is that you shouldn't use an impact wrench on it. you could mess up your bearings or your flywheels (maybe) or throw the magnets off the rotor. instead you use a jambar and a lot of patience and strength.



if you do happen to feel like taking that damned nut off, check out this link first. a guy named hawg ryder explains how to make your own jambar. hawg's jambar.

nyhc

my band danger field played at trash bar in brooklyn. it was a monday night and we didn't expect much but with free beers from 8-9pm (just happened to be our time slot), we had a decent crowd. the drunker they got, the better we sounded. here are some pics from the ride down and some sights of bk. if you want to hear some old school hardcore punk, check out danger field. the tracks were recorded by the legendary don fury. yes, the same fury who recorded gorilla biscuits, quicksand, agnostic front, etc, etc.

two lane blacktop

on my must see list.

45 Magnum

45 flatty bottom with a sporty top. During WWII, the WLA 45 was the workhorse motorcycle of the US Military. During the late 60’s and early 70’s, some folks would buy an old 45, chop the frame and put a sportster top end on it. the result was what you see in the pics.

despite looking cool, it was supposedly a recipe for disaster. Here is a quote from a book called What Fits What on Harley-Davidson Motorcycles 1936 thru 1983 by Mike Arman and Kurt Heinrichs.

"Some magazines have featured a how-to-do-it on something called a '45 Magnum', this being Sportster top ends on a 45' case. Don't do it. The result is a loud, expensive noise from the greatly overstressed lower end, the immediate cessation of all forward motion on the part of the motorcycle, and dents in the gas tank when the unhappy owner bangs his head against it in frustration."

looks cool though.

at the garage

i just finished replacing the top motor mount with a lot of help from sarah. she snapped this pic while i was installing rear pegs to take her for a long overdue ride. only problem was that the phantom pad my cousin let me borrow was too wide for my rear fender and ended up sliding all over. not safe. i plan to order a real two up seat asap.

albany, ny

thank you, sarah, for secretly snapping this pic and thank you for the past 7 months of complete awesomeness.

the intro

just because it's friday.

rebel rousers

this movie sucked but jack's bike is sweet.
read a story about it on selvedge yard.