Old Biltwell Blog: August 2011

8/31/11

Grant, Mike & crew are cooking up the goodness for next year. We stopped by last week to see what's up and check out the new HQ. Seems they couldn't decide between choppin' up the FLH or not, so now there will be two bikes given away: the '69 creampuff and a full tilt chop ('69 of course.) Keep up with the news here.

Tanks A Lot!

Lowbrow teamed up with the Horse mag and is giving away one of the bitchin' new P-Nut tanks. HBSC staff has narrowed it down to three readers. Cast your vote here and hook a brother up!

8/30/11

Introducing the New Sanderson Foot Pegs

After nearly a year of development and thousands of miles of test riding, we've got these babies in stock and ready to go. Now guys with later model bikes that have a female clevis mount (which requires male pegs) can enjoy some classic style. The pegs rotate on the mount so you can index them into any position. This is really handy if you have forwards or rear sets or anything else where you want to be able to adjust your foot position. Unlike the old classic they are inspired by, these are not pot metal, they are investment-cast Stainless Steel with a Chromoly pivot/mount. I've put mine through a lot and they've never loosened up and that cast and polished body doesn't show a bit of wear. Also available in Johnny Cash's favorite color for you murderers out there.

Busy Long Beach Swap this past weekend...

Bikes N BRO's.

Hey Texas!

8/29/11

Bikes, Bikes & More Bikes

I finally got around to updating the Customer & Friends Bikes page. Some are sent in, others poached from forums, or my personal photos, etc. You can see 'em here. Feel free to send me pics at bill@biltwellinc.com or upload them to our facebook wall and I'll grab them from there.

Vantastic Monday

Mike is making some noise about an early Chevy, so here is some reference material. A couple more at Bvrwally's You Tube page here.

8/27/11

Workin' for the Weekend

Happy Hour was a good time last night. Thanks to Terry for hooking up the Ballast Point and to everyone else for coming by. I'm always the annoying kook walking around shooting photos of everything but last night I only snapped a couple. Here's one of an amazing preunit with a great backstory (I'll get into that later, look for a full feature on Chop Cult.) A half dozen of us took off on what I call the "Shakedown" loop about 3:00. Just a mile and a half of dusty washboard and then a couple great backroads for 20-ish miles chock full of twisties and a couple really steep climbs then back to the shop for beers and bullshitting.

It has been hot as hell out here in the desert so the invite from my friend Rich to go wake surfing behind his boat all day today was a great way to cool off. I was stoked that I got right up and had some fun. BOATS = Bust Out Another Thousand, so I appreciate the chance to do something like this. Rich, you rule. Good times!

That's Capitan Rich towing Erik on the wake skate towards the end of the day.

8/25/11

Safety First

8/24/11

Belden Town Blow Out This Weekend!

Details: Belden Town Blow Out.

These dudes know how to party.

8/23/11

Beer and Boots

Bikes, Beers and Belly flops at this last Beer Booters party at Wompy's house. Thanks guys!

Good Looks.

Rich picked up a nice black dyna and this Pre unit was GENIUS!

Happy Hour Friday

It's been quite a while since we've done a Happy Hour. If you are looking for an excuse to knock off early and come by for a beer, here it is. This Friday 4:00-7:00PM. Show up at 3:00 if you wanna go on a fun little shakedown ride in the hills west of our place. We'll start it off with a bunch of Pacifico and various drinks from the bar but if you want something special, bring it. See you then!

8/22/11

Vantastic Monday

Normally if I poach a photo, I try to give credit but I found this random folder on my laptop called "Vans". I have no idea where each one came from, but they're worth looking at.

8/21/11

EDR in ER WTF?

Carey Brobeck did a great job on an Easyriders story about this year's El Diablo Run. Thanks dude! Hard to believe we got a mention on the cover and four pages inside. Pretty neat to be in a mag that size, even if it's not our regular style book. At least it lets that demographic know that something else is going on out there and it ain't all chaps, tassels and .38 Special. As cool as it is to see something you love in print, it's also when we always start to back away from it. With that in mind I think we'll let the EDR rest next year and maybe the next. It's the kind of thing to us that has to stay special and doing it every year kind of takes the luster off of the whole thing. It also lets the attention die down so we don't have too many people interested in it.

We are still going to do a Mexico run in the spring but it will be more like the Biltwell 500 was, smaller, less moving parts and tougher. We won't do it on Mother's Day this year but it'll be around that same end of April, early May time frame. There are some hot springs about 55 miles south of San Felipe called Puertocitos that are pretty fun and the fishing is great. They've been paving the road south of Puerto at a pretty good rate over the last year or two and I really doubt many (if any) choppers have been down that road yet. So it will be cool to ride that new ribbon of pavement with the Sea of Cortez on our left for the first time on non-off road bikes. Stay tuned, we'll do a pre run here in early fall to check on the restaurant and gas station there and announce the details on everything as soon as we work 'em out.

Nor Cal Day 3

So day three started at the KOA in Petaluma where they were glad to see us leave. See, the night before we were just having a good time and then Scotty, Gaysey, BHall, Marc and more rolled in and it turned into a great time. Our local friends took us through Napa (I think) and over to the Old Stf open house, where Gabe was cooking some chow and we relaxed in the shade, checked out the new shop and hung out for a while. Eventually we had to split off from The Riding Buds and head for the city. That part of the ride was uneventful and seemed to take forever. We were about two exits from the bridge when Jason's pressure plate broke. It took us a while to figure it out and come to the conclusion there was no fixing it without parts. Luckily we got in touch with Matt in the van and he turned around and came to the rescue. We rode into the city in the dark with no more drama except dodging crack heads and trying to find parking. Hot showers and 11:00PM dinner found us pretty nagged out. Jason did the research and found out Dudley Perkins HD was open the next morning, so we hatched a plan to get down there as soon as we could the next day. I didn't shoot any video on day three, so here's a slide show.

8/20/11

Vantastic Saturday

Been tidying up small bits on my boy's van before he actually starts driving it. We've been collecting swap meet stereo stuff for almost a year and finally got that all in and booming this week. I have to say it sure makes driving slow much more enjoyable! Modern kids man, this thing doesn't even have an antenna, it's all about the iPod. Gotta weld up a hole in the roof before the headliner goes in this week. Once we get this thing done I think I'm gonna have to start looking for one for me 'cause now I'm kinda jealous. Anyone know a good source for pop-out window rubbers for a '70?

The Command Center

The New Bricktop CD is in constant rotation. Thanks Brent!

Make mine Econoline...

8/19/11

T-O-P-L-E-S-S

Rootbeer Float

Random eBay CB750 dealer-chopped survivor. Awkwardness only exceeded by the Praying Mantis. Someone buy this old roach please. Talk about freaking out your local bike night chromosexuals. Roll up on this beast and show 'em who's boss.

Mostly Least

What's got a green stretch limo and side panels made out of skatelite?

These

Guys

Keep it real with hard core integrity bros!

8/18/11

Time to Reboot!

http://www.beerbooters.com/

8/17/11

Ace Cycle Service & Supply Grand Opening

Nick and Brianne McClean are talented and fun people.

If you are around Northern Nevada this weekend hit up the grand opening for the new shop.

Support independent motorcycle shops!

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Black Mandanas

Bolt-on beards, now in black.

8/16/11

Game Over

Well it's finally over, 59 days of fun has come to an end

Made it back home to Texas and was welcomed with 100º temps and flat surf

That just makes the memories even better!

K Mack did great, he handled the pavement, the dirt, the raging river, and the solitude with no problem and only whined once, maybe twice

Boss Hobbs made it out for the last few days of the Bronanza and put a working on his freshly gone through XR400, this guy can ride anything two wheels anywhere

Side note: I witnessed Jake eat a handfull of almonds that he set on the ground!

Most of yall won't believe that, but I seen it with my own eyes

The KTM did great, and had a voracious appetite for parts

It went through a set of fork seals, a head pipe, silencer packing, front tire, headlight bulb, kickstand, a radiator shroud, axle adjuster bolt, and a front brake rotor, I must say it knows how to party!

It's gonna get the spa treatment this winter, complete tear down and rebuild for next years Bronanza

Thanks to everyone who made it out for the 1st ever Dirtmoto Bronanza

The rest of yall got 10 months to get it together for next year...

Biltwell Prime Cut Vests (Ready to go!)

We've been quietly working on a denim vest with our friends at Dust in Switzerland for months now and we've finally got them up in the store and ready to go. Link. These are a low-quantity kind of item that we will run out of pretty quickly. We hope to have more back in stock before the holidays. To show you how they look, we enlisted our handsomest bro, Mike "Blotto" Deutsch and our trusty Operations Manager, Kenzie.