"Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. "

Song of the Sausage Creature

by Hunter S. Thompson

There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright red, hunchback, warp-speed 900cc café racer is one of them -- but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.

Steve McQueen: what I like in a bike and why

FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Steve McQueen: what I like in a bike and why"
"Why does a movie star who just received $750,000 for making The Sand Pebbles for 20th Century-Fox spend his time cow trailing on a motorcycle? 'It's the clean smell of the desert in the morning. The satisfaction of setting up a rig and having it work perfectly in every way.'" 43 years ago Steve McQueen wrote a dirt bike comparison test for Popular Science. Here it is in its entirety.

Google via Knucklebuster


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Brammo Enertia goes on sale at Best Buy

FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Brammo Enertia goes on sale at Best Buy"
"We have three in the back, ready for test drives. All you need is a driver's license with a motorcycle endorsement," an employee at the Cascade Station Best Buy in Portland told Brammofan. The electric Brammo Enertia is now on sale at select Best Buys. Availability will initially be limited to the Portland, Oregon area, before spreading down the west coast. If sales of the $11,995 bike are successful, Best Buy could expand availability throughout the country. Congratulations guys.

Make sure you check out our Brammo Enertia review and our interview with Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher.

via Brammofan


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Retro: 1934 BMW R7

FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Retro: 1934 BMW R7"
We've wanted to bring you shots of the 1934 BMW R7 since we first heard about it a couple of months back, but until now we weren't able to find any high-res images. The bike was found in a crate in June, 2005, where it'd lain neglected since the second world war. Now restored to as-new condition, the R7 is traveling to bike shows across Europe. The full story is really interesting, you can read about it over on BM Bikes .


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Alvaro Baustista loops bike after 3rd place. Easy, tiger.

FreeRange user Anthony_bonacci@hotmail.com wanted you to see this:
"Alvaro Baustista loops bike after 3rd place. Easy, tiger."
What's worse than looping your racebike on the celebration lap in front of 150,000 fans? We can't think of anything either. Poor Alvaro Bautista was having a fantastic weekend. Not only did he announce a 2-year contract with MotoGP factory team Rizla Suzuki , he also just finished 3rd in a great 250 Grand Prix race at Brno. Clearly, he had reason to be excited. Then he got a little too excited. Humiliating video after the jump.

via Two Wheels


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A break for my mind in the depth of the cold dark winter. Motorcycling Truth

I found this and unfortunately cannot provide a reference as the author is unknown, but very much the truth and how I feel.

A motorycle is not just a two-wheeled car. 

The difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes, and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets. 

On a motorcycle, I know I am alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it, and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sun that fall through them. 

I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pan-A-Vision and IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle, I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and 
flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. 

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride is one of the best things I've done. 

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride. 

Author unknown... 

Good ol Lucky

I decided to hop on my motorbike (fondly nicknamed Lucky) this evening to go for a ride. She has been neglected in not being ridden for a few weeks due to the weather and lack of time. I rode around the area on some country roads for about 45 minutes. The sun was getting low in the west, and only the roar of the four 30 year old Asian pistons was in my ears. As I got within a few miles of town I had the thought that I smelled gas. I trudged onward. As I slowed coming into town she almost died, stuttered a few times and I limped her to the closest gas station where as I slowed to turn in, she died. I pulled in the clutch and coasted to a stop in a parking space. Well, upon investigation I had a leak from a secondary gas tank line and it had leaked out all my fuel. I asked the attendant for a pair of scissors, and bought a sharpie marker. As I walked out the door I opened and threw away the package and the sharpie, leaving only the cap and scissors. I cut the line, stuffed the cap in, and brought back the scissors. I put in a gallon of gas (which unbelievably was under $2) I made my was home and it was only then did I realize that I had not gotten upset, angry, worried, frustrated, or anxious. I had a problem, and I calmly solved it the best way I had available to me. This little experience and the way I reacted really showed me the bond of man and machine.

Its getting a little chilly!!!

Getting some last few Fall weather activities in before the cold is here to stay. Have been taking the motorbike out a few times a week and metal detecting regularly with a friend. Some of the good finds lately have been a 14k Jesus Fish ring, antique sterling pillbox, and a 1939 wheat penny.

I didn't forget!!!

Sorry with the lack of updates lately. Been very busy at work, and hustling trying to get my latest toy rolling a few times round before the weather starts to get chilly. A 78 honda cb550. It was in a barn and hadnt been started in 10 years, and hadn't been registered for 24. I have modified it a bit to a more vintage european look. Often called a "cafe racer" (but more on that later), and got it running nicely. I am not going to currently "restore" it, as it is my first motorcycle and I'm sure it will get a little beat up. Nothing else exciting that I can think of.

BARN FRESH!!!!!



And as of now.
The seat make from scratch. Old metal, fiberglass, and a yoga mat from target. :) Will be upolstered soon