Hoedown Report

This was pretty early in the day. The whole place filled up later in the afternoon.

Hats off to Kutty, Lisa and everyone else who pitched in on the 2nd Annual Hippy Killer Hoedown. They picked a good location and everything seemed to run real smoothly. We just set up a little Chop Cult booth and passed out a few stickers, shot a few bikes and had a good time with friends instead of working like we usually do.

Our friends AJ and Todd from Lick's came in all the way from Massachusetts and had a good time. BF Josh and Rebecca ran the Lowbrow set up and were proudly hocking Biltwell parts along with a full selection of bungs, patches, cloth wires and all sorts of good stuff.

I was real interested to see our friend Dillon's band, The Creepy Creeps. By the time they came on most of the crowd had split, but the people who stayed got a great show. These dudes know how to get it on and I'm glad we stuck it out.

Tons of quality bikes from all over and plenty of cars which was real cool to have at the same event. I tooled around on the Bad Idea sidecar bike, giving a few rides and shuttling our kit back and forth to the truck. That stupid thing is too fun.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and hung out or said hello, and thanks to the Born Free guys for putting up with McGoo's stories.

The highlight of the day. This cat lost his shirt first and then his dignity when he almost ran into The Laura and Rebecca and dumped his bike. Nice work, dude! I think the girls made him nervous or something.

I heart Courtney's truck.

The car guys made a good showing for sure.

Lowbrow West had a dialed set up. Blue Moon Kustoms got Josh's tank done and FedEx'd just in time for the show.

Happy Hour

Hey, that was fun! Thanks to everyone for showing up. See ya'll tomorrow at the HKH.

Holy Cow

Courtesy of Mark McQuilling and the students of Northeast High School in Philidelphia.

Just Sayin'

C'mon by this afternoon if you are around, or we'll see you mañana at the Hippy Killer Hoedown.

¡Doin' it Baja!

It looks like the folks at Vice are putting the finishing touches on last year's epic Baja trip. Seeing this right before our Biltwell 500 event is really getting me stoked on doing some Mexico riding. We'll be camping at the same spot featured in the first episode of the film, Quatro Casas, so you can get a little preview of what you are getting into. Expect to see stuff on vbs.tv in late May, but for now we have this trailer.

If you aren't familiar with VBS, settle in with a good internet connection and watch some of the nuts films these guys are putting together. I don't mean nuts in a Jackass stunt kind of way. I mean nuts like filming a trip into North Korea, exploring the Salton Sea and buying guns in the Khyber pass. Not your everyday travel channel and I'm honored to have worked with these guys. Let's do another one, Chainsaw!

Setting the Benchmark

Kim @ Benchmark hooked me up with his new slinky breather for my Sporty build. This thing is a work of art and absolute steal at $150. Impressive machining BoyleComm!

Ohhhhh Canada

Conquering the great white north has been one of our goals since the company's inception and we are happy to say that we've been making some pretty big strides to get there. Hailing from Ontario, Canada is our newest distributor ResurrecXion Cycles . Daniel and Julio have been great to work with and we are proud to add them to the team.

These guys enjoy choppin' on some motorsickles as well. Check out their project build and work shop.

Bolts Auction

Stone over at Bolts is drumming up dough to get his FXR back in biz. He's got a couple things up for grabs, but the one you really want is this unmounted NOS sporty tank.

Get sum...

Backstreet Buckets

Here's a few painted lids from our newest painter Backstreet Buckets . Welcome to the program Scott & Amy!

Ice Blue

New color in stock, check the Ice Blue Mega Flakes.

Bad Idea Update

Made small bits of progress on the Bad Idea yesterday. Looks like the thing might get registered for the street after all. One more meetup with the CHP here in town on Monday, and my fingers are crossed. If it happens, it'll be one more victory for CARS (California Auto Registration) in Temecula. Nancy and the ladies there are DMV-slayer ninjas. More importantly, check the new graphics. A little 13th panzer division logo mixed with a Chinese star and some bits from an old Biltwell sticker and wah-lah, a totally fictional but believable unit insignia. Some dude at the gas station this morning believed it was a real ww2 beemer. It's just easier to say that then explain the whole thing...

Kundratic Swap

Sunday, April 25th, our friends at Kundratic Kustoms are having their Spring Swapmeet in Baltimore, MD. Get on out and see what the local horder has to offer or sell him something.

RootBeer!

We are waiting on a massive batch of lids to arrive in about two weeks. In the meantime, one of the few colors we've still got in stock is everyone's favorite: Root Beer. There are only about a dozen of those left, so if you are thinking about it, now is the time!

Lil' Insurance

Big trip time is coming up quick. A couple of these bottles came in from Mizu last week and I'm stoked to put the big one to use as a spare fuel bottle. The other smaller one fits in a standard bicycle water bottle cage so that's handy. It's always nice to have a little extra go-juice with you and I'm digging the carabiner-friendly cap for just clipping it on to my pack.

Happy Hour Friday

C'mon by Friday if you are in the neighborhood. We're gonna shut down early and open up the bar for a few rounds. 3:00-6:00 PM.

Moto Gloves are Back

Just in time for summer riding: Moto Gloves. These things are drop-dead simple. Super comfy, just plain ol' black gloves with nice details like knuckle gussets and and velcro wrist closure for your riding pleasure. They're also pretty nice for working in and make decent shooting gloves too.

Bustastic Monday

Poached from BMK. Love me some splitty vee-dub action minus the hippy paint.

Hippy Killer Hoedown!

Coming up next weekend! Killing hippies all day in the IE. Kutty and crew (Lisa!) have put a bunch of work into this thing so you know it's gonna be good.

Event details here: HKHD2

High Five

Sideburn Issue Five is out now.

Street Chopper Party

Perfect day. Slept in. Rode with friends. Saw a bunch of bikes and more friends. Shot some photos. Ate a good lunch and enjoyed a solo blast home. Thanks to JGH and the crew at Street Chopper for throwing a nice little shindig. The new issue is packed with goodness, these guys are working hard to showcase some good machines.

July 3rd NorCal KnockOut!

Bike & Car Show. Hit it, son.

Be There or Be Square

Tomorrow. Great excuse to get out and ride.

A Class with Class

The kids at Kennedy High School who are lucky enough to get into Kevin "Teach" Baas' chopper class must be so stoked. I had wood shop in high school and it was nothing like this. Kevin rules and we proudly donate stuff towards his projects with the young sprouts, this time a set of Chumps bars and Slimline risers. You can keep up with the class's progress on their very own blog here.

Early Moto

Strut Your Stuff

Jimmy sent us this pic of his Evo Sporty with some Keystones and our 10" struts. Looks like he also spent some time on that wheel package. Keep on choppin' brosef!

Ardcore Elmet

Biltwell helmet done up by Nate at Ardcore Choppers. Nice work! And yes, it's sold already.

Vantastic Monday

Nice pair!

Wow.

Really? We need this?

Biltwell 500 Shop Rags

We all need another black biker blah blah shirt with skulls and wings and words like death, mayhem and whatnot to show everyone how tough we are, right? With that in mind I just whipped up a poop-brown (Anvil actually calls it Texas Orange) shirt design and it's over at American Icon getting squeegied up as we speak, er, blog. We'll have them up in the online store in a week or so. Most proceeds will go towards firewood, bbq supplies, cerveza and other stuff for the Monday night party at the 500.

ArtBro

BTW, yesterday's blog was a joke if you didn't get it.

Back to our regular programming...

My friend Arto is, among other things, an outstanding photog. Check these snaps he sent me of a recent ride from behind the Orange Curtain.

Chromatic Death

We've been working real hard on this new product behind the scenes. You know you are going to die someday, and it's probably going to be while doing something stupid on your deathtrap motorcycle. So, to remind all your relatives of what a colorful character you were, we've designed up these super sweet coffin wraps. You can personalize it with a right side primary shovelhead with tasteful paint or send us a real picture of the dude inside enjoying the good ol' days and we'll make it custom.