Bagger

Though I’m pleased at our growth, the growth requires more and more management. And it’s probably the one thing about my job that I like the least.

Thank god I found an excuse to get the hell out of the office last week and take pictures of a very nice Harley-Davidson Road King built by Gilby, local bike builder and custom painter from River Falls, Wisconsin (http://gilbysstreetdept.com/).

Shooting the bike meant, first, that I had to drive around River Falls and the surrounding countryside looking for an appropriate backdrop. Next, I rolled into the shop, touched base with Gilby, and directed our little entourage to a nearby piece of vacant asphalt for the shoot itself.

What you might call the lead-sled version of a Road King, from the hands of Gilby, bike builder from River Falls, Wisconsin.

And for two hours, that’s exactly what I did, take pictures and talk motorcycles. No email and no office. The toughest decision I had to make was whether to turn the bike to the left or to the right.

And when it was done it was done (except for the sorting of course). I drove home with this nice simple feeling of accomplishment.

Why is there always a truck or telephone pole right where I want to park the motorcycle?

Way back in my days as a mechanic, I could usually use a road test as my way to get out of the shop on a bad day. I decided that the photo shoot with Gilby was really just an extended road test. An opportunity to leave the land of responsibilities and experience a few hours of relative freedom – all in the name of work. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Tasteful, good lookin’, and still very ride-able – another custom bike from Gilby’s Street Department.

Not on the Road
This last month found me hanging around Stillwater, MN, instead of jet-setting off to Massachusetts or California. We just finished work on the Tattoo book mentioned above, and the Shadley Bros. book, How to Fix American V-Twin Motorcycles. In between lots of work, I’ve been dreaming motorcycle dreams, and making plans for the old Hot Rod (more later). We all know that Baggers, with the possible exception of the newest models, have an issue with high-speed stability. So even though it was two degrees outside this morning, I made plans to install the Ultra Ride stabilizer link that I purchased from Keith Terry of Terry Components fame last summer. Someday the snow and ice will disappear and when they do, I want to be ready to ride.

Speaking of riding season, I was in the No Name Saloon in Prescott, Wisconsin the other night, and people were talking about the Flood Ride. This is our annual spring “first big ride” ritual – thousands of loosely organized bikes following the river road south from the area around Stillwater, Minnesota and Hudson, Wisconsin, to points south. How far south is up to the individual, but it’s definitely the first big ride of the year. It’s unlikely I will need the stabilizer link for the Flood Ride, simply because there are very few opportunities for high speed cruising amidst all the two-wheeled traffic.

The J Bird
I know, you’re tired of sheet metal pictures that show micro-amounts of progress, month by month. So this time I give you linkage pictures. It’s like this: the new tunnel will block access to the kick-down lever on the old Torqueflite transmission, and it makes way more sense to install some kick-down linkage now, before we weld in the tunnel.

The parts, manufactured by Lokar, came from local street rod vendor, Twin City Rod & Custom, Ed had everything in stock and even showed me photos of how the kit installed in his personal street rod.

A swaying rearend may be a good thing - if you’re a blonde on the dance floor. For those of us who ride Baggers, the swaying rearend is a bad thing, which is why I plan to install the Ultra Ride from Terry Components.

Sold by Lokar, the two cables and bracket are designed to replace the standard throttle and kick down linkage.