It's Alive

A-HA hahaha, It's alive!!! (Say that it in the way that Gene Wilder might say it in Young Frankenstein ).

Here at the skatetruck portal we've had this sweet little Yamaha DT175 sitting up on blocks in the stages of a project type of thing for at least five years. Over the past couple months the procrastination bug has actually left the premises and there has been some real progress made on the little motorbike.

Our first inclination was to make a cool dual-sport kind of thing, as it is street legal, and we do posess the working title. But after further consideration the choice was made to turn it in the direction of a woods bike that could run in AHRMA's Sportsman 200 class. The thinking is that we would take in some of the cross-country hare-scrambles that are close and that don't conflict with the trials schedule. Just for fun of course, 'cause I'm slow as a dog in the woods and when somebody comes up behind me I just get the hell out of the way!

Mmmmmm

Mmmmmmm......Smores........

SOTW II

pic by Peter De

Sign Of The Week II

The precept for the SOTW blogs here at skatetruck started as an attempt to put a different interesting sign up about once a week. We weren't going to focus on any one particular locale, but this little country church here in Pond (I swear) just won't leave our cameras alone. They change their sign every few days and likely as not it'll end up with something just a bit wack on there, as is evidenced here......your guess is as good as mine.....

Respects

image by MM

Speaking of respects, Mennonite Mike took a bit of a side tour on the way to the AHRMA National in Gainesville.

He stopped off in Rose Hill Cemetery to pay some guitar respects......

Stones in My Passageway

photo by caulkboy

See there!! I told you guys that you could turn inside that big rock! Yep. It only took me all damn day to do it. All I had to do was stop looking at it.....

Here I am lining up a log crossing that had tried to kill me earlier in the day on Saturday. I took the Zook (or did it take me?) for a helluva bucking-bronco ride man, and we did everything except hit the ground, or the creek. And I do mean everything, the total entertainment package.....I'll bet that it looked like a Three Stooges trials section ride that Curly would have been proud of. Woop-woop-oop-oop-oop-oop! Poifect!

Hey, Here's that link I was talking about a couple days ago to the Captain's adventure in the same section.......whew.

Thanks to caulkboy for the use of his photos for the past few days.

Also, respects to the inimitable Robert Johnson whose song title I stole for the title to this blog post.....

Goofy

Hooray, hooray, it's the first day of spring! Of course, the low temp tomorrow night is gonna' be 28 degrees......Happy Spring!

As it is our job here at skatetruck to point out the blatantly goofy when-ever and where-ever we see it we'd like to point you HERE . That's some stupid shit y'all.

Speaking of goofy, does Tyra Banks have a forehead you could roller-skate on or what? Jeez.

Mr. Bush would like for you to ignore the bloodshed in Iraq and to focus on the positive. And, there is no civil war going on over there. Really.......

The official word on the massive gas price hikes while the price per barrel is lower than it's been in almost a year is as follows.......The current price hike is due to the cost of the change-over from the winter fuels to the summer fuels.

BULLSHIT. Bullshit, bullshit.

Please refer to the first couple of lines of this post......

That is all from the goofy front. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Nubster

photo by the caulkboy

Well, Saturday's ITSA Trials was the next chance that anyone had to pull a qualifying stunt to get in the running for the 2006 version of "The Nubbie" award. As fas as I know there no names put in the hat, not even Nubbie's! Above, the Nubster negotiates section four like he knows what he's doing. Really.

The Captain took a pretty good shot at a Nubbie entry with a nasty high-side off the bank and into the creek on to some ugly rocks, and then the Kawi tried to follow him in. But, there was no blood-shed and he survived with all his appendages intact. He said those MX knee-pads were the best seventeen dollars he had spent in a long time. I heard there was a photo somewhere so in the next installment maybe I'll have a link.....

ITSA Round Two

photo by caulkboy

Yesterday marked round two of the ITSA (International Twin Shock Association) Trials Championship for 2006. The crew from B&J Racing laid out a scottish style single line trials with different sections for different classes, with all sections tailored to bikes of different eras and also to rider capabilities.

Here we see Mennonite Mike on his TY250 Yamaha in the creek section where we provided plenty of excitement and more than a few laughs on my part. As far as I could tell eveybody had a good time and it was a good trials.

.....more to come.....

Nose

This has got to be the most easily recognizeable nose on any car on the planet at this moment. I'm only too happy that they finally got it right. It's been a couple of decades since anything with over two wheels has made the blood boil here in the skatetruck portal, but the new for 2005 Mustang is it man......

Royal Enfield Trials

All right, here's some nastiness boys and girls. A rigid framed, girder front-forked, 500cc Royal Enfield trials bike. No suspension what-so-ever. This thing has just got to be an absolute beast. This is a true premier vintage trials bike in every sense of the word.

The dude that rides it is named Beano and he just cruises around and just lets it do whatever it wants and yet he survives the day on it. He usually wins, but then again he's usually riding unopposed 'cause nobody else is crazy enpugh to ride the rigid/girder framed class.......Like the trialsrooster says, you gotta' choose your class wisely.....

None for me, Thanks........

Today's Victim

Today's victim is this drop-dead OSSA MAR (Mick Andrews Replica) that's getting some loving hands placed on it at B&J Racing . Some new Falcon shocks and a fork rebuild and some engine/carb fettling. The customer said to make it as though we were gonna' ride it in a trials, and so we shall....

This is one of the finest OSSA MAR's I've ever seen and we've talked the owner into letting us use it in our vintage trials bike show at the U.S. World Trials Grand Prix Round in May.

Sweet.

SOTW

Sign of the Week......
Hmmmmmm......I wonder if he ever fished with The Captain ?

Blooey

The Ginderflopper treated everyone to hearing damage on Sunday by motocrossing the blooey pipe Greeves MCS (Moto Cross Special). I've seen guys next to him at the start gate try to cover their ears even when they've got their helmets on when he starts it. Sometimes they move to a much worse starting position on the line just to get the hell away from it.....

In picture two I think you'll get some idea based on the length and shape of the pipe of the noise this piece of history is capable of producing.


Owwww!

DRZ at the Beach.....

Here's the obligatory pitcherlady picture of my DRZ at Horseshoe Beach. The gulf is on the other side of that treeline, I swear..... and it was as flat as a pancake.

We rode a couple hundred miles on Saturday, between race days, and we encountered at least four or maybe even six corners in our travels. Hell, I was taking turns at intersections up roads that we weren't even supposed to be on just to ride something other than straight road and to go around a corner. Sheesh. Made me happy all over again about the riding possibilities that we're blessed with here in the Mid-Tenn area. Now I guess I know why big Harleys are the popular bikes to take to Florida.

Speaking of which, did you know that by all appearances over eighty percent of all Harleys that do make it to BikeWeeks are either trailered there or ride down in a pick-up. Kudos to the guys and gals that actually do ride to Daytona.

Yep.

Mini-Bikes

This here would be Rik Smits. He's the only guy I know of that can make a monster of a 490 Maico look like me on an XR100. Jeez, this is a big old boy! He seems like a good guy though and he rides good and he always has a smile on his face when he's at the track.....and that is after all what it's all about.

Ride on.....

Corlew

This is my buddy Ray Corlew motocrossing his Triumph Cub in Gainesville. I've got to tell you how lucky I feel to compete on motorbikes with Ray Corlew and to be able to call him my buddy. I hope he doesn't mind.

Ray is a riding contemporary of my Dad's. They hung out together and rode motorbikes as hoodlum teenagers. Ray's got pictures up all over the inside of his race trailer from the 1950's and '60's of all kinds of drag racing and scrambles and flat-track that he took part in. He's even got a picture of the start of a scrambles race at the old Cumberland River race track in Nashville (John F. Lawhon's off of Jefferson and Dickerson Road) with my Dad as the flag man. How cool is that?

I did his picture in black and white just cause.

L8R

All You Can Eat

From a culinary standpoint we hit only the best of the places to eat in and around the Gainesville area. This particularly mouth watering spot was at the wildlife refuge at Horseshoe Beach. Don't you just love an all you can eat buffet? Man, I know I do.

Well, we're back home so brace yourself for some Gainesville bloggage......

I was lucky enough, along with the cheater Suzuki, a bunch of practice, and coaching from the Guru to post my first AHRMA National win. Our buddy The Captain wound up fourth on his Kawasaki and would have been in contention for the win but for an ugly first loop. After he got that first loop out of his system he rode his ass off. Mennonite Mike rode to fifth.