Everything Is Everything

Nice shot of Scout and my past life as a professional firefighter.  I have been retired for eight years and still miss it a bit.  It was an exciting and very rewarding profession.

101 Scout

1954 BSA B33 Engine For Sale

I picked up this BSA B33 engine on my Oregon trip, considering all the work the Scout needs I am putting it up for sale.  It is a nice motor with the complete mag-dyno set up.  There are some broken fins on the head which need repair.

If interested contact me at timdrennen@yahoo.com or 951-992-9839

101 On The Bench

We went up to Oregon and picked up the Scout, it was a nice trip but a lot of driving compressed into three days.  The folks we bought the bike from were good people so the completion of the purchase was smooth. 

As usual with any "project " bike there is a lot of work ahead.  I really don't think you save money building these basket case bikes, you just spread the cost out over a longer period of time.

I will start breaking it down today and take the frame, forks and gas tank to John Bivens to get them worked over before I can really get very far.  In my book John is the best, I have used his services many times with no regrets.  Which is saying quite a bit.

1927 Indian Scout

My brother Gilbert on the 27 Scout, we were painting my house in New Mexico so please forgive the paint on his clothing.  This was a very cool little bike that I should have kept, oh well I will be more than happy with the 28 101 Scout when it is finished.

BSA B 33

I just picked up a real nice BSA B 33 engine, thought I might build something like this.  Kind of a poor mans BSA Goldstar.  First I had better get started on the 28 Scout.

Happy Thanksgiving

George Yarocki with his 1929 101 Scout

1920 Indian Scout

First year of the Scout, some believe these were the best bikes Indian ever built.  Don't know if that is true but they are a neat little bike.

Cannonball Rider #15 Buzz Kanter With 101 Scout

Rider #15 Buzz Canter with his 1931 101 Indian Scout, I really like the 31's.  I believe he is riding a Harley JD in the Cannonball.

Cool Old Racer

Looks like an Indian eight valve motor, not sure of the make.  Very cool with lots of character, they just don't build motorcycles with this kind of charisma anymore.

Shinya's 1915 Indian

Here is Shinya riding his 1915 Indian in the last Cannonball.  He is riding the same bike this go around, pretty cool.  He must have a lot of confidence in this machine as he could upgrade to a later bike.  The bike is very cool in person, it is vintage rustoration.

Going To Oregon After Thanksgiving To Pick Up Scout

I am going up to Oregon right after Thanksgiving to pick up the Scout.  It has been interesting but I think this whole thing may come together.

Big Louie's Knucklehead

About 35 years ago this was the bike that kicked off my love of motorcycles.  It has perfect lines even by todays standards, no clutter, kick it up a bit in the front and run a sprung solo with a p-pad.  When I was a kid I built a chopped BSA that had the same lines, my wife hated that p-pad. After a block it went flat and she could feel every bump, pothole and crater the road offered up.  I would ride that bike as fast as it would run, I remember splitting lanes at crazy speeds.  It was the Grace of God that I am still around.

My buddy Mike and I were running up highway 29 from Vallejo to Napa and must have been very close to 90 mph when a car pulled across our lane and stopped.  I was running on the right side of the road so I hit the throttle and was going close to 100 when I squeezed past his front bumper.  Mike couldn't get out of the way and hit the car broadside.  I didn't know he had crashed until I was well past the car and heard the collision.  I did a u-turn and went back to find him laying on the roof of the car and I thought he was dead, the helmet strap cut his throat so deep I could look at the back of his throat.  He told me later that when he knew he was going to hit the car he climbed up on the seat and flipped up on the roof.  He broke both legs, his arm, almost severed his head and had multiple internal trauma.

He lived but it wasn't too cool for a long time.  The strange thing was that the guy who turned left in front of us and stopped had the same thing happen to him and his wife when they were on their honeymoon.  He felt pretty bad about it, he was old and just froze up. 

Mike never did fully recover, one of his legs would not heal correctly.  After he got the insurance settlement he got into some things that hurt his full recovery.  I tried to get him re-focused by giving him a K Model basket case that I had sitting around.  He worked on it a little but never finished putting it together.  After he died I think his brother got it and it probably just sat around until there wasn't anything left.  I tried buying it from his brother to build a memorial bike to Mike but he would not sell it to me.

Anyway, here's to you Mike.  Sorry

Indian Slant Artist

Courtesy of http://bubblevisor.blogspot.com/

1911 Flying Merkel...Sale Price of $200,250.00

Recently sold in the Lee Roy Hartung sale for $200,250.00   There is still value in these old bikes, you have to love a Flying Merkel !

1928 BMW R52, #52 Cannonballer

Darryl Richman, no. 52 Cannonball Run bike. These old BMW's are really nice, I would have no issues with riding one anytime.  They are mechanical masterpieces.

Check out his web site here   http://darryl.crafty-fox.com/R52

A Different Time

photo courtesy of The Selvedge Yard

Mads Alma Four

Courtesy of Jockey Journal.  Bike built by Mads in Copenhagen, Denmark.  If you can't afford an Indian Four, just build one from scratch.  And while you are at it just make it a shaft drive !

Excelsior Super X

You have to check out this thread on The Jockey Journal, a guy named Mads in Copenhagen, Denmark is building an Excelsior Overhead Cam Super X almost from scratch.

He is machining a set of duplicate Koslow overhead cam heads from scratch.  Not for the faint of heart.  If this doesn't impress you consider that Mads built an Indian Four replica from scratch using a four cylinder car engine and shaft drive,  just amazing !

See the build on Jockey Journal http://www.jockeyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70554&highlight=excelsior

Rebuilding The Indian, Again

This is the book that started me back on the journey to build motorcycles again.  I believe it was around 2000 when I picked this book up at a local book store.  As soon as I read the jacket I was hooked, it was about an older guy who lives in Montana rebuilding a 1947 Indian Chief.  I was an older guy, I grew up in Montana and my Dad was a great advocate of Indian motorcycles.

I bought the book and read it cover to cover, in my mind it is one of the great motorcycle books.  It speaks to the humanity in all of us and how a guy with limited resources put together a nice bike while still being a good husband and father.

After I finished the book I was determined to find a Chief and rebuild it (looking back that was pretty naive).  I looked at a very nice 46 Chief in Fairfield, it was painted a dark midnight blue and was perfect.  It was a bit much for me on the financial end so I continued to look around.  I came across Jim Troche who has a little shop in Indian Alley in Vallejo, CA.  As long as I had been in Vallejo I had never heard of him.  I did remember seeing him on his early 40's Chief years earlier, it was one of those moments when you see something perfect and it just lodges in your mind.

He had a 1948 Chief with a nice rebuilt engine and transmission which made it a done deal.  He reluctantly sold it to me for a very fair price and I started my journey toward restoring the bike. Thanks Jim, you are the one who gave me a way to get into Indian Moto-Cycles.  I have had a six of them since that time.

It took me about 3 years to finish it up but it was one of the cleanest bikes I ever built.  It was too nice in some ways, I was always reluctant to ride it because I didn't want to mess it up.  Anyway I sold it years ago to a guy here in SOCAL.

I am now getting redy to do it again by building the 1928 Indian 101 Scout for the Cannonball.  We'll see how it goes ?

David Mann Chopperfest December 11th

David Hansen who runs The Shop in Ventura, CA is putting on the 8th Chopperfest as a tribute to David Mann on December 11th, 2011.  If you grew up reading Easy Rider Magazine then you are a fan of David Manns' work.  He captured the idealized biker lifestyle each month as a center fold, if that lifestyle was all it was cracked up to be is another thing.  I was there.

He was a great artist and I still love to build and look at good clean custom motorcycles, no OCC please.  Incidentally I see that Discover channel is doing a build off of the two Pauls against Jessie James, if Jessie builds true to his origins it is a done deal.  In my mind West Coast Choppers brought back the true stripped down custom bike as we all built them at one time.  Of course you always had guys like Sugar Bear building some great bikes.  I'll pick that up another time.

The Beast

The Beast is owned by Jeff Alperin, he will ride it in the 2012 Cannonball Run.  Pretty cool old bike, see more at http://cannonballandthebeast.wildapricot.org/

Current Cannonball Entries

Indian……………………………6

Harley Davidson………………...15

Henderson……………………….7

Excelsior…………………………1

Triumph………………………….1

Rudge……………………………1

Undecided……………………….4

Clearly Harley Davidson leads in numbers of bikes, this is really no surprise with the availability of Harley JD’s.

It would be cool to see some BMW’s and perhaps a Velocette.  I had a 1929 Velocette at one time that would have made an interesting entrant.

To see a comprehensive list of entries and machines go to http://cannonballandthebeast.wildapricot.org/

1928 Indian 101 Scout

Dorit Faltin in Austria owns this 101 Scout

Officially a Cannonball 2012 Rider #27

After returning from my trip to Baton Rouge, La., I went to the Cannonball site this morning and saw that Lonnie had listed all the riders for the Cannonball 2012 ride and there I was !  It actually scared me a bit as I am as far from being ready as a person could possibly be. 

Go to http://www.motorcyclecannonball.com/ and look under The Riders to see all the different riders and their machines.  Looks like there are five 101 Scouts at this time with a couple of other Indians like Shinyas' 1915 Indian and a 1927 Chief.  Indian will be well represented.  As I stated earlier I am not entering to be #1 at the finish line, I just want to make the finish line in the allotted time period.

Time to get with it !