Jesus Loves Steve Crandall

Our friend Steve Crandall lives life his way. His blog pukes up a few of his best misadventures. Here's a couple of my latest favorites:

China Bus

Athletes foot

Bikes
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-Bill
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Geek Choppers!

iPhone applications are out of control. From useless stuff like the Zippo lighter to that spoon thing that tells you where to eat, new ones seem to come out daily. Way more than I can keep track of or even pretend to care about. Until, that is, I discovered these two.


Dynolicious
Basically a glorified timing device hooked to your iPhone's inner space/time continuum counter gyro or whatever it is in there that can determine how fast the phone is moving. I downloaded this one for the heavy hit of $12.99 and just barely played with it today, I'll try more tomorrow. You can do measured 0-60 runs and it also figures out max speed, max acceleration in G's, average speed, and ET's for 60', 330', 1/8 mile, 1000' and 1/4 mile. Starts to sound kinda fun huh? It crunches it all and turns it into a graph as well as a list. Of course, you can save the runs, name them, average them, blah, blah. I haven't figured out how to watch for the green light and then slip it back in my pocket, but I imagine you could zip tie it to the risers or something and just take off once the green lights up. You could always mount one of these attractive old-school mounts... Top speed could prove fun. Think you are hauling ass on that stripped down chopper with no speedo? Wonder how fast you are going down the freeway on average? Could be kind of handy. The estimated horsepower thing seems closer to horse shit, but who knows?


SOPODS Speedometer 1.1
Now this one is only $1.99 which is cool but only works on the newer 3G models. Wish I would have read that fine print before I paid the two bucks. Looks like a super simple speedo, which could prove useful at times. When I was messing with gearing on my Sportster I borrowed a GPS and did a couple freeway runs looking at the indicated speed and then checked it again after going up a couple teeth. This could do the same thing, but using a device you already own.

Now instead of a sight gauge on your gas tank, recess a little divot for your iPhone to sit into. Just kidding...

-Bill
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Hey I got an idea

And so it begins. Josh making some slight mods to the Triumph.




-Chris

Happy Tanksgiving

The Patriot Act

New stainless Patriot Defender set up looks bitchin and there

is huge difference in volume with a simple cable-activated valve.

So, I labored over exhaust mods on the FXR. Everyone seems to run Supertrapps or Thunderheaders on these bikes, so of course I wanted something different. If I just wanted some style I could whip something up with our do it yourself kit, but this bike isn't about funky or old school, it's just about being a fun, fast and reliable all-around bike.

A couple weekends ago at LA Bike Week, our booth was sandwiched in next to Don and the Patriot Exhaust display. After watching him demo the quiet/loud performance of these pipes all day, I have to admit I was sold. Come to find out, he kinda wanted to try a set of the Dyna pipes on an FXR to see if they'd fit. Well, I know someone with a donor bike for that project!

I dropped the bike off last week and Don whipped up a set in no time. The Dyna set-up will work if you mildly trim the heat shields and reverse the stock mount and tweak it a little, only problem is the rear pipe blocks the trans filler hole. No big deal on my bike, but if Patriot was ever going to do an FXR-specific set up they'd change the rear pipe a little. No plans in the works for that as of yet, but we learned something, and that was the point of the whole exercise. Sadly, I brought the bike home in the rain in the back of the team van so I don't have any butt-dyno results to report yet. I can say the craftsmanship is absolutely first-rate. Also, having the ability to make the bike as quiet as a homely stocker early in the morning or when coming home late at night might improve my relationship with the neighbors. Thanks, Don!

-Bill
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Classic Cycles Inc.

I had a chance to stop by Andy & Tony Dunn's shop in Orange, CA tonight. This father and son shop did a bunch of work on my old gold Triumph over the last couple years and it's cool to have seen them grow out of their personal garages and into a totally respectable, real live shop. Andy's got a knack for keeping things clean. He's one of those dicks who can probably work on a bike all day in a white t-shirt. I get dirty just looking at 'em. Him and his dad have turned this one-bay shop into a surgery ward for old iron, especially British, though there might be a Harley or Honda hiding out here and there too. The shop does everything from tune & service work to major rebuilds and customizing. Check 'em out here: Classiccyclesinc.com

Motor rebuilds are probably what the shop is best known for.

Here, you can see why. A sectioned bench keeps rebuilds in progress organized.
Note actual work orders on the wall by each one.

Full-on build in progress, using a Flyrite Loner frame that Andy had nothing but good words for.
Yep, it even comes with our seat bracket.
Anyone got a 45 springer they want to sell?
Note BSA pipes and Classic Cycles finned motor mounts.

G.I. Joe called, he wants his bike back. It's a 1940 BSA WM20 flatty single. (I had to ask.)

They specialize in Triumphs, but that's not all they've got in the works.

Probably the best advertising a shop can have.
Andy's personal pre-unit. Lots of neat shit going on here.

Gepetto and Andy get ready to start the "night shift".
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-Bill
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LIFE

I followed a link from the COC site to this collection of old LIFE magazine pics.


Whoa! Search "motorcycle" and you get about 200 great images.

Bitchin' thing is you can view 'em really big and since they were shot by LIFE mag guys, they are crisp and in focus.

You can stare at some of these for a LONG time just soaking up the details.

-Bill
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Get an Edjumacation!

I don't know these guys or even whether the courses are worth a damn, but the thought sure is cool. How does a dude learn a craft when working with your hands on something other than a keyboard seems to be a dying art? Without a mentor of some kind one could spend a lifetime figuring things out. This might be a neat way to build a foundation, and yes, they have a bike program. Check out the Hot Rod Institute.

-Bill
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Garage Co. Visit

We were lucky enough to have a chance to visit Yoshi and Kiyo (spelling?) at Garage Company this morning. They are doing some engine work for our friend Chris Moeller. A peek inside the shop revealed this baby blue panhead that they just finished up for one very lucky customer. Check some of these details...

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Thanks for letting us check this thing out guys!
-Bill
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Slideshow

We linked to some of these fine art relics a couple months back when our friend Andy turned us on to them on bcgreeneiv's Flickr page. Well, there are more now, and this super nifty slide show. If this doesn't make a man want to load up his cartridge belt, canteen, Triumph and head to the beach, I don't know what does. Watch it and be sure to select "show info" so you can read the captions.

Slideshow
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More vintage jewels here.

R.I.P Mexipan

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Death from Above

It's always good to have friends in high places. Thanks, BFJ.
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It's that time of year again...

A great excuse to take a ride up the coast and hang out in Ventura for the weekend.

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linkage

So I have been working on my mids this last week and almost got them figured out. Missed the Dice Party!!! Spent 3 nights at work and almost figured them out. Sometimes stuff goes smooth and sometimes not. I was rushing to get them done in time to leave with everyone to Vegas and ended up missing the whole thing. They will get plenty more attention before I am done but they work finally. Just not as clean and "finished" as I would like yet.



-Chris

Cast Stuff

Kostas over at Rockin Swallow makes some great cast pieces and sent us a pic of a new Tiki design. I have some of his art on my bike as seen in our ad in the new Dice Zine too. Thanks Kostas!




-Chris

Lake Elsinore Bike Night

Duane Ballard has been to one, and he says it has promise. Please do your part to balance the bro-to-douchebag ratio by coming out next week. I lived in Lake Elsinore for 12 years, so I'm pulling for this one. See you N0vember 25th.

-- McGoo

Beer and Loathing in Las Vegas!

Whew! Great weekend at the DicE party in Vegas. These dudes know how to get it on, that's for sure. Thanks to Justina and the boys at DicE, and BMG for being such a good host. Both bars were great, hotel was cheap, everything worked out well. Quite a few neat bikes and even a couple parking lot stunts for entertainment. I poached a few of these pics off the Jockey Journal since I only took a couple, hope you guys don't mind.

Looks like someone blew an intake valve right behind this classy bike.

Maybe this thing IS cursed.

It was really cool to see our bars on a bike of this caliber.
Good to meet Hiro from Zero.

Eric getting a new neck bomb mermaid downtown. His XS ran perfectly the whole trip.

While not the best looking bike in the lot, my FXR ran awesome and didn't use a drop of oil. I'm falling in love with this thing the more I ride it.

AZ Nick's insane panhead. This thing is almost exactly as he found it. The trans locked in 4th gear sometime in the 70's and it got parked. Nick unearthed the filthy beast on Craiglsist thirty-some odd years later. He cleaned or replaced everything that held fluid, cut through the muck and polished up the chrome. It was well preserved under all that gunk and now he has one of the best examples of a 70's-era garage-built panhead chopper. Yes, he rode it to Vegas from Phoenix.

Foundry kicks ass. The green, flamed ironhead rules. Matt even donated the battery out of it Sunday morning to replace the one in Moeller's shovel. Thanks, dude!

How cool is it to see a whole row of Denver's Choppers? Hearing these things run is a treat.

Sunday looks like it was rad, riding through the Hoover Dam and Valley 'o Fire. Too bad we missed that, but we were working on bikes and then hauling ass home. Hey, are those Frisco bars?
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-Bill
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