Beware the Droogs

I watched 'A Clockwork Orange' again the other night. It's a great film. I didn't realise it was withdrawn in 1972, a year after it was released, due to copycat violence in the UK. And I forgot that Warren Clarke (famous as a TV cop now in the UK) played the 'Dim' Droog!

Special bumper Xmas edition – ISSUE 8!

Of course it isn't an Xmas issue. You'll want a bloody break from Xmas by the time the 25th December comes around (the stores here had baubles and decorations up in fuckin' October), and the new GK gives you just that. Page after page of motorcycles and hot rods that make you (or at least me) a little bit twisted and bitter deep inside because you don't own them yourself.

It's the season for giving. And that's what GK just keeps on doing.

Ee, is that one of those Hardly-Rideables, Edna?

This was taken outside Snob's shop (right near the Ace Cafe) as a kind of 'before' shot (around '99?); the rigid was a very cheap Santee he had lying under layers of dust in the back of the shop and it did the job – for the right money. Snob was secretary of the London HA and had some great stories. He told me they only took so many drugs in the '70s to help them withstand the pain of long journeys on rigids!

By the way, do old ladies look like that around the world, or is it just in England?

Back in black

Found this polaroid the other day, taken around '96, showing the FXWG (note the giveaway kicker pedal) before it got chopped. I rode it for quite a while blacked out like this, and liked the look. Dunno what the 'biker' pose was all about. I think I was being ironic.

FTW

Some days you just feel like that way, eh? Discharge is the only answer when I feel like this.

Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do...

...what ya gonna do when they come for you?

Yeah, we've all got our cop stories, but when a cop car pulled up and we got aggressively hassled as we stood on a service station forecourt yesterday, I couldn't quite believe it. Apparently the sight of a Harley chopper, a few tattoos and a couple of beards got the service station staff nervous enough to call the cops. And I haven't heard the last of it apparently...

Wow, this is a conservative country, with the freedoms of its individuals being eroded ever so slightly every day. Maybe the move back to England isn't such a bad idea after all.

Knuck drag bike 2

Wow ... more crazy cool stuff from Jeff Baer. He says "Check out the bike a friend of mine found recently. It had been sitting for decades. It uses the transmission as an oil tank and a pressurized Whizzer fuel tank. That’s a pressure gauge mounted where the speedo would be. The fork is Harley Hummer. Too much cool stuff on this one! Panhead bottom end, frame and transmission."

Knuck drag bike

And people say it was all innocent fun in the '50s!

Winding it on

Another oldie form the archives ... me on the shovel in north London, shot by my brother's girlfriend for The Horse magazine when it had just been started by Hammer. I loved that bike!

Hot chick

So in 1991 I met this hot, long-legged girl at work; hey, she liked motorcycles, and wasn't phased at all by going EVERYwhere on the back of my bike (I didn't do public transport then, and don't now). She even suffered the p-pad on this XLS Sportster to France and back! And then she even got her own bike licence!

And in 2008, we're still together, though we don't have to do the shopping on a H-D any more, and she isn't as tolerant of me spending all my time in the garage...

Ozbike feature

My Panhead is in the new issue of Ozbike magazine, one of the big 'custom' mags here in Australia. I think they did a pretty good job with the layout (but didn't use some of the cool riding shots my mate Wasko took). The bike is such a contrast to all the high-dollar billet barges on the other pages, it would be interesting to know what the average reader makes of it. Even though I publish my own mag, I'd be lying if I said I don't still get a little thrill at seeing my bike in print elsewhere.

Jeff Baer's hillclimber

Got another message from Jeff Baer the other day (check out his flathead racer below). We've been featuring a few bikes from his enviable collection in the mag, and Jeff just keeps revealing more and more amazingly cool stuff! His house looks like a museum. So anyway, Jeff knew that I liked hillclimbers, so sent me these shots with a very cool story to go with them:

"Guy, I noticed on MySpace you mention that you like Hill Climbers. Attached is a picture of one of my Hill Climbers. It won several National championships. In 1939 by A.W. French and two in 1952 by Larry Franz.

I actually met Larry Franz Sr. by accident before he died. I was at an antique motorcycle meet in Ohio a few years after I bought the hillclimber (at the same meet). I saw an old guy with couple of hillclimbers on display and started a conversation with him. I told him I had a hillclimber and knew nothing about it. I began describing the bike to him and he finished the description and told me that it was the bike he won two national championships on in one day in 1952. He also told me some history on the bike and told me what issue of the Harley Enthusiast Mag it was in (which I did not write down and tequila erased most of the info from my memory that weekend). I did manage to get his address written down though. Later that year I found the magazine (September 1952) and had an enlargement done of his article and mailed it to him with a thank you note. I asked him about the history of the bike. I did not get any response.

A couple of years later his son Larry Jr. called me. He found my address in his father's stuff and told me he passed away and thanked me for the poster I sent him.
Fast forward to 1996. I was moving and while cleaning out an old desk I came upon an unopened large envelope. I opened it up and it was unfuckin'real! It turns out that a month after I sent Larry Sr. the poster and thank you note (years ago), he had mailed me a letter including the history of the bike from 1939 to the 1960's and enclosed pictures and everything! My ex wife must have gotten the mail that day and stuffed it in the drawer by mistake! Holy shit, this was the coolest fuckin' thing. Unfortunately I found it after he had died.

Fast forward again, a couple of more years go by and I run into his son Larry Jr, at the same swap meet in Ohio. He has a bunch of his dad's stuff including another hillclimb bike his leathers, helmet, boots, spares, jerseys, etc. I bought it all of course!! Larry Jr died last year and his father's Excelsior hillclimber sold at a swap meet in Pennsylvania. I walked up just as the deal was done. (It went for considerably more then I paid for all the stuff I ended up with).

So that's the story, over a period of years this bike and it's history came to me as if it was meant to be...just lucky I guess.

I attached a drunken picture of me the day I bought the bike. I don't remember how I got the bike up or how I got it back down...I'm sure it wasn't pretty. Jeff."

For sale by owner

My namesake's day, late

Hey, we're really heading off at a tangent from 'greasy' stuff, but I was just thinking about my namesake Guy Fawkes. When I was a kid, I hated the monotonous playground taunting because of my name on 5 November, but now I'm proud to share the name of the man who almost blew up Parliament! (Here's to you Guido, five days late.)

B1C, B1C, I don't wanna B1C

As part of an occasional self-indulgent series looking at my own singles collection that gathers dust under my portrait in the attic, this is one of the UK Subs' finest moments. 'Live in a car' and 'B1C' are tunes I honed my guitar playing skills (?) to, and I always preferred them to the 'A' side, 'CID'. This record still sounds angry, like me.

Beezer's pleased 'er

Danny Lyon in colour

'The Bikeriders' is one of those books I'm a bit obsessed with. I've always loved documentary photographers (and war photographers like Tim Page and Don McCullin, but they should get a separate post) and I've always loved custom bikes, so Danny Lyon's book is doubly interesting to me. I've got the original '60s first edition, as well as the two Twin Palms editions. The second of these has the colour plates: worth getting.

Geelong, so long

Kuda and the Merc.



Two dogs and a Falcon.

Shifter on Kuda's truck: Excalibur!


Only real metal workers use anvils and stumps.

Springer rockers get the drift.



He makes hot rods, he makes birds.


Buzz's UL, Kuda's Trump. Getting there.

Geelong Holden wagon and derro.

Buzz in the Vicky.

4 days of watching asphalt disappear under the wheels, creative types making stuff, and show-goers lap up mediocrity. Kms travelled: 2050. CDs listened to: The Stranglers, Lattie Moore, Bored!, Led Zep, Howlin' Wolf, The Zutons, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a Mojo magazine blues comp, QOTSA, Wynonie Harris, 20 Reggae Classics. Beers drunk: 6. Nice people encountered: a lot.

Spy photo

We managed to secure this secret, hastily-taken and blurred shot of a very cool shovel being built within a short distance of GK HQ.

19" & 21" rims, '51 Pan frame... nice!

Should be on the road ... and maybe in the mag ...soon.

Flat track flattie

If you read the last issue of GK, you'll remember Jeff Baer. He has the most incredible collection of old bikes... although 'collection' makes it sound like they sit around being looked at. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jeff builds bikes out of boxes of bits, and then rides them. His Knucklehead in the last issue featured all 'as found' parts. Another of his bikes is in issue 8, and to be honest, we could could put a bike of his into every issue and never run out – or get bored.

This is his flat-track bike, and these photos are from races in Ohio over the past couple of years. Jeff says: "I built it for flat track racing about 4 or 5 years ago. The chassis is basically 1941. The fork is an XA type with the extra ground clearance. As you may well know, HD used these on some 1941 WLA’s as well as Canadian Knuckles also. I used it so I could run the bigger clutch and still have room to lean in the turns.

"The motor came out of an Ice Racer that belonged to a Champion Hill Climber named Charlie Jacob and hadn’t run since the early 1960’s. I unstuck a valve (as usual) cleaned the points on the magneto and have been racing this engine ever since without a tear down…yet. It’s a real testament to the simplicity and dependability and durability of these 45 ci engines."

This guy is beyond cool.

'59 Consul

18, clean arms, clean driving licence, ropey Ford four-banger with a very handy bench seat. My leg is positioned at that weird angle to cover the model name. I was missing the 'C', and it read 'ONSUL'.

Mauler & Hauler

Thanks again Adam!

You've all seen it. And here it is again.

I took this off the JJ.

How utterly perfect is John Edwards' Pan?

I don't know him or anything about him; I have no contacts that could secure me a feature on this bike for the magazine, more's the pity; but every time I stumble across another shot of this Panhead from yet another alluring angle, it stops me in my tracks.

And FD tells me John's a really nice guy, too.

How good is that?

I learned how to rebuild my Triumph. Oh! I don't own a Triumph...

I got sent Wes White's Triumph rebuild DVD (thanks Tyler!) and sat with a couple of litres of ice cream (the dogs had half) and watched the whole damn thing. I found it riveting. Honestly. From beginning to end. The explanations are clear, and Wes is an engaging presenter. And I don't even own a Triumph.

That probably makes me a bit sad, but if you do own an old Trump, you need to buy this DVD from Lowbrow Customs or One World Studios, or Wes himself.

You won't regret it (unlike giving ice cream to bull terriers, which we all regretted).

I hear my home town calling

Sticky fingers

When my mates were putting bangers in frogs' mouths at the park on a slow Saturday afternoon, I was more likely to be found putting an Airfix kit together in my bedroom. I love model kits. And I started hoarding bike-related ones years ago. This is one of my favourites.

Safety and Economy! 1961-style

Blackey's flattie

Blackey sent me pictures of his 'U' model flathead; he's another local here in NSW. It's an original custom done in the Australian style (!) with added rake and a trailer fender. Blackey's gonna restore the frame to stock and add an original front end (it has an extended Pan wide glide on it now). He says:

"Ok, got a phone call from a mate in Brisbane one night about 1 1/2 years ago, he took a pic with his phone and sent it to me; I called back, he started it up for me, ran like a mouse with slippers, told me how much his old mate needed for it, I said yes, EFT the bucks, ordered a truck, got it here 2 nights later at 9pm, started it 3rd kick next morning, plated it, am riding it - it's a 1946 "U" (low comp, 5:1), Pan front end, couple degrees rake, 16" rear, 21" front, what a keeper!"