SADDLEMEN MODS TO THE SHRUNKEN FXR–In a world where over promising and under delivering has become all too common here is a gem I must share. The Bikernet built Shrunken FXR has become my daily rider and needed a couple small adjustments to be just perfect for me.

One detail was the too small seat or the bike was too fast (pick one). So I rode my bike over to meet the nice folks at Saddlemen and see what they could do to help me out with my seat. Upon arriving at the Saddlemen facility I spent time with guys from the front office to the guys in the shop ( all of whom took great interest in my motorcycle and the seat they were going to design and build). I noticed from the get-go these people were all riders. I shouldn’t be impressed by that, but there are so many folks in this industry who don’t even ride anymore.

We discussed what I needed (lumbar support) and a lip on the edge of the seat to keep me from being bucked off or sliding onto the rear fender. We also discussed the lines of the bike and that in the case of the Shrunken FXR , less was more. After the team and I spent a great deal of time figuring out what we wanted and didn’t want I was able to walk around the shop and see the whole seat making process from start to finish. man was I impressed!



So many talented folks all working together to put out an amazing array of products designed by and for riders! It was a real treat to see this and made me truly appreciate what they do much more. Great companies, in my opinion, are made of the people who work for them. So I left my bike for mock-up, and received a call back in a week.




When I showed up I saw the foam of the seat had been formed and pan had been constructed. We discussed coverings and stitching, again less is more. They got it and even pointed out to me the lines of the bike would be reflected in the seat.




Three days later I returned to pick up my bike and see my new seat! A seat is the finishing functioning touch to any motorcycle (much more than something you sit on) it must reflect the bike while being comfortable and a key suspension element.




I was so happy to see the seat. It looked amazing and really I could not have imagined it any better than they had built it. I put my helmet on, thanked them and jumped on the bike to ride away. First thing I noticed was the lumbar support made the bike so much more comfortable to ride and kept me in the perfect position to reach all my controls.




The biggest difference was when I hit a huge pot hole (tons of em’ in area) was my ass stayed firmly planted in the seat and the impact was minimal. The seat made my bike complete.



Can’t say enough about how impressed I was with the Saddlemen crew and facility, in short they made my custom bike have a perfectly functional and stylish seat. The perfect blend of function and form. I suggest anyone who needs a seat built or customized give them a call. They are a family team of bikers designing and building products for bikers. I like it!



–Buster

In the fall of 1961, my father died after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 47, I was 14. My mother didn’t drive, so in order for us to have any transportation we sold the car and bought me a 1960 Cushman Eagle motor scooter. A 14-year-old could legally ride a scooter or motorbike not exceeding five horsepower in those days. That began my love affair with all two wheeled vehicles.
I bought my first Harley in Reno, Nevada in 1968. If you count the Cushman, I have been riding for 50 years this fall. During that time, I have had a few adventures and met some incredibly interesting people while riding motorcycles.

I could probably write a book about the people I have known over the years. The problem I have with that is, I can never reach a good conclusion. It is just the story of life and it is ongoing. There have been a few friends that really stand out. This story is really about my most recent real friend, someone who I consider a brother, but first I would like to mention some earlier motorcycle-riding friends.

In the summer of 1969, I rode into Oklahoma City from Fallon, Nevada after being discharged from the Navy. I was riding a ’62 Panhead with an eight-over wide glide front end and a two-gallon Sportster tank. I had a sea bag full of stuff strapped on the homemade sissy bar. I had just hit town on NW 39th street when I met a guy riding the other way on an ugly green flathead UL chopper. We waved at each other but didn’t actually meet until sometime later. When we did meet a month or so later, I recognized the bike and told him I was the guy that waved at him that day. His name is Gary Turner and we are still friends to this day.

Shortly after my arrival in OKC, I hooked up with a local bike club called The Devil’s Own Grim Reapers. Not to be confused with another club just called The Grim Reapers. We were just kids trying to be like the guys we saw in all those cheesy biker movies. The Vice President of that club was a 19-year-old named Ross Collins. Ross and I have been very close all these years. Today he has a profitable hot rod shop in downtown OKC. I just helped him find a sharp ’79 FLH, so he could get back on two wheels after a decade just building rat rods and such.

In the fall of ’69 while riding around on my old ’62 Pan I pulled up beside a guy on a similar Pan except it had a cool custom paint job and was much cleaner than mine. His name was Rick, and it turned out I had gone to high school with his ex wife’s brother Dave. After some discussion I remembered he was the guy who picked up Dave and his friends and a lot of girls in a ’59 Lincoln convertible when I was in high school. He was older by 15 years and had a lot of adventures. We became lifelong friends until his death in 1992 of prostrate cancer. I think his prostrate was just plain overworked. He had been in the porn business and the pimp business among other things.
Turns out that old Panhead was a 90-inch stroker built by a local Harley-building-legend named Pat Spencer. Pat built several strokers. They tore up the drag strips around here. Rick would never race unless there was serious money involved. He would lie down on it and pull up the foot shift with his hand. It would blow away all those fast Sportsters in those days. It turned a 12 something at the OKC drag strip and stayed together. I would sure like to find that old bike now.

Fast forward to 2004. I moved back to Oklahoma after getting divorced and selling my house in Las Vegas. The wife got the boyfriend and I got the house, which doubled in value right after the divorce. I am a lucky man. I got out of Vegas just before the crash. I am sure glad I don’t have that old house now.
Anyway, I moved back here to be around my daughter and grandchildren. I bought five acres in the woods and built a little shop. I started building bikes and trying to sell them. I did damn good at that in Vegas. I could throw together any kind of old junk and get premium for it as long as it was a Harley. I soon found out those days are over.
Around 2006 I met the guy who rented Jet Skis from a trailer behind his pickup. He had a totally outlaw business called Playtime Inc., no business license, no insurance, and no taxes. He would just put you in the water on his jet ski for cash. Customers at least had to sign a release form. His name is Wesley Creech and we quickly became fast friends. When I met him his business was already on the decline due to the sad economic times we see now. We started hanging around more and more and he became very interested in those old bikes I was building. He started telling me a bit about his past.

Wes was born in southeast Kansas in 1960. His dad was only 18 at the time. Wes was the oldest but there came two other brothers shortly behind him. Although just a kid, his dad had to settle down and make a living for his growing family. His dad was a natural mechanic and raised on a Kansas farm. He knew about machinery. After working at various mechanical and construction jobs, he moved his young family to Washington State in 1965. He landed a job in the local Harley dealer.
Back then dealers were small, not a giant superstore, and boutiques the way they are now. He wrenched on bikes and worked in sales. He would ride a new bike home for the weekend, strip it down and race it and ride it back to work on Monday. After a couple of years, he moved back to Kansas and went to work for the Honda dealer. That was the time when Hondas were small and they advertised, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”

Honda was getting big in the dirt bike business and Wes’s dad really got into racing. He would take his boys with him. He bought Wes and his brother Honda 50s and they tore up the dirt with them when they were 7 and 8 years old. The younger brother was only around 3 during this time or he would have had one too.

Wes’s mom left when Wes was 11 and took the boys with her out to Oregon. Her brother lived there on the Columbia River east of Portland. The Judge in the divorce said she had to stay within 500 miles of Kansas. Wes’s dad showed up right behind her and stole them back. After that, he raised all three himself.

Wes’s dad soon found there was more money in the construction business. He started with one company in southeast Kansas and worked his way up over the years to project manager. He brought the boys into that business as soon as they were old enough. As a young single man in Kansas in the ’70s, Wes’s dad got pretty wild. He was a typical biker, into partying hard. There were lots of women and drugs.

That Kansas farm country hides the usual crooked cops, drug dealing families, people connected to the Little Dixie Mafia and the Chicago mob too. It was much like the Kentucky Elmore Leonard wrote about in the FX series “Justified.” Wes grew up right in the thick of all that. He learned to survive and keep his mouth shut. He became a bit of a badass for a while there. During that period, he married his sweetheart Patty and although it took a while for him to settle down, he finally did. She stuck by him through it all. When Wes was 27, his dad died of a massive heart attack. He was only 48. I don’t know if it was hard living or just bad genetics. I think when your time is up; it’s up no matter what.

Wes moved to Oklahoma and turned his life around. He found he was very artistic and had a real ability with an airbrush. He became lifelong friends with a doctor named David Good who got him involved in church and doing much charity type work. He found helping others contains it’s own rewards. David was not just a doctor but also a hot-rodder, and an all-around car and boat guy. Unlike most doctors, David wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty tearing down a car or truck. They built a shop on Dave’s property and started doing custom paint jobs as well as starting up the jet ski rental business.

About three years ago David married a Mexican doctor and moved to Guadalajara, Mexico. Wes has been continuing what they started as best he can. When he met me, he rediscovered his love of motorcycles and he started collecting parts and traded his way into several old Sportsters. I helped him with getting one to run right and he has taught himself to be a first class Iron Head mechanic since.

The Iron Head 1974 Sportster he was riding recently just destroyed the lower end. I think it sat too long in a damp basement and rusted the crankpin. He had another engine in the back room and I suggested we pull it down and see how good the crankpin was. He took that motor apart and found some really short pistons with the oil ring going around the wrist pin.
I said, “I believe what you have there is a serious stroker.”

It turned out to be a set of S&S 4 3/4 flywheels for about 76 cubic inches. It was all like new. I think that was meant to be a drag bike engine but was never finished. He put the whole kit into his cases and it has run really good for around 5000 miles. I am amazed it hasn’t exploded yet, but he rides it fairly gently. Mainstream performance guys now regard this as antique junk today, but it sure is fun none-the-less and a real challenge to keep on the road.

I got a ’98 Sportster in a trade in the spring of 2010. I sold that to Wes for his wife. He lowered it, changed many things on it since. It is a rolling example of his artwork. I built a little hardtail bobber for a guy in Tulsa and Wes volunteered to paint it. He used a P-40 Flying Tiger aircraft theme on it. Attached are some shots of Wes and his bikes. He is willing to do mail order paint jobs. He is working on setting up a website, in the meantime he can be reached at (405) 990 8641.

I’ve had fifty years of fun with Harley-Davidson’s and a few Indians and British bikes too. It has been a great ride, and I have met some wonderful people along the way. Wes is one of the best, and we will be friends until the end.
The road goes on forever and party never ends, more to come.

We have experienced Harley-Davidson remanufactured engines, JIMS machine remanufactured transmissions and upgrades, and now  something new for an Evo rebuild. We took Dr. Hamster’s 200,000-plus miles Evo engine to Bennett’s Performance for a solid, aftermarket rebuild.

This article covers a couple of directions. First, H-D’s inexpensive remanufacture operation is cool and returns your engine to bone stock configuration, but who wants a stock engine nowadays? Harley’s system is all right, but sort of incomplete. Therein lies the benefits of the aftermarket, the flexibility to rebuild an Evo engine in virtually any configuration you choose, from stock to mild upgrade, to big bore, or stroker.

“Evo motors at 80 inches can be great motors when balanced, and put together well,” said Dr. Hamster. “Heck, the last one was still going strong at 200,000 miles. So the options became easy and we picked Bennett Performance to do their magic.”

The second notion we will cover to a limited extent, is our constant debate over which is the better engine configuration Evo, my favorite, or Twin Cam. Okay, so I’m biased, old school, and cheap. That in itself is simply a tongue-in-cheek debate. We all know the twin cam pattern is more capable of handling performance upgrades; that’s a given. But there’s a slice of the brotherhood who trust the Evo design, its traditional platform, and its reliability. It is by far the most refined and simple V-twin platform, and virtually every custom manufactured chopper company used Evos as their power plants. We will touch on the plus sides and negative aspects of both configurations throughout this article.

Dr. Hamster was working with a local Santa Monica shop, Venice Custom Cycles, and Javier pulled his engine and dropped it off in Signal Hill at Bennett’s Performance, home of the Signal Hill-Billies, the house country-rock band.

“Javier from Venice Custom Cycles pulled the motor, and off it went to Bennett’s,” said the good doctor, “where they took it all apart. The awesome news happened when Eric from Bennett called and said he could not believe the mileage on this bike. There was minimal wear and tear, and gunk build up.”

“Here’s what we discuss with any engine rebuild clients,” said Eric Bennett, the boss, and lead singer. “We kick around finish options and performance upgrades.”

They can have the cases polished, left raw, or powdered almost any color. Then there’s chrome, but most of us duck chrome nowadays. Since Branch O’Keefe is right next-door, Eric always suggests headwork by the masters, especially for Evos. Just modifying the heads is a massive performance upgrade, and the manner in which John O’Keefe rebuilds heads, and the high-end quality components he uses add tremendous longevity to any Evo top end. These guys are the Swiss watch masters of headwork.

Eric kicked off the operation by stripping the engine and inspecting each component. He checked the pinion race for true and would follow with lapping and fitting over-sized bearings. The rods were in terrific shape, but the races would be lapped true and the crank and bearings replaced. Plus the Timken set, in the left case, would be replaced.

Eric always replaces the lifters, and the stock breather with an S&S modified breather.

“The breather cavity is a terrific indicator of any crap in the engine,” Eric said. “This engine, for the mileage, was exceedingly clean.”

If need be, the rocker-arms would be rebushed. All the hardware would be replaced, the oil pump inspected and an S&S oil pump kit will be used to replace all the critical components and gaskets.

For an additional $100, Bennett’s has each lower end balanced at 60 percent. Eric uses new stock H-D pistons for a stock compression ratio, modified slightly by the headwork.

All the gaskets would be replace with Cometic gaskets with metal inserts. “This is an all-aluminum engine,” Eric explained. “Change the oil often, and make sure to warm it up slowly, since all the components move during the heat cycle.”

So let’s get started through this 2-3 week process. Keep in mind that any additional machine work will add to the project time.

I meandered into Bennett’s pristine shop on the hill over looking Long Beach a couple of weeks later. Eric discovered a problem with the last set of Timken bearings in the left case. He re-welded and machined the groove between the races. John O’Keefe, from Branch/O’Keefe, inspected the heads and rebuilt them. They discovered hairline cracks next to the sparkplug holes, and grooved and welded them. Then Eric installed threaded inserts for the sparkplugs. Those elements took some extra time.

Eric lapped and checked the factory line bore through the cases. The heads were originally modified by Bartels’ and shaved for additional compression. But the Branch O’Keefe team rebuilt the heads completely with their quality components, including tapered valve guides, new high-quality valves, and springs.

I ran into John O’Keefe while picking up the good Doctor’s heads. Their shop is next door to Bennett’s and mirrors the cleanliness and organization of Bennett’s. It’s a sharp orderly machine shop. John took the time to explain the differences between Evo heads and later model Twin Cam components. He pointed out very narrow valve stems and poor quality bottom valve collars that have a tendency to collect oil. Since the valves have dangerously thin stems, they fit very loose in the guides.

When John rebuilds twin cam heads, he replaces all the moving elements and uses Evo diameter 5/16-inch valves. He also upgrades the valve collars and springs.

“They’re just trying to save money,” John said of the factory heads.

I returned to Eric’s shop next door where he was heating the Timken bearings slightly after he trued the flywheels, so they would drop onto the sprocket shaft. The heat prevents any jarring or beating on the shaft that could inadvertently knock the lower end out of true, before the crank had a chance to heat cycle and seat. There is no key-way on the left. The general price for a complete rebuild is $2,500, which includes, lower end, valve job, new pistons, cylinder bore, new fasteners, and gaskets.

Add a cam and performance headwork next door and it usually costs around an additional $850. Next, he replaced the fitted pinion bearing and clip ring, but before he installed the right case he pressed out the old cam bearing and replaced it with the news, longer lasting Torrington cam bearing.

“The heads went over to Branch/O’Keefe to be properly flowed for a “street” porting, matching the performance level to the type of riding I do – 800-1000 miles a day for a week at a time,” Dr. Hamster said. “Reliability and good solid performance in the mid range was what I was after. We matched the headwork with the right cam from Andrew’s, S&S carb, Compu-fire ignition, and 2-into-1 exhaust from D&D.”

Eric carefully smeared a light coat of three-bond liquid gasket on the edge of the cases, then installed the right case against the left and tightened the new fasteners from the Gardner Wescott engine fastener kit. Then he torqued them to 22 ft lb. the appropriate level for any 5/16 fasteners.

We peeled out for a night on the town, while Eric kicked off band practice in the studio behind his shop. The next evening, I watched as Eric scrubbed the cylinders in a hot water-based “shit” solvent tank. Then he carefully cleaned them with Simple Green and wiped them down with WD-40 to prevent rust.

Eric started the oil pump installation by replacing the oil pump seal in the return side of the pump body. His S&S oil pump rebuild kit included new keys, snap rings, and seals.

“Oil pump bodies will last forever,” Eric said, “as long as debris doesn’t gall the interior walls.”

He used fasteners to hold the pump body and gasket in alignment while he installed the oil pump gear on the inside with the new snap ring. Eric used assembly lube on a lot of the rotating components to protect them until the new supply of oil arrives. He uses the supplied S&S paper oil pump gaskets.

“The thicker gaskets mess with the oil pressure levels,” Eric explained.

He pointed out that the relief valve opens at 15 pounds of pressure to lubricate the pinion shaft, the crank and lower-end bearings. It’s interesting that the lower-end isn’t being lubed at an idle, except by the mist being kicked up by the flywheels.

He also pointed out the tappet screen filter. It prevents large chunks of debris from damaging the valve lifters.

With the oil pump in place, he could torque the left-handed pinion nut to 45 ft lb. We recently discovered how important the pinion cam drive gear and the pinion nut was, when one loosened in another engine and it sheared the key.

The key does not drive the gear, but aligns it in a particular position for cam timing. The thrust is handled with the dry surface of the nut and the shaft connection, and then sealed in place with the nut. If that left-handed nut loosens, the key will shear and the engine will quit. Done deal. It’s imperative that the tapered shaft be perfectly clean and dry before the nut is tightened.

Eric installed the Branch O’Keefe recommended EV 51, .560 lift cam, with .252 intake duration, and a .256 exhaust duration lobes. Then he worked on setting up the breather gear endplay to .005-.010. and he hooked up the cam with the same endplay tolerances.

The man with the wrenches tightened the cam cover and rolled the engine over. He reached inside the cam chest through the lifter stool holes and checked the breather gear endplay. Then with a JIMS tool bolted to the end of the cam he checked the cam endplay. They were tight, so he switched out shims and tested them again, until they were perfect.

Eric used stock H-D lifters used from ’84 to ’90 in Evos and from ’86-’90 four-speed Sportsters. He primed each one with 20W-50 synthetic oil and installed them in the lifter stools. He used a very cool H-D lifter stool alignment tool to perfectly align each lifter stool before installing the fasteners.

“Twin cams are faster to rebuild than Evos,” Eric said, “like rebuilding a four-speed transmission and the faster 5-speed with the trap door.”

I was surprised and we discussed the differences for a half hour, while Eric torqued ¼-20 fasteners to 120 inch-pounds of torque. Then we peeled out to beer-30 and returned the next day at just about closing time to finish the engine.

While I was gone, Eric installed a new cam seal in the cam cover. He pointed out the Twin Cam differences.

“Evos use the cam cover as an integral part of the engine,” Eric said. “Twin Cam cam covers are just that, a cover, no fuss, no muss, or messing with endplay.”

I still contended that the multiple cams and the cam drive plate added significant time to rebuilds, but what the fuck do I know?

Eric agreed that Twin Cam lower ends lost the quality debate, especially recently with connecting rods without races and push-in straight crank pins and shafts. In an effort to save money the factory late model units are getting sloppy and lower ends don’t last much over 40,000 miles.

The debate continued while Eric set the piston ring gap at .018 or .003-inch per inch of bore diameter. Generally, he sets performance engines wider. The stock pistons come with arrows impregnated into the piston tops to indicate position, since some pistons come with the wrist pin offset to make up for the thrust in the engines during compression strokes. Plus the exhaust eyebrows (half-moon slots) in the pistons are smaller than the intake eyebrows.

Eric also had a formula for positioning the rings. He placed the gap in the second compression ring at 10:00, then the gap in the top ring at 4:00 below the intake valve.

“H-D pistons are a bargain at $150 a set,” Eric said, “with rings, pins, clips, and they are Teflon coated.”

Performance experts recommended that Eric install the gaps in the wrist pin clips at 6:00 or 12:00. He uses .040 Cometic head gaskets. It was time to install the heads, adjust the valves, and wrap up the good doctor’s engine. Eric used assembly lube on the head bolts or moly-base lube.

While Eric torqued the heads to 20 pounds, then 32, then 38, and finally 42, which is the SAE torque rating for 3/8 bolts, he recommended heat cycles during break in.

“You should run the motor for just two minutes,” Eric said. “Then let it cool down, and do it again for five minutes, let it cool down, then run it for seven-eight minutes. The head temperature should not exceed 150 degrees during this process.”

And God forbid, do not lug the motor. That’s the worst for any V-twin engine.

Eric spun out each adjustable pushrod before he dropped them through the holes in the heads, then installed the bottom rocker box over Cometic gaskets, then the rocker arms and the remaining rocker box covers. He also installed new pushrod seals and the covers. He checked and rotated the rocker arm shafts.

“They never wear out,” Eric said. As he began the torquing process on the rocker boxes, he ran into a stripped 5/16 hole in the rear head. That shut us down for the night. The next day he pulled the head, bored the hole and installed a threaded insert. He assembled the heads, adjusted the valves, and the doctor was good to go.

“All in all, I believe this was the way to go,” said the good doctor. “I love the Evo motors for their simplicity, reliability and performance you can get out of them with a relatively small investment.
A sensible way to go instead of spending a ton of money in this day and age. Bessie is coming together and I am looking forward to another 200.000 miles together.”

We will bring you a report on the engine’s success once the doctor is back on the road. We should break in these Evos and make a run to Bob T.’s place in 14 Palms before winter sets in.

SOURCES:

S&S

JIMS

Branch/O’Keefe

My name is Blake Axelson, and this is my story about our journey to Bonneville. Let’s start from the beginning, so throughout the summer before Bonneville we were having ignition problems with our motorcycle. My dad built a custom rigid bike, with a Buell XB9 engine in it. In my opinion, it is one of the cleanest looking bikes out there on the salt.

I went to bed early because it was going to be a long drive from Colorado to Bonneville. The next morning I woke up really early because we were trying to get out of there before 7:00. I grabbed myself some breakfast then we loaded up the back of the truck and made sure we had everything, and then we headed out.

A little side note: my Grandpa is 87-years-old and is probably in the best shape I have ever seen anyone that age. So, we went and parked the truck and then went to check out the rooms. My grandpa and I slept in one room and my dad and his girlfriend in the one next door. We grabbed dinner and then scooted off to bed because it had been a long day.

The next morning we woke up at 3:00, so we could roll quickly to a good spot on the salt. We sat in the asphalt line leading to the salt and mingled, because no one was allowed on the salt until 9:30. I hope everyone interested in speed has the opportunity to check it out, because it is indescribable.

Everyone helps each other out as much as possible, and I can’t leave out how amazing the sunrises are in the morning. Anyway, 9:30 rolled around. It was time to check in and grab a location in the pit area, so we hurried up and rolled out there. We set up our pit right next to our friends from Japan!

It is really cool to have such a diverse community out wrenching-away on the salt. Next, we went and waited in line to register and get the bike scrutinized or inspected for racing. There was no racing that day because everyone had to get set up.

The next day we got out there around 7:00, which was average time and once we, got out there we jumped straight into the pass line. So, once it was my dad’s turn to take his run we went back to the pit and listened. So, the record at this point for his class was only “110 mph” for the world record. So his first run he easily broke that with a 132 average.

After this we he had the option to keep racing or tear down his engine and get it inspected. We convinced him to get it inspected and sealed so he didn’t have to deal with it again. They seal the engine to insure no modifications are made until the record is confirmed.

How could this be? So, when she came back to the pits she broke the news to all of us. All the hard work and extra money spent trying to break a previously achievable record was now further out of reach. As the week went on there was no sign of getting the record because the rear wheel lost traction and started spinning, and there were problems with the gearing so the bike was never getting to its full potential.

I hope that next year we can come out and crush the record. I also hope that I get to spend time with my family again like this year. All in all, it was an amazing time on the salt and thanks to all the great people that I met out there and the fine times.

I can’t wait to return next year!

   30 years and many motorcycles have come and gone, yet the future continues twisting its way into the horizon with the past shrinking in the mirrors. This is when the realization hit me. I have lost my gang of bikers.
   The solution to getting the boys back together was to create a tribute and what better way than with a themed motorcycle. My current ride is a 2007 Suzuki M109R Boulevard and it becomes the foundation for an early 80’s, dirt bike inspired, modern v-twin powered bobber. With over 100 changes and 1000 hours to build, it evolved into something that I know my boys would be proud of.

   In 1991 my son was born, the first of two children. BMX racing and dirt bikes soon follow with the favorite being his Yamaha Banshee ATV. He creates ToxicJ as a gamer tag for online video gaming, but it soon becomes his nickname. The symbol he uses with it is the radiation propeller. The element FIRE with the number 726 for his birthday of July 26th is placed on the rear fender in red with his initials JRS for Jason Ray Sylvester.

Vee Rubber, one of the largest companies in Thailand, manufactured OEM tires for decades in the car and motorcycle industry. After the show aired on the Discovery Channel, Ron, the president of MetalSport, Inc. pursued a relationship with Vee Rubber. He was impressed with their manufacturing flexibility and started to talk with them about producing monster and whitewall tires. A new configuration Vee Rubber tire can run from drawing to the streets in 60-90 days, but whitewalls are another animal. Vee Rubber devoted over a million dollars to enhance their whitewall technology behind a year of manufacturing research. They are currently the only company to manufacture a quality whitewall tire in a 23-inch size, and for a range of popular tires from 120 to 200 mm. Now that the Vee Rubber team is satisfied with their whitewall manufacturing process, more whitewall tire sizes are forthcoming. Below is a list of in-stock on the West Coast, Available through Metalsport Inc.

Ron persistently worked with the Vee Rubber staff, including John Leale, the VP of North America, as he built more and more radical custom motorcycle wheel styles and sizes, with designers such as Chip Foose. The relationship has grown between MetalSport, Inc. and Vee Rubber. Metalsport, Inc. recently became the West Coast (anything west of the Mississippi) importer/distributor for the entire line of Vee Rubber motorcycle tires (including Canada). The deal was signed recently and a container of tires delivered. Below is a list of monster tires in stock, in addition to OEM model tires.

Check the list of tires sizes, and don’t hesitate to challenge this team for more configurations of tires, wheels, or custom product manufacturing. They have the resources to build almost anything.

Vee Rubber Tires MONSTER Blackwall Tires for Harley-Davidson and Custom Motorcycles.

Sizes:
120/70/23 Front
120/50/26 Front
140/40/30 Front
200/40/20 Rear
200/70/21 Rear
200/50/18 Rear
260/35/18 Rear
310/35/18 Rear
360/30/18 Rear
130/50/23 Rear

Vee Rubber Tires – WHITEWALL tires for Harley-Davidson and Custom Motorcycles.

Sizes:
120/70/21 Front
130/50/23 Front
130/70/18 Front/Rear
150/60/18 Rear
180/50/18 Rear
200/50/18 Rear
200/55/17 Rear
MT90-16 Front
MT90-16 Rear
150/80/16 Rear
200/60/16 Rear

Vee Rubber Tires – TWIN (OEM) Tires for Harley-Davidson and Custom Motorcycles.

Sizes:
100/90/19 Front
90/90/21 Front
120/70/21 Front
MH90-21 Front
MT90-16 Front
200/55/17 Rear
180/60/16 Rear
200/60/16 Rear
150/80/16 Rear
140/90/16 Rear
140/70/18 Rear
150/70/18 Rear

During these last rides of the year, we’ll be sharing the roadways with the whitetail deer. They’re a big part of the awesome scenery that we enjoy in the fall, and I’ve offered up a few tips that ensure we ride safely this time of year:

According to the last three years of crash database available through the Iowa Department of Transportation, there’s been a decline in fatalities where motorcyclists have collided with a deer. This is great news because you can bet there are just as many deer out there on the roads as three years ago. That indicates that we bikers are being safer and looking out for them. Keep this positive trend going and remain alert and safe this fall! Check your motorcycle headlights and motorcycle brakes are in working conditions this fall, to keep you and our four-legged friends safe.