My Sidecar Rig

Well, I promised more up to date pic of my Sidecar Rig. Better take a good look at it. I pulled off the sidecar last night and am returning it to a solo bike. Making some minor changes and finishing up some pieces I always wanted the bike to have. Stay tuned.

Muskegon Hill Climb 1936

Look at this crowd! Wow, wish I coulda been there, born only 60 years too late.

 now that's a friggin hill!

Slade Hill Ky Hillclimb 1936

Been making this seat for my chop. Got the tooling and dye work done, just got to sew it up now.

TT and Flat Track pics form the 1930s

Some of the local racing scene here in KY during the depression. These are all local guys who just like to strip down their bikes and race.

Tuki Alarm Clock

For the last four days, my little buddy has crawled up on the bed and woken me up at 5 AM with a soft little high-pitched meow. Then he walks across the pillows behind my head and takes up his position next to me, purring like crazy. I lay there and pet him, rub his little head, and kiss his soft fur. He will stay there smothered and covered in love until I fall back asleep or stop snugling him. It's a great way to start the day. Even if you are hung over like I am this morning. For not having drunk any liquor in years, and having drunk half a fifth of vodka last night, I'm really not that bad off. Got my cure going this morning: Water, Ibuprofen, Water, Emergen-C, Water, Coffee, Water....did I mention Water? Shoulda drank more agua last night, but I passed out sitting upright on the couch. I had to look at my drunken post just to figure out the time frame of  losing consciousness. I'm guessing 11 PM. Yeah, I don't stay up late anyways, plus I got out of bed at 6AM yesterday. Woke up at 1AM on the couch with all the lights and the radio on. I think I heard the DJ say Blues before Sunrise in my sleep and woke up figuring I better go to bed.

The buzz was great tho, forgot how fun it can be on the upswing. At some point I got pissed off no one wanted to go out or come over or answer their phone or answer their door. I like the excuses tho. Lets me know they don't despise me so much to cut me off completely, just temporarily. Excuses are like butt-holes: everybody's got one, and they usually stink!

Back to Tuki. I guess he's as close as I'll get to having a child of my own at this point in my life, except he'll stay a kid forever, not really ever growing up and going off on his own. Maybe this is best for me and other folks who have abandonment issues. You know they won't ever leave you.

OK, OK, Poof is getting jealous (he's adopted) I found him on my ex-girlfriend's front porch two winters ago. He hung out there for a whole weekend and one night it was gonna be like 16 degrees F, so I went out there, started up my girls car, turned on the heat and sat in there with him for 15-20 minutes before I figured, what the hell, I'll just take him home to my house and let him stay warm. Been here ever since. He's a hoot too. Needs lots of head rubbins, but only on his terms, in his own time. These guys are the best thing in my life, which I would like to consider as really positive. However, without any Human relationships that come even close to this, I must figure there's something wrong with ME.

Drunken Post

You know, I must be a complete ASSHOLE. Nobody would answer their phone tonite. Guess I have alienated everyone I know. Kant say I don't know why. Just what you get when u r a complete dick to everyone you know and expect forgiveness. Duh!

My Grandpas

Jacob Delb Deutschland 1930's 

This is my German Opa. My mom, Hannetraude,  immigrated from the Vaterland in early 1970s. Jacob was not actually her bioligical father, but raised her from 1947 on. He had been captured by the Russians at Stalingrad and his wife recieved a letter that he was dead. Luckily this wasn't true, although for many other German POWS in the hands of the Ruskies it WAS a reality. He managed to contract TB in POW camps, but escaped from the one he was in at Minsk in 1944. He spent three years walking home to Germany, wintering over with Russian families that were sympathetic. He has since insuated that we probably have unknown cousins in Russia. When he got home to Homburg, Saarland, Deutschland, his wife had previously had a child with an American doing postwar occupation duty as an MP, Clyde Tipton of Weaverville NC. I know we should honor our ancestors, and I got to meet Clyded in the 1980's. He played claw-hammer banjo, still plowed with a mule and slaughtered his own hogs and the sausage WAS  good. But he was a awnry sumbitch and cussed me (i was like 9-10) for slamming the door of his truck too hard, calling me "a little shit-ass." He also commented on a girl walking over a bridge as we drove into Ashville as having "an ass  like a nine dollar mule!" If something was really good, he said "it was like Up-Town" I can remember this like it was yesterday. Oh yeah, almost forgot, he had to leave Germany because of extenuating circumstances. His girl (my mom's mom, her name escapes me right now) worked at a local Bierstube, Gasthaus. One night when he came to see her, he opened the door to find an African American GI (I'm sure he had a more colorful epithet for this gentleman) talking at the bar to his woman working behind it. He simply slid back out the door without being noticed and when the colored fellow left, he shot him in the back of the head. Murder. His buddies got him on a plane out of there before he could be charged with the crime. I am very ashamed of this chapter of history in my lineage. Some poor guys family never got to find out what happened to him, while Clyde went home and never served any time for his crime. Hell, in 1945, I don't know how much time a white man would get for killing a black man in North Carolina, if at all. And this is truly regrettable for all of us because racism still exists, even if hidden behind closed doors. 

YOU CAN'T COLOR-CODE PEOPLE!!!!! Some of the biggest NI**ERS (in the literal sense: ignorant) I know are as white as me, and walk around talking about how all the blacks and latinos are the biggest problems they have! WTF????? To be fair to Clyde, He landed at D-Day at H-Hour minus 30 as an Amphibious Engineer and served throughout the Normandy campaign and on into Germany and taking a man's life was no big deal to him at that point. It doesn't make it right.

The good news? Jacob Delb returned after the war and raised my mom as his own and had two more girls with his wife. I never met the man because he eventually died from the TB he got in the camps before I was born. From my mom I have discerned he was a friend of man and animal alike and didn't have a mean bone in his body. Funny story: Jacob didn't have anything but motorcycles and bicycles as transpotation until the mid fifties. Once, while riding home from the bar in Neunkirschen, wifey on the back, they rounded the corner at the bottom of a big hill and turned onto the main drag hitting a pot hole in the middle. Well, Jacob got half way home to Homburg before he realized his old lady had fallen off. He returned to Neunkirschen and found her sitting on the curb pissed! 

This is my Dad's dad, Delbert "Scotty" Wainscott in NewCastle, Henry Co. KY. He served at Pensacola FLA at the Naval Flight School as a flight instrument mechanic. He had apprenticed as a watch repairman, so they played on his natural talents. He told me that Gyros were new and complicated and no one wanted to work on them but him, so they sent all the Gyros to him. I knew him my whole life, even lived with him in the last years of his life. He was pretty awnry too, but didn't have a mean bone in him either. I miss him and my grandma Ruby Collins Wainscott. They raised me a lot when I was little and both my parents were working. I guess that's why I am so old fashioned for my generation. I called them OMI and PAPA. 

Papa told me he had an Indian Scout Bonneville while in Pensacola. He told me the Bonneville part meant that it had been balanced and ported and polished at the factory and would FLY! One night he and a buddy were heading out for a night on the town on the old Injun. His buddy's uniforms were all at the laundry, so he borrowed Papa's only spare uniform he didn't have at the laundry too. Well, it had just quit raining and they rounded a corner and passed over a manhole Papa couldn't see to avoid it till it was too late. Needless to say, they low-sided, ruining both of Papa's uniforms! They had to turn around and stay in for the night. He told me that story like it was yesterday. No pics of the Scout, wish I had it now. 

Anyway that's your geneological history lesson for the day. 

I'm getting drunk, I'm feeling mellow.

I decided to do something I haven't done in a while, get drunk. My cocktail of choice: Icepick

One part Vodka, Two parts Iced Tea.

Saw this vodka at the store, it was Swedish, so I figured it can't be that bad, even though it is in a plastic bottle! 

Says distilled 5 times. I know its probably junk in Sweden, if anybody even drinks it there.but so far, aint that bad.  They probably just market it to dumbasses like me that just assume it must be good.

Cheers! Slainte!, Prost!

Oh yeah, you might ask why the drink all of a sudden, or maybe why so sober for so long?

Well, to that I say, I haven't gotten drunk since forever cause it hasn't agreed with my guts for quite a while, but I was drinking beer. Al-Kahal: not so much.

And I have been far from sober for about 15 years now. Inebriant of choice: Ganja. Figured out it wasn't working so good for me either.

Just have had one of those days I think I just wish I could go to sleep and forget about what's been troubling me. Since I no Longer smoke, drunkeness at home alone fit the bill. 

Ralph's Oldies

I'm going to start posting up a few pics I have of the local motorcycling scene throughout the 1930s-1950s. These pics all come from my buddy Ralph Gerkins family scrap album. His dad and mom were Jimmy and Frances Gerkins.  Jimmy was a German immigrant who opened up Ace Delivery Service in Lexington KY with 5 sidecars and two trucks. The second pic shows the back lot facing the shop. I have some more of the shop  front I'll post up later. Besides being Ace Delivery, they also sold and serviced Hardly Abelsons and Injuns. Jimmy and his buddies were also involved in local flat track, TT, and hill climb races. There's over 400 images so sheck back for more to come.

Now we're rollin

A little more progress today. New fork internals, seals, neck cups and bearings. Just need a front brake assembly and the forks are done.  Now I just need a couple more parts.... like two complete heads! The ones I got with the motor ended up being cracked and junk. Mismatched years too. Either gonna try to find some decent used 48 heads or go with some repro ones. Probably cheaper that way, but not old!

Let's Hear It For All The Swedes Out There!

Just checked the traffic coming to my sight here and 1/3 of the page views are coming from Sweden! 

Its like 7 out of 22, but whose counting??

Admittedly, my ignorance of Sweden is a widely sweeping vast spanse of Stereotypes.

Here's the first one I can remember:

 Damn, that MFer was funny tho. Spent a lot of my childhood imitating him to make my mom laugh.

Of course, this would be my ideal picture of Sweden.

 I always wanted to have a Viking funeral.

And most recently, I've become acquainted with these.

It seems like I've heard a lot of good things about Sweden lately. A few articles I've read indicate it has one of the best school systems, and the teachers have some of the highest salaries in the world. I think I heard something on NPR about the super-high quality of life there too. I know some killer rock bands call Sweden home.

So, all you Swedes, lets try to bring my ignorance level down a few notches, tell me what makes it so fukin killer!

Well, got a little further on the ole Pan. '49 front end is coming together slowly. Got a set of used tubes, but the bottom of one was boogered up enough that the dampner wont fit. Gonna take it down to the machine shop tomorrow and see what we can do with it. Also got a set of "Complete" internals from V-Twin. Except they didn't include the snap ring that holds the dampner in the tube, Doh! Lower legs seem to be good and tight as far as the bushings go. Love these legs cause the casting IS rough! And there is a Date code tag cast in the top. One year only.

Ok, you caught me! That is my fat ass checkin out the riding position. Geez, I thought I'd been losing weight.

And yes, I was making Vroom Vroom noises.

Bollinger Mills MO

Well I saw a post on Church of Choppers titled Bollinger, so it made me think of this Bollinger. An old Roller Mill outside Cape Girardeau MO.

 Front side, the road ends right next to it, used to cross the river here through a covered bridge. Now the road runs about 100yds north of here. Good thing too, that's how stuff stays the way it was for 200 years, they don't have to mow it down to make way for the four lane or strip mall.

 Backside with bridge.

This is a foundation stone for the bridge.

 Some oleskool graffiti on inside of bridge.

 Inside the Mill is a little museum.

 Set of pulleys run off the water wheel to power equipment on the mill floor.

 I love this shit. Wish I had a mill just to power my friggin awesome drill press that probably still works as good as it did 150 years ago.

This is a little antique shop across the street from the mill. If you look real close, you'll see my friend Meg hiding behind some stuff on the porch. She's a rare bird, hard to spot sometimes.

My thoughts are with her and her family today. They lost the oldest living member of her family yesterday, Aunt Bobby. She was 97 years old, May we all live so long. RIP

All my luv, Meg, Steve, and Sue Strong.