Skate Quiver: Bulldog Tsunami

This stick is another Bulldog Skates (BDS) creation from 2004. This one is signed by the Bulldog and is #37 of 100 signed, with a total production run of 300 if I'm not mistaken. Sweet.

Again, some folks think I am remiss for using this piece of "art" in the manner that it's intended, i.e. actually skating it, but that is in fact what it was made for.......

It is a fairly large board with dimensions of 36" x 11" with a mellow concave and quite a bit of flex, compared to most skates today. It'll skate vert, but you gotta' give it some room and keep trying to remember to carve and flow with it and not just rip around. I usually have it set up with some fairly soft wheels for skating around town and bombing hills and parking lots. Haven't had a chance to skate a ditch with it yet but I bet it'd be a hoot. Can you say lip-slide?.......

It's great to bomb sidewalks and parking lots with. The downtown cops here love me because I'm not the nornal punk-ass kid that they usually hassle for "skating illegally", whatever in hell that means. If you'll read that last sentence with some sarcasm in your voice it'll read better the second time around.........

The equipment list is as follows.......clock out here if you're already bored!

Trucks are Independent 215's with black Indy bushings and angled risers

Wheels:
Old old old Kryptonics 70mm's at 78 duro for around town
Spitfire Big Head Softies 65mm at 92 duro for just cruising or ramps
Spitfire Salba's (OOP) 63mm at 98 duro for vert and parks

Bearings are Rockin Ron Steels or Bones Reds

Custom PWA Lexan Tail Slider
Powell-Peralta Nose Bone
Red rails from L.A. Skate

Edger Grip Tape from TailTap.com and Buddy Carr

Oh yeah, check out that really cool, and even harder to come by,Team Geritol stickie in the lower left-hand corner, courtesy of Grippy, or should I say Thunderlips !

L8R!

Last Mid-Ohio Diatribe.....

This shot was taken from atop the Goodyear Tower along the front straight at Mid-Ohio during Vintage Motorcycle Days. This represents probably one-half of the pit population of the vintage road racers, but about only one-twentieth of the total campers and all that were on-site. Not even including the swap meet folks!

Goofy link for the day is HERE. We here at Skatetruck reserve the right to with-hold all comments........Thanks to TLC for the link.

Velocette MX'r

pic pwa

Velocette.

Yep, a Velocette moto cross bike. Sounds almost like an oxymoron to me. The Velocette's that are most burned into my lust factor are the Isle of Man TT kind of Velo's.

The overall styling of the dirt Velocette was fairly period, except there's no mistaking the profile of that vertical single and the gorgeous Velocette script and colorings, and as the Rainman might say, "Shiny".


Speaking of motorcycle museums, and we were, check out this one down under, in South Australia.

G'day.

Vintage MX at Mid-Ohio

pic by pwa. Mud by Mother Nature.

Last year the AHRMA Vintage Motocross races were a soupy quagmire after constant rains leading up to and during the event.

This year, just to be different, it rained like hell again.

These guys (and gals) were a muddy mess after running one moto. But some of them were racing two moto's at a time, on different bikes. I watched a guy wander around the pits taking pictures of racers pulling in and to a man their faces were so mud covered, all you could see were two eyes and a big old grin..........

Mid-Ohio Trials 2005

photos by Bob Ginder

As usual, the crew from B&J Racing laid out the Trials at Mid-Ohio during the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days . Our principal, Bob Ginder was the Trials Master for the event. He laid out a doozy, especially for the #1 and #2 line guys.

I practiced pretty hard leading up to the event, and made some modifications to my venerable Suzuki RL250's front forks that were a vast improvement, eliminating a big dive that they had on hard deflection that would almost wrench the bars outta' your hands.

With that mod and the practice I rode the best trials that I've ridden to date, only giving up seven points and having two totally clean loops (I've NEVER had even one clean loop!) on the day while riding the #3 line. I was pretty happy with that score, and hopeful for a good result. But that turned to a bit of disappointment when I realized during the awards ceremony that a few of the guys that finished ahead of me were #2 line riders from around the nation that had ridden down a class, and I ended up seventh in the final standings. It's kinda' like Muhammad Ali dropping down and fighting a middle-weight boxer.............not cool.



Our buddy Mennonite Mike of MMS (Mennonite Motor Sports, I swear! Check out the beard.), also rode the best trials I've seen him ride to date and gave up only eight points on the day to finish eighth.

Oh well, I still rode well and we had a bloody great time and we ate like freaking Kings (Mucho Thanks to Bruce and Eileen!) and I can only look forward to next year.

L8R

MX at the Hall of Fame

pic by pwa

As I was saying, the Motocross America exhibit at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum is a stupendous effort and should not be missed.

The bike pictured here is a late 60's (probably 1967 or 1968) TM-250 Suzuki twin-pipe model. Very gorgeous, and very rare, from what I can gather. Being the Suzuki queer that I am, I was quite taken with the period logo and also the paint scheme that they not only used on their MX'ers, but on the road race machines as well. I've got a second RL250 trials bike here in the Old Dickson P.O. that I am fetteling with, and the graphics will definitely be based on this.

Here's a nice article with some good links and pictures from Parts Unlimited's PartsMag about the Motocross America exhibit.

More to come, plus maybe a Mid-Ohio Trials report..........or a rant.........

Skywheel

If you've ever rode the Skywheel at the fair and dug it then you might enjoy this slide show that the pitcherlady has put together in memoriam of her friend Maddog and the Skywheel, who was evidently a Skywheel flying sonofagun........Godspeed Maddog.

Directionally Challenged

Note to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum:

Please turn this fender around 180 degrees. We've visited twice in a two year span and the only trials bike on display has it's front fender on backwards. It makes Ginder crazy!

This is Debbie Evans Yamaha TY175. You've probably seen her ride and didn't even know it.

Having said that, we were lucky enough to visit during the opening week-end of the Motocross America exhibit. If you are near Columbus Ohio and give a damn about scrambles or motocross or the history there-in, you will not be disappointed in the bikes and memoribilia that they've assembled. The Museum worked with private individuals and also the factories to be able to give us a glimpse of some un-obtanium items and bikes from all eras of motocross.

Hats off to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum........more pics from the Museum to follow this week.

Off we go.....

photo by b.g.


skatetruck is headed out on the road for the next few days. We're probably going to be mixing a couple of metaphors..........so what else is different.......

The B&J Racing crew is headed for Mid-Ohio to lay out the AHRMA Trials during the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days (VMD). Bob Ginder, principal at B&J , is the Trialsmaster. We here at skatetruck have been practicing kinda' extra and are hoping not to ride like a girl, no offense intended, and are looking forward to doing well in the largest field of the season thus far.

VMD at Mid-Ohio this year will present Ducati as the marque. Last year it was BMW and in spite of myself I enjoyed seeing all those damn boxers, and many Bimmer sidehacks. Should be great again this time 'round.

On our way home to Tennessee on Sunday afternoon we are hoping to stop in LOUISVILLE and skate the park. Cross your fingers. Film at eleven on Sunday.

L8R

P.S. Stoopid link for Tuesday is HERE..........Oh yeah, this just looks like a clever joke.

But it isn't.......

seven-come-eleven

The pitcherlady informed me that 7/11 would mark a thirty-one year anniversary of our auriferous acquaintance.

Really.

Blessed ain't even the word.

Monday 7/110/5 also marks the first day of rest during the 2005 running of the Tour de France, after having been racing for eight days straight. Don't you know those guys slept in late, ate several meals that would have paralyzed you or I, and got the massage from Jesus Hail..........

Tricky

pic by pwa

This is the Gripster (a.k.a. thunderlips) executing a free-form bowl-exit manoeuvre that he likes to call the "Edger Back-Side Non-Axle Stall-Stall, Y'all"...........

He's got so adept at this that he can pull it off at a ratio of like ninety-nine times out of a hundred attempts. Freaking A-mazing.

Posted by dick justice

Sunday 7/10

photo by pwa

Here's a sad sort of sight. We've been scouting this spot here for a few months. Pretty seedy place. It has slowly filled with brown river pea-gravel. It would have been a gnarly skate, the type of place that you'd bang for fifteen minutes or so, and then get the hell out.........

For those interested, a fellow named Danny Way evidently made his jump on his skate of the Great Wall of China. Apparently several times. Kudos must go out to all concerned, at least from a cultural standpoint. You can check out the AP version at Yahoo HERE, or Danny Way's press release from his site is HERE.


And finally, if you want to read something that makes any sense what-so-ever, don't go HERE.

bolinski

image pwa

This is my buddy Woody.

Here he is doing his King of Siam impersonation, while watching his shadow and rapping his tail up and down the neck of this guitar case. Evidently he remembers some of being named after the other more famous Woody, Woody Guthrie........

When I first met him he was far too engrossed with watching pro-wrestling on television than to give up any attention. Figures.

Red Dog Design

photo by Zeke

Skate quiver addition # 2.........

This Dogtown Skates, Red Dog Design is the absolute first to be unloaded from the UPS truck at the Bike Pedlar back in the day. We were crazed whenever we got something from Dogtown. There were always new stickers, but the boards, well, the boards had a vibe like no other boards we carried. We would pull them carefully out of the box and handle them like glass and pass 'em around to each other so everyone could try and get some of that magic..........They were well made but there was never any type of cookie-cutter feel to them. No CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines in those days.

Bike Pedlar guru Dave Miller put Sharpie marker to this one and made me feel like somebody by scripting my name above the cross in similar font, along with some other sweet detail work that any sharp-eyed Dogtown fan might notice. He was also a master grip tape artist/applicator.....

A great stick to skate, especially in ditches like the old Fatherland ditch, it has 29-1/2" x 9-1/16" dimensions with a 17" wheelbase. A sometime set-up would run Tracker Mid-tracks and YoYo's or Tunnel Rocks. Currently there's a pair of Full-tracks mounted on grey 9/16" Tracker risers, with a Tracker Coper and a multi-color set of Powerflex Fives housing German Speed Bearings. And finally, a Space Plate to protect what's left of the rear, because I think it started life as a 30" board, but just like all things, as we age we all get a little bit shorter.........

Skate Hard..........

Today's Victim - MX250

pic pwa

Today's victim at B&J Racing is this pretty sweet 1974 Yamaha MX250 moto-crosser. It'll be raced in anger at the next AHRMA (American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association) National Vintage Moto-cross.

It got a nice set of custom built (at B&J) Falcon Shocks, a motor rebuild, an electronic ignition (fuck a bunch of points and condensors!), and some carb work. I'm afraid dude might end up on his head though, 'cause he got the Ginder Special NASTY porting job and this sonofabitch pulls like gang-busters when you get it up on the pipe. An EEEEeee ticket ride fer sure!

More victims to come........