MN

A few years back we did a book with one of our local motorcycle celebrities: Kevin Bass. As you probably know, Kevin teaches shop class at Kennedy high school in Bloomington, Minnesota, just south of Minneapolis. Of course, the class that Kevin teaches isn’t just any class, the class Kevin teaches is the one I wish they offered when I was in high school – Chopper Building.

Kevin’s book, introduced in 2006, sold well enough, but like all books it eventually went out of print. And that might be the end of this story, except that used copies of Kevin’s book are currently selling for as much as eighty dollars on ebay. Which made my entrepreneurial brain think that maybe it would be a good thing to bring Kevin’s Bobber book back, with some updates and revisions of course.

Back by popular demand, look for a revised Bobber book in the spring of 2011.

The new and revised edition of How to Build an Old Skool Bobber will have at least 2 new assembly sequences, some new and simplified wiring diagrams, and new bikes in the Gallery section. I’ve given a long-time employee, Deb Shade, the job of organizing Kevin’s images. Early in December Deb and I took a trip to Kevin’s house to pick up some digital images and to talk about what else we need to bring this book together.

Kevin’s personal shop looks a lot like a two car garage. The kind where normal people park cars, kids’ bikes and lawn mowers. There are some bikes in Kevin’s garage of course, but these are bikes for big kids. And the walls are “decorated” with more old motorcycle stuff than you can imagine. While Kevin and Deb worked on an inventory of new material, I spent my time scanning the bench and walls, admiring everything from complete Flathead and Knucklehead motors to the proverbial head gaskets hangin’ on a nail.

Editor Deb Shade and Kevin Bass, hard at work on the revised edition of Kevin’s How to Build an Old Skool Bobber book.

Amidst the chaos of parts and motorcycle stuff, there’s a Shovelhead Chopper, almost finished, a bike Kevin is assembling in his spare time(?) for an overseas customer. Apparently teaching full time, fabricating part time, attending a whole raft of events each year, and raising a family with three small boys, just isn’t quite enough for Kevin.

Check ‘em out, two genuinely old and genuinely made-in-Milwaukee V-twins, with a nice backdrop of very interesting old motorcycle parts.

At any rate, Deb and I enjoyed a very productive visit with Kevin along with a couple of bottles of Grain Belt. We did collect most of the material needed to assemble the revised book, which means that with any luck this one might be one time – something new and different for Wolfgang. Look for Kevin’s new book in April of the New Year.

In addition to teaching, fabricating, attending events and raising three boys, Kevin does complete bike builds – this Shovelhead chopper is his latest project.

As a young man with a lust for photography, I thought it would be great to take wedding pictures. Until I realized that: A, It meant working every weekend. B, It’s not nearly as much fun as taking pictures of bikes and bike events. Over the years friends have asked if I will take the pictures at their big event. I generally decline, with excuses about how good the real wedding photographers are, and how it’s a one-time deal and they should get the best talent money can buy.

Friends Laura and Brett weren’t taking no for an answer however. Explaining that since this was the second time for both of them, and a very informal affair, they wanted to have a friend take the photos. Thus I spent the last weekend on the north shore of Lake Superior, north of Duluth, Minnesota, almost all the way to the little town of Tofte.

Lake Superior is the biggest fresh water lake in the world, and the view is incredible – day or night.

We spent Friday night doing a short rehearsal of the wedding, eating some great chops off the grill, and enjoying the view and the solitude. The actual event was scheduled for 4:00 PM on Saturday, on the lawn just below the deck. Somehow it didn’t really happen until almost 5;30, and no body seemed to care. As Laura explained, “the idea is to have fun, this event is for us, not anybody else.”

Dinner at the Blue Fin restaurant followed the wedding, which was in turn followed by a couple of hours at the street dance in Beaver Bay. We felt a little silly mingling with the locals; the guys in their camo-gear and girls in their hottest Saturday night outfits. No one seemed to care however, and pretty soon the band was playing a slow number “for the wedding party.”

The whole event, the entire evening, was so low-key and stress free, without the anxiety that often seems an integral part of the typical big wedding, that I told Brett and Laura that they should market a how-to video: How to Have Fun At Your Wedding.

If you’re wondering what they did with all the pissed off friends and relatives who didn’t get invited, well they all received invitations to the big party being held back home in two weeks time.

Some couples would opt for a fancy high-falootin’ joint where people drink red wine while they listen to jazz – and then there’s Brett and Laura at the street dance drinkin’ Budweiser.

Lake Superior has many moods. Personally I like the cloudy sky with a thousand of shades of blue, and the way the sea and sky blend together at the horizon.

Cannon Falls is just far enough out of the city to provide a nice low-stress, small town location for an eclectic and (in some cases) eccentric group of motorcycles riders. While most of us assume these bikes are too valuable to actually ride, many of the bikes at the rally did indeed get there without the benefit of a trailer.

Real bikers drink Leinenkugel beer – this is the parking lot at the Friday night barbecue.

The Black Shadow owned by Carl Hungness made it all the way from Madison, Indiana to Cannon Falls, a distance that Google calculates as just shy of 700 miles. Another Shadow carried its rider from Colorado. I stopped at the headquarters hotel on Thursday afternoon, and it was nice to see these very valuable motorcycles parked helter skelter under the canopy, covered in road grime and equipped with home-made saddle bags and tour pacs.

Carl Hungness, the man who rode his Vincent from the southeastern corner of Indiana, to Cannon Falls Minnesota, a distance or roughly 700 miles.

When it comes to riding Vincents, one member stands out head and shoulders above the rest. Marty Dickerson from California didn’t ride a Vincent to the rally. What Marty Dickerson did do is ride Steve Hamel’s Vincent to a one-way speed of 157.3 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats this year during the Bub event. Did I mention the fact that Marty is 83 years old, and has ridden at Bonneville almost every year since 1950.

Kind of gives the rest of us something to shoot for as the sand slips through the hour-glass.

Owned by Steve Hamel, this is the bike that Marty used to turn a one-way speed of 157.3.

Marty Dickerson, the man who first rode a bike at Bonneville in 1950, and has ridden almost every year since, including 2009.