Pete and Laz

Pete and Laz
Yeah, Pete it's rough...but it's a runner.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

2013....

Hear..... it's going to be an odd year....about a day and a half to go, thought I might as well go out with a little cornball humor.

Been going through pics on the 'puter, realizing what a mess this thing is. Some of these I've posted before. Some of them reminding me of unfinished projects...


A pic from two winters ago. Standing next to about a 12 foot drift of snow. Hoping this winter will pile up like that one did. Maybe find out next weekend if the weather cooperates...


An old pic from years ago in my back yard. This pic or one similar to it, was in "Classic Bike' magazine, in the little feature they do about peoples future projects. Well here we are, in the present, and they remain 'future' projects. I want to get back into riding in the dirt....have a few dirtbikes...


A pic from 6 or 7 years ago. My once trusty Ford Ranger...another project...and two of my trusty Hondas. A CX 500 and a CB 550.  


The Ninja 250...waiting to have a paperwork snafu untangled....


And yes, the British bikes, Triumphs, BSA's and Nortons ...and somewhere a Villiers powered Cotton...

Did a post about the 'Thompson' . Still have two of these actually...might be hitching one to the CB 550. Have had two different 350's and a 450 hitched to one. After driving a friends 750 Honda powered rig, have decided bigger is better... The pic with Pete in the side car was when I had a CB 350 attached to one.


A pic from about a year ago, of the original record store that begat 'Tower Records' down on Broadway here in Sacramento. I did a post on that too...maybe I'll get back here and add a link...
Kind of a nice festive pic, have to drive by later and see if they have repaired the neon..

Been an interesting year, here's to another one fellow bloggers and blogger followers:

Happy New Year!!  









Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Leo, a very rare motorcycle.

While cruising the net over Christmas I ran into a blog post about a rare bike made in California...oh about 107 years ago.


A 1905 Leo

It was found in storage at a museum in Massachusetts. It was built in Oakland California, and is possibly the only one left. Little is known about the history of this particular bike.

Click here for more info------>1905 Leo Motorcycle

There is a possibility that the factory or shop where this bike was built was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Old footage of aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.

It'll be interesting to see what this bike will bring at auction. It will also be interesting to see if any other Leo motorcycles will appear someday.  

Friday, December 21, 2012

Time to...


...Say,     Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to ya out in Bloggerland.


From 'Old Larry' , young Larry, and Pete. Pete is the one with bigger ears....

I was at my friend Jack's place and spotted this pic he had snapped, oh 'bout a quarter century ago, of Pete and I, when Pete was alive and young. It wasn't until I'd snapped a pic of the pic that I realized I had caught my present likeness....looking over my own shoulder...looking like a father and son shot.

Sometimes people think I'm 'Pete', which doesn't bother me. The 'Hairy Larry' handle comes from my days working at a bike shop where everybody had a nick name. (Probably everyone named Larry has been called Hairy Larry at one time or another...)

Like most of you out there, life is about to get busy for me, this time of year. Looks like we survived to live another one despite the 'end is near' chatter. Been an interesting year. Had a good time following other blogs. One of my New years resolutions is to get busy with all my MC projects, and try to 'blog' regularly about them. 

See ya next year....ride safe.



Note: I've added another link to the previous post about the various Enfield V Twins. The outfit in the UK .

Monday, December 17, 2012

Musket V Twin...new version is alive...



Borrowed these pictures from the Facebook page.  "The Musket V Twin'. If you go there you can see video of his latest engine running. If you aren't familiar with this project, it is two Royal Enfield 500 top ends on a custom made lower end.Click here for a link-->Musket Twin    There is a link to the Facebook page at this site.

Aniket Vardhan has designed this motor from the ground up, and I believe is going to produce the bike in 'kit form'. I think it has turned out as quite a stunner visually, and if it runs as good as the first prototype, should be successful.

Already in production is a similar concept produced in Australia, by Carberry Enfield.
Click here for a link to the site-->Carberry V Twin
This bike has hydraulic lifters, modern oiling, electric start, and a host of modern upgrades, yet still is designed to use the stock Enfield top ends.

There was another similar concept done in the UK, (for some reason I couldn't find info on that one today...). Also while on youtube looking at videos of Aniket's first engine I saw another version built by someone else from India.

I'm thinking that a bike like these would make a good sidecar tug. Nice work all of them. Aniket is really pretty amazing to take on a project like this by himself, apprenticing at a machine shop to learn to run the machinery to do all the machining himself. Created his own casting patterns to take to a foundry. I've done a little aluminum casting, but nothing on this scale.

Weather here is rain and cold, meaning snow in the mountains. Was hoping to get out and play in the snow. but the weather changed...oh well, more snow for later.


Found a link to the bike built in the UK. Click here for a link to the Norcroft site--->Norcroft V Twin

Monday, December 10, 2012

'Small world'...strikes again...

Was perusing some of my favorite blogs this morning, when a pic had me double-taking...Over at 'The Big Mama Introspection' (link over to the right and down... in 'My blogs list') She is doing an exhibit of record sleeves at a Pub in France. On the wall is an R.Crumb poster. It's dated from '09 and is in color, and looks a lot like this poster from the 70's.


This is a scan of a poster from a used record store I used to frequent back in the college days. (Yeah, I'm that old....)  It looks like Crumb redid the poster later in color.  Always loved R.Crumbs art. This poster has survived a half dozen moves and poor storage. I think a mouse chewed off the one corner...

The members of 'The Howard Arnhurst Blues Band' look a lot like 'The Grateful Dead'. The house in Haight-Ashbury that the 'Dead' lived in was owned by Crumbs mother, and for a while he lived in the basement....so the story goes...

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Surf's up! (One for Olivia)


Surfing 'Old Skool'

About the time 'Big Mama Olivia' was blogging about surfing,  I came across a nice coffee table book at a 'thrift store' aka 'charity shop'...Titled 'Maverick's' by Matt Warshaw. Some really nice shots of big waves in California near Half Moon Bay. 


Gotta love thrift stores, most of my library has come from them, or yard sales and flea markets.

.

These waves are 3 to 4 times the size of anything I've ever dealt with...


Lot's of good background on the early days of surfing, great pics.


I've only dabbled in surfing over the years, been awhile since I've been in the soup...
Last surfing experience I had was in a kayak at Seaside beach on Monterey Bay a few years ago. The waves were bigger than usual and a little unpredictable. I was in a bodged together kayak made from an old open Klepper fibreglas boat with a polyethylene river kayak top bolted and duct taped to the top of the Klepper...(wish I'd taken pics of this 'rig'...maybe I did, I'll have to look...) Someday I'd like to take a stab at it again with a proper sea kayak or Surfski.

Maybe tomorrow will be 'surfin' some snow....will post pics if that happens.









Monday, December 3, 2012

December...time to hibernate...?

....if you're a bear in California, might be a good time to find a nice spot. Been getting colder and very wet. Snow levels are kinda high right now...rains are too warm. In fact, I hear some of the earlier snow is melting and causing possibilities of too much water in the cricks, streams and rivers...


I left off with a shot of this formation at Loon Lake. There are some caves in this area. Having seen bear paw prints in the snow in this area at various times, I've always wondered about the possibility of a sleeping bear in them, Not about to venture into one anytime soon to find out..
Was hoping to do some skiing up there during the time I had off recently, but the weather hasn't cooperated. So, have just been trying to get my 'tool-room' organized. My 'shed' or garage is very small and has a very low ceiling. Many years ago I moved a lot of my tools into the 'laundry-room'. which is itself not all that spacious. They are probably safer in there. I have a carport area that is now packed with stuff that is in my way. No getting away from it, some major re-organization is in order.

Yeah, got too much stuff. Maybe it's time to crank up an E-bay account. Probably not, I'd probably go with Craigslist first...Problem is, I used to have a huge space at an old stucco factory. Before that I had  an old Carriage house, which a friend of mine used to refer to as the 'Barn'... It dated to a time when people were still getting around in horse-drawn carriages in this town. That's what I like about this city, there are still a lot of the older homes around. Sadly a lot of them were destroyed to make room for the massive Freeway system that barrels through town....So where was I headed with this?

Yeah, had the 10 days off...a good bit of that spent on Thanksgiving festivities, fighting with a Pit Bull, not getting along with a few neighbors...what was that? fighting with a Pit Bull?  Yeah, I love dogs...miss my old Pete all the time...but, there seems to be a problem with stray dogs these days. A lot of them are abandoned after the owners who should have never gotten them realize what a handful a big dog can be in the city...   Was sitting on my porch before Thanksgiving Day, contemplating my collection of motorcycles and other items, when a piercing sound of a dog being mauled by another came to my ears. At some apartments around the corner a woman was holding her dog up, while a friend was bravely attempting to pull a huge Pit off of the other dog by grabbing it by the neck...not a good scene. Told him to hang on tight, as I laid into the big dogs ribs with my foot, hitting him hard enough to lift him off the ground....The whole time I'm worried about the dog letting go and then going for one of us. Some bystanders mistakenly thought the dog belonged to a neighbor just across the street. So after giving the dog a few more kicks,( aiming a little closer to his more tender region...sorry pal...)I run over to the neighbors and pound on his door to get his attention,grab a chunk of 2 by 4 off his porch, and then back over to the scene of the fracas...to find that the dog let go after the last few kicks and is now acting like he's the other fellas best friend. The woman and her pooch are now safely in the apartment, although needing attention for it's wounds. Well, all's well that ends well I'm thinking...until my new neighbor pops out on his porch and starts reading me the riot act for banging on his door. My explanations that it was a case of mistaken identity  concerning the dog are going no where. Joe...I'll call him that...is about half my age, 40 pounds heavier, and just coming off like a total nut-job. I'm standing there with a 2 by in my hand all amped- up from dealing with the dog scene. So...I pull out my......cel phone. And in a calm voice I say "You got 5 seconds, Get back into your house or I call the police department, O.K?". The other neighbors are surprised that the bully-guy backs down. Turns out I know more of his history with the police....
The animal control officer shows up a bit later, collars the Pit Bull, cleans up the little dogs wounds, and the peace of the 'hood is restored. Saw the little dog today, it seems to be back to it's old self. The Pit Bull was probably destroyed because of it's attack, which is a real shame. In the US it's been a real problem with people breeding dogs to fight. 30 years ago I knew people with AKC 'Pit Bulls' that were just the nicest dogs. Unfortunately there are a lot of dogs out there with bad bloodlines that will never make good pets. 


So....'Don't ask me what I think of you...might not give you the answer that you want me to...'. That song has been goin' round my head for days , thanks to 'Big Mama'..hahahaha. 

Is it my imagination, or is Blogger different every time I'm in here playing with this thang..? I want my Blogger to be like this 1958 Chevy truck...simple.


                                                      Nice simple 6 cylinder

Stopped by Jim's house, he lives in a nice older Sacramento neighborhood cross the tracks from my part of town. His old truck. We got it running after figuring it did have spark, and traced it to a minor carb fault. Nice and simple, unlike todays vehicles.


Jim and his friend Mike visiting from Australia, working on the Christmas decorations.


Jim is the fella with the Moped/Cactus garden I've featured in the past...
He also sold me his old Honda 150, a project for later...


Back to sniffin' out some old pre-unit stuff...


An update....Jim and Mike's handiwork lit up, for the holidays.