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 !