Tattoos aren't that perminent.

So I was making mega progress getting the hardtail welded up on Jenga. I was grinding down some junk and the bike started falling over and i went to catch it and as i did that i shoved the angle grinder right into my arm taking out a good chunk of my arm and removing a bit of my tattoo..pretty bummed.

this doesn't show how knarly it is at all.

Bikes, Buds, and homocidal boxes.

out enjoying the Indian Summer with some new bros. Cade and I took a huge piece of cardboard to the face at 65+

Jenga

So last year my buddy Jeng decided he wanted a motorcycle. After some convincing from me he decided to build a bike. Cafe Racer in style. After some looking on KSL he found a '81 Suzuki GS550 in pretty decent shape for a good price and snatched it up. It was in decent shape but not quite running. Jeng and a friend soon stripped it completely down and that's how it sat for a few months.

I then gave him 150 for it loaded it up in the truck and brought it back to the Rapture Moto garage and there it sad for a bit...haha. Then i began to assemble the engine until I realize that the cases were destroyed. Not worth the effort to find new cases...Idea scraped it sat in the corner while I worked on the Dirt Devil, The Bottomfeeder and striping down the Harley. Now that all those projects are past and I started going stir crazy I remember this little scoot in the corner and then I remembered the best part. Its TITLED! so I dug it out and stared at it a minute. Decided to do something with it and the name was far too easy. Paying homage to its previous owner it will be known as Jenga! perfect haha.

First thing i did is lopped off the rear end tore off the swing arm and chopped off a bunch of tabs. then I was looking at it trying to decide what kind of tank i wanted to start looking for. the Back bone on this frame is wide and weird. really weird and then i got it....the frame will make a good tank so tonight i got the ball rolling and made tank templates and mocked up the hardtail

Magazine!!!

Cade and I along with the Lords of Loud and the rest of our TBR bros made it into the latest issue of Thunder Road Magazine. Crazy!

Dream Come True

So it may sound silly but ever since I was a little kid I've wanted a big red rolling Craftsman tool box. Its just like the Epitome of manly garage accessories...also i think it has to do with the T.V. show Home Improvement anywho. My old man scored me one for free. I'm stoked!

Anti-Lavapalooza

For those of you who don't know Lavapalooza is an event put on by the Local Harley Davidson shop. Its a ride from the shop up north to Lava Hot Springs there's live "tributes" to Hendrix, Marley and similar influential greats, camping and such but over the hill weekenders head to toe in black leather riding two wheeled chrome shops arguing with each other about who spent more money MoCo junk while they're ol' ladies are shaking they're saggy asses in chaps far too tight to awful attempts at classic rock covers are not the BSC scene...at all.

the boys and I wanted to go for a ride, just not that one. so in a spontaneous effort with little to know plans when all of those other folks were headed north, we headed south with our middle fingers up...quite literally at times. Time to blast up Blacksmith fork.

Ironically our journey began with a stop at Saddleback Harley I had to pick up a replacement bolt for my air cleaner that's been missing since the ride back fro Laughlin in April haha.

After that we split some lanes and mobbed through Logan and Hyrum and hit Blacksmith fork canyon. which I haven't been up for years and never rode a bike thorough its a blast.



My spark plug wire fell off while going through the twistys which worked out nice for cade because while i stopped the other guys kept going and his beanie fell off and i was able to grab it.

A ways up the canyon the road turns to dirt which we decided to navigate good or bad decision? I'm not sure. Adventure? absolutely.

the road was rocky, wash boardy, dusty and narrow. Not really ideal conditions for road bikes but of coarse it didn't stop us.

We putted our way down the dirt road, getting shaken to death, dusted out by oncoming traffic but I was loving every second with it. About halfway up the canyon there's a rad waterfall and pool with amazing blueish green water very breathe taking except for the greedy miller family fencing it off and putting ugly signs up and then filling it full of fishing tackle and garbage. Thanks alot.


















Cool little pit stop, back on the dusty trail. by this time my arms were getting that tingly feeling and my back was starting to hurt from the rough ride. I cant imagine how Brandon was doing it with only his levi vest between his ass and his hard plastic seat pan. Also as we were heading up a particularly narrow corner there was a rather large truck spraying a rather large wall of water across the entire width of the road as i was bracing for the unavoidable soaking the driver turned the water off....we were incredibly thankful and we let him know.

We soon reached the end of the dirt and the beginning of the pavement and asked some ATVers which way to Causey Reservoir and they told us to head up Monte Cristo Canyon which after ten or so miles we decided was the wrong way and we did an about face and headed back down. Monte Cristo is a beautiful canyon and an absolute blast on a motorcycle it is a must ride. we finally found the road to causey and when we finally made it there. Its as cool as everyone says.













Hung around for a bit scoped out some cliffs for jumping off of and made plans for camping in the future all sorts of good stuff. then a short scoot down to a little bar called the Red Cliff cafe pretty cool little place awesome burgers, nice people and this guy was playing Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan songs it was a nice little break. After a good lunch it was time to blast back to Logan.

We finished the ride out of the canyon into the little town of Huntsville and around the Clearview Reservoir very cool area and it drops down into another cool canyon Ogden Canyon which is a blast to ride but traffic prevented us for going fast enough to really enjoy it..well that is until Brandon made a very dicey pass around a bunch of cars in a tight corner. we stopped to take photos of the rad water fall real quick it looks like this.




didn't stop anywhere in Ogden, try to avoid that town as much as possible took the old highway into Brigham City which was a good decision because we got to see all the Classic cars from the Peach days show which was definitely a cool way to end the day. On the way through Sardine Brandon's CX500 became a CX250 as the spark plug wire started shorting out but he beat it into compliance and made it all of the way back home.

Great day, great fun, great buds cannot ask for anything more. it was the longest 150 miles of my life but i loved every bit of it. All of my mods held up to the punishment of the dirt road so i mark that down as a Victory and everyone was safe. This is what its all about.

Jellystone

Headed up north for labor day weekend. smart huh?! haha We left Saturday morning and things weren't too band just a sweat shirt and a vest for me. In Jackson we stopped at the brewery for lunch and i had a killer Chipotle BBQ pizza. I love the Alpine/Jackson area and the ride through the canyon next to the Snake River is stellar. we got into the park did the old faithful thing. the people oooooooing and awwwing was more entertaining than the actual geyser. after that we just kept rolling onto West Yellowstone it was a chill ride. oh i forgot to mention the night before kurt prepared a gigantic flask full of margaritas and froze it. it took them all day to finish it.




















We got into town and dropped out bikes off warmed up and hit the town for something to eat there was a wait at the restaurant and while bagger brigade was in the lounge i hung out with a bunch of french people. they were hilarious. didn't understand them at all.
After dinner they went to the bar which was basically the back wall of out room that had a crappy band so i didn't have to be with them to not enjoy the music haha.

The next morning we went down the the outpost for breakfast which is almost exclusively staffed by awesome german people. it made my morning.

We hit the road and started freezing out butts off and after awhile the 45MPH bumper to bumper everyone stopping to look ad cow elk got really on my nerves haha. We ate lunch in mammoth springs and I talked to a guy about Sportsters and Triumphs. As we left the little village the clouds started closing in. We started up the big mountains and such and the temperature started dropping. by the time we got to Canyon village it was so cold and gloomy we had to spend some time in the swanky lodge up there got some coffee and hung around an Austrian motorcycle club. the Longhorns MC. they were pretty interesting.

After that little recharge we decided to head back for West YS. Now i forgot to mention before we left that morning we were in this janky clothing outlet store but they had this one pair of rain pants my size for 10 bucks and somehow i got all the way up there without mine. I didn't expect much for ten dollars but i felt for that price it was better than nothing and thats a small price to pay to avoid a decent sized regret. so i ended up getting them but, i digress.

so about twenty miles away from the west gate we were in stop/go traffic when it started snowing, pretty hard to so i put on those ten dollar rain pants and they did great best ten dollar investment ever. not long after that my low fuel light came on just to make things more interesting. I ended up running out of gas a block away from out motel. We hit the town after warming up and ate at this great place called Bullwinkles. excellent food.

Monday we came home rode through Island Park Targhee national forest, Swan Valley andthe Palisades amazing scenery fun roads and decent weather. weekend well spent.

Twine Ball Run

Ok so last Summer I had the idea of all the members of Chopcult.com meeting in the middle of the the country and just having a good time. After being rejected by most of the proposed towns in the middle state Kansas the ever persistent Bulldog found some folks in Osborne, Kansas and somehow,
for some reason they decided to let us do our thing in the middle of a dirt track! perfect. I didn't know at the time but i guess it divided the tiny town. some of the local business owners and local bike enthusiasts along with people just looking for something new to do were all for it while others where very against a bunch of raggety dirty rowdy bikers coming into their sleepy town. i suppose they were expecting us to rape pillage a plunder. but alas all was well as hard as they tried the Osborne constables couldn't find any infraction large or small to haul any of the chop cult brothern away for. Cade and I left that Wednesday morning right after he got off graveyard shift and rode all the way into Laramie that night we hit rain so instead of a tent we opted for the cozy cabins at the KOA.


Thursday We woke up to a chilly but promising morning not a cloud in sight and we decided to get some miles tacked on and ride into Cheyenne before breakfast where for some reason we had the hardest damn time getting to the Village Inn in which i got my bike high centered trying to hop through parking lots. on arrive at Village Inn we were trying to put down the calories and caffeine when the couple behind us got into an arrangement which quickly escalated into a full on domestic depute which ended with the woman hitting the man and leaving him right then and there. From what we could gather they were also traveling haha wow. cade has video if anyones interested. we got into Nebraska and just kept riding we did see a very entertaining transient if he wasn't so large and didn't have a dog and my bike wasn't so small and loaded down i totally would have gave him a ride. One thing i did notice about Nebraska is every town has some random crazy museum and a Sapp Bros. cafe. trying to pull in motorists i suppose.
That night we got into Hastings NE which we decided was a rad little town we mobbed around it a bit and camped at a sketchy campground which was evidently at one point a KOA but they had there franchise revoked. awesome. but right next to it was a corn field full of lightning bugs and i seriously just watched them for most of the night partially because i had never seen them and partially because i couldn't stand the humidity. I got up real early the next morning because if the excitement and the humidity and watched the sunrise cade wouldn't get up so i just threw rocks at his tent for awhile.


Before leaving Hastings we ate at this place i spotted the night before it was called the OK Cafe. It was neat, tons of antiques all over the place and such i had a Belgium waffle that tasted like a friggn ice cream cone it was stellar. across the room we overheard yet another argument between a couple this time it was with an old man talking rather loud and a woman who must have had throat cancer because she had to use one of those electronic buzz box things you hold to your neck to speak and from what i could tell it was all over three dollars. everyone in the joint was trying to suppress laughs..i felt bad.

On the way out of town we were on mainstreet, Cade almost hit a baby duck and we had an easy rider moment when get not shit got stuck in the middle of a parade haha no jail or jack nicholson though. after that it was just cool back highways through Kansas.
tons of old barns and windmills and weather veins just like you'd expect. what i didn't expect is the brick paved streets.

Around noon we rolled into Osborne it was the strangest feeling that we were really there and this thing we've just been talking about was really going to happen. We found the fair grounds and i was honestly thinking we'd be late but turns out when we got there only the Great Mr. Bulldog was present. Cade and i set up camp and we waited and waited and waited at five o'clock not another soul. I was getting very worried that we were the only dipshits dumb enough to ride into the the middle of nowhere for a dusty field then at about six fifteen we heard thunder in the distance, but it was steady constant and it was growing louder and louder and louder which was very appropriate because it was the Lords of Loud from Ponca city. when they showed up i was wondering what i had created they were a wild rowdy bunch thirsty for beer and chaos. later i found out they are probably the coolest guys on the planet then after that the bikes just kept rolling in. Bulldog tapped a keg and it began. it didn't take long for it to kick off the brew was flowing and so was the party. things were set aflame, wood, tires, human legs (you heard me) it was all a blast.
I was however begining to think the Biltwell fellas weren't going to show but this thought was interupted by Meat, a local man blasting around the dirt track in his old itasca Motorhome little did he know that the Itasca would become famous in all of chopperdom from that moment on saturday night with much pestering and persistence Pink hat Wes would finally convince meat to drive it around the track with about thirty drunk guys in it and four or five on top clinging to the luggage rack. later friday night the Biltwell Crew finally arrived and the party was started fueled by the keg the giant Biltwell Cooler full of more libations and Mcgoo's encouragement for fun and mayhem until sunrise.

Saturday morning we all pulled ourselves out of our sleeping bags/patches of grass/claim on the bleachers and invaded one of the few resturants in town. the locals didn't really know what to think.
after breakfast we all gathered for the ride that Bulldog had all figured out to Cawker city to see the actual twine ball and into Marquette kansas to a motorcycle museum and back to Osborne.













































We got about twenty miles into the ride and most of everyone decided to split back to base and go swimming at the city pool (it was kids day and they said the pool looked like a BP oil spill when all the grimey bikers were done with it) they later visited the twine ball without us.

While myself Cade, Bill Bryant from Biltwell, Panhead Joel (who looks just like Hugh Lorri),James "Zebco" from Denver. Jason Craze from eternal combustion and his wife Lori, Chris from trouble leather Bulldog and few others rode the loongggg asss ride to Marquette. this rad little town that revolves around motorcycles we ate lunch at a cool biker bar went through an amazing museum and then we were told there was a shop down the street full of old triumphs totally worth the ride. It was an honor to ride with all of those cats. after we got back the festivities began and all the locals who decided since we didn't burn it down stadium the first night they'd come check it out. tripling the number of attendance. we started of with the bike show and give aways sponsored by Biltwell and Eternal Combustion (those guys are so rad) all of this MC'd by yours truly and then more drinkin and debauchery commenced and a great time was had by all.














































































too many photos and stories but lets just say i'll never forget it.


So the next morning everyone got up pretty early after such a crazy night and we all said our goodbyes and parted ways. We were heading for Denver to meet up with Justin and Jess and that happened to be where Zebco was from and since he came up solo we invited him to ride with us. it was a pretty uneventful ride other than a baby dear jumped in front of meand i stopped two feet before hitting him. Zebco parted ways with us about 20 miles out of denver. Then a little later we met Jess and Justin downtown on they're bitchen 70's styled chop. We took them to dinner they took us to there awesome little place and we just hung out. They're good people i hope to one day return the favor. The next day we went to breakfast and Cade and I hit the road. the ride from Fort Collins to Laramie was a fricken fun great scenery. then to I_80...not so much. my dad told us to take a short cut which got me turned around confused and ended up taking much longer we ended up riding through logan canyon in the dark which sucks. especially riding a solid 12 hours. and boom we were home. 2500 miles or something. best week of my life.