Garage Feature I – “Pinky”

If you’re even remotely serious about building bikes in the Twin Cities or Midwest for that matter then you probably know Rick. He’s a wealth of knowledge and quite a unique character. When I asked if I could get some pics for the site he responded with “I dont give a shit whatcha do.” Believe it or not, he and I get along really well. All the local bike and car guys gravitate to him when it comes to heavy duty fabrication work. He’s an all around motor man with decades of experience and experimentation.

I’ve heard him referred to as Handsome Rick, Fabricator Rick and my personal favorite… “Pinky.” Rick is one fine fella. He’s professionally or semi-professionally raced just about everything with a motor at one point or another. New rules have been written because he knows how to exploit the unmentioned details. He told me a little story about 3-wheeler ice racing in the 80’s. He asked what the widest wheel base allowed was. They said something like 3 feet. He went home and built a trike axle so narrow and with such narrow tires that you could canter around a corner like an 2-wheeled enduro. They showed up a couple weekends in a row. Won 1st place in their amateur division on every race they attended. The next season they introduced a minimum wheel base and that was that.

Rick’s really a bit of a living legend when I start to really think about it. I’m pretty sure he’s never had a “regular job.” At one point in his life he was racing 48 weekends out of the year at different tracks across the US. The last time I visited, the founder of House of Kolors Paint, Jon Kosmoski happened to drop by with a front end for Rick to work up. On top of it all, he’s a really solitary guy.

He’s good shit and he’s probably one of the most interesting guys I’ve met since my move to the Midwest. Who better to start off our first ever Garage feature than the one-man garage master himself. I shared all kinds of oddball ideas with him and he always says to me, “if you can imagine it, I can make it.”

welcome to the chopper blog Garage Feature I. More to come.

24 Days till CHOPOUT

Tell your mama. Midwest weather has finally started to break. We’re getting nights in the 50’s and days in the 80’s. Perfect Cycle/Camp weather. Here’s a little video clip put together from way early in the season when me and RL went out to scout a few possible routes. It was like late April/Early May or something. Temp never broke 55 degrees but it was a great time. CHOPOUT 2010 – SEPTEMBER 18TH. Be there. Bring a friend.

Suzuki Gamma Sighting in North America

I was up in Duluth over the 4th. Drinking Beer and riding around on the Jetski; it was a very laid back weekend. Somewhere along the way someone asked me, “wanna check out my little project?” Sure, I said. And there in a garage sitting up on a lift was a very, very rare 1985 Suzuki Gamma. These things are a mid 80’s 500cc Dual Twin 2-stroke powered scream machine. The motor is actually 2 sets of twin cylinders piggy backed together. A very unusual design to say the least. Even more crazy is the wild expansion chamber pipes coming out of all sides of the block. Note the super cool “Gamma” symbol molded on the frame from the factory. There are only about 800-1000 of these across the US and I can now say that I’ve seen it…

Whisper with me now…”great white buffalo.”