Tiger Cub 3

Well. It's alive.

Finally.

And it's in the damn B&J race trailer headed for Wyoming in the morning, and delivery to Earl so he can probably scratch the shit out of it at the trials this week-end.

We think it's gorgeous, and we hope Earl will too! We've been kind of crazy trying to get it done. Bob said today that when you roll it out into the sun it kind of makes the stress of engineering and assembly worth it. Well, that and a check from the customer!

Cannon Fodder

This is a World War One gun that is on display at the court house square in Livingston, Tennessee.

I just had to put this up here in honor of our buddy Mennonite Mike because he is the only person I know that has his own damn cannon.

And, whenever he shoots it we all act like a pack of freaking 12 year-olds, laughing like hyenas and we nearly collectively wet our pants beacuse it practically scares the crap out of us when it goes KER-BLAM! and the cannon jumps two or three feet off the ground! Nope, doesn't take much to amuse us as a crew.

I just pray the good Lord never lets my teen-age years wane.........

PW

Turtle Karma

I don't know why, let me just say that right now, first thing.

I don't know why, but whenever I'm out riding a motorbike or even driving around, if I come across a turtle and it's in the road, I stop and pick it up and take it into the bushes on the side of the road in the direction it was headed. I always thought it was good karma, I guess. I'll talk to them and sometimes there's some bucking about on their part, but usually they just hiss at me like a cat and suck all their appendages inside the mobile armor thing. I check out the markings pretty good and note the heft. I've probably handled a few hundred good sized box turtles......they're all pretty cool looking, and they're all different.

One day me and Sam (Sam's my Dad, some other blog will have to handle why he's called Sam) and our buddy Brian were out for a ride in the country around old homey-town Dickson. We were just toodling along, I was out front, and we came upon this monster freaking snapping turtle. A Monster. At least fourteen inches in diameter with a head easily the size of the fist you can make, and a neck long enough so's he could almost reach his ass.

Well I just passed him on by, as did Sam. I looked back in my mirrors and Brian had come to a stop and was flipping down the kick stand on his FXDR, and was gonna' do the good deed that I usually do. I did an nasty stoppie and put a foot down and spun around on a dime, left nine cents change, just to roll up in time and yell "NOOOO!!"

Brian, as you've probably surmised by now, wasn't hip to the ways of the snapper. Snappers are pissed off dinosaurs that are lost in our current time warp. One of the reasons they're called a snapper is 'cause they tend to snap shit in half. Well, this guy took several ugly shots at Brian's desert driver boot, and his out-streched helping hands. He had Brian doing the hoe-down dance right there on Jones Creek Road, all the while hollering, "What the hell?"

I cannot tell a lie, me and Sam laughed our asses off, but I think old Brian learned a valuable lesson about snapping turtles, and all his ten fingers survived the lesson to play jazz guitar another day.........

PWA

Tiger Cub 2

This little Cub is looking more like a motorcycle. Even though it just looks like an excuse to get out every damn tool we own. It should be done the middle of this next week, because it gets to ride a trials next week......we'll keep you posted. Cross your fingers.


Big Head Todd and the Monsters.....
played at the Cannery last night, and it is now official, the Cannery absolutely sucks as a music hall. Can't say it any plainer. It sucks. This was the fourth time I've been there and everytime I vow never to return. Well, hopefuly fourth time is charms for me......

The band was good and tight, in spite of the venue, and Todd Park Mohr played his ass off, as usual. Thank goodness he has gotten over the Les Paul thing and only played his custom Benedict Guitars Strats and what looked like a very sweet Fender Custom Shop model, but who can tell.......killer tone though.

They ended their set with a fairly funky version of the Sly and the Family Stone tune "Everyday People".

And so on and so on and skooby dooby doo.
And Ohhh cha cha.
We got to live together.

Cool.

L8R
PWA

Today's Victim

Nope, it doesn't look like much now laying there on it's blankie in the bed of a pick-up truck. But it has been blasted and has a fresh coat of paint on there and will soon be standing as other parts and assemblies migrate towards it. Check back and see how this little Triumph Tiger Cub comes together.

It should be a sweet little trials bike when B&J gets finished with it, with very nice amenities.

On a more somber note, Robert Moog, the creator of the electronic music synthesizer, has passed away. Check out this article from the New York Times.

PWA



LINK

The Explorer

Alright then. This is my Holy Grail of axes. This is the guitar that I always wanted as a kid, and I got it pretty early in my guitar life, and this is probably the only guitar that I'll freaking die with. I have slept with this guitar. It will be willed to my best friend Brian (if it's not buried with me) because he is the only squirrel that I know that understands it and deserves it and will take proper care of it.

It's one of the early, early Ibanez Destroyers with a korina body, one of the "lawsuit" guitars. This guitar was probably built for Ibanez by Gotoh in Japan. It's a way better guitar than any Explorer Gibson has ever produced after the initial run of Explorers in the late fifties.

The pick-ups are early Dimarzio's with blonde bobbins that just sing, and if you were to ever open the back cavity you'd think that you were looking at a plate of linguine because there are like two dozen wires between the pots and the pick-ups. Crazy.

It had a normal type Les Paul bridge when it was produced. In the mid-eighties I had it replaced with a Washburn 2000 locking roller-bearing whammy system. Stays in tune for months, no mater how hard you lean on it.

Eddie Van had one of these and it was used extensively on the first three Van Halen albums.

When you strap this thing on and it's down around your knees you are rock and roll............

Flat Tracking

photo by Barry Septer

While the Captain has the floor we might as well go here.

I told y'all the other day in this post, that any one of my crew at any time could break out in a form of motorcycle riding that should not be attempted in a trials section.......Well, here's the Captian flat-tracking, with some style I must admit, right there in a trials section. Matter of fact, same damn section that that tree jumped out in front of me and ate my fender! The flat-tracking looks neat here in a picture, but it was really kind of ugly in real time.......

The absolute cool picture for the day is here, although it isn't very symmetrical.

Have a good week-end. Even if it is a hundred degrees.......drink plenty of fluids.
PWA

The Finger

picture by one of the major breweries.....

This missive just in from Cpt. Dick........and I quote:

My bubby Mr. Thumbkin (aka Mr. Cross-Country) went to Laguna Seca for the MotoGP and all I got was the finger. Thanks Scott.

Cpt. Dick

Clarks-Vegas

photo by froot-booter Dean

This is a pic that my buddy Dean took at the absolute worst piece of crap skatepark in the world in Clarksville Tennessee. The Clarks-Vegas park is what happens when you let a small town utilize the brother-in-law concept of project quoting, planning and management. Hopefully the folks in Spring Hill won't make the same mistake as they progress with their plans for a public slkate park......

Here's an good read about the DC Megaramp that they're using at the X-Games and that Danny Way used to jump the Great Wall in China. Thanks to the pitcherlady for the link.

And here's a vid of the Great Wall jump, may take a couple of minutes to download, depending on your connection. Insanity........

L8R
PW

Miscellaneous Rant

No pic by PWA

I missed getting a picture early this morning of The Stupidest Sonofabitch I've Seen This Week. He was an EMT. I could read it on his short sleeve work shirt, "First Call Emergency Services" when I pulled up next to him at the stop-light. He was wearing the de rigeaur parachute/painter's type pants that they all wear, replete with hemostats and scissors and other gear stuck in all the little cubbyhole sleeves and pockets up and down the legs. He had on those Hi-Tec Magnum shoes that all those in the emergency services (i.e. cop, fireman, emt...etc.) sport these days.

He was riding a yellow '05 Suzuki GSX-R600 on Briley Parkway through the construction zone like a squid. Wearing no jacket or gloves and with many, many metal objects in all sorts of pockets. An EMT mind you. Surely he's had the unfortunate occasion to scrape up some other squid at some other place. Some other squid, like himself, with no safety gear on whatsoever.

Genius?

Nope, I think not.

pw

p.s. If you know how to spell de riguier correctly let me know.......

Skate Quiver : Eight-Wheeler.....

The eight-wheeler skate may be the closest to actually surfing on dry land than anything else that has come down the pipe, no pun intended. To ride the dang thing you gotta' walk it and use the edges, all of it's real-estate. Very interesting, and very disconcerting at times. Also quite funny.

And embarrassing. I had it at the park one day and a kid comes up and say's "What the hell is that?"

I handed it to him and told him to try it. He did. Very well I might add. I think he had no preconceived notion of the mechanics involved or what it took to make it turn. He just did it. It was cool.

The stick was developed by Lonnie Toft. Steve Holt has a pretty good handle on the eight and you can check out his eight-wheeler tips site HERE and his biography page over at Bulldog Skates HERE.

The old eight is a Sundance, I think. It has vintage Tracker Mid-Track trucks and a single Cell Block riser per truck. The wheels are fairly new school Spitfires at 60 mm diameter and 99 durometer. You can slide it in a heartbeat. The bearings are Bones Reds.

Sometimes I'll put a set of Indy 215's on it and some wide-ass Bulldog Skates Dub-Cons and skate it as a super pig.

Here's an interesting movie about a rocket-powered skate. Kid's, as usual, do not try THIS at home....

Thanks to the pitcherlady for the link.

Non-Contact

Photo by The American Lumberjack Association

Most folks think that motorcycle trials is a non-contact sport. Not the way that our crew does it. Me and the Cpt. Dick or the Thumbkin or Mennonite Mike can get wood at just about any freaking time in a trials section.

Remember the picture of my Suzuki RL250 that I posted a week or so ago? Well, I did a bit of customizing this week-end due to some, er, ah, agricultural racing, shall we say.......and the pic above is the result. I tried to cut down a tree with it and the tree, needless to say, the tree won big time.

We had a great trials out at the ranch and it seemed like a good time was had by all. We're gonna' do it all again on Sept. 18th.

PWA

Old Monty Python come-on

pic by PWA

And now for something completely different.

A modern trials bike. And I do mean the most modern of modern trials bikes. This is likely one of a batch of ten or so, at the most, brand new SHERCO
four-stroke trials bikes to leave Spain. And they've only been avaiable there for a couple three months. Sherco is the former Bultaco enterprise, in it's fourth or fith re-invention. Kinda' like David Bowie. Or Miguel DuHamel.............

The suspension is the top of the line Paoli and the swingarm was carved from an ingot of aluminum as big as a medium sized boom-box. Sweet stuff.

Weight? A waif-like 168 pounds, ready to rock and full of your favortite high-octane cocktail. Fuel tank capacity, a little over a half-gallon.





SHERCO

Today's Victim: Glorious Noise

photo by joondog

Today's victim is Bob Ginders Rickman Metisse Triumph. I dug around in my thesaurus for a bit but I kept gravitating back to the word gorgeous, so that's what I'm going to stick with. It's simply gorgeous and gorgeously simple in it's execution.

The frame is an early Rickman that has been modified for the unit motor, and it is nickel plated, with oil-in-frame, and is quite beautiful. The bodywork is Avon fiberglass in black, which was period and was produced by Avon for Rickman, and the lines of the bodywork just seem to flow.

The engine is a unit Triumph TR-6 twin with 9.5 : 1 compression running a single 32mm Mikuni carb. The heads have been flowed and are ceramic coated, as are the valves and pistons. The ignition is a Boyer-Branson with Dyna-coils. And it's got those oh-so sexy high pipes and they bark with just the right tone and volume. Did I mention it is fast?

The hubs are B-50's laced to alloy rims, with the front brake switched from the normal BSA right-hand mount, to the more practical and better working left-hand side mount. The triple-trees are Ceriani's with tapered head bearings, and Marzocchi straight leg forks, and the rear shocks are Curnutt's. The handlebars are Rickman's and the controls are by Magura with a Gunnar Gasser throttle.

I've had the pleasure of banging this thing around our grass scrambles track a couple times and can only try and explain the smile factor that this motorcycle generates. Did I happen to mention fast?

And when someone else is on this bike, and they're a quarter mile away from you, and it turns and romps toward home, the noise it makes can only be described as glorious.........

L8R
PWA

P.S. This thing is currently on the market and any interested parties can get in touch HERE at B&J Racing.........

RL250 Trials and Defibrillations....

pic by Babe Ruth

The third round of the inaugural International Twin Shock Association (ITSA) Trials will be held at The Ranch, home of B&J Racing, on August 7th. Rider registration begins at 10 am and the trials will start around 11 am, click HERE to check out the ITSA schedule and the event flyer. There will be cool vintage bikes as well as some modern trials machines. Come on out for a day in the woods!

The bike pictured here is my trusty dusty Suzuki RL250, circa 1974. I shot the bike from this side so's you wouldn't see the dent I've whacked into the other side of the once very sweet aluminum tank. The dent looks like Babe Ruth did it with his favorite bat. Sheesh. This bike has thrown me down more times than Jerry Lawler vs. Andy Kaufman. At walking speed, no less.

Of all the Japanese trials bikes the Yamaha TY250 was probably the best of the bunch right out of the box. At B&J we've been hacking away at this RL250 and sneaking up on a good set-up, what with suspension upgrades and re-positioning of the foot-pegs, engine/carb mods and gearing changes, and it is becoming a respectable performer. Now if we can just get someone to ride the damn thing.........................Shut up.......

L8R
PWA