A total of 413 Blog Posts were made in the 365 days of year 2022. A year we hoped to recover from a mutating virus but got entangled in another human invention called ‘war’ instead. Nevertheless, two-wheeled industry rolled on and Bikernet.com led the way, celebrating 25 years of freedom & practicing its commitment to keep motorcycling free from political obstacles & legal roadblocks !!!

Your Bikernet Blog Editor and Bikernet Official Facebook Page Curator, aspiring monk Wayfarer presents highlights of the year 2022, seen by Bikernet readers worldwide. Time zooms by faster than Bonneville racing which got rained out. ‘Milestones’ were completed including custom builds & charity drives. All the fear of virus did not ‘infect’ the enthusiasm of newbies nor of the regulars at Sturgis. Success was even seen in legislation thanks to persistent freedom fighters. Art and craft kept flowing on ink & hand-banged metal. A new generation and ever-youthful bloodline got the baton of 5-Ball Racing Leathers from ‘grandpa’ Ming ‘Bandit’ Ball.


So, get going, have a peek at the recent past, then move onward — ride free forever!!!

January 2022:

Hump Day Action with Thumping Wisdom
click here to read

Honda RC213V-S Breaks Auction World Record
click here to read

Springer Transformation – Custom Building Adventure
click here to read

Clay’s Christmas – Blessings Come in Strange Packages
click here to read

Sturgis Run 2021 of Frank Ball Jr
February 2022:

Bandit’s First Bike Feature in Easyriders
click here to read

4 Major Motorcycle Trends Sir Hagerty Witnessed at the Mecum Auction
click here to read

Vance & Hines Reveals 2022 Flat Track Racing Team
click here to read

Royal Enfield Announces 2022 BTR Road Racing Program
click here to read

March 2022:

Bikernet Blog is in Top 25 Motorcycle Blogs on the web
click here to read

Alt-Rock Cruisers: BMW targets American brand’s market
click here to read

Estate Planning for Motorcycle Collectors
click here to read

Barn Find Project: Where to Start
click here to read

METZELER CRUISETEC Tires and New Indian Motorcycle Pursuit Lineup
click here to read

Pirelli Storms to Third Consecutive Daytona 200 Victory
click here to read



April 2022:

The Motorcycle Battery Files
click here to read

Arizona Bike Week 2022: All the Action
click here to read

Another Victory in Kansas: Law to Ease Titling Procedures for Antique Vehicles
click here to read

May 2022:

Fact Vs Fiction: New York Exhaust Noise Legislation
click here to read

Ask a State Trooper: Can you Ride with a Pet on your Motorcycle?
click here to read

Bandit’s Cantina The Series posts Episode 99
June 2022:

International Motorcycling Advocate Deb Butitta Dies in Crash
click here to read

The One and Only Magnificent Nelk
click here to read

Rode Alone by K. Randall “Bandit” Ball`
click here to read

Laconia Motorcycle Week 2022
click here to read

Vance & Hines Issues Statement on Federal Trade Commission Action
click here to read



July 2022:

Satire: Gavin Newsom and the Doomed Planet
click here to read

A Cool Custom Strider Bike by Edge
click here to read

Guess the first motorized vehicle to cross the U.S.
click here to read

Photo Feature of Chopperfest in Sweden
click here to read

In Search of the Sturgis Sticky Bun
click here to read

The ’69 Shovelhead Chopper History & Build
click here to read

August 2022:

Chopper Charlie : First in a New Series on understanding chopper culture
click here to read

Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials 2022 Cancelled
click here to read

Steve McQueen’s cherished off-road motorcycle to be sold
click here to read

Debate: 20 myths about fossil fuels, refuted
click here to read

From the streets – 2022 Sturgis Rally Report
click here to read

Accident Scene Management : by Biker Lives Matter
click here to read



September 2022:

Charitable Custom Motorcycles & Wonderful Sponsors
click here to read

LiveWire becomes the first EV motorcycle company to list on the NYSE
click here to read

WHO WON? King of the Baggers Championship Season Recap
click here to read

The Trike File Is Now Open
click here to read

A stand out and rare motorcycle
click here to read



October 2022:

Old Harley Clutch Wars
click here to read

If You Build It They Will Come
click here to read

Bikers and the VA
click here to read

Barn-Find Delights: Tom Cotter’s new book
click here to read

Kawasaki Electric Motorcycle Debuts At Intermot
click here to read

Something to learn from 4 failed land speed attempts
click here to read

Moto Beach Classic 2022 Preview
click here to read

Handlebar Recall On Nearly 1,100 Harley-Davidson Nightsters
click here to read



November 2022:

Another H-D Recall: Nearly 200,000 Harley Touring Models
click here to read

Chopper Time Biketoberfest 2022
click here to read

Tanks Forever : gas tank feature article
click here to read

The State of The Hurricane Address
click here to read

More News on Sale of Daytona Harley-Davidson & Destination Daytona
click here to read

Spirit of Thanksgiving Bikernet Weekly News for November 24, 2022
click here to read

5-Ball Racing VL, custom motorcycle build
click here to read

Craft and Punishment: Deus Ex Machina brand
click here to read



December 2022:

Is Royal Enfield going Electric?
click here to read

BSA Scrambler At 2022 Motorcycle Live Show
click here to read

Last Traditional Sportster from H-D: Why?
click here to read

Dennis Sanfilippo has passed away
click here to read

Royal Enfield Opens New CKD Facility in Brazil
click here to read

Honda Reveals First Look of Electric Motorcycle
click here to read

Bike-Farm Melle wins European Biker Build-Off 2022
click here to read

Eicher Motors Ltd announces strategic investment in Stark Future SL
click here to read

A Minibike Enduro Race Completely Out Of Its Mind
click here to read

House Passes Motorcyclist Profiling Resolution

Dear Bikernet Reader; assuming you are not having this read to you by the nurse; Ya know, there’s a lotta good reasons to vote for Trump for a second term even if you think he’s an asshole. For one thing he’s never been an asshole to you personally, has he. Plus he’s never personally insulted your wife and family. Or your mom. Who should be on her knees thanking Jesus because EYE hear she was this close to being a target. No: he insults people people who clearly have it coming. In fact… Wikipedia has a long long itemized list of all the nicknames he has given to the apes and assholes he was forced to work with for 4 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump

I mean, this is some funny shit right here. What makes it even funnier is that in that whole list of Ignorant Trump-Abuse he has claimed that one of them is actually incorrect. “No, I never called him that,” Trump informed whoever was making this list. That was on one of them. On the others?… “Yeah, I said that, that’s correct, mm-hmm, yeah, called him that, correcto-mundo, yup, fuckin’A.”

Now you might be saying “Well, I shouldn’t vote for Trump just because he calls people names.” Yeah you should. None o’ the names are undeserved, for one thing. Well, you might say “That’s still rude and ignorant, these are all respected representatives and office holders and dutiful safeguarders of our sacred democracy.” No they’re not. They’re all piles of gestating mucus.

They’re writhing science fiction monsters of uselessness; fat, smelly, drooling ill-tempered snotty children, employed at jobs that have no actual product or service other than barking orders and demands and having positions at high rates of pay you’re paying for that have no actual job descriptions, just vague activity-checklists that siphon money from your pocket or else just legally create it out of thin air for the purpose of making things worse, never better. And they all have two personalities, a private one and a public one.

Unlike Trump. Who has just one personality. The insufferable one. He also has an actual job-history, and unlike the people on the insult list who smile and wink and say cute things and do nothing constructive…Trump actually tries to do something: namely remove all the roadblocks to what used to globally be called “American Exceptionalism:” roadblocks that all the people on Trump’s insult list have relentlessly hammered into place.

There’s a reason everyone on the insult list…is on the insult list. And there’s a reason everyone on the insult list hates Trump. And it’s not because they’re on the insult list. They don’t hate him because he calls them names. If they did they’d be barging into his office and asking him what his fucking problem is. You’ll notice they don’t do that.

Most of them are even afraid to say his name in front of a reporter who they’re also afraid of because they’re all little shits of cowardice and duplicity and whining fuckness. The reason they hate Trump is because Trump is impeding their determination to make your personal life too impossible to actually live.

Which is another reason everyone else in DC hates him: he actually enjoys being alive. Unlike everyone else in DC. You notice all those assholes on the insult-list who come out of a fart-filled room and waddle up to the failed-novelists journalists when both groups have their little blowjob session in the hallway so that David Muir can at 6:o’clock put both palms flat on his desk like he’s ready for action and tell you what the two groups accomplished in the way of fucking with everyone and claiming they’re keeping everyone safe by doing so?…. you’ll notice they’re never fucking happy.

They stand there with their sour, Mitch McConnell sad faces, and give grim forewarnings of sadnesses to come. Meanwhile Trump is calling them names and having rallies and everyone is all up ’n’ attem and yee-haa and meanwhile all the people he’s calling names, they’re all droopy and crying and saying our “sacred democracy” is in danger because Trump’s too happy and he calls people names. This democracy crap must be pretty shaky business if Trump can topple it by calling Mitch McConnel “a disloyal sleazebag.” (see Trump Namecalling List referenced above.)

Another reason you should vote for Trump is that he actually has a livelihood. Unlike everyone else in DC, and basically anyone in any office in America. Trump actually knows what a job actually is. To every other bureaucrat in America a job is where “the owners of production exploit the workers.”

That’s what a job is to a bureaucrat: because it’s what Karl Marx says it is. He’s their fucking guidance counselor. Which is why they’re all fucking idiots and they all talk in brain-eroding riddles of verbal mush. Because they’re students of Karl Marx. And Karl Marx was not just an idiot he was a diligent one. He not only said stupid things he backed them up with stupid arguments, imaginary proofs, relentless obviousities, lots of “it’s the science,” and this is how it is’s and because I said so’s. Kind of like how the “pandemic” thing operated. Where do you think the CDC and the WHO got the idea of “keeping the sick ‘safe’ from the healthy” from? That’s right, from the idiot: Karl Marx.

Donald Trump isn’t an idiot. Sure, he may not be Mr. Dignity, but he’s not an idiot. Unlike Karl Marx, he’s actually had jobs and earned money. Unlike Karl Marx. At least before his book of insane-asylum nonsense became an “intellectual” best seller. Which I think someone else actually wrote. Sure, someone else wrote Trump’s books too, yeah, ok. But unlike Marx, Trump was busy at his real job while someone else was writing his books, PLUS they’re easy to understand. The only people who understand Karl Marx’s book are rioters, looters, arsonists, child molesters, and the fucking Squad. (see list above.)

And that’s another thing: Trump is not a child molester. In fact, I don’t think he can stand even being around kids. Even his own. I know I wouldn’t want to be around them. Trump can’t waste his time with kids. What can kids do for him? They have no money to spend. Everyone else in office?…..always with the kids. Can’t get enough kids involved in their unsavory shit. Sitting in commie classrooms with the kids. Sliding their hands up and down their torsos. Now they’re saving kids from their grandparents. So their grandparents won’t die. Kids are a danger to their grandparents. Why? Because kids are healthy. They’re not gonna die from the annual flu season, they’re just gonna carry it to granma. And kill her. When they ain’t caressing someone else’s kid they’re killing someone else’s kid. I’d be surprised if Trump knows kids even exist. I bet he makes his own kids wear name-tags so he knows who he’s taking to. You seen his kids? Jesus. Obama has more normal looking kids. Plus Obama’s kids shave their faces. Unlike whatever the fuck Donald Junior is doing with that kisser o’ his.

Now, I admit Trump has about as much knowledge of virology as he has about exercising. But who cares. Do you care? Do you care if Donald Trump knows or doesn’t know how to protect us from a fucking pandemic that sure as hell didn’t kill me. His medical knowledge nor his fucking lack of it had no effect on my health. At least he didn’t start tossing flu protocols around and threatening businesses with losing their licenses if they didn’t obey “health” edicts designed to bankrupt business while doing nothing to prevent the spread of the annual winter flu. Which was claimed to be not the flu even though it was identical to the flu in all its symptoms.

Enough about the fucking flu. Trump didn’t care about the flu. He just got duped by the flu and the propaganda being spread by the people he calls names blaming him for every flu death. I’m actually surprised they didn’t claim Trump created the flu inside Trump Tower in a secret biological sub basement. They pro’bly just haven’t thought of it. If they read this, then that’s pro’bly on the horizon with the New York Times breaking the news.

Now, all that you have read so far are just incidental reasons why all the people on the name-calling list hate Trump. Which I am sure is just a partial list. For all I know I might be on it myself. Anyway, the above reasons are just incidental reasons they hate Trump.

The prime reason they hate him is because “he’s not Presidential.” He doesn’t regard the office as a religious sub-category of divine holiness. You listen to that hammered face of Nancy Pelosi and her vermin ilk of bottomfeeders like Schiff and Schumer and No-Nads Nadler and the harridan harpies on the Squad and everyone else in office – according to those shitheads, being part of government is a sacred calling of sanctity and dignity and holiness filled with selfless caring about others that comes from an inner superiority of righteousness. That you are being ordered to get on board with believing. Or you are immoral.

In other words, if you are Presidential you don’t go around calling the high priests and priestesses of government the same back-alley names you would call a bum you were arguing with in a back alley. No. The people you are calling names and nicknames like some school kid, these are noble, sanctified and in some cases canonized saints of the Higher Knowledge Dimension of human existence who waft the pleasing scents and odors of lilacs from their amazingly beautiful crotches and their scenic and delightfully aromatic anuses.

These are not pontificating tyrannical idiots who would be unemployable at MacDonalds. These are “lawmakers,” undertaking the painstaking task of forbidding you to do things for your own good. These are the selfless overseers of your safety and your welfare and your health and your common good as taught to them by the ancient masters of the sacred numbers of the holy entrails of the gods and goddesses of the Egyptian celestial secret passageways of Light and Wisdom and Knowledge.

Trump, however, thinks they’re all self-absorbed, untalented, unaccomplished sociopaths deserving rude nicknames.

Now you might say “Well, Trump is self-absorbed.” That’s totally true. But he’s self-absorbed with being Trump. He likes being Trump. He’s his own thing. He’s totally into himself. But he’s not a sociopath. When he builds a building he doesn’t put booby traps everywhere. He puts nice things everywhere. And he doesn’t order you to stay there. He tries to coax you to stay there. He likes doing that. He’s a self-absorbed, full-of-himself businessman trying to build – not “back better” – but build forward.

He doesn’t need to build back better. He builds something, it’s done, he moves on. If it fails it fails. He moves on. When he was President he started using the office to un-manacle all the business the Holy People In Office spend their lives trying to manacle in order to “save” people not even involved.

This whole covid thing was the entire population now experiencing the regulating of business. Not just the businesses experiencing it. Business and customers got a dose of it this time. Business and the customers got a dose of what the people Trump calls names are capable of via sheer sadism all in the name of helping people. And that’s the norm for sadistic sociopaths: they always say it’s for your own good and that if it feels like punishment it’s because you are unwilling to sacrifice for others and that you are morally guilty of not being saintly and if you were truly holy it would not feel like pain it would feel like calming medicine because society is a grand and wonderful church of parishioners on a path to perfection and godliness that you need to join and enjoy.

These maniacs are lucky Trump and everyone else are just calling them names.

These “safety protocols” for a mystery ailment no one ever discovered the source of – because it was likely imaginary, like most of the things bureaucrats and journalists talk about – these would have no more occurred to Trump to do and proclaim than it would occur to him to stop ogling broads and calling people names.

Speaking of name-calling, you’ll notice not one of the people on that abbreviated name-calling list ever got into Trump’s face and pushed him against a wall ever said “What’s your goddamn fucking problem, asshole, calling me a fucknuts imbecile, you fucking prick.” Never happened. Nope, they just went before a herd of failed-novelist journalists and said “Trump is not being Presidential calling me and other self-sacrificing servants of the People these lowbrow, caustic, abusive epithets. It’s sad. He lacks all sense of dignity and decorum.”

What they really mean is “Trump does not realize he is in the Office of Majesty and Authority designed from On High as the guardian of Morality and Holiness in our effort to elevate all of humanity to their destiny of godlike empowerment.” Hell fucking no: he thinks the Presidency is where you start to take the manacles off the people who, like him, want to actually make progress, where the people who actually know what the fuck they’re doing – none of whom are in office – can haul everyone who doesn’t know how to do anything along with them to a higher standard of living rather than trying to lower Americans’ standard of living out of “fairness” to countries that Trump routinely calls “shitholes.” Which is another thing you’re not supposed to do in office: demean another nation for being a backward, prehistoric stone-age sewer of stagnancy and spiritual depression. Trump said fuck that I’ll just called them shitholes. Because they’re shitholes. Like what we’re becoming: in order to stay safe and to encourage all the shitholes to approve our “morality.”

So, yeah, Trump’s the better guy to vote for. He’s a fucking human being, not some delusional priest of a higher magnitude of creation put here to bring sanctity and mystical holiness to all so that our planet – Gaia by name – won’t feel pain and cry at night to the other planets that she is being tortured and raped by machines and exhaust and choked with plastic Coke bottles to where the oceans and rivers are now her tears. In the real world this is called childish insanity requiring calmatives and Happy Meals from trained medical staff. In government world it’s called planet abuse: we’re denying Earth her environmental rights. Meanwhile you can keep your kids away from granma forever because your kids are a threat and you can kill the ones that ain’t outside the womb yet. Because we care about the Earth.

Trust me, Trump’s the better candidate: he calls assholes assholes and does it on the record. Because they have it coming and he wants the fucking credit. And I don’t blame ‘im. He’s earned it fair and square. Plus all the names are accurate. Not only is he calling them names he’s calling them the correct names.

He’s better at name-calling than all the people in government he’s calling names are at governing. He’s better at being vulgar than the people in government are at being holy. That’s why they hate him. Because he’s good at what he does; which is name-calling. And they suck at what they do; which is nothing.

They can’t even do nothing competently. They hate him because he’s a fucking normal American. Not a member of the global priesthood of fucking doubletalk-dribblers claiming to be speaking in the Secret Language of the Gods. Trump’s language everyone can understand. He’s a normal human being who got elected into the world of abnormal freaks and he started telling everyone what he was finding there; a menagerie of worthless, slimy monstrosities.

Who else in American history has ever done that. Who else has ever entered American public office and on his first day said “Holy fucking shit, everyone in here is smellier and more worthless than rectal pus from a hyena with an ass infection.” No one. Not that Trump said that. But he will. And it will be hilarious.

–jj solari

The Buck Lovell “Snow Rider” photo has been broadcast on Facebook so many times I have lost count. After numerous requests, I am providing the story about how, when and why this photograph came into existence for all you soon to be famous photographers!

The date was January 22, 2009. I was on my way to work from Boulder Canyon to Spearfish, South Dakota. The route I usually took was east towards Sturgis then West on I-90 to Spearfish where I was employed as the Editor of the world’s first and still the best Bagger motorcycle magazine, American Bagger.

I thought to myself, “I’ll never be able to catch up to him and get pictures.” Then it occurred to me that I was driving a 4-wheel drive pickup truck and should be able catch him. After all, Pat was riding a motorcycle on a very icy road in very cold conditions. That motorcycle by the way is endowed with the most stable and easy to ride low speed handling characteristics in the H-D model lineup.

I quickly grabbed my habitual morning coffee at Burger King and hauled ass up into the canyon towards Deadwood. Sure enough, Pat was riding slowly but determinedly up the road into Boulder Canyon at about 35-40 MPH. Occasionally he would put his feet down to steady the bike.

When I caught up to Pat, I passed him as quickly as I could, and rolled far enough ahead to stop and set up for a photo. I actually passed him and photographed him three or four different times before we reached Deadwood, South Dakota. He thought I was nuts. I am…

The ambient air temperature was by then was down to around thirteen degrees. Deadwood is usually colder than the low-lying area towards Sturgis. Pat rumbled into Deadwood to his place of employment. I followed him a short distance past the intersection of 14A and Highway 18 to get the last photo of the series. I then flipped a U-turn and made a left onto Westbound Highway 18A heading towards Spearfish. I was late for work, but this was work, huh?

CHILLED TO THE CROSSBONES

In South Dakota, not many people ride year-round but I do. Some people think I’m nuts, but if you take the right precautions, it’s really not that big a deal. I wear heavy Long johns under my jeans, thick socks, mittens, a hooded sweatshirt, jacket, facemask, scarf and cap. That’s about it. Nothing electric.

I’ve been riding for more than 30 years, but I got my Crossbones in 2008, as Fathers Day present to myself. It’s a great ride and handles very well on the snowy streets. My ride to work is about 35 miles each way, but I’ve never had an accident. The only problem, when I’m wearing big mittens, it’s hard to flip off drivers, like crazy photographers trying to run me off the road with their 4-wheel drive trucks.

–Pat Luisi, 2009
Blackhawk, South Dakota.

 What is the moral of this story you might ask? The moral is simple; always but always keep a camera with you at all times. A Cell phone camera is better than nothing, but just barely. If you have a camera with you at all times you won’t miss that once in a lifetime shot. Believe me, that once in a lifetime shot will happen, when you don’t have a camera. Keep you feet warm and your camera handy, you may see something that begs to be photographed, and you’ll be ready. When you see the Snow Rider photos on Facebook or the internet, you now know the story of how the photos came to life. Make sure you check out my gallery at https://www.bucklovell.com/. 

–Buck Lovell
Sturgis South Dakota

I thought I might check in on the Motorcycle Magazine industry, specifically the chopper guys. Fuck, I didn’t know what I was diving into. A couple of years ago only one magazine survived the cost issues, the internet competition and the distribution expenses, Cycle Source. Some magazines went sorta underground, changed their formats and dropped out of the retail market. Then Chopper Magazine returned with a large glossy format, quality printing but subscription only.

I got caught up in a recent editorial: Here we are with another issue of everyone’s favorite chopper rag. Issue 10 is jam-packed with some of the best bikes we’ve featured to date, including one from the legendary chopper builder Micah McCloskey.

As a longtime fan of Micah’s builds featuring his Panhead is an honor, hence the cover. When Keith Ball offered to do the write-up, I was equally honored. It’s not every day you get legends in the chopper game to be in your magazine. If you don’ know who Keith Ball is, you might know him from his longtime pen name, Bandit.

Bandit is responsible for the Easyriders of yesteryear we all loved and cherished. He has also written a few books, including Outlaw Justice and Sam “Chopper” Orwell.

I couldn’t ask for a better tribute and Choppers Magazine is a standout publication with high quality sheet-fed printing, and layout by the master art director, Beatnik. It’s a magazine devoted to old school choppers and West Coast events.

“I Think Choppers Magazine is doing the right thing, heavy paper, so it looks good for years,” said Guy Bolton the publisher of Greasy Kulture in England. “In Japan, they use stamp size photos to put as many folks as possible in the magazines?! Making them buy…”

Here’s a major challenge to our magazine industry. When Easyriders started in 1971, it was the one and only lifestyle magazine for us chopper freaks. If you wanted wild action, we were the only game on the planet. Think about that for a minute, while you ponder the perfect example of the changing times challenge. When I sent Michael Lichter to cover the Sturgis rally in 1979 there were just 12,000 brothers peeling into the area to burn the toilets down in City Park, by the 50th anniversary in 1990, 500,000 brothers and sisters scrambled into the Black Hills for the shoot-out anniversary.

Imagine the variety of bikes at that rally in 1990. No magazine could cover everything featured at that one explosion of chopper/custom/bagger action. Harley-Davidson played a major roll with the introduction of the Evo drivetrain and then the FXR. Guys could ride all over the world with an Evo under them and they did. So, think about the 50th anniversary crew of family guys, women riders, outlaws, custom builders, touring riders, long distance riders, off-road guys, tech heads, chopper guys, performance guys, road racers, you name it.

Then something else happened, the internet. The internet exploded with websites and a challenge to every print publication. But then social media took the wind out of the web site sales and killed reading or maybe not. That’s a major question now? Does the average guy read anymore, or does he go to Facebook to see his pal’s new dog, make a comment like, “cool,” and he’s done? The problem is a growing population and no generalization fits. There are still builders who want all the tech they can get their hands on. Ah, but what tech, bagger tech, performance tech, old school tech, restoration tech, or? Okay, you get the picture.

CYCLE SOURCE

One team has stood out over the last ten years. Chris Callen, Heather and the Cycle Source Magazine crew have studied the action, the technology, the internet, social media, podcasts and YouTube for 20 years and if anyone can or attest to the daunting challenges of an ever- changing motorcycle communications industry, Chris can. Plus, he’s the non-stop manager with the creative energy to try everything successfully. Plus, he’s a no-bullshit enthusiast. He does it all. He builds bikes, in fact the last time we spoke he was building a stretched rigid frame from the ground up. He’ll cover it on YouTube, podcasts, his website and in the magazine.

I had a strange experience at Hot Bike when they hired me to be the editorial director of their three titles. Prime media was a massive organization trying to grapple with all the costly changes technology threw at them and 44 magazine titles. My vision was similar to Chris’s but turning a multi-million-dollar cruise liner into the wind to handle the tsunami of internet waves headed directly at the bow was tough. I packed my seabag and returned to the Bikernet.com hideaway in San Pedro, where a biker could be a biker and fuck the corporate world.

Whether they like it or not publishers are directionally challenged with each issue. Where are they going and what code of the west do they abide by?

More recently Classic Easyriders started to publish monthly and reached into the troubled magazine newsstand distribution chains. The new publisher Ray Pelosi was involved in the return of another national magazine and wanted to bring Easyriders back. He had a deal with Joe Teresi, the owner to repropose all the issues on CD libraries but decided to step up to print. Ray hired Dave Nichols, Mike Lichter, and the magnificent New York art director Regina Marsh. Mike Lichter, master of motorcycle photography, scrambled around the country covering bikes, old builders and events with his son Sean. They produced 60-70 pages of content each issue only to part ways during the production of the recent January issue. Other business issues have surfaced but I will let Dave, who edits ER as a parttime endeavor, while maintaining a fulltime job, explain the direction for 2023.

After an exciting year back as the world’s “biker’s bible,” Easyriders magazine kickstarts 2023 with some exciting changes including more of what our readers tell us they want. Namely, more of what made the original biker rag great. We are adding biker fiction stories, gut-bustin’ humor with our Passin’ Gas page, more lifestyle-inspired art and cartoons, tantalizing tech tips, and even articles from our V-Twin Vault of past runs, rallies, parties, events and classic custom bike features.

Our editors have also started up a new quarterly publication for those of you who miss the nudity in Easyriders. We call it the Best Bikes & Babes and each 100-page issue will showcase 10 tempting naked girls astride some of the county’s coolest custom motorcycles. Now you can have it all – we’ll keep you up to date with the biker culture in our monthly Easyriders magazine, and for those who can’t get enough boobies in their life, there’s Best Bikes & Babes available four times a year.

Most magazines slipped away from nudity as their customers aged and started families. Some sorta slipped underground like Dice and GreasyKulture. They changed their sizes and became subscription only.

DICE MAGAZINE

If you have gear-head tendencies and want to see motorcycles being put together in the basements, garages, and woodsheds around the world … the kind of machines that are fondled by the wild-eyed and sleepless … then here you are.

History

The year is 2004, the bike scene at the time is all about fat tires, chopper TV shows, billet aluminum and theme builds. Two young punk rockers in London weren’t seeing the things they liked, so they did what they had to do. Matt Davis and Dean Micetich got friends with bikes together, shot some photos and started DicE Magazine.

Over the last 18 years they’ve exposed people the world over to motorbikes with their inclusive, fun, DIY approach that is a breath of fresh air in the often-uptight biker world.

DicE is constantly evolving and growing with one idea in mind: life is too short to be serious.

GREASY KULTURE

Is another sorta Readers Digest sized magazine made up most of bobber bike features, sans billet, but honoring an occasional chromed out chopped Panhead. Guy Bolton, the publisher/editor pours his life into every issue with a strict code. It’s mostly garage built bikes with no bikes shot in studios.

Greasy Kulture is a name that’s been established on the custom motorcycle scene for 20 years.

Here are thoughts from the master, Guy Bolton: Starting as a blog (remember them?) then becoming a print magazine in 2007, Greasy Kulture then went on to start selling choice heritage brands alongside its own publications and merchandise in 2015.

The chopper magazine market has changed a lot since I started Greasy Kulture magazine 15 years ago; back in 2007 my only real competition (at least for the traditionally styled bikes we favor) was DicE magazine – also started by a couple of Englishmen. And it still is.

In that 15 years, numerous chopper titles have come and gone: some independent self-published titles (like mine) and some ‘revived’ classic newsstand titles from the sixties and seventies. I think the big publishers continue to struggle to find a business model that works for chopper magazines: all the classic titles have been revived with great fanfare, only to fall again by the wayside.

Why has Greasy Kulture survived when nearly every other title has failed? Because I do everything myself (layouts, writing, distribution and sometimes photography) so overheads are low. I concentrate on the bikes and the owners and their stories. Readers know by now that if they want event or lifestyle coverage, they need to go elsewhere. I also understand that it’s not a huge money-maker; I accept the financial limitations of what I’m doing. I keep it small, focused, grassroots and good quality.

As for the chopper magazine market, I think the immediate future belongs still to independent publications. Newsstand titles will continue to appear – then disappear – as publishers realize there’s no money in them. Online content will increase its dominance (and advertisers will continue to move out of print) and as paper, print and shipping costs continue to soar, even independent magazines may find the squeeze too much and give up. I am holding on doggedly, but even I can see that print publishing is in terminal decline.

The Japanese chopper magazines, however – Roller and Ripper, etc. – continue to offer constant inspiration. These titles’ quality – paper stock, design, photography and the bikes featured – is the best in the world. I don’t know how they do it.

Plans for Greasy Kulture? Just to keep going. It gets harder every issue; production and shipping costs increase almost monthly, but I can’t keep putting the cover price up. I’ve had a long-held ambition to turn the magazine into a Rodders Journal for choppers: a quarterly, book-quality publication. With the right investment, perhaps it will happen one day.

When the magazine started, I sold half the print run wholesale to stores; but they have mostly gone bust. I now sell to a few select stores around the world, but the magazine survives mostly on online sales and subscriptions and with the support of some loyal advertisers: Biltwell and Lowbrow Customs have advertised with me since day one and the mag would not exist without them – truly solid, good guys.

Future looks tough for print, merch helps to bring in cash.

–Guy Bolton

There’s another formula used by a few publishers in different industries, which works. It’s membership publishing like the Antique Motorcycle Club of America. Their publication is steller, inspiring, historic and informative. Join the club and receive the tons of inspiring antique motocycle info in their top-notch magazine for free.

FROM THE AMCA MAGAZINE BOSS

With the majority of the motorcycle industry going digital only with their magazines, the Antique Motorcycle Club of America is committed to providing its more than 12,000 members with a printed magazine. Hey, we are the AMCA, we are old school. For most of our members, sitting in our easy-chair reading the club’s bi-monthly magazine is one of the pure joys in life.

The paper shortages are currently forcing us to hold to an 84-page format for now and we are absorbing the price increases. The Antique Motorcycle is proud to be one of, if not, the best motorcycle magazines in the world dedicated to the classic, vintage and antique motorcycle market. It’s not just a club magazine, we take pride in our professional photography and editorial content as a coffee table magazine.

Just recently Jordon is endeavoring to revive Hot Bike Magazine:
HOT BIKE 2023 Print Magazine Relaunch!

Help bring HOT BIKE Magazine back in 2023! Now independently owned and operated, we need your help in printing this iconic mag for YOU!

Look, it’s real simple. We’re bored with social media. We like magazines. We think you do too.

That said, we’re asking for your help in bringing HOT BIKE Magazine back to print in 2023! HOT BIKE magazine has been an iconic part of American history and is the archetype of American V-twin performance and custom culture since 1971.

Due to the corporate bean counters who saw HOT BIKE magazine as a “line item” the magazine temporarily ceased publishing in 2019… Until now!

After acquiring the rights to this iconic brand, the new independently owned and operated HOT BIKE owners felt you fine folks were worth reading an actual magazine once again.

We’re working hard to bring this iconic, 50-year-old print magazine back in 2023 but we cannot do it without your support.

We’ve secured the right printers using quality materials. We’ve hired the best photographers and writers who know their shit. We’ve curated the best overall humans (no algorithms to speak of) to help bring this magazine back to your doorsteps in 2023.

How Your Funds Are Spent

First thing’s first. We realize $210,000 seems like a lot of dough to cough up for some magazines and swag. But we’re not bringing back an iconic piece of American history to skimp on quality. You deserve the best, which is what we’re aiming to deliver.

FEES: We’ll immediately take 10% off the top ($21,000) to go toward Kickstarter fees (5% campaign fees, 5% processing fees).

PRINTING: Of course, printing a magazine these days is pretty costly too as paper is at an all-time premium. To print one issue, we’re looking at approximately $25,000-$30,000 ($100,000-$120,000 for all 4 issues) just for the paper, ink, printing processes and postage. But every issue will feature a high-quality product with thick paper stock that we know you’ll appreciate.

CONTENT: Then there are the funds needed to pay for the inside editorial content (high-quality photos and articles ain’t cheap either). And of course, the art direction and design will be put together by the best and brightest who know this culture. We’re budgeting about $15,000 for each issue for this (approx. $60,000).

SWAG: The last piece to the campaign puzzle are the costs to produce the cool, limited-edition gifts which ends up being about $5,000.

Please support the re-launch of HOT BIKE in 2023! Please support independent publishing! We do this for the love of our industry and the love of great storytelling. Help us bring these two passions back directly to you. We greatly appreciate your time and effort and look forward on taking you on this ride with us!

–Jordon

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supporthotbike/hot-bike-2023-print-magazine-relaunch

They have currently raised only $78,000 and the first deadline is lingering in the near future.

There has been a profusion of paper industry news and printers and publishers alike are dealing with the impact. Mill closures continue, as do mergers, acquisitions, and mills shifting focus to produce packaging materials. Production capacity is diminishing. Raw materials (pulp, chemicals), fuel and energy, and transportation costs are experiencing double- and in some cases triple-digit increases. The effects of the pandemic and inflation are contributing factors as well.  

Supply is low, demand is high. Paper mill order books are full, with limits now being imposed on paper purchasers to prevent stockpiling. Resultingly, lead times are being extended, some now at 10 to 12 weeks out. Quick-turn paper orders are rare. 

With mill closures and reduced production comes scarcity or elimination of certain brands. Thankfully, the Grade Paper Program allows for substitutions within a grade of paper at the same quality and specifications as a brand that may no longer be available. 

Price increase announcements have been coming with increasing frequency. Coated freesheet, uncoated, newsprint, groundwood…  paper type isn’t the issue. Increases are occurring across the board, and indications point to more increases on the way for the summer. The afore mentioned contributors – pulp prices, rising energy costs, and pervasive freight issues – are significantly eroding mill margins, which in turn spurs the mills to raise prices to try to recoup their losses. The price of pulp alone, already high due to Asian pulp speculation activity, has skyrocketed over 35% just this year as a result of increased lumber demand during the pandemic, among other factors. 

Here’s a quick look at specific products and resources that are experiencing extraordinary circumstances:  

Lumber: Lumber prices are up over 400% vs. year ago! Why? It’s not about a shortage of trees. Canadian lumber tariffs and an unexpected intense spike in home remodeling and home building brought upon by the pandemic are the primary factors, as well as transportation delays. 

Crude Oil: Crude oil is up about 40% since the beginning of the year, with prices expected to hit $80 per barrel. As the economy surges back, Americans are driving and flying again and will feel the effects. Oil production hasn’t kept pace with demand and the U.S. in particular may be slower to rebuild supply due to new initiatives to reduce hydrocarbon assets and goals toward net zero emissions. 

Workforce: The national workforce shortage – deemed a “national economic emergency” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – is a direct result of the pandemic. The main drivers of the labor shortage are fears of returning to work and getting the virus, child care due to at-home schooling, elder care as nursing homes became unattractive due to COVID outbreaks, and the $300 per week in emergency federal unemployment, which has kept many who otherwise would be in entry level jobs at home. Although the extra unemployment benefits are set to expire in September 2021, at least half of the states have announced plans to cancel them ahead of schedule, to hopefully motivate more people to seek jobs. The rollout of vaccinations and the resultant drop in COVID infections have set the stage to reverse the drivers of the labor shortage, but over what period of time we do not know. 

Transportation: Trucking and shipping woes continue, with reduced freight load-to-truck ratios – particularly in the North American south and west – driving transportation costs up significantly. Availability of drivers, ports disrupted by COVID outbreaks, and the resulting disarray of container locations/availability all contribute to a less predictable delivery process. Oh – and then there was that ship that got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal! 

Hang on!

–CJKGroup.com

Now for a Note from Scandinavia

Printed magazines are getting rare. However, some survive like Scanbike now 30 years and counting.

It was started by HAMC members in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. First bimonthly but now four copies a year and digital alternative.

BIG TWIN

Started by Björn Glansk Some 15 years ago. Ex-cop murder investigator, turned to magazines for the high-end CEO CFO guys.

He then decided to start Big Twin as a Harley-Davidson only mag. In the beginning it had the HOG group feeling but now contains a mix of long Fork Swedish STYLE and bagger modifications, performance updates.

His crew work for Free or some dimes.
Price will go up in 2023 due to printing cost and shipping also headache!

Enthusiast for sure, you gotta live this lifestyle
Money That’s another World…

–Sheriff
Sheriff media empire
Sweden

Wow, so what do you glean from all this info? First, a print magazine is always king. I don’t care if it’s Vogue or an old Street Choppers. There’s nothing like being featured in a real magazine. There’s nothing like a full-spread photo of your motorcycle or your favorite builder’s latest creation. There’s nothing like seeing an historic event, like the Smoke Out covered by Michael Lichter.

Some 40 years ago I worked with a woman, Mrs. Fisher. She was a copy editor and mentor. She said one day, “Many publishers get addicted to ink.” She was right. There’s nothing like creating a magazine and receiving the first copies from the printer. Way beyond bean counters’ concerns, that new issue is ink and paper magic. And as editors, we love to make that magic happen and share it with the world and our subscribers.

My philosophies with Bikernet included building one magazine and adding pages to it almost every day for 27 years now. But it’s still not a magazine you can mail to a friend and he can open it to a two-page spread of your bike flying along the Bonneville Salt Flats at 200 mph carefully captured with a high-speed digital camera by Scooter Shoots. There’s just nothing like it.

Bottom line, there are magazine challenges and obstacles aplenty, but if you can do what you love, you’re proud of every page and you pay the bills, Ride On!

And now for an uninteresting preface to this astoundingly interesting article:

When I recently finished my groudbreaking unbelievably wondrous “bureaucrat/journalist translation dictionary from lying seditious bullcrap into what they actually mean or some title close to that, when I was done it was 49,000 astoundingly well-selected words long.

I said, frowning, “There’s gotta be a way to get another thousand words into this. Make it 50 grand. Bitchin’! ”

I had referenced the Bill of Rights in the translation-dictionary but not in any kind of detail. I said “Fuck, I’ll do that in one of the bonus sections then.” I love bonus sections to things. Don’t you? A bonus section can turn something even I wrote into a suddenly-exciting bargain. It’s like, I don’t know, getting shopping points at Nordstrom’s!! Well, turns out I got my one thousand more words and two thousand more on top of that. Since the dictionary will never get printed because it’s…..well, now it’s 52,000 words long! That’s too many words to print! Since that won’t happen, here then is one of the dictionary’s bonus sections! Enjoy!

PresentingThe Most Dangerous Critique Of The Bill Of Rights In American History. Amendment By Amendment

by

who else: J.J. Solari

(fun fact: This reads a lot more vibrantly and thrillingly if you imagine that Alan Shore of Boston Legal played by James Spader is parading grandly, slowly around, here and there, in a courtroom, presenting a case, and reciting all this to a jury that has been assembled for the purpose of deciding if the writers of the Bill of Rights are crazed sociopaths and deserving of banishment back to England. Or not. Mr. Shore is arguing, Yes. They are. After a tarring and feathering. With another tarring and feathering once they, 3,000 miles later, wade ashore from the shoddily constructed rafts provided them. Assuming they make it.)

The Bill of Rights should actually be called the bill of nothings or the bill of goods or the duck bill or the electricity bill or the bill of beep bo or as I like to call it the bill of bilgewater, because 1: you can’t legislate rights into existence. Or declare them into existence. Or construct them into existence at a meeting of overweight men in breeches and powdered British wigs in a fart-filled room and put them into a list of new and amazing rights and proclaim them as bulwarks of liberty and progress.

You can only proclaim permissions into existence and 2: if you do insist on doing these things at least come up with a list of rights that have some actual useful and fun aspects. Which these ten do not. And 3: if you are going to subject them to two hundred-plus years of added intense scrutiny by the Supreme Court, also invented by the same overweight men, make the language a bit less vague and a bit less subject to retranslation and reinterpretation and reconstruction and redefinitioning and recase-lawed-nesses and make it a bit less of a “living” – meaning apparently writhing and flailing and subject to infinite variations of meaning – make it a bit less of a “living document,” so to speak and as Nancy Pelosi would say, and make it more of an easy to “interpret” proclamation.

Because that’s what the Bill of Rights actually is. It’s a proclamation. Like “Black Lives Matter.” Or “Hasn’t Scratched Yet.” Or “You’ll Wonder Where The Yellow Went When You Brush Your Teeth With Pepsodent.” Or “Bet You Can’t Eat Just One.” Or “It’s The Water.” Or “When It Rains It Pours.” Or “I love my Mounds.”

However, unlike these latter proclamations which do not have the power of law-enforcement behind them but just persuasional impetus behind them, the Bill Of Rights is just, bam, the way things are, motherfucker, bow down and praise the valor of the brave men who determinedly jumped up and down hysterically to insist these be included into our glorious Constitution or else they would hold their breath unless these rights that aren’t rights be proclaimed as wondrous insurance policies againsteth tyrannies! There is no “Shall I buy this product?” decision-making required regarding the Bill of Rights. The decision has already been made: They’re here. They’re queer. They’re not going to go away.

My apologies to the gay community of delightful rectal wranglers and stentorian strident tribadists for borrowing your war cry of crotch-focused righteousness and groinal non-reproductive protocols without permission.

So let’s get to it, shall we? And just as a taste?….because I am sure you haven’t ever noticed?….which is the case with most things with most Americans regarding the Constitution?…..5 of the 10 – that would be one-half of the Bill of Rights’ “rights”…..cannot even be used or invoked or made manifest or stuck up your ass, or however you want to put it…..until you have either already been arrested or are about to be.

Which tells me, and I don’t know what the fuck it tells you, but it tells me that whoever contrived and concocted this list of ten arbitraries must have had a good premonition that this Constitution thing was gonna result in a lotta free and newly-liberated citizens getting scooped up by total strangers and put into a pen.

It’s like they were saying “This whole thing is a whopping crock and a little too reeking of sneaky British duplicity which we are trying to pretend has been vanquished from our shores and is not actually still fully engrained in this pompous Royal Pronouncement: we gotta do something to make sure that whoever buys into this nutsack of Enlightened Nothingness gets reassured that what is happening to them is not actually happening to them, that it’s not arrest and confiscation of their liberty and property under the Mandatory Constitution but rather a golden opportunity to experience first hand the righteousness and beauty and wisdom of us Founding Fathers in giving them an entire 50% of the glorious and righteous Bill of Rights to run-towards and grasp ahold of and cling to in glorious thanksgiving to our wisdom and foresight that they have these pre-arrest, during-arrest, and post-arrest rights to hug mightily to their bosoms and joyously shout aloud the praises of us here today now farting in this room of unbathed skin, whiskey breath, and cigar smoke, that we had the presence of mind to wrap-around their shivering-cold arrested bodies….. this warm and comforting downey blanket of Five Mighty Rights for them to invoke as they are hastened to their concrete cells in the land of the free.

So let’s start with Right Number One!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So, to begin, talk about fucking-up right out the gate, creating a “constitutional government” is in itself the establishment of a religion. Not to shock anyone. It’s called “a secular religion.” The deity is you. Secular religions have replaced pagan religions as being more specifically demonic. Pagan religions ignore Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews. Demonic religions are specifically at war with Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews.
In a secular religion You have “the power.” “All power to the people” as the Communists like to say. You are the god. You are the deity. There is not a political speech made in American history that does not remind you how powerful you are and how the might of the inherent greatness of your empowermenthood is infused into your very groinage, buttocks, and anal ducts just by you standing upon a portion of the conquered terrain that those who “interpret” the Constitution for you have allowed you to stand on.

Prior of course, to eventual arrest at some point down the road. As guaranteed by the Constitution. At which time the terrain you are standing on will be replaced by new terrain for you to stand on after arrest. Since, at this writing, 2023 AD, these are probably the last days of the USA as a so called “sovereign nation” you should be advised that your “godhead” – meaning you as a deity – is being slowly transferred off of you and onto Planet Earth itself.

You are about to officially lose your godlike status. Earth is becoming the new deity. We’re moving toward a more pagan, less demonic state of affairs, so that’s good. Thank you Jesus! Crimes against the planet as opposed to crimes against other people are eventually going to be enforced via a “planetary-rights constitution” written by basically the same swaggering cigar-smoking bureaucrats who wrote the American Constitution only it will be a global constitution enforced, most likely, by Mother Nature. We’ll be living like Neanderthals once again, basically. To keep the earth safe. Until then your secular-religious supernatural god-powers at least still do extend to affecting world climate and inhibiting the spread of routinely-occurring unstoppable, annual, instantly-global cold-and-flu seasonal virus mutations. I love your powers and abilities, comrade!

Regarding the “free exercise of religion,” the free exercise of religion for Muslims includes killing or enslaving all non-Muslims, copulating with prepubescent girls, committing suicide in order to kill infidels, which is every non muslim, murdering family members with impunity, beating women relentlessly, eradicating “man’s best friend,” the terrestrial house dog, and specifically declaring Jews and Christians the worst of humanity and in fact not actually humans at all but rather monkeys and pigs, which I believe Allah refers to Jews and Christians as, and which free exercise of religion for them, them being Islamists, includes flying modern, large, filled with paying passengers unfamiliar with Islam, jet aircraft into magnificent skyscrapers, toppling the skyscrapers and killing thousands of people sitting quietly in spacious offices trying to make a living.

Unlike the predatory brain-shredded diabolical culturally inbred hellspawn with the box cutters. So expect to be dealing with jihad personally since your government is not going to interfere with this Constitutionally-guaranteed free exercise of religion. And expect to be punished for it should you win the fracas.

Not “abridging” the “freedom of speech” means you can say things. Unless of course you say a forbidden word or a to-be-announced word or any word to be defined down the road and depending on the day or the color of the moon as having been prompted by the emotion called “hate” while hitting anyone at all in the face with your fist. Or with a bludgeon. Or with a hand grenade. Or just saying the word.

Other bits of vocabulary are routinely added to the list of things you are not actually free to say without governmental consequences. Even though these words are not specifically iterated in any law. It’s kind of an unwritten law of the Constitution randomly brought into existence by The Authorities if they fear for example their town or the town of a friend is going to be burned to the ground by illegal inhabitants should The Authorities – or you – call them, for example, illegal inhabitants rather than, say, the now-mandatory indigenous immigrants or migratory refugees or righteous roving adventurers or self-transplanting explorers or any other quaint reference to travel-related movement of vast hordes of third world Pleistocene-minded barbarians so long as they are not called colonialists. Which illegal inhabitants now number in the millions. Most of them males of military age.

Though you don’t need to be a specific age to blow yourself and half the town up with Allah-approved explosives attached to your balls since Islamic children routinely travel the road that leads to celestial virgins assumed in the Koran but not actually specified in the Koran to be human females.

“Freedom of the press” has come to be interpreted as freedom for anyone in “journalism,” whether or not he’s a pamphleteer with an 18th century printing press… to commit slander and libel with impunity as long as “persons who spoke under conditions of anonymity” or “sources close to so-and-so…” are the ones being claimed as the actual speakers and purveyors of the data. On the rare occasion when a journalist is ordered by government to reveal his “sources” the journalists says “Go fuck yourself” to the government and the government backs off and goes and fucks itself since journalists have a “blue wall” even more secure and impenetrable than the one cops have.

It gets better for journalists: as things are now, the holders of the only non-government job-description that is mentioned in the Constitution – namely journalists – are not only allotted special sanctuary from governmental attack, in fact, in common parlance, journalists have been elevated to a mystical social-holiness status called “the fourth estate,” right up there with – get this – the Church, the State, and the People. Plumbers do not have this distinction. Uber drivers do not have this distinction. Even members of the Screen Actors Guild do not have this distinction but that is probably only temporary.

The right of people to peaceably assemble and “petition the government” means you are permitted to complain and gather into clumps and grouse so long as that’s all you do. This was magnificently demonstrated during one of the Bundy-Family Performances, this time in Nevada when the Bundy ranchers were grazing cattle on “government land” which is basically all the land, including your house, within the map’s description of the boundaries of the USA.

A large bunch of the citizenry showed up to confront whichever police force was ordered to handle things, and the police force thoughtfully placed a large wire enclosure on the desert terrain and placed a hand-written cardboard sign on it that read “First Amendment Section.” The approaching citizenry, some on horses, all of them armed, were being directed to peacefully assemble inside the corral. Which was their First Amendment Right. For the first and probably last time in recent American history the normal industrious American populace not only neglected to obey the suggestion… they were very excited about being this far from opening fire on the badly out gunned government-paid imbeciles when suddenly the government-paid imbeciles said to each other, “Fuck this” and got in their SUV’s and hightailed it the hell out of there.

As far as you’re concerned, redressing grievances to the government means you can complain by barking at the moon or by sending them a letter by mail and you won’t get arrested for complaining. You have, in other words, the right to complain. You do not have the right to disobey, however. Apparently, there was some anticipation by the concocters of the Constitution that there might be grievances somewhere down the line.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The commas after Militia and Arms, is part of the original. These masters of Social Perfection First time Out couldn’t even proofread. Or more likely, if I know bureaucrats, couldn’t be bothered proofreading. There’s lots of errant commas in this list, probably from laziness, and which commas are now regarded as aids to “interpretation” of the text and is probably why the Supreme Court (invented out of thin air by the same people who didn’t proofread) has so wild and wooly a time “interpreting” the Constitution: it’s just too ambiguous to read as written which means it must be “alive” and subject to spontaneous change, like, say, your underwear, only more often.

You would think these 27 mispunctuated words in this solitary sentence would be easy to understand. This is not so! For 200 + years this sentence has been investigated, parsed, scrutinized, examined, diagramed and pondered about more than the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is no Rosetta Stone for these 27 words. They are arranged in such a way that the philosophical powers and might of America’s Top Lawyers have not managed to unravel the labyrinths and complexities and fractal-like meanderings into infinities of infinities that this sentence, to them, apparently manifests within itself.

Now, a person with the reading comprehension of a bilingual 6-year-old Chinese girl fluent in Chinese, English, and perhaps very likely French and German, would interpret this 27-word sentence as meaning the operators of A-10 Warthogs would be free to, if they wished, purchase a fully loaded one for themselves from the manufacture and weapons-maker and fly it home, and be free to use it for random strafes of the US/Mexican border while releasing several multi-second BRRRRRRRT-noised ordnance barrages to rain down fire and unholy death to raiding and invading armies of outsiders seeking to overrun the legitimate populace and claim the previously conquered territories to now be newly-conquered territories for themselves.

This is not the case. This is illegal. The 2nd Amendment does not consider up-to-date militia weaponry to be appropriate for the present day militia-citizenry. If you were to obtain one of the military jets and it’s armaments and counter-attack and kill the present-day invading armies that the government is not counter-attacking….the government that is not counter-attacking the invaders would attack you. Unanimously! There would be no debating or filibustering the matter or putting it up for a vote 20 times a day. You would be fucked-with immediately and permanently, especially for conquering the enemy, which has not been allowed to US Militia Personnel since Korea.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

This magnificent right that you think probably means something innocuous and out of date actually states that not only can you be forced to house a soldier in your home in peace and in war….. because the side the soldier is on has not been specified – it can be an enemy soldier.

This is its true meaning thanks to the “but in a manner to be prescribed by law” remark. Because “in a manner to be prescribed by law” is bureaucrat lawyer con artist language for saying “unless we say different down the road.” Because laws change whimsically and often. But saying “in a manner to be prescribed by law” instead of “until we change it” sounds so much more regal and noble and very properly British, don’t you see, quite so, oh I dare say, good-O old chap, right you are my good man, jolly good….. that you are lulled by the grandeur of “but in a manner prescribed by law” into not actually paying attention to what is and what isn’t actually being said by these Rights Creators.

In other words “but in a manner prescribed by law” means “You can do this unless we say you can’t.” Also those random all-over-the-place commas are like golden passkeys to total tyranny to the lawyers on the Supreme Court.

To those mother fuckers a comma is like ten new paragraphs of invisible ink that only they can see and read. Talk about rigging the gaming table. I will give the Founders this: they were honest enough to say right up front “We’re fucking with you” in plain language.

Apparently they gambled on your love and respect for government and the State to successfully override your two fucking eyes. The “soldiers” that you will likely be forced to house in your home sometime, probably very soon, in the future will be the sad-expressioned cunning feral wayfarers now crowding the border and likely being armed by the CIA, the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Merrick Garland, probably still Eric Cockholder and Barack Obama, and Homeland “Security.”

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And now we come to the Bold As Brass section of the Bill of Rights, if you are paying attention, which is not likely, where you are being warned that an apparatus is being installed into place being called The United States Government that will at some point subject you to instantaneous forcible relocation called “arrest” even though you are Free, at least between arrests, and subject to conditions within such “free”nesses between arrests that might get you arrested again, and you are to be informed that these arrests actually are your rights.

This is all being made possible by the deceptively benign and reassuring “don’t worry” words “probable cause.” Probable cause means “Ok, arrest this guy.” It is draped in sanctimonious reassurances of “swearing of oaths” – which Jesus says is Luciferian but what the fuck does he know about the legal system or bureaucrats, or Lucifer, he only personally talked to the fucker and ordered him around – and draped with blather about proper channels and complicated hallways full of safeguards and reassurances.

Like when Obama assured you you can use your own doctor. In other words, you have the right to be arrested, you have the right to be seized, you have the right to be searched, you have the right to have your alleged castle searched and you have the right to have your property, not to mention your children, seized, and by implication, as evidenced by precedent and factual experience, have your seized children transported, relocated and reassigned guardians, almost always strangers, many of whom are either overly fond of children or who detest them and consider them abortion escapees.

These tyrannies are being called rights because you are a hope-springs-eternal presumptive Christian idiot counting on the God of Israel to do all your thinking and fighting for you, while you put your actual faith and trust in government to keep you from harm and so that you can “stay safe.” You’ve been hearing that a lot lately, haven’t you. It’s not new. It’s just lately more obvious. Because that Constitution is now at full throttle. How’s grandma? What’s that? You’re not allowed to see her? That’s because you’re both under “house arrest” but at separate facilities in order to keep you both safe.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence (sic) to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

You might want to fasten your fuckin’ seat belt for this one, pilgrim. This is a bucketload of ambiguous words in a small space, quite an achievement for lawyers, they usually need a lotta paper to fuck you hard in the ass.

Not the case here! This solitary sentence of 108, count ‘em, 108 words, including one “except,” one “unless,” and two “withouts,” is the most blatant assumption that you are an idiot in human history with the clear exceptions of the claims that you affect the climate and that you losing your job to a non-existent unprecedented worldwide disease that miraculously now has a cure if you get your mandatory shots is keeping you safe. Governments, at least the US ones, are not strangers to gauging you as an idiot since for 200 + years you and your deceased antecedents have been declaring American bureaucrats wise overseers and purveyors of justice.

This Adam Schiff pile of ass-splat declares you shall be arrested and jailed for a capital – #ff0000 – or infamous – undefined – crime whether you are a citizen or in the military whenever anything is declared worthy of you being thus arrested etc: that you can actually be tried twice for the same crime (This is now routine. It’s not even a thing. In fact count on it), you can be compelled to witness against yourself, you can be deprived of life liberty and property if “due process” (meaning whatever legal hoops have to be dealt with in order to accomplish whatever it is this earlier-says can’t happen) and your real estate can be confiscated if “justly compensated.”

“Just compensation” is “Ha ha, sucker” totally undefined. It’s that “except” and that “unless” and those two “withouts” that nullify immediately everything that goes before them. You’re just not supposed to actually notice this. And you probably haven’t. I would bet on it. Good thing I showed up, huh? I know what you’re saying: “None of this is true.”

Shall we move on?

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence (sic).

By the way, the misspellings of defense and offense in this thing? They’re in the original. Remember that proof-reading thing? Yeah. There wasn’t any. Too tiring. Way too much trouble. Not important. It’s the words that count. Turns out that’s true, but no one is paying any attention to those. No one not in office at any rate.

Moving along, Right Number 6, after you are arrested of course, gives you the “right” to a “trial” in which you are presumed guilty, not innocent, or you wouldn’t have been fucking arrested, until declared, not actually proven, not guilty.You’ll notice that the word “enjoy” is thrown into the mix; you will enjoy this right that is not actually anything close to a right but is in fact a punishment, you will enjoy this, this is something you will enjoy.

You will get enjoyment out of this. This will be enjoyable. You will enjoy an enjoying enjoyment as this enjoyousness happens to you Plus you get to actually be informed why you are there in handcuffs, and you get to have a lawyer to talk legal language to the legal-language authorities incarcerating you so that you can experience this Right that kicks-in after being arrested under a previous right. As an added enjoyment, all the people doing these enjoyment things to you, including the lawyers, are living off your dime. You are paying them to do this to you.

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

I have no idea what this means. Why this is a “right” and not just an explanation of a declared-out-of-the-blue procedure I do not know. I did not graduate from Harvard Law School.

Some minor research told me that “British common law” is involved. This is the first sign of honesty I have come across so far, namely that this entire Constitution Crap has as its parents all the kings and queens of England in history: renowned liars and ruthless administers of tyranny and conquest at will and at whimsy and who we thought were driven off American shores and back to England.

Apparently a whopping fucking lot of them stuck around to bring back the old days after a 13-year hiatus of no government and no chaos and everyone got along with the Indians.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Welcome to more jail rights. This mighty and magnificent Right of 16 words actually says nothing. Excessive is not defined, cruel is not defined and unusual is not defined.

What is made clear is the word inflicted. It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer wrote the Bill of Rights. The assumption is made – it can be argued – that the committee who created this – whatever this is – had a hunch that the amount and degree and quantity of arrests under the new, mandatorily-imposed Constitution, was going to be so fucking rampant that some limits on the levels of heinousness had to be put in place in order to at least give the appearance of rationality and empathy and some showcase level of Christian mercy, forgiveness and understanding, no matter how minute.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

I have no idea what this means. “Shall not be construed” by whom. “Deny or disparage” other what. Other rights?….the ones retained by the people? What people. U.S. citizens? What “other” rights? What rights are those.

What are you talking about? There are rights already in place? There are “certain rights?” That these new rights….whatever they are….don’t override? Or replace? Or discourage? Or remove? Are you serious? This is all arbitrary random Biden-level huffington puffery.

There are rights in the Constitution? Are you kidding? – you have to have all your God given or actual rights trampled out of existence before you can even use 50 fucking percent of these new-and-improved “certain” rights. Thank you for reassuring me that these majestic certain rights you have granted me will in no way interfere with the many millions of other certain rights I and the rest of “the people” are “retaining.” You’re a saint, Founding Randon-Access-Vocabulary Bureaucrat, or in other words, Gavin Newsom The First.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This says that any power and authority and any other assault upon liberty that has somehow through some fantastic oversight not been granted to the Federal Government – and there is nothing that has not been granted to the Federal government – can be imposed upon the residents of all the States via the State Authorities of that State.

Any powers that are left after that onslaught of laws, restrictions, regulations and nationalizations “belong to the people.” Meaning city and county government. Not actually “the people.”

This means that while the Federal Government now rules the States and everyone in them, specific instances of accidental elements of personal liberty found to be remaining can be eradicated by county and local government, local government being the actual “the people,” or the inhabitants of cities and counties, as long as they’re in office in the cities and counties.

Not “the actual people.” Not you, in other words. Also in other words, anything the Feds have not locked down as being illegal, the States and counties and cities can lock them down until further notice.

And there ya have it! Now remember: I didn’t write the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. In fact no writers did. People like The Squad did. People in the original Swamp. America’s first “public-office holders,” in other words. Not professional “nation designers.” They had no prior experience at creating paradise here on earth or starting “rights-filled nations.” And it shows. And it got approved. All I did was read what they wrote. I didn’t write it. I just read it. So don’t blame me for any of this shit. I’m just the messenger. Gob bless! Thank you.

“Know your rights. These are your rights.”_____The Clash

end

Used to be all bikers shared a common bond, and unspoken code of respect, loyalty, and integrity that transcended words, and was built on actions.

There was never a bible written on this code, and there was no need for such. But the times are a-changin’, and there seems to be a lot of new riders out there. These days the riders you see blastin’ down the road are just as likely to be clad in shorts and sneakers as jeans and engineer boots. And the roughest, toughest-looking biker, you pull up next to could be your doctor or a lawyer, and may be wearin’ a Rolex watch under his or her leathers.

There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as these new riders learn the code, just as us old-timers did.
Being a biker used to be about using your creativity to take a basket case old hawg, and using only grit and ingenuity, turning it into a one-of-a-kind eye dazzler, then risking your life riding a bike on the asphalt you built yourself, out of pride, and bikers wrenched their own bikes, ‘cause no one was gonna do it for ’em.

Bikers wore leather because they knew cagers would just as soon run them down as look at ‘em, so they had to be intimidating. We were a breed unto ourselves, with no union, no support group, and in many cases no family (they threw us out), other than one another we had no one, and when we called a man brother, or a woman sister, we meant it.

We made it in a world of our own, against all rules, mainstream society, and against all odds. We survived and prospered because we had a code, the bikers code, and we never took bullshit or disrespect from anybody.

As an old scooter bro once said, “It’s every tramps job to school the young, and teach ‘em to never disrespect the brotherhood, are they’ll never live long enuff to figure out how to change the oil in their brand new motorcycle.”
With that in mind, the following is “the basic bikers code.”

Take heed brothers and sisters, for our code is a hallowed one, filled with respect and loyalty, a bond between our brothers and sisters, the likes of which have not been since the days of knighthood:

Don’t take any bullshit, be kind to women, children and animals. Never suck-up to the rich, and never talk down to the poor, but don’t take disrespect from anyone. This is an essential part of being a biker. It has to do with personal honor.

Remember anyone can be a quick-tempered fool… Be cool, stand tall, and backup what you say with action.
Never cheat, lie or steal. Another way of saying this is to always be honest with your brothers and sisters of the biker nation.

Bikers know his or her word is their bond. Your word is all you have in life that is truly yours. Guard it carefully, be something noble, for you are a member of a family that will stand shoulder to shoulder with you through all hardships and struggles.

Snitches are the lowest life forms on earth, right up their with bike thieves. Don’t snitch, unless it involves someone harming a child. If you see a wrong fight it yourself, or take it to your biker family.

Don’t whine. Absolutely no one likes a whiner, and no one cares to hear it. Another way to say this is “Take charge, and get on with life.” Most of life’s little inconveniences work themselves out whether you whine or not. Keep your chin up, dammit! You’re a biker, not some lowly snail.

Never say die, and never give up. Whether it’s in a fight, a debate, or a curve too tight, no matter how bad it gets, a biker never gives up.

Help other bikers. When a brother or sister is broken down by the side of the road, always stop and offer them help. Even moral support, if that is all you can give, is better than riding on by.

And don’t just help bikers; show the world bikers are better than the way Hollywood and the news media portrays us. Courtesy costs you nothing, but it brings honor and respect to the biker nation.

Never ride off and leave anyone you rode out with, if they break down you pull over and wait. Come hell or high water, bikers do not abandon a brother or sister.

Do what you say you’ll do, be there when you say you will. Stick to your word, this is called integrity.
This also goes back to standing for something. An Old school bro once said, “We’re all going to die, so make sure you die for something worth dyin’ for, if you’re right, stand your ground.”

Life is not a drill. Yeah, this ain’t no dress rehearsal, this is life, so go out and take big bites of it. You’ve got no time to lose, bikers don’t stand around waiting for the party to come to them. You only go around once. Live life now, make the most of each moment, because as a biker this very moment could be the rest of your life.

All right now let’s review. The Bikers Code is about respect & loyalty, both are earned. Never trust anyone, not even family, unless proven. Women, children, and the elderly are not to be abused. Never talk down to the poor, and never suck up to the rich. Protect the weak.

Walk tall and stand proud. Your word is your bond, so stick to your guns. The code is not about brand, it’s about brotherhood and sisterhood. You’re a biker, a modern-day knight of the road. Now go forth and ride. When in doubt, ride. That’s what bikers do… bikers ride. If you wanna ride around in a Day-Glo Hawaiian shirt wearing sandals, go for it, but if you intend to look like an idiot, at least don’t act like a fool.

Remember, being a biker is a way of life that bikers
hold in high regard, with a burning passion for the open road, never allow that flame to be put out by anyone or anything.

This is just a few broads strokes of The Bikers Code, there is a lot more to being a biker than buying a
motorcycle. If you just buy a motorcycle, you’re a motorcyclist.

–Bikers United

We are a new concept to the biker/motorcycle world. We are an umbrella and here to walk beside every club to individual riders to biker business. Helpful voice to every single rider.

Hope you follow us back! -Kathryn Anne Co-Owner of We Are Bikers – Where Bikers Unite

–from Rogue
Senior Editor

Moving to Sturgis is like moving to motorcycle nirvana in the Black Hills Region of South Dakota. It’s either Western or Two-Wheeled in this area. The wild life runs from Moose to Elk, to Knucklehead, flathead and 4-valve heads.

There are long distance riders, artists like Scott Jacobs and his entire family, to Antique Motorcycle Club guys, custom builders like Irish Rich and a master of all Cabana Dan. A Hamster and union retiree Dan builds drag bikes, customs, choppers, bobbers, long bikes and is now building, by chance three stock antiques in the 1913-1914 range. He’s a humble scraggly-bearded biker whose wife worked for the factory as a dealer rep and now is the executive director of the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

Dan, with vintage history, already built two of the most magnificent Peashooter, singles from the ‘20s and a 1914 restored Harley on display at the Sturgis Museum currently. He knows what he’s doing and where to find the shit. So, hang on. We are going to touch on his three current builds and then over the months ahead we will follow their progress, if we can stay in his good graces.

Let’s kick off with his 1914 H-D twin. It’s ready for paint and his first batch of nickel-plated pieces just arrived from D&J Plating in St. Paul. D&J handled everything except the tiny pieces. Dan met a family who plates antique handles and knobs for rare furniture. They offered to nickel his little fasteners and brackets, but when he stopped by with a mag wheel, they cringed. That chopper stuff scared the staff with notions of drugs and outlaws. He had to take the mag somewhere else.

In the case of the ’14 twin, he purchased the frame and the frontend from Dewey Rice EarlyHarley.com. He had the early H-D twin motor from an Ebay score. The frames in those days were very spindly and were often discarded, whereas the engines were used for water pumps and saved.

All three bikes are 1913-‘14 vintage for several reasons. The motocycle industry was flying at the time with new innovations and technology daily. For instance, the ’13 H-D was the first chain drive model, but still no transmissions.

They jumped from pedal start to two-speed rear hubs, low and high gear in ’14 to three speed transmissions in 1915. Floor boards were introduced in 1914. Before that you kept your feet on bicycle-style crank pedals. Early footboards were steel sans pads. The next year footboards came with holes for rivets to hold rubber pads in place.

“Gotta go,” Dan said to me and kicked me out of his shop buried in the hills behind a cemetery. “Going to meet with my painter.”

Later we shifted to his 1913 Excelsior-Henderson. ?“The older the better,” Dan said. The more the bikes developed the more complicated they became and the more parts are required. This will be another shiny restoration but a racer twin.

In this case he had to build the frontend from castings made in Illinois. Each piece had to be sweat brazed together and, in this case, controls were made operable with linkage and not cables like the Harleys. This motor is being used for mock-up and fitment.

He had complete clincher wheels, but he was carefully tearing them down, rebuilding the hubs and painting the hubs and rims, then Tim, an AMCA member in Spearfish, SD, will pinstripe them. He will then re-lace them with Buchannan stainless spokes.

Booted out of the shop hidden in the hills once more, we made a plan. For the final 1913 Harley twin we had a local pretend he needed neighborly help, then quizzed Dan with our pre-written list of questions. The neighbor knew nothing of early bikes but was a rider with an M-8 Softail. Remember what I said. Folks in these parts have horses, cows, goats or motorcycles.

Dan mentioned how much easier the older bikes are to build now, after his first 1913 single cylinder chain drive that is also currently on display in the museum. “I now have connections and know of manufacturers all over the world,” Dan said, but he wouldn’t give them up and shoved his neighbor out the door. “I’ve got shit to do.”

His final vintage project has a twin engine Dan found in Milwaukee, but it needs a rebuild. He has a single brake and brakes are another story, how they transformed from bicycle brakes to outside drum, and then inside drums, hydraulic and finally disc. He has a complete drum brake for this bike and if he decides to build an antique patina bike, this puppy will work like a champ just the way it is.

All these bikes used 28 by 2.5-inch diameter rims. The 28X3 configuration is considered a 22-inch rim. I’m confused, but getting there. If you go to the Coker tire web site you can search Clincher tires.

There’s more critical, early tire info at the Occhio Lungo website.

Dan called me one day about a racer he was building and needed a 1913 H-D engine. “I hang my denims on one,” I said. He darted over to my place to find a 1913 Single on top of my gun safe, holding my pants on a hook designed and mounted to the top motor-mount.

It didn’t work out for his project, but the next time I was in Dan’s secret shop he mentioned selling a patina race roller to someone for, well I won’t mention the price. I said I could put my engine in his roller and suddenly he offered me a “Killer Deal.”

I needed another motorcycle project like I needed a hole in my dented head, but I also needed an excuse to sneak into his shop from time to time and bring you updates on his exclusive projects. I offered to buy it. What a fuckin’ nut.

We moved it into the 5-Ball Racing shop and I took the ’13 single off the gun safe again for the final time, after trying to make a ’24 twin fit, but that’s another story.

Hang on as I attempt to sneak into Dan’s stellar shop to report on his vintage projects, another custom for his wife, Leah and score a piece or two for our ’13 racer project.

–Bandit

Sources:

Sturgis Motorcycle Museum

Coker Tires

Occhio Lungo

I love your new shop. Wish I was there to help you with all those projects but I seem to have stumbled into a good life here in Tennessee. I’ll sure try to make Sturgis next year if my health holds out. So far so good. I am doing stuff people half my age can’t do. You are too. We are amazing lol.

Here is what I have so far on the Backyard bike build.

My young friend Marshall crashed his Shovelhead in a Tennessee ditch. He bounced off a tree and nearly died. He got a helicopter ride out of it. He was damaged worse than the bike.

These Tennessee backroads are beautiful and fun to ride but they are full of curves and hills and usually a little wet. He learned that trying to ride fast on them after a few drinks is not recommended.

The bike is basically a 1981 FXWG. It has an S&S 93-inch motor. Marshall wants so bad to be an old school biker. He worked and saved for four years to buy this thing. He never owned a car. We met because he brought the bike to the shop, where I was working part time. It was a mess and he couldn’t keep it running. After spending too much money at the shop, I took pity on him and started working on it at my house.

His wreck was recent, but I have been keeping it running for the past year. He bought my ‘76 Grand Prix, when we first met. He has since blown up the motor and transmission and had a minor accident with the car. It is back on the road again with a new 455 motor and a front clip off a 74 Grand Prix. The boy doesn’t have any natural mechanical ability. He tries real hard though. Maybe with time he will get better.

As you can see from the photos, I really am doing all this outside.

He got a settlement from his insurance because he was smart enough to put a mediator policy on with his liability insurance. He wanted a Springer front end as well as many other changes to his bike. I have been working on it a little at a time for the last three months. I bought a 2-inch over Springer from V-Twin. It looks much like the original style Springers.

I am also rebuilding the ‘51 Cadillac engine that was in a hearse I recently sold. I realized it was time I got out of the weather. I have a car port over my ‘34 Ford, so I thought I would get another one and box it in and have a little garage. I went shopping and ended up with a 28×12 portable garage. Now I am in debt, but it sure is nice.

When I get done with his bike, I can build my Caddy motor on my bike trailer inside the garage. Right now, it is in the machine shop getting bored.

So now, I’ve got the Shovelhead inside high and dry. Sure beats covering it with a tarp.

This S&S motor is the high compression model. It tore up two starters. Marshall weighs over 200 and he can’t kick it. So, I pulled the heads and installed compression releases between the pushrods.

I took a 1/16 bit and drilled edge wise through the fins where I wanted to break them out of the way. I know professionals do this with a jig and a milling tool, but I used what I had. I got compression releases from total performance on eBay. They use 10mm threads. I bought a tap and drilled a 5/16 hole right into the combustion chamber. I then tapped it and installed them with red lock tight. They work great and it cranks like crazy now.

I have it all back together now and have most everything he wanted done, done. I cleaned up the wiring and am installing a cat’s eye dash kit. I still have to do the paint on his tanks. I’m learning to shoot metaflake and do some airbrush stuff now. All I need is a few warm sunny days.

I fired it today. The compression releases work great

The red Harley is a ‘98 Dyna that I bought in pieces for 800 dollars. It is my main bike. I ride it everywhere.

–Bill May

This article is part informative and part editorial. Kind of like a motorcycle with aftermarket parts and a bitchy pillion onboard. Don’t get me wrong, I love the brand; but seriously, who wants to be a backseat driver of this company? It seems everyone except the company executives seem to know how to ‘run’ this motor company.

There are seven limited edition models that future auction action happy bikers can invest upon; namely:
    • Ultra Limited Anniversary
    • Tri Glide Ultra Anniversary
    • Street Glide Special Anniversary (Black Trim)
    • Road Glide Special Anniversary (Black Trim)
    • Fat Boy 114 Anniversary
    • Heritage Classic 114 Anniversary (Chrome Trim)
    • CVO Road Glide Limited

These commemorative bikes will be made worthwhile with special paint and styling. Only 1500 of the most exclusive (read ‘expensive’) CVO will be made for the whole world.

So then, Harley-Davidson started celebrating ‘Anniversaries’ every five years. Yup, just like they make you buy a greeting card every month at the local grocery store, the big original V-Twin started making expensive (not really ‘exclusive’ now are they?) collectible anniversary limited edition models.

The much mentioned Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz treated Harley-Davidson like a ‘fashion brand’, like Puma, like ‘Deus Ex Machina’ (read that story on Bikernet by clicking here). He banished small markets and small engines. Despite the success of H-D 750cc engine in Asia and South America, he wanted to consolidate on core business, the big spenders. Unfortunately, the every American’s motorcycle was being peddled to owners of German and Italian luxury cars.

On plus side, Americans get to buy the Breakout model after 2018, which was always available to Europeans for all these years. It gets a five gallon tank, so customers get to enjoy the Milwaukee-Eight 117 ci V-Twin a lot more than the previous smaller tank would allow.

For the first time, Road Glide is available as a ‘Trike’, though only in select markets; namely US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Even Europe doesn’t get this reliable comfy puppy. It’s weird because there are already plenty of Road Glide trikes seen on the road – albeit built by some custom builder or the customer himself. Harley-Davidson saw the light shining like freshly mint money and realized the potential of this model as a factory-made trike.

The Freewheeler Trike front end, headlamp nacelle, tank console, hand and foot controls, engine and exhaust all get blacked out. The very opposite direction from the chrome finish this trike had last year. It also gets 18-inch rear-wheels. There are pinstripes with the stylized logo. The effort propels it toward the ‘Tourer’ range of models.

Softails will be available in the maximum among the limited edition anniversary models. Total of 3,000 Fat Boy units and 1,700 Heritage Classic units. There will be 1,600 units each of the Street Glide Special and Road Glide Special. The Ultra will have 1,300 units out and Tri Glide Ultra trikes will be limited to 1,100 units. CVO Road Glide will be limited to 1,500 units only.

Of course, these can’t be all that’s offered. What’s happening with the ADV Pan America and the Electric LiveWire? So much more awaited by one and all, especially after the boss announced that H-D will be all-electric in the near future. One can also expect lot of activities at the H-D Museum and for those mortals who can’t buy one or more motorcycles, there will surely be ‘limited-edition’ apparel, tee-shirt tie-ins and new jackets and boots….

 

On December 23, 2022, in one of the last actions of the 117th Congress before adjourning, the U.S. House of Representatives approved H. Res.366; “Promoting awareness of motorcyclist profiling and encouraging collaboration and communication with the motorcycle community and law enforcement officials to prevent instances of profiling.”

The House now joins with the U.S. Senate in passing separate resolutions opposing the discretionary profiling of motorcyclists by law enforcement, defining it as; “motorcyclist profiling means the illegal use of the fact that a person rides a motorcycle or wears motorcycle-related apparel as a factor in deciding to stop and question, take enforcement action, arrest, or search a person or vehicle with or without legal basis under the Constitution of the United States.”

Sponsored by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), House Resolution 366 garnered 103 bipartisan cosponsors, and is similar to Senate Resolution 154 passed by the U.S. Senate in 2018 which likewise urges state law enforcement officials to condemn the discriminatory policy.

Accordingly, H.Res.366 states;

“Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives –

(1) promotes increased public awareness on the issue of motorcyclist profiling;

(2) encourages collaboration and communication with the motorcyclist community and law enforcement to engage in efforts to end motorcyclist profiling; and

(3) urges State law enforcement officials to include statements condemning motorcyclist profiling in written policies and training materials.”

Meanwhile, in addition to the federal efforts to prevent anti-biker profiling, the five states of Washington (2011), Maryland (2016), Louisiana (2019), Idaho (2020) and most recently New Hampshire (2022) have all enacted laws at the state level to curb profiling.

On December 20, 2022, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives agreed to a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending measure that will fund the federal government through September, avoiding a government shutdown, but attached within the funding section for the Department of Transportation is language from House Report 117-402 inserted at the request of Rep. Susie Lee (R-NV) that questions the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) about their role in the promulgation of anti-motorcyclist profiling;

“The Committee is concerned that National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) may be conducting activities that encourage states to adopt legislation, regulation, or other policies that unjustly profile motorcycle riders. The Committee directs NHTSA to report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations on the extent to which the agency works with states on motorcycle passenger policies within 120 days of enactment of this Act.”

SAVE THE PATCH: MONGOLS M/C KEEP THEIR TRADEMARK LOGO

The Mongol Nation Motorcycle Club can keep their trademark logo, a backpatch typically worn on jackets and vests by members, thanks to a Ninth Circuit ruling handed down on January 6, 2023. But the three-judge panel also declined to overturn the 2018 criminal conviction of the organization on federal racketeering charges, reports Courthouse News Service.

Stephen Stubbs, the Mongols general counsel, called the ruling “a victory not only for the Mongols Motorcycle Club, but for all motorcycle clubs, freedom, and America as a whole.”

As backdrop to the now-infamous courtroom battle with far-reaching implications for America’s biker community; after a decade-long prosecution 77 members were convicted, as was the Mongols organization itself, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). A federal jury ordered the club be fined $500,000 and forced to forfeit a large stockpile of vests, guns and ammunition seized by federal agents in raids. The jury also decided the club should forfeit their trademarked patch over to the government.

Months after the verdict, U.S. District Judge David Carter said the Mongols could keep their trademark, ruling that such a forfeiture would violate its First Amendment rights to free speech and association, and would also constitute an excessive fine prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

Both parties appealed. The Mongols argued the organization wasn’t an indictable “person” under the RICO statute. The federal government asked the Ninth Circuit to simply dissolve the Mongols’ trademark, effectively allowing anyone to buy and sell products with the design.

In an unanimous opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Holly Thomas wrote that the RICO law’s forfeiture provision only allows the government to seize property, not destroy it.

HARLEY-DAVIDSON GOING ALL-ELECTRIC

American motorcycle company Harley-Davidson, known for its large-engine heavyweight cruiser motorcycles, is transitioning to become an all-electric brand, explains its CEO Jochen Zeitz.

“At some point in time, Harley Davidson will be all-electric,” he told Dezeen in an interview. “But that’s a long-term transition that needs to happen. It’s not something you do overnight.”

The Motor Company launched its first electric motorcycle in 2018, named LiveWire, and according to Zeitz electrification is the next logical step in the evolution of the brand that was established 120 years ago.

“If you look at the past 120 years, the company has always evolved, never stood still,” he said. “Now, like the founders did at the time by trying to reinvent or invent something unique, that’s obviously something that we as a company brand need to do as well.”

WYOMING LAWMAKERS PROPOSE BAN ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES

A group of GOP Wyoming state lawmakers want to end electric vehicle sales there by 2035, saying the move will help safeguard the oil and gas industries, which employ thousands of people in the state.

The measure, introduced to the state legislature on January 13, was sponsored by six state legislators, who said in it that electric vehicles will hinder Wyoming’s ability to trade with other states. According to “The Hill,” the bill states that citizens and industries would be encouraged not to purchase electric vehicles before the ban goes into effect.

“The proliferation of electric vehicles at the expense of gas-powered vehicles will have deleterious impacts on Wyoming’s communities and will be detrimental to Wyoming’s economy and the ability for the country to efficiently engage in commerce,” the bill reads. The legislation further states that adding new power charging stations would require “massive” amounts of new power to “sustain the misadventure of electric vehicles.”

 

UGANDA TO GIVE RIDERS A FREE ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is looking to go green, by handing out a free electric motorcycle to all of the region’s riders. President Museveni is planning on tackling pollution by providing riders with a completely free electric motorbike, including the region’s 100,000+ Boda-Boda riders, who are self-employed motorcycle taxis.

The system will be a trade-in, with riders swapping their current petrol bike for a new fully electric motorcycle, and the government is installing a network of charging stations across the country to support the move.

LEGENDARY MOTORCYCLE DAREDEVIL ROBBIE KNIEVEL — R.I.P.

‘Kaptain Robbie Knievel’ followed his famous daredevil father, Evel Knievel, into the high-flying, bone-shattering world of motorcycle stuntriding, going on to break all of his dad’s jump records and even successfully clearing the fountains at Caesars Palace that famously nearly killed the elder stuntsman. Decked out in star-spangled leathers, Robbie Knievel landed more than 350 jumps over a death-defying 30-year career, and he died January 13, 2023 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Reno, Nevada at age 60.

FORMER MOTORCYCLE RACER AND OTHER YOUNG ATHLETES ‘DIE SUDDENLY’

A former NFL defensive tackle and a champion motorcycle racer are the latest examples of apparently healthy people dying suddenly amid evidence the COVID-19 mRNA shots are causing serious heart damage at a rate exponentially higher than for previous vaccines.

Citing the available scientific evidence, an article on WND.com claims that “Prominent cardiologists tie alarming trend to COVID shots” and they believe the best explanation for the rampant “sudden and unexpected” deaths and cardiac events in otherwise healthy people, such as 35-year-old Keith Farmer, a four-time British motorcycle racing champion, and 45-year-old Adrian Dingle, who spent five seasons with the San Diego Chargers, is the COVID-19 vaccines.

In the past, long before the COVID vaccines, athletes who died suddenly typically were diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an abnormal thickening of the heart, or premature heart blockage. Nowadays, athletes are thoroughly screened to rule out those conditions.

 

STURGIS CHARITABLE DONATIONS SURPASS $2 MILLION

Motorcyclists who took part in the Sturgis Buffalo Chip charity events for 2022 raised a generous $400,000 for Veterans, charities for children and the community. The figure pushes the grand total that Sturgis Buffalo Chip has raised for charity during the Sturgis Rally to over $2.1 million.

END OF THE ROAD FOR MAYANS M.C.

The titular Santo Padre biker club is calling it quits, as it’s been announced that the TV series “Mayans M.C.” is set to ride off into the sunset at the end of its upcoming fifth season. The news comes from FX network boss John Landgraf during an executive session at the Television Critics’ Association winter press tour.

 

2023 NCOM CONVENTION IN PHOENIX — MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The 38th annual Convention is scheduled for Father’s Day weekend, June 16-18, 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona, so plan ahead to join with hundreds of fellow concerned riders from the ranks of Motorcycle Rights Organizations (MROs), clubs (Confederations of Clubs) and independent riders, with agenda items dealing with legal and legislative issues affecting all motorcyclists, so check back at www.ON-A-BIKE.com for further details from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists as they become available.

QUOTABLE QUOTE:

“Daredevils don’t live easy lives.”

~ Kelly Knievel, brother of ‘Kaptain Robbie Knievel’ (05/07/62 – 01/13/23)

 

 

THE AIM/NCOM MOTORCYCLE E-NEWS SERVICE is brought to you by Aid to Injured Motorcyclists (A.I.M.) and the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM), and is sponsored by the Law Offices of Richard M. Lester. If you’ve been involved in any kind of accident, call us at 1-(800) ON-A-BIKE or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.