MODS vs. ROCKERS (Stockholm 2010) from Hans Sandström on Vimeo.

Yeah baby!

Ringo once got the question if he was a rocker or a mod, he said: “I’m a mocker!” Kinda like me.

This is so good I am ripping it straight from Visual Gratification:

“I received a mail in response to an earlier post on the Lucifer’s Hammer. The mail was from Mr. Scott Turner a.k.a Kenny Roberts and the gentleman had send a link of a YouTube video featuring the Lucifer’s Hammer. now that’s even rarer.
He also mentioned ‘If you click on my YouTube channel, you can see other rare videos. I’ll be adding more in the future.’”

“The video shows a great ‘Battle Of The Twins’ race between Gene Church and Marco Lucchinelli at Daytona in 1985 with Gene Church riding the Lucifer’s Hammer. Its a 9 minute video with the last minute having a short interview with the winner, Mr. Gene Church. Enjoy the video and many many thanks to Scott Turner for sending the link.”

It’s done! Ready, driveable and beautiful. I am so happy. Sure, there are things left to do but they can wait until the winter. Now it’s ridin’ time!

Now we’re getting somewhere. Just a few more things and it’ll be running in no time. Actually, make that 2 weeks time.

Progress is God damn slow and I am starting to panic, but slow and steady wins the game. Hopefully. Next week I’ll have a lot to show you so hang tight ’til then.

Do you live in Stockholm? Do you have a kick-ass bike you want to have featured in a fashion story? Is your bike a chopper/bobber? Does it resemble any of the following bikes whose pictures I have stolen around the Interwebs?

Then please contact me. jens @ thecartorialist . com (remove the spaces)

The shoot is Saturday June 5.

The pictures are “borrowed” from SouthSiders Motorcycle Culture and Wrenchmonkees.

See this piece of jewellery?

Some fucker is trying to con me out of it. If you want to do some good in the world, spam the living crap out of this SOB: penperica@yahoo.com

Just let it rip, anything you’ve got. And please let me know what you’re up to, it makes for more fun that way.

James Hammarhead is my new favourite person, in the world. I just wish he worked a little closer to home. Or, perhaps it’s just me being in the wrong part of the world?

This scrambler called Jack Pine is spot on. It’s the bee’s knees, the dog’s bollocks, the cat’s knickers…
I have one just like this, except mine’s a 120cc single cylinder two-stroke Suzuki from 1970. Man I want me a Jack Pine! At $16,500 it’s actually pretty reasonable. Especially considering that Mr. Hammarhead is only building 8 until 2012. Time to start savin’.

As for the most part, I found it via the excellent Bike Exif.

I keep wanting more but I have no room. That’s the drawback of not being a millionaire and living in the city. There are plenty of bars and women to go around, but storing all the stuff you buy gets impossibly expensive. Although, it’s good that something is holding me back from buying everything.

It’s just fantastic looking! It’s just what I need to complement my German street tracker and ancient Japanese scrambler. I’d ride it as is, but I would perhaps get another set of handlebars. Perhaps a good thing that it’s a 4 hour drive just to take a look at it…

The ad for this Harley can be viewed here and that’s where I got the pic from.

With an amazing amount of luck, I came across this old, fully original, Suzuki TC 120 from 1970. No rust anywhere and glistening chrome even on the wheels! Everything’s intact, even the original owner’s manual with all the receipts from every single service in its 40 year old history, this is going to be a perfect city runabout. I get an extra cylinder with piston, almost unused. It’s also got the original parts manual with all the codes and exploded views on every single item on the bike. I just struck gold and I am in love. I have been looking for something like this for quite a while, so I am a very happy man.

I have decided to get rid of this beaut. I can’t handle two at a time, no matter how much I wish I could. It’s better to have one in perfect shape than two half arsed. Focus BMW R75/6 now. I am so close to getting it just how I want it. I have given free reign to an artist friend of mine to do what he wants with the tank. It is going to be awesome – I hope!

Wanna buy it? Let me know? €1300 and it’s yours.

The effin’ seatpan has been bugging me for weeks but I am finally done. Good thing I am learning. Now I know exactly what not to do next time. You’re up SR400!

It’s off to the seat-maker to get that beautiful custom Bratstyle look. Contrasting piping? I think so.

Too much?

The world’s finest, most glamorous, most colourful, most informative, global-reaching go fast, turn left magazine. All right, the world’s only go fast, turn left magazine. The place where every weekend is a dirty weekend.

Sideburn

I got this off of Sideblog, who in turn got it off Motorpsycho.

Love it!

So, I finally got that elusive piece of aluminium that I needed for the seat pan.
After some shaping, I realised that it wouldn’t be enough with just having it looking nice from on top, but that I actually would have to bend it to fit the frame. This is where the problems began.

Also, the wiring is bugging the hell out of me. How am I going to be able to sort that mess out and get the bike working properly again? It’s a nightmare.

Seat pan nice and done. It took an immense amount of time compared to what I thought it was going to take. I think that if I had known the amount of time and effort such a build takes, then I would never have started.

Turns out that I am not completely hopeless. Now I am just going to come up with a nifty way of attaching it. I’ve got an idea…

See the bike in the background in the second picture? I just bought it and am planning to turn it into this:

I have added to the blogroll so if you feel you have an hour, or ten, to kill, feel free to browse through my latest favourites.

Le Container

A Time to Get

Loudpop Voyager

Turns out that the welding really needed to get done by a pro. It cost me about €100 but it was well worth the money.
Now it’s time to start building the seat.

This bike is old news now but it’s a text I wrote for James Spotting a while back. Good for those of you that don’t plow through 15 motorcycle blogs daily like I do.

The noughts is the decade that made custom accessible to the mainstream through TV shows on various cable networks. Looking back at the most significant custom builders of the 21st century so far, Danish Wrenchmonkees sets the tone and the pace of an industry that normally thrive on catering to the wannabe outlaw. However, Wrenchmonkees’ custom motorcycles are to hipsters what ‘roid-rage is to OC Choppers, showing that you can be skinny and listen to electronica and still be into the custom scene.

Wrenchmonkees monochromatic, likeable and simplistic take on the idea of freedom on two wheels is a refreshing sight from the country that gave us Arne Jacobsen and Scandinavian minimalism. The devise of less is more has rarely been more appropriate when studying Wrenchmonkees’ designs; however they don’t just settle for stripping it off but actually add substance to otherwise bland bikes. With nifty ideas like hiding the electric wiring in copper tubing and solid wheels this iteration of Monkee love has been exhibited at various prestigious museums and design studios throughout Europe during 2009.

Called Gorilla Punch (Monkee #11), the bike started out as a Honda CB 750 and has been seriously worked over to become the coolest café racer the world has ever seen. Taking into account the current popularity of all things custom, Wrenchmonkees deserve a lot more attention than they’re getting and considering the fame Discovery Channel has propelled OCC to, the world needs to see that custom doesn’t necessarily have to entail elongated forks, bulging muscles and massive amounts of chrome but rather subdued and clean designs that, in themselves, are powerful enough to get the right message across.

Wrenchmonkees can be studied in detail on their website.

Today I ran into my first real problem. Since I don’t know how to weld, and I have no one to teach me right this second, I have decided to leave the frame to a pro for welding. This is too big a job for me, getting it completely straight and symmetric.

Going to order me some flat track handlebars from Wrenchmonkees, and an order for a pair of minizoom mufflers have been placed too, albeit not with WM. I’ll be scouring Moto-bins for parts as a complement to FlatRacer. I’m definitely upgrading the front brake disc. Perhaps I’ll get all new wiring too? We’ll see.

It’s like a rite of passage, doing it yourself. I am so proud of myself for making that grinder my bitch. Well, not really but you get the point.
The tank is off and again, wires, lots of them. Any mountain looks big before you climb it but this is going to be epic. At least for me.