jesse james, love him or hate him he builds some great bikes, this is a model of one of them, the 'vanilla guerilla', yeah, he gets some stick, he's a celebrity with a rock-star lifestyle, but, he can build bikes, can you? or are you one of those 'kool' fuckers who reads 'dice', reads the 'jockey journal', grows a caveman beard and hunts down cut-off levi jackets in charity shops? are you one of those who raids other peoples blogs for 'authentic' chopper photo's and pretends you were there back in the day, [even though you are actually twenty-two years old?], don't slag off those who have been there and done that, get your hands dirty and jump in the pool or fuck off and play with your skateboard, [vintage of course, like mine, got mine off one of the original venice beach dogtown crew, i've been there, have you?]

indian racer and '32 ford coupe, car is 'hotwheels' model from '97, got them both from walmart in florida, loved it when jack was younger, 'do you want to have a look at the models mate?', not so easy now, 'fuck that dad, let's go for a beer', can't leave anything alone me, rubbed through the paint on the coupe to reveal the red primer and bare metal for that authentic look.

classic racer magazine, can't leave it alone, i'm sure i have attention deficit disorder, pick one up, flick through it, chuck it on the pile, pick one up. flick through it, chuck it on the pile, pick one up, flick through it, shit, that's my new favourite bike ever, chuck it on the pile, pick one up, flick through it, no, that one's better than my previous favourite bike ever, chuck it on the pile..............., e-bay every night, looking for the 56 copies i don't own, sad.

how is it that when you are making up brake lines, no matter how careful you are, you always end up stabbing your fingers with the stainless braiding and bleeding profusely?, i measured up the hosing, cut the 'carbon' black plastic sheath back 25mm, pulled the nut on, pressed the olive over the end of the hose and as i pressed the banjo fitting home, bingo, claret, bastard, shit, fuck.

busy, busy, busy this week, dave was on with alterations to barse's sporty project, instead of me kicking my heels i decided to build the front brake lines, i had just enough 'carbon' brake hose left from the ducati project and as luck would have it, [for once], some stainless banjo's of the correct angle and stainless banjo bolts, even a stainless bleed nipple, i routed the brake line through the windows that we milled out of the bottom yoke, keeps it out of the way, stops it getting 'pinched' and looks good to boot.

saturday night, i-pod on shuffle.

saturday night at race headquarters, filing cabinet i nicked from work to store my tools in.

me, on my chop, photo's from american-v feature, i was happy back then, me on the sporty, barse on the shovel, building bikes for fun, totally illegal, no speedo, no indicators, not even a fucking stand, bit of wood stuffed in jacket pocket and wedged under footpeg, we got passed by the law on the way to the shires show, they just looked at us like we were shit, they didn't want the paperwork, we caned onto the campsite, superstylin', i ripped all the fins off my regulator, clip-on's on the sporty, sky high apes on the shovel.

saltfighter sporty.

my chop in american -v magazine, april/may 2008.

it's not just me then, des, #42, one week before the season opens at brands...........