This blog entry is just a visually detailed photo-set along with some commentary on the chopper you probably have seen a few photos of on Instagram. (These are recent photos).
We picked up the frame, engine, forks etc. deep in Bakersfield, CA which is quite a drive from Orange County. This was the notebook that had most if not all of the specifications hastily written down from the day of purchase down to the night we first fired the bike up.
Plenty of trips to the late & great Orchard Supply Hardware Store were made in order to piece together various nuts, bolts, spacers etc. to get the bike put together.
Enough of the boring stuff, let's get down to the details.
Vans x Cult Waffle Grips, just a little homage to our humble beginnings of riding BMX.
Professional wiring. Like, super professional.
Grabbed this tire off a rolling shell 1976 Sportster chassis.
We had to have our boy Ossie over at Ossie's Customs in Santa Fe Springs, CA machine out some extended rocker arms since the original ones were too small and didn't clear the flange on the wheel hub. Why didn't it fit you ask? Because we used a back wheel of an older bike for a front wheel. Must have been a Triumph wheel or something, not sure.
Re-purposed one of the original rocker arms used to mount foot pegs.
Yes, that's a crescent wrench used to extend the shifter peg.
Another part of the original rocker arms off the forks.
Fancy wiring.
Exhaust mount. Well, that's what we used it for.
Funny story with this $20 bill from Cook's Corner. Pretty sure we explained it on a podcast before. But if not, we'll bring it up on the next one.
Shoelace? No. Spacer.
The breakdown kit. After many sketchy attempts to ride this further than 2 cities, we quickly learned that it's best to bring tools with you when riding a sketchy garage built chopper.
Is that chrome warped? Yes. It's not chrome finish vinyl wrapped around rust.. who would do something so ghetto...
We chopped a stock Harley mirror off from the stem and welded on a spiffy little finned mirror that we found at a swap meet.
Shitty weld? Yes. 1/1 mirror? Big yes.
Seat mount. Some people call it a belt.
Rebuilding and cleaning these old Keihin carburetors for the first time was definitely a trip, but it becomes second nature after awhile. Kind of like riding a bike.
Arlen Ness Century Springer. This was the selling point when we saw the basket case had these forks along with it.
The frame is drilled and there was a screw there, but the world is an imperfect place; screws fall out all the time.
It's all in the details.