Born-Free 7 -Part 5- Engine Art

Born-Free 7 Part 4 Out and About

More bikes from the general show

Chrome Frame Inspiration for Joe

Nice modern (Shovelhead), Bob Job. 

Tight Knuckle?! Sportster.

Tight Triumph.

Guys are still building Geese.

Modern take on a Goose.

Clean Machine. 

Gary Hetrick's old chopper. Except for the seat and the totally inappropriate ape hangers, it's pretty much intact as featured in Supercycle. I liked it much better as first featured in Street Chopper with a the springer, front mag, dual lights and pullbacks as seen below.

Coincidentally it was used as one of those big photos where you poke your head through for photos. Why it was made into a fictitious cover is a mystery to me. The original cover on the right was lifted from Irish Rich's blog. BTW, Street Chopper never cost 35 cents.

Born-Free 7 Part 3

Here's a collection of bikes from the show. Some of of these are from sort of a VIP corral of bikes belonging to friends of the promoters. A few of them are related to the Show Class-People's Champ venue, and a few others are from exhibitors/vendors.

Mike Davis exhibited some of his own machinery.  If you throw a bike party like this, who's going to say you can't show your own bikes?

Classic Panhead Chopper.

Classic Knucklehead Chopper.

Cool Gooseneck Flathead.

Clean Shovelhead Chop.

Looks like the S&S aircleaner shrunk in the laundry. 

You don't see many 45's at Born-Free, especially given the complete show bike treatment. This one appears to be stuffed into a vintageTriumph frame and retains the Brit's transmission.

Copper Bear?

One Crazy Engraved Knucklehead. The details are amazing.

Ryan of the Vintage Dreams blog, specialty is resurrecting vintage choppers. Lately he's scored a few of Dean Lanza's frames and bikes. How he found them is a mystery... 

...his blog can be found in the side column.

Ryan's rebuild of Dean Lanza's Quicksilver. It recieved the Mooneyes Best of Show award.

More to Come...

Born-Free 7 Invited Builders Part 2

Here's the second bunch of Invited builders bikes. 

Jason Moss brought out this Racy looking Panhead. It's competion like finish features carbon fiber rocker boxes and practically no chrome.

A very tidy Knucklehead by Matt Jackson.

Chrome frames seem to be back in style these days.

Mark Drews unusual take on using dual headlights. Unless it's a survivor it had a worn patina that may not be the best way to express this kind of show bike. A color other than black might have been a better choice for such a sculptured sixties style show bike.

On the other hand Go Takamine's Indian Chout (Chief in a Scout frame), had a faux aged paint job that worked because of it's old racer styling.

Since they have a dull finish the modern snow flake wheels seem to work. Some might say the rear disc brake doesn't fit in with the rest of the bike.

Mick Evangelista's specialty is early seventies style long choppers.

Oliver Jones high tech race inspired generator/alternator shovel. It's so much of a custom hybred there's hardly any thing shovelhead left of it.

Another high tech race inspired chopper by Church of Chopper's Jeff Wright. This time using a Kawasaki KZ 900. It was one of only two Japanese bikes in the Invited Builders Corral.

Nick Zazzi's Shovelhead. While it likely envolved as much work as many of the other bikes, it's somewhat conservative styling probably made it less of a stand out to many spectators.  Except on a Cobra Trike I can't say I've ever seen a fat tire sixteen inch brakeless wheel combo up front.

It appears that Paul Cox's knucklehead was not finished. I'd say he learned more of what the Born-Free crowd likes from last year's experience.

Another Knucklehead. This time by Shawn Long

Uwe Ehinger's Speedway inspired Flathead/Knucklehead hybred. While I'm not into high tech/vintage combinations, I can appreciate the engineering and craftsmanship.

Trevelen Rabanel of SuperCo just descrides his machine as a custom motorcycle. You can decide for yourself what to call it.

That's all of the Invited Builders bikes but for one. I didn't get a photo of Roland Sands 2-stroke Yamaha Racer. Although it was very trick, I don't think it fit that well into this type of show.

More of the show to come...

Born-Free 7 Invited Builders Part 1

These photos are from Saturday. The semi cloudy weather was nice but made taking good photos a bit difficult while dodging the crowds of spectators.

This first post shows half of Invited Builders Bikes starting with my four favorites.

I didn't hear who won best builder but (to me), this bike pretty much stole the center stage. A lot of us have seen the David Mann Roth poster Building a Chopper this bike is based on, but what a great idea and really good foresight to actually build it. Looking at the poster I always thought it was a weird design with it's winged tank and never really liked this type of seat or a curved springer, but it all works when it comes together. 

This is one wicked chopper! I call it a fifteen year old's dream since it's the kind of chopper that would rock your world if seen at that age. It goes against all my adult sensibilities but really re-kindles what's left of my dwindling teenage spirit. A big tip of the hat goes out to it's builder Arie Vanscyndel.

Big Scott's Banana Cream Dream (un-official name). It would be right at home at a sixties era show.

Scott is re-living his own teenage passions with it's Schwinn Sting Ray inspired elements. Besides the seat and bars, note the risers.

Jason Weber's Booger Sugar panhead was another sixties style favorite.

Despite being somewhat squeezed into a tight corner of the display field, I believe it earned 'Peoples Choice'.

Jeff Leighton's white Triumph rounds out my top four. Another jewel of a bike that would be right at home in a sixties era show. 

It's also another bike that would have shown better had it been in the center of the field instead of at the end by a fence.  I think bikes can get a kind of overlooked when on the end of the line up.  I had to shoot over the end barrier fence to get this shot.  In the future I'd suggest making sure the bikes on the ends get a bit more walk around space.

Bobby Middleton's blown Shovster digger didn't like it's picture taken. Every shot I took (except the one below), came out blurred. 

Lane splitter?... Not... with that far out carb!

Dalton Walker's Panhead was another Digger that didn't like it's picture taken. While I'm not the biggest fan of the Digger style, I will say he was very sucessful at capturing that late 70's early 80's vibe. The fabrication skills are impressive.

Jon Rispante's Heavenly Blues. In my opinion the extreme high bars and the scalopped tank both distract from the bikes overall good looks. His builder video on the Born-Free blog is a clever take off of the Wild Angels film's opening. 

Anyone who has seen Jon's bikes already knows he's a 60's Triumph show bike fan. The furry smokey display brings it home.

Jordan Dickinson's Knucklehead appeared to be unfinished. The bare metal shows off the metal fab skills but let's hope it gets painted.

The Show Class (People's Champ), by J.P. Rodman. Tons of work and fab skills but sorry... I don't get it... especially that seat?

Kyle Edgar's Flathead is nice but the pipes and narrow bars don't quite cut it for me. If the bottom pipe was longer it would look more balanced. Maybe I'm just an old coot but I don't get the obession with extemely narrow bars a lot of guys have these days.

That will do it for now. More Invited Builder's Bikes will be coming shortly....