I am not going to this. I wish I was. I know people who are. I’ve never been to AZ. Looks like fun. Again… I am not going. Someone please kick my ass. If you are going, please have a blast and mail me something like a picture of you having tacos or riding in the warm sunshine so I can have a reminder of how much of a god damned loser I am for flaking out. Much love to LOVE. Dig it.
This is Jameson. We call him Sonny. He’s 2 years old, almost 3 and a half feet tall and he’s got the hair of a god damned angel.
I sat outside the other afternoon while my son played in the sandbox. I was just kicking back in a chair enjoying the day. Sonny was playing trucks, diggin’ holes, wearing one sock and what not. It reminded me that being a kid rules. That’s sort of the same thing that gets me so obsessed with bikes. Dickin’ around with bikes and riding around with friends keeps you young at heart. The trick is to go with the flow and always pay your own way. As soon as you start taking sh*t too serious or writing checks your ass cant cash, you’re fucked.
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.
It’s hard to keep the vibes going through the Midwest winters. Videos like this get me hyped up all over again. Screwing off in an abandoned parking lot on a hot summers day. Gimme some sunshine at least.
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January 31, 2012 5:09 pm | 
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