Easy Rider and Chopperguy

Once again I have the chopper working. I received the parts yesterday and bolted them on with only minimal modification. I had to drill a hole in the plate that acts as a lever for the brake. The extra long kick stand gets in the way if you use the standard mounts. I get around this by mounting the brake lever in an inverted fashion. I then mounted the other end of the pushrod on the top side of the forward control through the modified brake lever. Namely, instead of the brake pushing on the bottom, it pulls on the top. The same result through a different action. I also mounted up a new, shorter mirror. Interestingly, the new mirror looks more similar to the one used on Captain America. This replaces the long rectangular one I had before.

Due to the age of the bike, I run lead substitute and 104 octane booster. You should always modify the heads on old engines to help them run the low octane unleaded fuels, unless you've got a supply of the good stuff. But along with modifying the heads, you still notice a huge difference with the chemical additives. Without the additives, she goes and she goes well. With the chemicals, she positively screams! My father does the same thing with his 1969 Corvette and also gets great results. Another friend used to use the chemicals on their old 60's VW Beetle. The thing practically required it.

I've started designing a camera mount for my handle bars. I wouldn't try this if my camera didn't have stabilization. I will try to cut out as much shake as possible with some rubber padding. I want to set the camera up, start it recording, and just take off down the road. I have seen so many people trying to take pictures as they ride. That bugs the hell out of me. People riding one handed, no handed, surf board style, on a wheelie, or other stunts don't bother me. When people do that they still have their focus on keeping the bike upright. A person taking a picture has their mind elsewhere. Anyway, if my motorcycle movie mount works out, I'll try to post some short films of the open road.

I have found another Easy Rider T-shirt. I'll leave it here for now and should get it put into the "cash" section in the near future.

Some shots from the shoot before I dumped my bike.
Pushing my bike to a shoot location.
A shot from the side.
Leaving to go to another location.
My friend and I hangin' out on our bikes during the shoot.

What a wild weekend of events I have had. On Friday I finally got a temporary fix to the lighting issues that have plagued my chopper since we finished building it. It seems that the alternator conversion kit wants a battery, and I keep trying to come up with ways to circumvent it. At idle, the lights get full power. Crank the rpm's up to 1500 and the voltage drops to 8 volts. At 3000 rpm's output drops to 6 volts. Without a battery, the regulator notices no significant draw on the system, thinking it has a fully charged battery. So the lights dim considerably. We still have to try a battery eliminator to rectify the problem, but right now we can't get the part with it on back order. So we tried another little trick. We attached a condensor to trick the regulator into thinking the bike needs more juice. This has brought total output up to about 10 volts. Wile not quite the 12 volts the system requires, we have made a definite improvement. So I rode the bike home Friday evening and will stop back by the shop when they get the part in.

On Saturday I had plans with a photographer to get some shots of my friend's chopper and my own for an upcoming project. He couldn't get his '73 Ironhead chopper working so he brought his '75 Shovelhead bagger instead. We then followed the truck with the photographer in it to a shoot location by some big cement grain silos, hitting almost every manhole cover along the way. We took a few stills of just the bikes and some with my friend and I with the bikes. As we went to leave that location to check out an abandoned gas station, my front tire hit some railroad rails at an angle. One moment I felt the front tire start to slip on one of the rails. The next I found myself on the ground with my chopper on top of my leg. I killed the engine and crawled out from under the bike. My friend helped me put the old girl upright again and we started to assess the damage. I seemed fine so I looked over the bike. The chopper suffered very little damage. I bent the hell out of the forward control on the left side, rendering the rear brake useless (as though it had much use when set up properly as those of you with old style rear drum brakes no doubt know) and my mirror broke off. Ironically, the one part that seems to break off under normal riding conditions, suffered no damage despite supporting the weight of the back half of the bike. My side mount license bracket and light survived. Go figure. So with the bent forward control, the mirror, and the license bracket supporting the bike when it fell (at a speed of about 5 mph) no other damage occured to the bike. OK, my leg helped protect the bike, too. Bruises heal

I probably could have ridden the bike home, but decided to load it into the truck since we had it with. I then got to ride bitch for the frist time ever. I hopped onto the back of my friend's bagger and we headed home. If I can avoid it, I never want to ride as the passenger again. I had to constantly remind myself to keep my feet on the pegs when we stopped. My head raced with all of those things I always tell my passengers. Sit upright. Look into the turn. Assist the pilot by acting as his turn signals so he can keep his hands on the bars. (He may have a bagger, but he still doesn't have turn signals on it.)

We got the bike home, stored it in the garage, and now I have replacement parts on the way. I needed to spend an extra $4 to get a major break on shipping, so I added another Easy Rider poster into the deal. I should have parts on Tuesday. So I fixed the bike, put about ten miles on it, and now I get to do it again. My body may ache a little with my back taking some of the fall, but over all I feel pretty good. Sooner or later I figured I would take a fall. I got my first bike in 1993. I have managed to keep things upright until now. This fall occured at very slow speed. All things considered, I feel more enriched for having experienced this.

A Captain America chopper bicycle. It amused me so I thought I would share.

A lot of my friends love to read Maxim. In this year's swimsuit edition one of the models posed with a CMC Captain America replica.

Do you think of the motorcycle as an art form? Hot Rod Bikes has an article on the Guggenheim exhibit "The Art of the Motorcycle." The article has a photo of a Captain America replica. Bad photo. Nice bike.

Lots of news on Dennis Hopper including info about Miracle Entertainment's work on an Easy Rider sequel. Sorry, but the whole sequel thing gives me really bad vibes.

Anger to Film Crowley's Gnostic Mass. It seems that Anger has asked Dennis Hopper to play the part of the Deacon in a film version of the Gnostic Mass. I've hung around with the Leaping Laughter Lodge of the OTO on occasion and have found them a lively bunch of folks. I even tended the Gnostic Mass on one occasion. A great ritual. I think Hopper would do great in the film.

In other news, my chopper still sits at the shop. Apparently when they installed the new alternator they got voltage spikes. I try to do as much work on my own bike as I can, but I still don't feel comfortable with some things and others I just don't have the tools for. On the bright side, getting the chopper out of the garage gave me time to clean the place up. When I get her back in there, I'll actually have room to do the general repairs that pop up. I think I doubled the parking width in my tiny garage and gave myself half again the length. Right now I use a giant dog kennel as my work bench. A cracked recycling bin keeps one tool box off the floor while an old steel barrel turned on end provides a little work space along with my other tool box. Of course the essential tools (a small set of box ends, my hex wrenches, 4-in-1 screw driver, crescent wrench, pliars, two sizes of vice grips, a shop rag, and a bundle of zip strips) stay in the bike's tool bag on the front forks. If you check out the Choppers section of the site you'll see it strapped to the sissy bar. When I switched over to the girder front end I moved it up front. The bag cluttered up the springer. I prefer it up front where I can keep an eye on it. I'll get some newer photos of my chop up soon. The girder really does change the look as much as the ride.

OK, I think I've rambled enough for now. Expect more as I let you know about what happens to the bike on the road this summer.

I think Easy Rider Movie has reached at least the first complete stage. All of the site should function now.

I came across this page featuring a photo of Mickey Jones & Peter Fonda. I had never heard of Mickey Jones, but I sure have seen his face everywhere. When I hit high school I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in theater. By the time I graduated, after majoring in theater at the Arts High School in Minnesota, I decided that I would probably forever land parts as Biker #3 and Trucker #7. So I chose to persue other interests. Recently the acting career has resurfaced as an option I might want to follow. After seeing Mickey's page I've decided that having people recognise you as the guy playing pool at the biker bar in every other movie doesn't sound bad.

For those who have gotten here through the old channels, I now have another way to access this site. www.easyridermovie.com. The old path will continue to work so you don't have to change your links, subscriptions, bookmarks, etc.

I have some more of the site up. I still need to do some major revisions on the Biker Movies and Spend a Little of That Cash sections. I will try to get those up soon despite the fact that the new alternator for my chopper gets here on Tuesday. The sun has some out for what seems like the first time in ages and the rain has stopped for now. Not that a little bit of rain has ever really stopped me from riding…

I found a website that uses several of my watermarked images without my permission. Around The Péloche - La chronique de MadMovie. I have sent them an e-mail asking for a link acknowledging where he got the images. For those of you who want to use stuff from my site, I only ask that you give me credit and provide a link back. I started this site in 1995. At that time almost nothing existed on the web for Easy Rider so I decided to fill that void. Since then quite a few resources have popped up. I've tried to link in the resources where I've found info when I could. I just ask that others return the favor.

I now have the Chopper section up and running. It has tons of info about the originals, the commercial knock-offs, and the replicas as well as a large section about how I built my chopper. Lots of pictures as well.

Excuse the site for the rest of this week. I should have a working site up soon.

I will try to keep people posted as to what happens to the bike, Easy Rider news, and anything else that may cross my way.