MERRY CHRISTMAS SUNDAY POST

Hey,

In this down economy opportunities surface.
Take for instance this little company 5-Ball Inc. and all the projects we have in store for 2012 with Sturgis, Bonneville, bike building, site building, more books, you name it. Take a look at our tiny niche industry. Lots of companies are gone, but I still believe motorcycles represent freedom and escape in this country and beyond. New companies are starting, new motorcycle markets are opening in China, Europe and Africa.

So keep the faith, fight for your rights to be free, and work hard, and we can make anything happen. Let’s hit the news, the bacon is frying in the Bikernet kitchen:

JUST WHAT WE NEEDED ON CHRISTMAS, A NORWEGIAN VIRGIN WEDDING--Olof Svenson, out in his pasture in northern Minnesota , took a lightning-quick
kick from a cow…right in his crotch. Writhing in agony, he fell to the ground.

As soon as he could manage, he took himself to the doctor. He said: “How bad is it Doc? I’m going on my honeymoon next veek and my fiancé, Lena, is still a Virgin — in every vay.”

The doctor told him, “Olof, I’ll have to put your Villy in a splint to le tit heal, and keep it straight. It should be okay next week, but leave it on dere as long as you can.” He took four tongue depressors and formed a neat little four-sided splint, and taped it all together…quite an impressive work of art.

Olof mentioned none of this to Lena, married her, and they went on their honeymoon to Duluth. That night in the Motel 6, Lena ripped open her blouseto reveal her beautiful, untouched breasts. She said: “Olof…you’re the first vun.
No vun has EVER seen deez.”

Olof immediately dropped his pants and replied: “Look at dis Lena ….. still in DA CRATE.”
–from Sam Burns

BIKERNET EXCLUSIVE, AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS–
It’s summer here.
We do things differently at Christmas.
Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Cheers
–Doc
Associate/Technical Editor
HEAVY DUTY Magazine
www.heavyduty.com.au

A XMAS STORY–It would have been cool to be riding your motorcycle on Christmas Eve in the Holy Land by the light of that bright star that seemed to appear from out of nowhere over 2000 years ago.

You’re riding along on the outskirts of Jerusalem and out of the corner of your watchful biker eye you see three dudes dressed in the finery ancient mystical kings from the Far East wear and their camel rides are loaded with gear for a cross country putt and royally adorned with exotic tack and Duane Ballard custom saddles.

So you lay off your throttle and ride up to ask these road dogs, “Hey brothers…what’s up?” “How come you guys are all dressed up and traveling on such a cold night?”

These dudes have excited serious looks on their faces and they point at the star and invite you to follow them. So, you say to yourself, I got nothing better to do and like most of us bikers looking for new adventures, you decide to take these dudes up on their offer. Out of respect you keep your scooter in 2nd ‘cause there is no rush & don’t want your pipes to spook these righteous brothers’ rides.

You cruise through Jerusalem and ride up a hill or two and as you get to the outskirts of town you end up in a small suburb called Bethlehem. You notice a bunch of shepherd brothers with their sheep dogs guarding their flocks near a rundown looking roadhouse with a detached stable in even worse condition. Looks like the place is packed.

There is even a small family getting ready to bed down in the stable. The three royal looking dudes park their camel-rides just outside the entrance to the stable. You just figure they need to check their rides in first and will be taking shelter in the roadhouse for the night.

It’s late and you ‘kinda wonder why guys who could afford five-star digs would want to stop here, but maybe they need to keep a low profile because the ATF is after them. Also, for now, that star seems to have stopped moving across the sky and is directly over the stable.

“Trippy!” you exclaim to yourself. “Feels like something major is up, but I’m beat. People are cool here. Guess I’ll stop here for the night, too.”

One of the shepherd brothers waves you over to their small campfire and offers you a drink. So, you park your scoot, pull your bedroll off your sissy bar and over you go to accept the brother’s hospitality. That star looks closer and brighter now. You can’t take your eyes of it. You thank the shepherd brother for his hospitality and you’re in the middle of a swig when all of a sudden a bunch of Heaven’s Angels come flying across the sky and the shepherds, their dogs and all the sheep and me are scared sh_ _ less.

The biggest ‘Angel is lit up near as bright as the unusual star and he tells everyone “Chill! And don’t be afraid!” and he says, “Brothers…I got good news…etc.”

You are digging on this scene & patting yourself on the back for doing what we bikers do – taking a road to a different place ’cause it sounded like a cool adventure…but you never realized that the road you took this particular night would lead you to witness the birth of the King of Kings and all the bummers you ever had or will have will be wiped clean and the King that was born that night will invite you to live with him in heaven forever no charge.

My favorite sentence: “It’s taken care of….” Merry Christmas y’all & Happy Birthday to my King.

–Jeff Kraus – EZJ
President
South Bay Biker Productions, LLC
Biker Events & Films
1920-1922 E Gladwick St
Compton, CA 90220

voice:877.688.4229
fax: 310.631.0665

APE Octakong finishes world’s largest bridge, Made in USA–On December 8th 2011, the APE “OctaKong” hammer drove it’s final pile to grade in front of a crowd of 200 people on the South China Sea.

Many Engineers, officials, contractors, and China T.V. Stations came to witness the final pile drive to grade. In total, 120 piles were used to create the east and west man-made islands for the HongKong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project. The largest pile was 72 feet in diameter, 180 feet high, and 660 US tons. The entire project lasted just under seven months, an incredibly fast time to make two full island foundations.

ZPMC, the Shanghai based company who fabricated the piles, could hardly keep up pile production with the driving speed of the project. At the fastest point the OctaKong drove 6 piles in 3 days. One of the biggest challenges of the East island was learning how to drive 72 foot diameter piles in complex soil conditions. When driving large diameter piles the soil conditions on one side of the pile can be very different than on the other side of the pile. At some points the right side of the pile was facing N47+ soil while the left side only saw only N15.

Soil layers are not flat, which is not usually not a problem when driving small diameter piles, but when faced with super large piles often times one full side of the pile will cut through a soil layer for 10 feet before the other side of the pile hits the same layer. This creates a big challenge when trying to get the pile to go into the soil perfectly straight. These new challenges forced us to learn a new pile driving method specific to large diameter piles. No doubt a huge step for the pile driving industry for the future of even larger bridges, land reclamation, and wind power.

I’m glad to report that the OctaKong hammer never had even one day of downtime, something our APE team should be very proud of. The APE 200-6 tandem special is driving the final 37 foot shell-pile-walls over the next week and that project should conclude soon as well. Thank you to everybody who worked so hard on this project!

–David White

John White the owner of Crazy Horse engines also owns this APE pile driving company/

COMMENT ABOUT PRE CHRISTMAS THURSDAY NEWS-–http://www.bikernet.com/pages/story_detail.aspx?id=10283

Joann is reading the Tramp book and told me to tell you, that back in the mid ’60s I rode, not a member, with the Sundowners out of Ogden. I was in the Air Force. We used to hang out at Tony’s a bar, they had club meetings there in the back room.

They gave me a going away party that almost got me kicked out of the service with only a week to go. Man, those were the days, riding in the mountains, cops forcing us to ride around their small towns. We slept next to our bikes. I remember the campfires, and oh yeah, kegs of beer in the trucks. Oh well, gotta go, have a Merry.

— jim bortles
waxhaw, NC

MIKUNI CARBS THROUGH RIVERA/PRIMO–
If you haven’t heard of (or about) the Mikuni Smoothbore flatslide 42, 45 & 48 HSR carburetor then you probably live under a large rock. These carbs are great for stock machines all the way to big inch high performance applications. They provide instant acceleration and incredible throttle response making them some of the most streetable carbs around.

Not only will we be stocking the Total & Easy carb kits, but you will also find repair parts, rebuild kits and jets galore!

NEW MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM OPENING–Motorcyclepedia, the major motorcycle museum opened in Newburgh, New York last April 16, was featured in the New York Times on-line December 23, 2011. While describing the extraordinary exhibits contained in the 85,000 square-foot facility, author Daniel McDermon focused on Jerry and Ted Doering, the father-and-son team behind the massive project managed under the auspices of the Gerald A. Doering Foundation.

About the two floors of exhibits, McDermon states, “Motorcycle enthusiasts could spend an entire day before visual overload sets in; even visitors with just a casual interest will find plenty to hold their interest for an hour or two.” He adds, “. . . the museum, like its contents, is likely to provoke a smile of recognition from anyone who’s ever picked up a wrench or twisted a throttle. It is suffused with affection for the machines and a respect for the riders and engineers who built and rode them.”

Motorcyclepedia, located on the scenic Hudson River just 65 miles north of New York City, is the host museum of the Antique Motorcycle Foundation, for which both Jerry and Ted Doering serve as directors. The AMF sponsors and maintains exhibits at the museum, featuring motorcycles owned by members of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America. Currently, “Fast From the Past: Racing Motorcycles from Yesteryear” is featured. It will be replaced late next summer by “Kaizen: The Influence of the Japanese Motorcycle Industry.”

The Antique Motorcycle Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation. Its mission is to support the collection and preservation of antique motorcycles and motorcycle history, and to tell the story of antique motorcycling to the public at large. For more information, go to www.antiquemotorcyclefoundation.org on the world wide web.

Mr. Doering just kept adding to his collection. “I started buying 10 years apart, and then five years apart, and then filling in,” he said.

He has Indians from every year but the first, when the company built just three motorcycles. (The display at Motorcyclepedia will eventually include a replica of a 1901 model.)

But there’s more for visitors to marvel over: board-track racers from the 1910s and ’20s, custom cruisers bedazzled with lights and motocross machines from the ’60s and ’70s. One room is filled with a jaw-dropping array of bikes on loan from the Antique Motorcycle Club of America.

Downstairs are dozens of police and military motorcycles, including a 1964 Harley-Davidson that Ted Doering said was in the motorcade in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The bike was later used in the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK,” he added.

The interests shared by the father and son reach beyond collecting. In 1971, they started a wholesale parts business, V-Twin Manufacturing. The success of the company, which focuses mainly on older Harley-Davidson models, helped make it possible for them to expand their motorcycle acquisitions.

While Ted Doering’s passion for motorcycles followed a considerably different path from his father’s pursuits, he has contributed a significant creative influence to the museum. As a young man in the 1960s, he began building custom bikes — what would now be called choppers.

“I tried enduros and some of that racing,” he said, referring to off-road competitions, “but I thought building the bikes was more interesting.”

One of Ted Doering’s creations, a 1927 Indian with a sidecar-mounted machine gun, is on display at Motorcyclepedia. It was also seen at the 1967 National Hot Rod and Custom Car Show at the New York Coliseum. In an interview with a newspaper reporter, Ted Doering offered this rationale for the customizing craze: “Just to be different.”

There is far more to be appreciated in the collection. Motorcycle enthusiasts could spend an entire day before visual overload sets in; even visitors with just a casual interest will find plenty to hold their interest for an hour or two.

The Motorcyclepedia museum isn’t quite a slick commercial enterprise: when I was there I shared the space with just a few other visitors. Some of the displays are works in progress. But the museum, like its contents, is likely to provoke a smile of recognition from anyone who’s ever picked up a wrench or twisted a throttle. It is suffused with affection for the machines and a respect for the riders and engineers who built and rode them.

“You wonder if you go in there at night,” Gerald Doering said, “if you can hear some ghost saying, ‘I want my bike back.’ ”

Excerpts by DANIEL McDERMON
–from the New York Times

WHAT IS CHRISTMAS?–It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. ~ Agnes M. Pahro

Hope this day, and every day in the New Year, brings you only good things!

–Pepper

former executive director of the Sturgis Museum

Merry Christmas to you and yours FROM THE 5-BALL WHEELER WACING WEPORT–
After a full day of bustin’ our ass in the concrete jungle we call home in sunny Southern California, the Bandit and I slid into the bikernet garage while the girls were out working for turkey and yams for the x-mas feast.

The freeways will be barren and deserted today on the west coast, according to the holiday code of the west. With predicted temperatures in the mid ’70s, blue skies and clear freeways it will be another perfect day in paradise.

The Panhead and Shovelhead therapists patiently await.

In the bikernet garage, parked next to the door sits a bad ass Salt Shaker Panhead hot rod that’s full of fresh fluids and a slight attitude that’s itchin’ for a blast on the asphalt.

The Bandits ever faithful chopped Shovelhead fired after a couple of kicks on Christmas eve. With a little luck and after the news is posted today, we gas, haul ass and listen to the therapists sing a happy tune. It’s good for your heart according to 10 out of 10 doctors who ride.

2004 Dyna, 96-inch Build

All of the 96-inch twin cam motor pieces will be on hand this week. We have a top shelf build in the making and will provide a full progress report in the upcoming weeks from the shop and on the road. Looking for a handle bar mounted camera to record riding time.

Cantina members, please call the sponsors and take advantage of the discounts available. Should you discover a sponsor not offering a discount today, call us and we’ll rattle their cage.

Really big year ahead at Bikernet, stay tuned.

Haul Ass!
Ride for your Life!
–Ray c wheeler
Performance Editor/
Cantina Backstage Security Commander
wheeler@bikernet.com

MERRY MERRY–
Merry Christmas to you Bandit, and to all of you who work hard to put Bikernet together. I really appreciate the hard work and enjoy this site very much.

Thanks to this site one of my gifts was a Little Joe’s vest from my wife!!

–Gordon Claunch

HERE IS THE CHRISTMAS DAY DEAL FROM THE BIKERNET CLASSIFIEDS! A 1991 Road King! It’s packed with a 95-inch Twin Cam engine, custom seat, New tires, New battery, sissbar with pad, luggage rack, Vance & Hines exhaust, wire wheels, and alarm system.
Very clean bike for $9750!

Go CHECK OUT THE BIKERNET CLASSIFIEDS, WHERE THE ADVENTURE IS JUST WAITING TO BEGIN!

–MIKE the STEALTH

http://bikernet.sprocketlist.com/Touring-FL/2408555/2001-Harley-Road-King-Classic-9750-trade.html

A XMAS REPORT FROM SPITFIRE-– Merry Xmas brother! Hope all is good with you and yours. Thanx for all of the help this year. I have a lot of new stuff coming out for 2012. I’m going to get back on the 45 project after the Roadster show.
Looking forward to going for a ride with you & Frank soon. Have a happy & safe Xmas & new years!
–Paul Cavallo
Spitfire Custom Motorcycles

ROLLIN SIXES FOR THE TROOPS– Just want to let you know that we sent out 622 gifts to the troops this year. That kicks it up over 8,000 gifts over the years. I kept it on the down low this year, because I didn’t want to burn folks out with it. We didn’t take pic’s or anything because it was just my family and a few friends up till 4:00 in the morning wrapping the stuff.

I want to extend a special thanks to Clinton who is battling cancer, yet find the time to hand knit hats for the troops. It’s an honor to know him.

Merry Christmas guys and thanks for all that you have done for us over the years. I wish you the very best my friend.

–Jerry, Rollin Sixes.

PS. See below:
I’m a casting director with SPEED TV, and we are trying to spread the word to all of the customizing car guys out there that we are in search of teams to compete on season Two of Car Warriors.

You can reach me directly at 818.333.5734.

–Joey Gemelli

Casting Director, Car Warriors
BASE Productions
Office: 818.333.5734
Fax: 818.847.0558
www.baseproductions.com

TERRY THE TRAMP REVIEW– “Terry the Tramp: The Life and Dangerous Times of a One Percenter” is a seriously authentic book about outlaw club lifestyle in California, specifically about the Vagos MC and its International President for many years, Terry “The Tramp” Orendorf.

This is not a book written by some chest-pounding cop who has slithered into the outlaw life as an undercover agent. Nor is it an ego trip by a former club member who greatly colours his story to puff up his self-image. Instead it’s a warts and all story of one guy’s life in the outlaw club world, as told to Keith “Bandit” Ball, himself a no-bullshit guy and former outlaw club member. And if anyone possesses an effective bullshit filter, it’s Bandit. Behind the story of Terry’s life, Bandit weaves the history of outlaw motorcycle clubs and the times that brought them into being, so as to give context to Terry’s tale.

Now if you are a young buck with stars in your eyes regarding the glamour of patch clubs, the foxy women, the big buck drug deals, the fast motorcycles and think it’s all a big rock and roll party, think again. The truth is much more mundane and the life is littered with snitches, crooked cops – not just individual cops – but whole city departments obsessed with the perceived threats that outlaw MCs pose and are wholly ready to break the law, perjure themselves and even send innocent people to the gas chamber.

Yes, it gets that bad at times. Terry’s life is a roller-coaster of a ride that follows a colorful character from the time his drunken father left home to the zenith of his career as the International President of a large outlaw club and then, his ultimate dethroning. Was the ride worth it? Only Terry could answer that question honestly. But it would seem that the endless harassments, the ongoing arrests with little result and the treachery and violence were a big price to pay to fly that green patch.

This is an honest look of one section of motorcycle club life and well worth the read.

–by Doc Robinson

Tech Editor

Heavy Duty Magazine

Australia

HOLIDAY Stress Relief in 5 Steps, Part 4– A Calming Home– Each Sunday in December we presented tips that can help you manage unhealthy stress. Consider them this holiday season, and pass them along to family and friends!

Your home – whether big, small or somewhere in between – should be your sanctuary, a place where stress is left at the door and your soul is nurtured. For a more comforting environment, gradually implement the following changes in your home:

* Bring the outdoors in. Green plants, cut flowers and blooming bulbs (like amaryllis), pieces of wood, rocks and other organic elements can create a feeling of nature indoors.

* Paint a room to suggest a mood. For instance, blue and green promote a relaxed feeling and may be good choices for the bedroom, while warm colors (maroon, coral, burgundy) suggest a cozy environment and may be inviting in a family room.

* Surround your senses with beauty. Artwork, fragrance, smooth textures and calming sounds all provide a pleasant environment in which to relax.

* Set aside a room or area for peace and calm. A place for spiritual reflection and meditation can provide shelter from noise and distraction.

* Clean out clutter. A low-maintenance home is refreshing after a day of hectic meetings, errands and chores. Fewer items can mean less frustration.

* Create an atmosphere of love. Display handmade or meaningful gifts from loved ones and photos of family and friends.

Don’t miss next Sunday’s tip for information on supplements for stress.

–Dr Weil
www.drweil.com

MERRY MERRY–We have two running motorcycles in the shop, and we’re heading out for a ride this afternoon, so I need to quit drinking mimosas.

Whether you are religious or not, Christmas is an amazing time. I spent a few hours last night walking around calm canals in Long Beach surrounded by magnificently decorated homes, with my son, his three kids, and my 89-year-old ma.