Dude came by last night with cash. We loaded up the XS and it’s off to it’s new home in Iowa. Hopefully I’ll see that thing again sometime. Been a damn good bike to me but when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. On to bigger and better builds.
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.
Tags: 3, 3-wheeler, 80's, across us, amateur, axle, believe, bikes, building bikes, car guys, character, chopper blog, couple, decades, details, division, enduro, experience, experimantation, expolit, fabrication, fabricator rick, feet, fella, front end, garage, garage feature, god, gravitate, guy, handsome rick, heavy duty, house of kolors, imagine, interesting, job, jon kosmoski, knowledgem unique, legend, little story, living legend, local bike, make it, man, masterm oddball, midwest, motor, motor man, narrow, new rules, off, one-man, pics, pinky, point, professional, race, racing, regular, rick, season, semi-professional, serious, shit, solitary, start, top, tracks, trike, twin cities, weekends, well, whatcha, wheel base, wide, work, work up, year
Uncategorized | admin | 
January 31, 2011 6:00 am | 
Comments (1)
I was flipping through the channels last night and ran across “The Hard Ride” circa 1971. I remember the last time I saw this movie must have been like 10 years ago. There’s a really funny scene where the dude ties a dirt bike to his sissy bar and straight tows the thing off. It’s your typical strange and almost plot-less biker flick. Feel free to right click the image for the big version. That way you can save it to your computer for a desktop background or something.
Tags: 10 years, 1971, bar, big, biker flick, biker movie, blog, channel, chopper, chopper blg, desktop background, dirt bike, dude, flick, free, funny, last time, movie, off, plot-less, ran, scene, sissy bar, strange, the hard ride, tow, tows
Uncategorized | admin | January 30, 2011 11:27 am | Comments Off on the Hard Ride – 1971
– Adjust chain
– Snug some hardware
– Top her off
Had a killer weekend. Got a nice, new solo seat put on the bike and even threw some fresh seat springs on too. RL and David swung by on Saturday on their xs650 chops. David picked up a bubble shield for the fall and then we took a quick swing around the fair grounds to test out the seat springs. Reinhart came by on Sunday afternoon and we headed all the way over to East St Paul. Every place we stopped at was closed but the sun was shining and the bikes were screaming. All in all a Hella-Weekend. Now I’m just getting primed for next weekends CHOPOUT. Dig it. Join us Tuesday Night at Grumpys NE for a little CHOPOUT pre-party action.
Tags: adjust chain, bike, bikes, bubble shield, bubble shields, chain, chopout, chops, cycle, cycle maintanence, cycle maintenance, david, east st paul, fair grounds, fall, fresh, grumpy's, grumpys ne, hardware, hella weekend, killer, killer weekend, off, pre party action, reinhart, rl, screaming, seat springs, seat springs rl, shield, snug, solo seat, st paul, sun, sunday afternoon, swing, top her, tuesday, tuesday night, xs650, xs650 chop, xs650 chops
Uncategorized | admin | September 12, 2010 10:17 pm | Comments Off on Cycle Maintenance and Bubble Shields
