Joe Hurst won't rest until he builds a blown Shovel. He mentions it all the time. It's a disease he aquired from working with Nez at Phase 3.
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Blower Fever
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You Spoke Up
Most posts get none or maybe one comment, but the post on 12 spoke wheels got a few people interested.
Besides the trouble to manufacture, to me, they don't cut it. The center hub where the spokes connect is very narrow making the two side's spokes almost inline which defeats the dimensional look of the originals. Instead it produces a less interesting wagon/stage coach wheel effect. From the Joyrides Art Co. blog.
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Happy Halloween
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2 Out of 3...
... of these Goodies makes makes for a proper South Bay Chopper.
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Artistic Knuck
8 posts down I featured my friend Arte's last build (Electra-Knuck). Here's a 1939 Knucklehead Semi-Bob Job he built. He has a way of detailing bikes that is his signature style. You'll see what I mean when I get around to posting more.
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Sano Trike Origins II, Wild Child's Customs
Back in March 2010 I did a post called Sano Trike Origins which featured the Himsl bodies, Roth's Candy Wagon, Ed Newton, and the David Mann art shown below. I was wondering who was the first to come up with this style of trike and was leaning towards giving Dave the credit, but as many know, Dave had a habit of using real bikes for his art's inspiration.
Detail from Dave Mann Painting, Ride Hard Die Fast.
Three trikes from Jim Greene's of Wild Child's Custom Shop. The one in the foreground is the most famous and known as Wild Child, but check out the one in the back left! The body work is pretty similar to Dave's painting. I believe it predates Roth's Candy Wagon plus we know that Roth knew Jim and featured the Wild Child (foreground), trike in Choppers Magazine. Not to mention there is a photo of Roth with that trike that had circulated the blogs.
Here's a good photo showing some details. The body work is pretty similar to the one in Dave's painting, but features two pipes on each side. The pipes are easier to see in the photo below.
I rediscovered this old Street Chopper photo while looking up another article. If it has a single down tube make it a double. If it has a double make it a single. That's the custom way.
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Cacti Pan
Another clean build by Arte'.
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Rooting for the Underdog
When I was young and first getting into choppers, I thought, for economic reasons, a 45 would be a good way to go. Flipping through the magazines of the day, besides trikes, you almost never saw any. This only added to their mystery making me like them even more.
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The Adoration of Potential
There is a phenomenon that has come to past in the last 20 years or so. It's a phenomenon I call 'The Adoration of Potential'. This is the phenomenon of the potential being appreciated for it's own sake thus becoming the end instead of the means. For example. At one time it was only considered cool to have a full blown completely polished and custom painted chopper or hot rod. Then as works in progress and rats started turning up more and more at events, slowly but surely, rough cars and bikes (primer, bare metal customs, and survivors), became admired for what they could become. Or to put it another way, seeing the 'Beauty in the Beast'.
Mix in the emotions of nostalgia that creep in as one gets older and you develop an 'adoration' for the things you once admired solely as potential. Now a days, all kinds of old beaters fall into this kind of adoration.
For me, this occurred in the form of a growing appreciating of old Harleys and since many a custom was born from them, especially old police Harleys. Factor in, when I was young, sometimes the only Harley you might see on any given day would be a police bike. Then in 1975 I myself went to the CHP to bid on some cop bikes with the intention of building a chopper.
Who among us doesn't dig this old dog?
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New Year's Header Redux
This New Year's Header is based on the ones I did for Jan. and Feb. 2012. I couldn't resist taking a bit from both and changing it some to reflect what's currently going on with Steve Sharp's rebuild of the Joe Hurst/Dick Allen chrome frame chopper. All three version are presented for your comparison.
By the way... for some reason the blog's headers at the top of the page haven't been loading with the same color and contrast as they should for the last several month's. Google, please fix this!
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South Bay Sporty
I featured Tom Endres' Shovelhead last September. Here's his very special Sportster.
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Bob Hall Built
I don't know too much about Bob other than he built some pretty cool choppers and was once a partner at U.S. Motorcycles in Lynwood, Ca. I do know, that like Dick Allen, Bob tended to lean towards progressive performance based choppers with features such as mag wheels, belt drives, collector exhaust, braided lines, custom forks, tanks, and frames.
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I ran across Denny Cukr's bike in an old Street Chopper. Amongst other things, it has a Bob Hall semi-drop seat frame. It's one of the only aftermarket frames I ever liked. I'd been meaning to post it, then found the scan below on the LoserRules blog from the same article.
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When I get the chance, I'll dig up some other Bob Hall bikes.
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Last Week's LBSM
Unless I'm out of town, I go to every Long Beach MotorCycle Swap Meet. For awhile I was always taking a camera, but haven't done that for about 2 years.
That said, here's the only things I noticed that were pixel worthy.... or at least the first four were.
Ratty chops seem to be more popular than ever.
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It's a Frame Up!
Some owners think it can never say Harley-Davidson quite enough times on their bike. I tend to not fall into that camp. One part or area that tends to go this way is the license plate frame, especially since the dealer's frame will usually have some sort of H-D logo on it.
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This cool frame (from a cool dealer), was on my first bike when I bought it. I'm sure there's a lot of riders unaware that there was ever a Long Beach H-D.
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Not too long before they closed, they were handing out freebies which included this not so cool plastic frame.
A somewhat typical modern era dealers frame with some razzle dazzle.
Another long forgotten dealer. Before Harbor City Harley (now California Harley), Lomita Harley was the south bay's dealer.
Plain frames are much more my style. I had to make it since the old black plates are larger.
I usually don't go for this sort of thing, but it's kind of cool in solid brass with patina. This was an official licensed product (yes, made in Taiwan). It may be fairly rare since it appears the design was altered in the name of safety, as shown below.
No more wing tips to catch on stuff... like your leg. Does H-D even still offer this one?
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This Month's Header... maybe it's a stretch?
A little bit ago I saw this Classic Knucklehead on the LoserRules blog...
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Life Imitating Art
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Patiently Waiting
I don't even want to say how long I've been collecting parts for my 45 project. It always gets pushed aside.
Too Many Projects, Too Many Things to Do.
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Born Loser Garage Party
Here's some photos from last Saturday's Born-Free-Loser Machine Garage Co. Party.
Although this set of photos may not completely convey it, the word of the day seemed to be Panheads.
Nice Knuck. I wonder if he realizes just how rare that XLH/K-model rear fender is? Sporster guys would kill for it.
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Close Cousins
Whenever I see my buddy Larry's '65 it reminds me of my '70.
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Spring's Wretched Header
I like the way this art turned out, so it will likely serve as the header until June.
Hey Chris,
Jeff leighton here. We talked at the swap meet about you drawing something for a friend and I for a little project we are doing. I would like it to be cartoony like the old roth decals but at the same time very apparently Dave and I and our bikes. I have included pics of the bikes and us. There are 2 pics of Dave riding his south bay style knucklehead. We would like him riding it with afro blowing in the wind and everything. I also sent 2 pics one is of my 1938 UL flathead chopper, I would like the drawing to be of me riding that bike, the other pic is of me riding the knucklehead. I sent that because I would like the drawing to be me looking the way I do in the picture. black beanie sun glasses and black gloves. The name of our company thing is, " The Wretched Hive" so we would like that to be big on it also.
make it look sort of like this...
It turned out to be one of my all time favorites.
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