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Interviews
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the Choppers of Santa Cruz County
Out in rural Santa Cruz there are still a lot of people who build their own bikes, as hard as it is to believe.
They dont own laptops, and they dont talk about the denier fiber count in their jackets.
They ride out in the countryside on bikes they built from swap meets, friends, and various mysterious sources.
They go to bars you cant find, and their bikes always seem to break-down near someone they know.
Some of the boys dont show when the fishings good, but thats ok, the ocean provides to everyone later at the BBQ.
A bonfire burns old furniture soaked in gasoline, a toy ballon filled with acetylene explodes overhead.
No one drinks PBR here, they drink Coors and Budweiser because theyre going to drink a lot of it while the fish grills.
A mp3 player is patched into speakers that hang from cobwebs in the rafters, Hank Williams cuts in and out on one side.
They play both kinds of music here, country and punk, and if you use bad manners your gonna get hurt.
So shut the hell up, ride it till you break it, and bring some beer.
(Photos by Dina @ gettinhitchedstudio.com)
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Written by: Paw |
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Date: Sep.08.2011 |
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Connecting Motorcycles to a President
Born to be Wild Motorcycle Exhibit - 11/9 2010
What could a President and motorcycles have in common. Maybe its just to add some extra cool factor to the exhibits. Actually there was some important ties. About this special place. The Reagan library, located in Simi Valley. You may have heard about it, or whats in it, a big part of it being Air Force One. As I rode east from 101, the rode climbing, the idea of a plane that large being located up here, didnt seem right. Soon I arrived at the beautiful grounds located in a rugged hilly area. Going for the front desk, the air conditioning was some welcome relief, being 107 degrees during this heat wave, and it was only 11:30 am. I was met by director Mellisa Giller, and we headed straight for the bikes, located in the Air Force One Pavilion, the bikes were in three seperate displays. The American Bikes were located on the second level, with the AF1 directly behind them making a stunning backdrop. AF1 was used by a couple of presidents, but Reagan racked up the most air miles. Not just being something to admire, you get to do a walk through. A cool bit of history was the replica of the first H/D from 1903. A couple customs and a sweet dirt tracker was among the bikes. Harley Davidson connection to this President was, Reagan imposing a tariff on imported large cc machines, to protect H/D which was heading toward bankruptcy. That gave them time to reorganize. The two other displays along the rear curved wall, on two levels, the upper had a very wide range of bikes from very early to somewhat resent. A 1899 De Deon-Bouton being the oldest if you count a 3 wheeler as a bike. Newest being the 2005 F4 1000 Ago. Have to mention the 1922 Ner-A-Car for its unusual design. The lower level featured mostly movie bikes. The connection being Reagans years in Hollywood movies. Robin and Batgirls bikes from Batman 97, the Wild Wild West Penny Farthing, the police hovering bike from Star Trek09, the 91 Fat Boy Arnold Schwarzenegger rode in Terminator 2, he also came one day to join to his machine(which is owned by him) at the display. The dragon headed bike from A-1 artificial Intelligence would surely scare people out of your way. The Exhibit ran through 11/9/2010, but dont let that stop you from visiting. Stop for lunch, restaurant inside, enjoy the views, check out the exhibits, there will be some suprises. One being something to do with the Ofarrells. His favorite snack, flavor, ties with a company up here in Nor- cal. Dont want to give away the suprises. 2011 they will be honoring the Centennial of Reagans birth throughout the year. More info on the link below.
· Reagan Library
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Written by: Glen Coddington |
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Date: Dec.28.2010 |
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Let’s Ride: Sonny Barger’s Guide to Motorcycling
By Sonny Barger
Choose Your Ride Wisely
(From the book, "LETS RIDE: Sonny Bargers Guide to Motorcycling." Copyright ©2010 by Sonny Barger Productions.
Reprinted courtesy of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.)
My goal is to make you a lifelong motorcyclist. You’ll need to do a lot more than just buy a $20,000 Harley—you’ll need to devote yourself to not only learning to ride, but learning to appreciate the ride. You’ll know you’ve become a serious motorcyclist when you stop riding just because your buddies are taking their bikes out together and you start riding because you can’t wait to feel the freedom of the open road. Hell, you won’t ride because you want to ride; you’ll ride because you need to ride.
To get to that point, you must rack up many miles in the saddle, and having a comfortable motorcycle makes putting in those hours a lot more fun. This is something you should keep in mind from the very beginning, when you first start thinking about getting a motorcycle. There’s a lot more to being comfortable on your bike than just saddles, handlebars, and windshields. The type of bike you choose will go a long way to determining how at ease you become on your bike.
If you’re just starting out it’s easy to be confused by all the different kinds of motorcycles on the market. And even if you’ve been riding a while, you may have picked a bike that’s not the right bike for you, and now you’re stuck with a machine that doesn’t meet your needs.
When it comes to picking a bike, in the end it boils down to what you like. You need guts to ride the bikes you like the best. You should decide what’s important to you and then pick the best bike that meets your requirements. Riding a motorcycle isn’t something you should do to impress other people; it’s something you should do only for yourself. Don’t worry about what other people think. Instead, decide what bike’s best for you, then get out there and have fun on it.
I pick my bikes based on my own priorities. It’s important to me to ride an American bike. I have always ridden American, which is why I stuck with Harley-Davidson until Victory’s bikes came along. I feel that way about everything. I ride an American-bred quarter horse, and I drive an American pickup (a Chevy). I grew up during World War II and was taught to buy only American.
It hasn’t always been easy to ride American. I’ve never liked Harleys much—I’ve always considered them to be the bottom of the technology pile—but I rode Harleys for 52 years because they were the best American bikes. Today I ride a Victory Vision because I think that’s the finest bike America makes. There are so many good motorcycles to pick from today that it’s hard to judge them all, but I’ve ridden enough to know that my Victory stacks up well against any of them.
In this section I’m going to help you figure out what’s important to you when it comes to your bike. We’re going to look at the types of motorcycles that are out there, examine the advantages and disadvantages of each. We’re going to talk about the comfort, controllability, reliability, and convenience of each type of bike.
Once you understand all of this, you might find that the bike you thought you wanted is actually the wrong bike for you. You may think you want a big bagger but you might not be aware of the challenges of learning to ride on a bike that’s physically too large for you to ride smoothly and controllably. And you might not be aware of the costs associated with a bagger. For instance, it’ll cost you more to mount new tires on an Electra Glide or Gold Wing than you’ll spend on maintenance in an entire year for a Sportster. And it costs a lot more to change tires on a crotch rocket than on a dual-sport machine. Once you know what types of motorcycles are out there, you’ll be better able to understand the costs associated with each.
When I first started riding, there wasn’t much variety from which to choose. One bike more or less served every purpose. You could buy a single-cylinder British bike like a BSA Gold Star and do everything with it, from commuting to racing. If you wanted to ride it off road, you took off the lights and fenders and put on a set of dirt tires. With that set-up, you could use it for trail riding, dirt-track racing, or hare scrambles, which are cross-country races. If you wanted to road race it, you could get a racing fairing, mount a set of road tires, and presto! You had a competitive road racer. And if you wanted to travel across the country, you just threw on a set of saddlebags and were set to hit the road. Beginning in the 1960s, motorcycles began to get more specialized. This trend has accelerated to the point that today many motorcycles are so single-focused that they’re only really good for doing one thing.
· Let’s Ride: Sonny Barger’s Guide to Motorcycling
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Written by: Sonny Barger with Darwin Holmstrom |
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Date: Jul.30.2010 |
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