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TWO-WHEELERS REPORTS FROM MAIN STREET IN DAYTONA– Well all I can say is the week is SHORT but SWEET! Biketoberfest turned into a 2-Day weekend. The crowd showed up on Sat and they are letting it hang for a couple of days. That’s life in RECESSION VILLE!
Well, the Friday night smackdown we had in Sturgis looked like a repeat in Daytona, but we lucked out no HAIL! The storm brought us some relief from the HOT weather. The crowd is down but we look forward to a good weekend. The Bikernet banner will be on the streets tomorrow.
Reporting from Daytona Beach Florida.
–Ms D
ANOTHER OBSCURE BIKERNET ENGLISH CLASS Word of the Day– pukka PUHK-uh, adjective:
1. Authentic; genuine.
2. Superior; first-class.
He talks like the quintessential pukka Englishman and quotes Chesterton and Kipling by the yard and yet he has chosen to live most of his adult life abroad.
— Lynn Barber, Bell book . . . and then what?, The Observer, August 27, 2000
If he does not have a house, the government gives him a pukka residence, not a . . . shack on the pavement but a solid construction.
— Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Pukka comes from Hindi pakka, cooked, ripe, from Sanskrit pakva-, from pacati, he cooks.
Killing Machine Gas Cap– The Killing Machine is milled from a solid block of aluminum and polished. Gears and spikes, what more could you ask for?
Theres much more to drool over at the Detroit Bros. Web site so pay them a visit by clicking the banner below and tell em Bikernet sent you.
SCALED BACK MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT STUDY UNDERWAY & UNDER FIRE– The first major study of motorcycle crashes in nearly 30 years is underway in Los Angeles, as researchers attempt to pinpoint why resultant fatalities have soared over the last decade. The last in-depth investigation of motorcycle crashes in the U.S. — the Hurt study — was released in 1981.
Efforts to update that information have been stymied by funding issues, reports the Los Angeles Times, and the study will be a scaled-down version of what was originally planned, and some motorcycle groups are criticizing the effort including a leading industry-backed safety group that says the sample size will be too small to properly resolve the questions.
The National Transportation Safety Board originally recommended that the study include a sample size of 900 to 1,200 crashes. But researchers at Oklahoma State University, tapped to conduct the new study, said use of such a large sample would cost $10 million to $12 million, far exceeding the federal governments $4.2-million estimate. The Motorcycle Crash Causation Study is currently moving forward with a sample size of 300 crashes.
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group funded by major manufacturers, had offered $2.8 million in 2007 for a study if it included a sample size of 900 crashes, but the group refused to contribute to the abbreviated study because industry and safety experts believe it will not provide adequate sampling to achieve appropriate statistical significance and may not provide new insights, the organization said in a statement. This limited study will likely lend only a minimal degree of validation to the major, already known contributing motorcycle crash factors.
There are about 100,000 motorcycle crashes in the U.S. each year, 5,290 of which resulted in death in 2008. According to the MSF, major crash factors include rider error, such as overbraking and running wide in a curve; and alcohol involvement.
FROM THE CANTINA GIRLS FAMILY COUNSELING GET-TOGETHER, AND THATS HOW THE FIGHT STARTED– One year, a husband decided to buy his mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift. The next year, he didn’t buy her a gift.
When she asked him why, he replied, “Well, you still haven’t used the gift I bought you last year!”
And thats how the fight started…..
–from Bill Stratton
HIDEAWAY Hideaway 11th ANNIVERSARY and a one-off Bagger DISPLAY– Some of us may still remember a little watering hole out of the way in the north of Phoenix, near where the road heading to the mountains ends in a T-crossing and going right didnt seem to make any sense. So we swung a left about ten years ago after a buddy of mine had told me about a great place to hang out and have a beer.
It was late summer, still hot in the day, so we rode up there in the evening when the desert cools, and we could cleared the urban sprawl. Back then, Scottsdale was a lot smaller, and we rolled over an empty desert for more than 12 miles to Cave Creek.
I was seriously starting to worry whether I had said something wrong to my buddy recently, and he was just dragging me out here with the promise of a beer to hide my corpse under a Saguaro, when he pulled into a dirt parking lot just off to the right and killed his engine. Right in front of us was what, to my relief, did indeed look like a terrific biker hangout with a couple of Harleys and customs parked out front. So, no Saguaro for me this night, instead a cold beer, and I met Mark for the first time.
Ten years later, the Hideaway has become the most popular hangout for bikers in the Phoenix region, although nothing else has really changed. Mark and his team are still friendly, the food is still good, and the beer is still cold. The parking lot is still all desert sand and the street up there still ends in a T-crossing just nobody thinks about which way to turn anymore. A little piece of advice, though, for the folk from out of town: Cave Creek and nearby Carefree not only have ridiculously slow speed limits, they also enacted a severely tight noise ordinance of 80 dB max and they are serious about it. You may have the loudest pipes in the bunch, but here is not the place to prove it.
This year’s 11th Anniversary at the Hideaway this weekend saw the parking lot blocked off. Instead of the usual bank of local scooters, they set up a high-end vendor village of local builders and accessory booths. They also announced the unveiling of a very special Bagger, Mark built.
The story of this bike started out as it often does: The bars did not feel quite comfortable and something had to happen. So Mark showed up at Paul Yaffe’s shop one day, looking for a custom-made solution. Nothing major as it seems, but you already know what’s coming. Having taken one look at the bike, Paul came up with the idea of having the complete bike decked out front to rear. Quickly, the idea was born to get several of the valley’s top builders involved in the project. Instead of relatively simple custom bars, Marks bike ended up being a cooperation with some of the best known creative minds and hands in the industry: Paul Yaffe (Bagger Nation), Jim Nasi (Jim Nasi Customs) and John Shope (Sinister Industries) built the bodywork and parts, and Nick Trask (Trask Performance) turboed the engine which is now putting out 115hp and 130 ft lb.
To put the finishing touches to the project and give it an absolutely unique skin, they turned to Eric Carr (Steel Vision Design). Long story short: We could go on for a very long time about this bike and would still not do justice to the work and ideas that went into it.
Each of the colaborators in the Hideaway Bagger brought several bikes, in some cases also projects, along to the anniversary. Matt Risley from MRI, also a local builder and his creations fit in well with these guys. His attention to detail and many of his tricky solutions reveal themselves only at a closer look, which makes his bikes true eye-catchers. Early in the afternoon, John from Wicked Bros. also showed up on one of his latest creations, truly radical and proving the point of his companys name.
The rest of the Anniversary is what it always is at the Hideaway: Good food and cold beer with old and new friends a perfect reason to come back soon.
– CS Berg
Ironhorse Junction By David Uhl 2009– David Uhl is pleased to announce the release of his most recent Harley-Davidson masterpiece, “Ironhorse Junction” (image below). Brought to life from an archival black and white photo, this is the first of David’s new “Early Transportation Series”. This collection will feature Harley-Davidson alongside different modes of transportation. Matching edition numbers will be made available for those choosing to collect the series in the future.
Print specifics (all canvas giclee, hand-signed, numbered, Certificate of Authenticity):
Small – image size appx 16 x 12, $375 framed – 30 plus 5 Artist Proofs
Medium – image size appx 24 x 18, $1,250 framed – 30 plus 5 Artist Proofs
Large – image size appx 34 x 26, $1,895 framed – 30 plus 5 Artist Proofs
Jumbo – image size appx 42 x 31, $3,500 framed – 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs
Greg Rhodes
Uhl Studios
15801 W. Colfax Avenue
Golden, CO 80401
303-948-1088
E-Mail Greg
WE’RE BURNIN’ DAYLIGHT–If I’m lucky, next week we’ll go to press with the first Chance Hogan book. It’s not so much getting the job done, but we need to raise the printing funds. That will be a major challenge for next week. I’ll keep you posted. Can’t wait to have a copy in my grease stained hands.
I’m working on the first Calamity Correspondent report from Sturgis 2009 from Betsy. You’ll get a kick out of it. We are kicking around road test with one of these Sinister bikers. I want to show readers how one of these radical baggers handles and discuss rake and trail with Paul and John.
I’m also working on our rigid Sportster Tech and Jason, at Paughco is pulling the info together we need. I’m also going to get started on a final tech piece on the 5-Ball Factory Racer. She’s running. I’m also going to escape the headquarters for a short jam to San Pedro and Earl’s shop. I’ll return with a short tech on his hand fabbed Triumph components, including a vertical cyndrical oil tank, Amal velocity stacks, kick pedals and more. He’s the master of rigid frame, bobbed Triumphs.
Plus, I’ll wrap up the tech from Chris Callen’s Cycle Sourceon forward controls. So hang on. There’s never a dull moment at Bikernet.
Ride Forever,
–Bandit
