love shovelheads, when barse bought his i cried for a week,

this one sucked me in at the 'peaks' show, swingarm frame, mustang tank, shaved fork-legs, old-school sprung struts dropping the back end way-on-down, [as elvis would say], trailer rear 'guard, open primary, [dangerous, i want to stick my fingers in it to see what happens], if one word sum's this bike it would be bad -fucking- attitude, [ok, thats three words, i never was very good at sums]

one of those tuesday night's in the loveless shed, i'm looking at a way to mount the expansion chamber bracket, rummaging about in the parts box i come across a four-stroke race can hanger, it's twice the diameter of the little two-stroke stinger but i reckon i can adapt it to fit, i pull an old sporty shock out and measure it up, it looks about the same diameter as the stinger, out with the caliper, spot on, i drop the rubber out of the clamp and wrap it around the stinger to see where to cut it, i bend the hanger around the shock and hammer it to shape with a rubber mallet, drill four 5mm holes in it and replace the rubber, fits like a glove but need to fab a spacer/hanger, dangerous is on the same wavelength and takes the stock off me after i've end-milled it up, we then waste an hour arguing about what shape to form, i win but have to give in to his idea of radding the bottom of the bracket to fit snug against the stinger, he lobs the work at me and leaves me to tap the holes out while he cut's down the mounting screws...............

............and it's totally over engineered as a result, remember it's only to hold the exhaust on.

norvin - vincent hrd engine shoe-horned into a norton featherbed frame, very tight fit i can tell you, loads of engineering done to the bike by the owner, you can just see the handmade finned aluminium oil tank and the carb manifolds to name just a few of the trick bits, well used too, i was ear-wigging in on his converation and he's just come back from a classic bike rally in the shetland isles.

some class bikes at the 'peaks' chopper club show, liked this tough little triumph 'tracker, sounded sweet too.

sunday, met up with with the lads today, 10.30am at matlock, i was fashionably late, arriving at 11.30, barse, gordy and chris w, were just off, mukker marsh, dangerous and the worlds most handsome man and ace tattoo artist, or ben as we call him and a couple of his mates had a tea at 'charles' before heading up the via-gellia onto the 515 to the chopper club show at the duke york public house, [this is not a grammatical error, it is the duke york, not the duke-of-york], lads going into matlock are frantically flagging us down, i know that the o.b. have a [dirty, fucking bastard, lowdown undercover camera van in the layby], just after the lovely technical, through the tree's piece of road, what i wasn't expecting was the second camera van about two miles up the road, you pass the first van, bikes coming in the opposite direction signalling you to slow down and you get copped by the second van, wankers, safety patnership my arse, raise revenue by catching out bikes you bastards, here's a photo of a class ironhead sporty, more photo's to follow, stay tuned........

............so me and dangerous skinned out, stopping for a tea at bakewell, past mock beggars hall, winster and onto the via-gellia for the fast downhill run into cromford, right turn towards wirksworth, 30 limit so nice and steady, listening to the supertrapps bouncing off the cottages, then i spot the old boy kneeling at the side of his '54 vellocette, spin around on the market place and see if i can help, 'what's up mate?', 'carb's flooding', bit of an understatement really, there's fuel everywhere, that really heavy petrol smell, i drop the float bowl off, no crap in there, turn fuel tap on and petrol is spraying out like a bp oil-well, needle's seating ok............

...............then i noticed that the front downtube had fractured and the engine had dropped in the frame, fracturing the copper fuel line, a flooding carb was the least of his worries, bastard, at least he was only a couple of miles from home and his son could recover him, he is from brassington which is where my mate roy lives who just happens to be a demon welder, i gave him roy's mobile number and we were on our way.

caught up with my mate glen aka 'midnight' today at the chopper club 'peaks' show, good to see him up and about after his serious accident last year, some dozy tart knocked him off his bmw ride-to-work bike and he was badly injured, today he was superstylin' on his s+s rigid chop, he filled me in about getting caught by the o.b. in snottingham, [glen's originally from snottingham but i ain't going to hold it against him as he now resides in god's own county], nottingham have those trick camera's that can measure your average speed between them, he got caught on the third camera, realised he'd been sussed and flicked the middle digit at the camera, two weeks later, summons hit's the doormat, he decides to represent himself at court, everythings going great then the o.b. produce a film of midnight speeding down the roads, realising he's been collared and flicking them the bird, so, he stands up in court and says 'that could be any one of the hundred or so black guys in nottingham who rides a rigid shovelhead chopper, prove it's me', the two coppers are livid, the magistrates decide no case to be answered and award him his costs, beautiful!

midnights s+s shovelhead chop, it's developed over the last few years into this, simple, understated, hardcore bike, no lairy paint just subtle little touches, there's a couple of loveless parts on it too.........

jeff decker's bronze sculpture of joe petrali, one of the all time great motorcycle racers, i really didn't know much about the racers from the twenties and thirties until i picked up a book in america and started to read up on some of these truly hard men, it put's my little project into perspective, i'm bitching and moaning because i bought a chain too short or i've had to work on the bike late and missed my tea, big fucking deal, these men were getting ripped to shreds on the wooden boardtracks riding big capacity harley's and indians bolted in a pushbike frame and wearing a jumper and leather flying helmet for protection.