I was reading Cyril Huze Blog the other day, and was really interested to read a post about Arlen Ness re-inventing the Digger Bike, which is basically a low slung drag style bike running matching 23" wheels, which is very much what I have been doing with the last 4 of my bikes (4,5,6 and now Romeo80) - although all with a different style. Here is the Ness bike and its very cool.
Looking at this has got me thinking as the one bike I have built over the last few years that I have not been totally happy with is the Othello Bike 5, for 2 reasons, the first its anti-socially noisy and the second is that it has mini-apes which are very comfortable but dont reflect me or my riding style. So I have been thinking:
Mount the headlamp lower
Put on some drag bars
Add a new 2-1 exhaust with muffler
Have a look at the pictures and let me know what you think?
I have been a follower of the website BikeEXIF almost from day one, its run by an English advertising guy Chris Hunter who lives in Australia and has been going for about 4 years now - you must know it as its one of the top bike sites around. Its raison d'être is to show interesting bikes , combined with good photography (thats what the EXIF is about), over the last few years the comments section has been getting more and more extreme and there is now such a clear division between the yea's and neh's, its worthy of a Phd or a book to get to the bottom of it - Men are from Mars women are from Venus - or arty custom guys vs. techy mech guys.
I am an old rider now who has been on Harley based customs for 15 years - and the reason I do is that I love the style and art of riding custom bikes - but I do ride them everywhere, I might not get my knee down but I hit the speed limits, and I think I get about 80%+ of their ability most days I ride. This is important to me as so many of the dark side (of BikeEXIF readers) genuinely believe that customs never get ridden. So my guilty pleasure when I read Bike EXIF is to "exasperate" me that people judge these bikes for all sorts of bizarre reasons which basically come down to the fact that they would not out perform a normal bike on a track day. Now living in the UK where we have congestion, and CCTV this is bizarre - I swear I could beat a GSXR on a race to the centre of London - why? - well I know the way for a start, and day to day riding is not all about speed and sticky tyres.
So to get to the point if you hate these "art" bikes try not to visualise yourself ridding the Nurburgring on one, but see yourself riding la Croisette in Cannes - you have probably not done either - but if you do both then maybe you will finally get it. In the words of my favourite Harley Davidson T Shirt "If I had to explain you wouldn't understand"
I have to say I am a real sceptic when it comes to Custom Bike Shows, the judging criteria is always so subjective, and personal interests and contacts always seem to play a part. Which is why after entering a Custom Bike Show in London last year when a bizarre collection of bikes got prizes (but not me...ahhh) I vowed never again would I enter a competition - its a lot of effort for not a lot of return.
However last month I made an exception and entered an online Bike Competition organised by the excellent Choppertown Nation mainly as the only effort involved was an email, and also the competition is really for small builders you dont get dealer customs or the real high end one off masterpieces - its for custom bikes that are built to be ridden.
So it was a real treat and a surprise to find out I won first place for my Caesar Racer VI in the Cafe Racer division - I am particularly proud of this bike as I have owned it since new some 13 years ago and re-invented it a few times before the current version - and its a daily ride, that I love to get out and blast about on. The judging was carried out by 10 independent people using the BORDA system whatever that is. Anyway much appreciated and thanks; a little bit of recognition is always nice. Someone made a point that I only won as my bike was a Harley - which I hope isn't true - and maybe we will see next year when I put in my BMW Romeo 80. Anyway check out all the great other bikes, and congratulations to them.
Finally to show the bike does get used I loaned it to my good friend Preben from Denmark last year when we rode down to the South West of England, and he put about 800 miles on it.
At the end of last years's riding season, I saw an advert in HOG magazine to ride Harley's in Cuba for February 2012 - now Cuba, is a place I have long wanted to visit, and ever keen to start riding in the heat at an early opportunity, it seemed an ideal kick off to this years rides. I booked up the tour and persuaded two friends from the UK to join me (Paul Leeson and Gary France). The tour was arranged by experienced MC-Travel from Denmark, who provide tours all over the place - check out their website www.mc-travel.dk run by Michael Christianson.
Being a communist country with a difficult relationship with the USA, its not easy to do anything in Cuba, and regular direct flights were the first issue, we flew from Gatwick with Virgin, but they only go Sundays and Wednesdays and the tour was from Monday to the following Tuesday, so we added an extra day each end to spend more time in Havana. Joining us on the tour were, 2 Danish couples and 3 guys from Canada, with Luis a Harylista from Cuba as our Road Captain, Augustino our Tourist Guide (with Junior the driver, in the back up van) with Michael Christianson bringing up the rear. Here we all are at a site in Santa Clara where Che Guevara blew up a supply train, wearing our tour T Shirts.
The tour covered around 1400km of riding over all sorts of roads, all with pot holes, horses and carts, stray dogs, goats, pigs, turkeys, cows and cubans, but other than in Havana rarely any other vehicles. We stayed mainly in the West of the island and spent time in Cinefuegos, Trinidad, Santa Clara and of course Havana - rather than describe them in detail here watch the three videos below, the first by me made from my 15 mins of film on my Pentax, the second by Gary who must have filmed about 10 hours and edited it to this great film, and finally Paul's superb mix of stills and videos - both with great Cuban soundtracks
Highlights for me are without doubt experiencing the whole culture of Cuba, a land where time has stood still since Castro won the revolution in 1959, the building and cars are like no where else, and I dont believe will stay this way much longer as relations with the USA thaw and new investment will start to come in. I also want to say how happy and well the Cuban people were, despite what appears to be an apparent poverty they seemed content and looked after. Its a great place - go there, ride the roads, visit the sites, drink Mojito's and smoke a cigar.
Been way to busy these last six months on other stuff to spend anytime on this bike -which has been going very slowly for sometime now, but hey summer is coming and it needs to get on the road. So it will be leaving P&D with all its metal work done at the end of this month. The tank is looking really good, its been cut down and slimmed but still looks BMW. There will be a new combined tail piece and electrical box, and a mini front mudguard. We are keeping the original exhausts, but double walling them to give them some bulk and finishing off with polished 10" Supertrapp Race Mufflers.
The bike then comes back to Kent where it will be put back together using as much of the old R80 controls and bits as possible to keep costs down and keep it real - hopefully this will be about 2 months max - then off to paint and on the road for early June.
Design - I am going to have it painted Red but a darker shade than the orignal and it will be named ROMEO80 - this covers my Shakespeare theme and is the phonetic word for R -I am getting a design done for this by my friend, fellow rider and design guy Paul Leeson - here are some early drafts.
2012 - another year - another bike. I am only doing this one bike this year, which is my 1982 BMW R80 which has been hanging around in bits for a year now. The bike is currently at P&D in Horsham where we are sorting the frame and metal work out. Details are gradually coming together, and its going to be a sporty looking bike although it wont be sporty in the context of modern sports bikes - still if I go fast no one can see me!
Donor bike a 1982 refurbished BMW R80 bought on Ebay
23" wheels in BMX snowflake design using Avon rubber, hand built by Taylor Made Wheels
Front forks and front brake from a Harley FXD as they were free and in my garage - rear is the existing shaft/drum.
New hardtail frame built by Dave Batchelar at P&D
Existing tank cut down to reduce bulk.
New small front mudguard and an integral cafe racer style rear fender, which a custom seat to connect.
The bars shown are for demonstration, but its going to have flatter drag style bars.
Exhaust will be 1.5" stainless and a 2 into 1 finishing in a Supertrapp muffler on the left side
Paint, lights and other details ....havent got a clue yet
A great start to the New Year in that my Caesar Racer has made it into BSH the top British Custom Bike Magazine with a six page spread. This bike is a personal favourite of mine in that it was the first Big Twin Harley I owned - bought new in 1999 as a commuting bike up to London, and it served faithfully for this clocking up 15,000 miles on 80 mile round trips. If you go through the blog you will se its various incarnations and this final one was completed in September 2010 - and shortly after featured in Bike EXIF. Since completion its been out on the road an lot and was used by my good friend Preben on a recent road trip to Devon where it clocked up 1000 miles. Et tu Brute!
Well its the 1st of January 2012 and that means in 50 days I will embark on my first road trip of the year. I am joining Danish Tour Company MC Travel on a 10 day tour of Cuba riding Harleys around the Island. I am going with 2 good friends from the UK and hopefully we will meet some more nice people to add to my growing collection of fellow motorcyclists around the world.
I will be posting and reporting as I go on Twitter so follow me @iansolley
After a number of Harley Davidson dealership failures the Company is trying to re-build its coverage, with 2 new dealerships opening in the last few weeks. Being based in Tunbridge Wells, I now find I have quite a choice, with 6 dealers less than 50 miles away.
Shaw Harley Davidson near Lewes is 22 miles away.
Maidstone Harley Davidson is 23 miles away.
Warrs in Mottingham is 27 miles away.
Lakeside Harley Davidson in Essex is 31 miles away.
Warrs in Chelsea London is 40 miles away.
Guildford Harley Davidson is 47 miles away.
Having travelled quite widely and seen HD dealers all over the world, I am way passed getting excited over a new dealership - I have seen all the bikes, accessories and clothing before and am not going to be buying any - still its always good to look. The new dealership is in a converted industrial unit in Aylesford to the West of Maidstone and not far from the M20 motorway. The refurbishment has been nicely done with a new planar glass front and a mezzanine for clothing - leaving a clear sales floor for the bikes - I am sure you get the picture. Today there was a ride there by 1066 HOG, which I missed but was good to catch up with a few faces once I got there - I dont think they will entice any members there from Shaws.
So is it worth the extra mile for me from Shaw's - I dont think so, the roads to Shaw's are nicer, the product range is identical and I have a long relationship with the guys there.
I finished the Macbeth Bobber (no.3 ) - back in 2008 and as one of my earliest bikes I really concentrated on the looks and styling. I was particularly pleased with the long 1.75" black exhausts, with the crown tips.
However, it soon became apparent these were exceptionally loud with a really harsh note, also I kept scratching stuff with the long crown tips. So I cut a foot off each and added a baffle and a nice Biltwell tip.
Even after this the bike was still way too loud for casual riding around town - offensive to put it mildly, so I have at last got around to sorting it out and had a great new 2-1 set of stainless 2.0" pipes made by P&D and added a short Supertrapp muffler. The result - it sounds perfect, looks great and goes even better.
Just back in the UK from a great weekend at Daytona Beach for the Biketoberfest. This is a huge event (in European terms) with over 100,000 bikes in the area, and centres around Main Street, with lots of bars and shops, Destination Daytona, which is a huge shopping complex for all things V-Twin and then various other smaller locations around the area. For me the high points were the old school customs at Willies Tropical Tattoo, and just the sheer vibrance and atmosphere in Main Street - I made a quick video of my very slow ride up Main Street.
There are plenty of sites to see and if you are resident then the opportunity to bring your bike here and get it fixed up on site with all sorts of new products while you wait is amazing. Here are a few shots I took which appealed to me.
The Cyril Huze Blog has been going 5 years now and has become the worlds leading source of info on the custom motorcycle scene and pretty much bikes in general - to celebrate he has changed the name to Cyril Huze Post! I am pleased to say I have been a regular follower since day 1 , and I am pleased to have had 2 bikes featured on his blog. Cyril's Graffiti bike has for along time been my favourite custom bike, and I have picked up styling cues from his work.
I was checking out his Blog the other day and saw a post about Biketoberfest in Daytona which made me think, weather is turning here in the UK, flights and hotels are cheap, lets go - so next Weds I am off to sunny Florida and will post about what I see!
This project has been quite a while in the making but we now have a rolling chasis ready to add some fenders and a tank and all the little details that will make this bike special. The pictures show the old tank sat on top of the frame, this is going to be sectioned to reduce the bulk and stretched to smooth it into the seat.
Made a quick video of a ride through my home town of Tunbridge Wells today - which is just full of traffic. I also found some old footage of Monument Valley taken in June this year - with no traffic - a nice contrast.
Was delighted to have a great ride yesterday with 1066 HOG out to the Opal Shore Chapter Rally in NeufChatel yesterday - which is south of Boulogne in Northern France. Despite growing up on the Kent Coast (about 25 miles away) this is an area I have never explored. The weather was glorious and the coast road from Calais to Boulogne is a twisty up and down delight, with all those derelict German gun emplacements as well to check out.
The rally was well organised and in true European fashion the whole town was shut off for bike and there was a healthy turnout from all over Northern France, Belgium and the UK. We finished off with a ride to Le Touquet for an ice cream and then back home, stopping off at the old V1 site at Cap Gris Nez where we could see the white cliffs of Dover - a great day out and one I will do again.
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