Motorcycle. Bicycle. Skate. Art
HelloFixed GearLongskateMotorbikesBlogContact The show was great. Timonium has had their big east coast bike show for years. Manufactures, the seriously over done bling bling bikes, lots of baggers with 26" front wheels, shows on the stage, etc. with a few legitimate rider type bikes, or restos in the mix, but more and more the customs and riders that are real world get a bit lost in the glitz.
They get about 45-50,000 people come thru over 3 days, so there are plenty that do enjoy it, but more an more in the last few years, theres a growing number of people that really want, cafe, street tracker, simpler bobbers and chop that are rider bikes, with real world people & groups attached to them that you can gab with.
Last year, they opened the upper building so they could have a swap meet area for used parts & bikes, with a few vendors in the mix, & Rich at Lowside got the back wall area and setup the magazine, and some friends small shops & friends bikes. It worked well, lots of people came up & were glad to walk in and see some real stuff, touch, sit on, talk, buy swap parts.
This year, they opened up the entire upper building and Lowside and friends got the back half to set up a killer show inside a show, and get some serious numbers to come thru for the swap vendors, it went great from my seat. Good showing Friday & Sunday. and flipping packed Saturday.
Lowside friends there include Dime City Cycles, Cafe Racer TV, Loaded Gun Customs, Rusty Knuckles, Monster Craftsmen, Debbie Fitch Photography, Doug Barber (Q-ball) signing his book, Death Science, Cut Rate clothing, the Amish Mafia , Kundratic cycles & Charm City Cycles, and others I cant remember, lots of awesome, and a large area for donations to Finnigan, a lil boy that needs some help, people donated items to be raffled or sold for offers and the response was great.
And, the bikes, lots and lots of bikes, from excellent Panheads in true bobber form, to over the top chops, cafe racers, street trackers, turbos, Jap Long bikes... it was covered.
I personally didnt really bring Jack this year, I brought my Bicycle Motorbike so people would have something to scratch their heads at and go, oh no, oh no no no... :-) John & Matt from Draft brought their 2 ten foot long CB choppers and a CB bobber, and My friends Daughter Meagan Crable & My son set out some art and photos. Last year I had a personal bike, the Green Ural racer to bring, and took 1st in its class, and had the store setup.......this year Im just tired and really didnt want to do much but get some neat bikes in the stall, a lil art & be able to walk around and talk and see and not be glued to the stall. It was awesome!
Ive been out in the shop the last while & trying to take care of what I would like to have at Timonium.
Id like to have the BSA there in some form.
Id like to have a few artsy things Ive done there.
Id like to have a couple bike there in metal.
And I would like to have my bicycle/motorcycle there thats been back burnered forever.
There will be art there, and some prints.
There will be chairs to sit and rest and gab.
There will be Lowside, Monster Craftsmen, Dime city or Cafe Racer tv/mag , Cut rate Clothing, Death Science, Debbie Fitch & Q-ball photographers, and alot more, in our area in the upper building. A show inside a show. Come by and gab, look at everybodies bikes. Real Bikes. Choppers, Cafes, Street Bikes.
This is horrible. Theres only one of this big, it was different from the other Cyclones in many ways. It and the Honda racer taken from his home were worth over a million dollars. Its sad, because through him sharing it with the world, online, mags, shows etc., it has been pictured in his living room many times making it not to hard to find. I hope this doesnt keep others from sharing publicly what they have. Sad state of affairs.
Keep your eyes & ears open. Sadly it probably went strait to the docks. Who knows. Somebody does.
Ive trying to decide how to do the rear seat. I had made the basic rack/seat a while back, but trying to mount it with out leaving much sign of it when removed was getting me, then I decided the rear foot pegs should be part of it as well, so the whole rear passenger area is one.
There is one main pin to pul in the front under the main seat. then lift strait up and off. The pegs will be wrapped in leather same as the frt pegs and grips.
I got the front mount for the rear rack made, Itl will have a removable pin in the front for releasing it from the bike. The side supports Im working on, they include the passenger foot pegs as well, all in one unit, so when the racks removed, the rear pegs are gone with it.
I started to play with the exhaust, we are tring to retain some original BSAness on the bike, & I think the BSA muffler & heat shield goes well with the bike. Need to massage a couple things, and change to tail on the muffler, but itll be perfect i think.
Also made the seat stops that sit under the spring cups.. Now Im back up front on the bars, again. The one set I liked mounted to the side of the front end, but there was not enough strength one the sheetmetal fork sides to support them, then I made some that went over the top of front end & down and out, like clubman style, that look horrible, but now I have a solution, itll be neat.
We last year at the show, they opened a second huge building up top, for swap meet, & more homegrown stuff. Lowside Magazine & friends had the back wall. It was so great, that this year Lowside has been given the back 1/2 of that building that was curtained off last year. This is a hugenormous flippin space.
There will be cafe bikes, choppers, bobbers, metric bikes, art, sculpture, photography, Q-Ball, Debbie Fitch, Dime city & cafe racer TV, comphy chairs to take a load off & relax & BS with people.....the Lowside of the Timonium bike show will be the magical spot this year I do believe.
Last Year I had entered the Green Ural (Pictured in the header above) as a joke, and by some freak of nature won First Place in Metric Full Custom. People want simpler it seems, and the Baltimore guy always get First in the more traditional fields with well built simple clean HD builds. This year Im going to enter something so out there, just to see what people think. Ill be a Love/Hate type deal Im sure. And totally just for fun, what this should be about .
I collect a lot of old bits and pieces from antique stores, and have a lot of left over stuff from projects. Ive been trying to get back in the groove since mid December and my creativity has just been bleak. I spent a couple days looking thru my stuff & made some lamps. It felt good , made me think a bit, and got me back in the state mind I needed.
Have a look, let me know what you think. They are in the store for purchase as well.
Previously I had used a couple bushings and spacers on the neck & bearing cups, it worked well, but its been eating me. I removed the upper & lower neck/bearing cup parts from the Honda Dream that the front end is from & added them to the BSA neck this gave it the correct neck length from top to bottom , & allowed me to just use the stock Honda Races, Balls, and cups. Much better I think. I also installed the steering stop.
Now onto handler bar set 3.0.
Well Im back from the Holiday break and some other things that needed done.
First on the list was to make the front wheel work with the Fork. Originally I was going to use the Honda Dream front hub & lace the 21" rim to it. That way it would bold right on the the Dream Front end. I decided last minute I wasnt liking the less stopping power factor, or the none matching hub sizes, so I gave Matt the BSA front hub to lace to the rim, and threw caution to the wind.
Well today was figure out how to make that work day. I reduced the axle size on one end, then the wheel hub didnt want to clear the Dreams sheet metal fork leg on one side, so I trimmed it a bit, then took apart the shock to flip the lower section to clear a nut , and finally got room for things to work, a little cleaning up on the cuts, and itll be good.
Then I was looking for the BSA axle nut, I looked through every place it should have been, and then all the other places. Then I went to get the nut off another 441 here, and WHAT?! I slapped myself in the forehead. The lower fork leg on the BSA is threaded & there is no nut. I kill me sometimes. Of course its a reverse British thread on the axle, so theres no finding one of those around anytime soon, so I cut off the lower tip of the bsa tube. Its a big chunk of metal, so at least I can shape it into something cool looking.
Not much to see, but its all I got picture wise for tonite.
OK, there is to be a removable seat arrangement of some sort on the rear of the bike for an occasional passenger. It will be in the form of a rack that will remove, with a P Pad on it.
For this bike Im trying to be a tad on the subtle, but unusual side in the little things. This part I think the fellow will get a kick out. A coupe years ago in Greenland and Pennsylvania a Movie called the Last Airbender Based on the Avatar was filmed. The bad guy soldiers had grey boots, the higher ups wore black leather boots with embossing on the sides. Weeeell, one day lurking in a strange antique (kind of) store, in the back I saw racks of outfits that looked like old asian warrior kinda deals. The sign said they where the soilder outfits used in the filming of the movie, and then they had some of the boots. The leather was thick. I saw the embossing and knew I could do something with these. This particular pair was wore by stunt guy, H. Minami apparently. What does this all mean, not Jack really, just entertains me.
So I wacked up the one boot to use some of it for the rear P Pad on the rack, on the BSA. So, this bit of boot has seen Greenland, PA, MD. and soon the Florida Keys.
Theres a lot goes into some simple little details on these bikes, these are the parts I have the most fun with.
So far on this bike, stuff I gathered and reused or wacked and tweeked parts from to use are.
This took a while. The right side wasn't to bad. I made the basic peg that you see welded on bike already, then made a rotating sleeve for the brake pedal that I made from one of my finds.
Ive been derelict in my picture taking & blogging.
Heres the Back of the BSA. The stock rear wheel is in place for setting up chain alignment, the new wheel tire setup is a good bit larger.
Ok, I started with a Brooks saddle for this bike, then I stepped up in size on the saddle to another Brooks, I love how they look and are made. I still felt kind of guilty, knowing the seat was just my taste in looks, but would really be not practical for the fellow in reality. So I decided to just make an older style Bike seat myself for the 441.
