Calm Before The Storm

It's almost Halloween!

...and there's some big news over at The Requiem Ride site! Go check it out!

From Show Stopper To Road Chopper

This is the long awaited post about the newest change with my Sportster. It was time for the "cursed tins", as I call them, to go. It's a cool paint job and its a cool story behind them, (check out the full story here) but I really wanted to get back to riding longer than 60 miles for gas and I wanted a sissybar again. I really wanted a road trip bike. Let the chopping begin!

This is the bike that was in the back of my mind the whole time and what was pinned to the wall of my garage while rebuilding my sportster. This is my ol'man's shovel in one of the versions I like the best. If I had the money to buy this bike back (its still in the northern NJ area) I'd rebuild this version. Since I don't, I figured it would be a good challenge to see how close I could get with my sportster.

I started by finding another super glide tank. I use to run one but had to find another. Ben gave me the old bobbed fender off his panhead. It has a 3/16" x 1 1/2" steel flat bar welded to the inside of the fender as hidden fender struts. With some modifcation I made it fit my sportster frame.

The paint job had to be black and decided to try my hand at real automotive paint. Thanks to some guidance by Billy, it came out great.

Lastly were the red HD decals, also from Ebay and the seat I found via the Jockey Journal.

The sissybar was another stainless steel bar made on a lunch break. The mounts have studs welded to them so its bolted from the inside. Nice and clean and really shows off the lines of the fender. I couldnt be more happy with the look.

It wasn't just my dad's style I was copying but also the guys he rode with. All of them were simple, purposeful, choppers. As my Uncle Neil once said "We traded all the peanut tanks for fat bobs and the chrome and flash for black and natural earth rust tones."

The fork boots are HD OEM replacements for the 33.4mm style forks. Flip them upside down and they work great for the 35mm forks.

Mission accomplished I think. The Slum Goddess is now the Slum Glide. Its already caught people off guard thinking its a shovelhead. The next steps are to find a non dented oil tank, new rims, and I'm lacing up a sportster drum to a 21 and then I think I can really call it finished... wait, these things are never "finished"...

Yours Truly and Ben from the Invitational!

James Stone took more amazing photos from the 4th Invitational this year. This guy seriously needs to make a hard cover book of all these photos from the past four years. See the rest here- brooklyninvitationalportraits.tumblr.com

SlumGlide

Willis and The Bandit On The Streets of Brooklyn!

For me personally it was a total blast chasing the Cocaine Bandit all the way to the Invitational. I never would have imagined putting that ol' honda together in Ken's garage would lead to the bike above (let alone riding next to it in NYC.) Still blown away by it all. *photos by Geoff Barrenger *

Old Foto Friday

It's been a while since I posted an Old Foto Friday (Sorry its been super busy here!) so here's a good one!

2012 Invitational Photos

I didnt take as many photos as I did in previous years. I was more focused on talkin with people and just enjoying the stop light to stop light drag race type ride that is NYC. Friday evening, Ben and I met up with Ken, Willis, and Nick. We had a pretty smooth ride from NJ, across the GWB into NYC and down the west side highway and back up the FDR across the Williamsburg Bridge and into Brooklyn. For riding my ol ironhead into the city for the first time it did great. (And I realize I still have to post photos of its big change yet! Thats next!)

 Made a wrong turn after the GWB and we ended up riding back under it.

 It was an awesome surprise to have the photo of me and my ol'man on the walls of the Invitational this year!

 Even in this crowd the Bandit still sticks out!

This Weekend! Tri State Area!

Brooklyn Bound!