11/30/11

4 years ago today-RIP EVEL


Local Butte Montana newspapers and the Eulogy from his service.

11/29/11

Bottrop!

Help for Jay

Motorcycles are dangerous business. I hate posts like these but they are a fact of life if you are around bikes enough. Scott at Backstreet Buckets almost lost a friend when a drunk driver hit his buddy Jay about ten days ago. Amazingly, Jay lived through the crash, but suffered major injuries as a result. Scott says he's a tough dude with a good attitude. I sure hope the drunk gets the maximum punishment for this. Scott is working on setting up a Sunday at Strokers of Dallas for doing an auction, with the proceeds of course going to help Jay with his recovery. We're donating some goodies and you can contact Scott to help out, or send some paypal bucks to jaybellbenefit@gmail.com Good luck Jay, we're rooting for you!

11/28/11

11/25/11

Picked up a gnome for the front of Biltwell Headquarters


Calling all Locals

Saturday night after the Classic Cycles grand re-opening in Orange, there is actually something to do in our neck of the woods. Ride over and have a beer.

11/23/11

Thanksgiving



I got this postcard from my brother Walter today. Such a thoughtful bastard! I need to stop more often and thank my motorcycle for being the conduit that's allowed me to meet so many great people like Walt over the past couple years. Here's hoping everyone has a good Thanksgiving and if you have a two-wheeled freedom machine, maybe give it a little pat on the ass and tell it "Good Job!"

-Bill

11/21/11

Vantastic Monday


We've gone almost two years without an official team van, so last week we picked up this sweet and slightly beat 2004 E350 on the cheap. I was pretty stoked that it looked like it had been a military van, what with those USS Defiant license plates and all. Must have been an Admiral's personal family wagon or something cool like that, huh? Well a quick google search (on the way home with the van) turns up the fact that the USS Defiant is a fictional star ship on Star Trek. Geeks. We are total nerds with a Trekkie van. We're getting new plates and we're going to rechristen it the USS Booger.

11/20/11

Light it up!



Wet weather makes for great shop time. I made a little progress this weekend on my Acme-framed Triumph project. First I cut and reshaped the mount on this neat old spotlight, drilled and tapped the bottom tree and shaped both trees to have a larger radius on the edges. I've wanted to use this old Linkert float bowl as a tail light for several years. I found this neat guide light that was rusted junk inside, but had a cool glass lens and a decorative bezel (that I've never seen before) at a car swap meet a couple months ago. Sure enough, it fits right on the Linkert bowl after about thirty minutes with some small files. I beefed up the mechanism inside for holding it all together and now it feels bulletproof. The lens is clear, but inside is a small (but bright) red LED cluster. I used one of our registration tube ends as the cap on the back, but I'm gonna whip up something less decorative and replace it. Simple little things but fun to tinker on and it's amazing how long you can spend on the details.








11/17/11

Classic Cycles Inc Grand Re-Opening Party

Leftovers and relatives suck anyway. Let's go drink someone else's beer and talk about motorsickles.


11/16/11

This Saturday in Anaheim

A few of us are riding over to this from Orange. Hit me up if you wanna join us. Simo Aid not SUMO aid!

11/15/11

Best Can Crusher Ever


Stolen from the BSMF.

Bolts con DicE

I am looking for someone to attend this show/party as my stunt double this weekend.
I can not attend due to cheapness and the desire to surf naked on a desolate beach.
-
With that said, the person to fill this position must have the following attributes:
1) Must love sportos
2) Must have facial hair (girls too)
3) Must be friends with the Wizard
4) Must be easily spaced and or freaked out
5) Must give man hugs to all my "biker" friends
6) And must have at least one "sun" tattoo
-
Said person will be compensated with DicE issue 41, food, and drink while supplies lasts.
-
If you feel you fit the bill, please send your resume to
rouserworks@hotmail.com

11/14/11

8+8+3=?

Easy come, Easy go. Sure is fun to ride!

Vantastic Monday

Cool wedgie project in Hebron, OH.
http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/2634411901.html

11/13/11

Brothers of the Traveling Lid


About two years ago a kid in Utah that goes by ChoppyGee had an idea. Grab one of our novelty helmets and ride around, take some pics in it and then pass it on to the next guy. It's been on the move ever since. It recently resurfaced in the west on our friend Eric's grape, who rode it out to Operation Illusive Unicorn and passed it off to our friend Oscar. The stories and pics are loosely assembled in this CC thread. Photo of Eric on his freak-everyone-out derake panhead by ElViajero. I love the reaction he gets with this bike, people just flip out and say it's unrideable even though he just blasted a couple hundred miles across the desert on it...

Two Motos One Hippy



 As the 2012 Freak Out draws nearer, I find myself getting more and more spaced out on earthly delights.
So in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint, I have decided to sell off BOTH of my personal motos and go surfing with the wizard!
-
Take your pick
TFL IV is going for $8,765.43
Ferris Bueller is going for $9,999.99
-
Both motos are fresh and ready to hit the streets.
Click the links for more info on each moto.
-
rouserworks@hotmail.com

11/11/11

Turn it up!

Thank You Vets


Yesterday me, McGoo and my two kids piled in Josh's van and went down to Camp Pendelton to see Josh's real job. Most people know him as the shit-talking nice guy who mans the Lowbrow West booth or the Biltwell guy with the rigid modern Triumph and street tracker Sporty. A lot of folks don't know that his day job is as a Huey crew chief, which means he shoots people and things from the open door of his helicopter with a variety of lethal lead spitters. (Now he's involved in training other people to do it at the moment.) Since the Huey was introduced in the early 60's and has had a million upgrades since, but still looks pretty much the same, I'd say it'd be about like flying around in a S&S Panhead. Retro and modern at the same time. But with a mini gun. Anyway, we had a good time and managed to sneak in to part of the Pendelton Mech Museum before they closed up for the night. They had a good portion locked up, but I'll be back to check it out some day because they had some super cool stuff. If you know a dude like Josh who is part of the less than 1% of this country who's serving in military, buy them a beer today or at least tell them thanks for eating dirt and shitting freedom so we can ride our machines around and have a good time.





11/10/11

This Saturday


Rain or Shine we ride the wild thunder.

Happy Birthday US Marines


Damn snopes has to take the fun out of everything. At least it's based on truth. Happy B-Day Devil Dogs, take a 96 and we'll see you on Monday for PT.

11/9/11

Hippy Killer Edit


US VERSUS THEM / OIL AND WATER ART SHOW / KUTTY NOTEBOOM / HIPPY KILLER GARAGE from DGTLX WW on Vimeo.

More good stuff from Us vs. Them.

Kutty killing hippies with our Builder's pipe kit.


Lost & Found... Still Lost Though

K-Mack shot the pics and put them on a disk.
I mailed the disk off and deleted the pics from the compu.
The moto left to start a new life in Austin, Texas.
I collected the devil's paper and met up with the Wizard in Mexico.
-
Never to be seen again...

11/8/11

Wes Humpston at Oil & Water


Man, I drew Dog Town logos all over everything when I was a kid. I sure thought I was a hard core skater back then. Of course looking back, I wasn't any damn good but always had fun. It's neat as all hell to be helping out with an art show that features icons like Wes Humpston. Here's an edit the guys at U vs. T put together with him recently. See his art as well as a grip of other heavy hitters this weekend at the show. Yeah, I know it's supposed to rain, but we promoted the whole Shop Crawl thing, so I'm riding no matter what. Oil and Water, right?

11/7/11

Vantastic Monday


Last minute edition. Word on the street is that Ford will be bringing a version of the Euro-spec full-size Transit van to the US in the next year or two. I'll take one kitted like this please...

BCM


I rode the snot out of this one all weekend. As good as it looks on the outside, it's even better inside. 



Operation Illusive Unicorn



Thanks to all the hardy folks who showed up, it was a hell of a party. (Photo by Walt.)

Here's how and why the whole cancellation deal went down. The past two years we haven't bothered with a permit for Slab City. If you've been there, you can guess why. It's a do-it-yourself environment that is billed as "The Last Free Place in America". We've asked our friends who live there (and run the stage) about permits from day one and been told that they've never been required, movies have been shot there, plenty of massive parties, music every weekend, it's all good, c'mon down! So, in the spirit of the place, and with precedent set, that's how we planned it again this year.

Last year LEO from several agencies lined up at the end of the area and would do a small show of force once in a while to make sure everyone was aware that they were there. Makes sense, it's public land, there were a lot of people and obviously a lot of drinking and whatnot going on, so it's logical that the cops want to check it out and let their presence be known. A few guys got rolled up for not wearing a helmet or carrying a fixed-blade, typical stuff but hardly a police state or abuse of any kind.

Apparently this year, after reading about it on the internet, the Imperial County Sheriff decided to check and see if we had pulled a permit. Of course we hadn't. After chewing on it for a day or two the county decided to send a cease and desist letter which we received on Thursday, one day before the event. I got an email version of it Wednesday while we were out there setting things up on site and coordinating where the $1000 worth of rented portable toilets were going, etc.

Needless to say we tried every angle, the Occupy Slab City idea, what if we cancel bands, can I come down and file for an emergency permit, etc. The permit process takes at least 30 days so there was no getting that, obviously something everyone on the other side was aware of. After trying every logical and illogical angle with the super polite County Council we were told, "no matter what you call it, no matter what changes you make, any assembly you are involved in will be will result in you being held responsible for civil and criminal actions."

Our various contacts within local agencies (yes, you might be surprised how many cops we have as friends and customers) let us know that overtime had been approved for the first time in a long time and that there was a good possibility that we wouldn't even be allowed into Slab City. The last thing we wanted to do was parade in there like nothing was going on and surprise all our friends and customers when the man says "Nope, turn around" or "Let's inspect that motorcycle, son". This isn't a movie and we aren't outlaws, so we did the next best thing and cancelled the official event.

We tried to salvage what we could of the event for people who took valuable time off work and rode through freezing rain to have a good time. We got the word out through every channel possible that the SCR3 had been cancelled and even rode over to Slab City on Saturday and retrieved two poor souls who didn't get the memo and escorted them to the new camp. In the end, I think the new location was actually better than the slabs, and we're gonna look into doing something legal there next year.

While we didn't organize or publish anything about the new location (still in Imperial County) a battalion of riders toughed it out and showed up to the informal campout. Wild weather and zero organized activities, bands, etc turned into camping in the desert with friends and that was totally fine with us. Both nights were fun and we had a good ride around the Salton Sea on Saturday. The Rangers at the new site made their presence known but were otherwise cool as far as I've been told. They wouldn't allow bands, but we knew that and had cancelled ours in advance.

The bottom line? We should have purchased the required permits and will look into doing it legit next year. I do think the Sheriff overreacted and that it could have been handled a lot differently on their end. The funniest thing about the whole weekend was how many cops and rangers talked about the Coctagon to various riders. The fact that some chief had to brief his men about a bunch of kooks who ride to the desert and then beat each other with wiffle ball bats is hilarious. One even recognized our friend Shawn's Canadian flag helmet from the video.

BTW, we've got a ton of patches, shirts, etc that we will put up for sale on the Chop Cult store later in the week since obviously we didn't sell them this weekend.

Our sincere apologies to anyone who didn't hear about the change and might have gotten left out in the cold. Thanks again to the people who stuck it out and had fun despite the last minute fire drill.

You may have heard about Charlie the Nomad and his girl's crash. We're glad they lived through a rough one, and wish them the speediest recovery possible.

11/3/11

Media Blackout


Be back next week.

Chased Out.


All the details are on the flier. Go on the Wuss Ride instead. Sorry to everyone who worked so hard or took time off and busted ass to get out here. We'll still have fun and go for a ride but it won't be to the Slabs and it won't be an "event".

11/2/11

Bueller... Bueller... Bueller?

 
Ferris Bueller is finally done, and it's fucking rad!
223 days at powder coat was well worth the wait...
-
Check the video edit over on the Bolts page.