Earring Mike's South Bay Chopper, or Ask and You Shall Receive?

I said I'd like to see more of the bike, so I get a call from Joe Hurst saying, "you asked for it".


Mike still has his bike and as you can see, not only is it almost unchanged, but it also looks fresh as ever. The beautiful forks deserve a double take as they are narrowed and extended Harley (by Mike), with Dick Allen rockers.


While not having all of the exact same styling cues, the look and stance is definitely South Bay. The Sportster headlight, Hunt magneto, 12 spoke mags, and D.A. rockers do add to the recipe. Go back and look at Joe's White Bear, Foots bike, or Bruce's Funny bike, and you'll see it was all in the family of friends.


Compare this shot with the one in the last post and it drives home how, other than the paint and the plug wires, nothing has changed!


While repainted, the tank retains the Ride to Live and Wings theme. The frame is fantastic. Note the seat area. It's been stretched, raked, and molded with metal before chroming. The sissy bar doesn't have the normal South Bay Swoop, but instead has an almost invisible fender following support bar. The oil tank reminded me of the Funny Bike's tank and it's no coincidence since it was made by Bruce's mentor, Steve Davis.

My thanks go out to Mike and Joe for sharing this cool ride.

More Parrish Arts

Another tank by Bruce Parrish. While compared to others he'd done, it's somewhat simple, it's one of his favorites.


It was done for Earring Mike. I'd like to see more shots of this bike. Check the belt guard and iron cross shift knob. Got to love them cargo jeans with patches.

Last Saturday

I went over to the Gasoline Gallery for their annual art and street show (California Screaming 6). Maybe it was because I got there around 3 p.m. and the show started at noon, but compared to other years, there wasn't much left in the way of cool cars or bikes.

Is it a Harley, an Indian?... nope, a Rikuo! I've been meaning to do a post on them for a long time. Other than the Rikuo and the Shovel (way back in the distance), there weren't any other cool bikes to be seen.


I figured since there wasn't much happening outside, inside would be the same, and that would make it easy to photograph and look at art.... wrong. It was crowded and LOUD! so I only took a quick look around and split.

Overall I didn't see as much as usual that I liked.

This one stood out on that wall. The red dot signifies it's sold.


Ink on scratch board. There's a lot of work involved here.


Interesting but, not quite sure I get it?

This one was fun.


There's aways a lot of wacky monster stuff.

The art generally seemed very reasonably priced. It made me wonder how some of the artist could justify the time doing them and letting them go so cheap. Especially considering galleries sometimes get 50%.

I probably didn't hang for more than 15-20 minutes. Since I wasn't 'feeling' the hot rod beatnick crowd, it was time to blast over to The Garage Co. for Born-Free Night. I knew I'd be much more comfortable around bikes and bike people.


Small groups of bikers came and went for another night of Knucklehead gawking and barbecue munching.


Grant proving it runs....


.... and Kiyo proving it rides.


The evening ended with a raffle. Some lucky Son of a Gun won the Bear Co. seats. Claimed he never wins anything.

Lucky 13?

Have a nice day!

Was it Bad Luck? Google messed up last night. You notice how all the blogs (including mine), lost their most recent post? art: modified Roth decal

Blog of Note

I visit and bookmark more blogs than the just the ones listed in the right hand column. One of the better one's is Matt Olsen's, so it's about time its been added to my blog list. He and his father Carl, of Carl's Cycle Supply, restore old Harleys and do it right. The details and lengths they go to are amazing. They make their own or modify a lot of after market parts to be correct. Watching them do it via the blog is interesting and inspiring. http://oldbikesinsd.blogspot.com/ Warning! You can spend a lot of time going back through the post.

This one is not restored. It's an original paint '41 in outstanding condition.

This Saturday....

I plan on going to the Garage Co. for Born-Free Bike Night....


....and I'll stop here on the way

I missed it last year. The art, cars, and bikes at Gasoline Gallery's annual show are always fun to see.

It's really cool that they are the same day and the times are staggered enough to work out just fine. I love small informal free shows!

Ridondo Beach

That's Joe's Hustler. It says any extension to 15", but many of them (including on Loco-Motion), were longer. I'm guessing it was a higher price point from 15" up. From the Dec.69 Choppers Magazine.

Flaming

A very sweet flame and molding job from the 70's by Bruce Parrish.

Tattoo Progress

Ryan sent a progress report on his new tattoo.

The Knuckle Reaper was originally from my October 2010 Halloween header art. It got more reaction than any other art on the blog. Should I do a T-Shirt of it?

Finally!

I like to keep it just about MotorCycles, but...

White Bear 120

This really cool photo was among the first batch of shots Joe Hurst sent me. It was taken at Bonneville on the way home from his cross country trip with Dick Allen in 1973, hence all the gear he's packing. Joe says once they were on the salt, they just "got it on". It was taken by Dick's female passenger. Dick had Sportster gauges (speedo and tach), on Loco-Motion and said it was pegged at 120 mph.