Ready for Sturgis...

I've been working almost continually on my 1939 ULH so I can rip around on it next week in Sturgis. This past Saturday I cleaned up the combustion chambers, valves and pistons and topped off the motor with a fresh set of aluminum heads. The perfomance improvement is unbelievable! Throttle response, acceleration and torque all improved and I swear it even sounds better.

Including the head work I mentioned above I have a had what seems like nine million other little things to fix, fab, create or replace getting ready for this trip. Although most of the grunt work was handle by my lonesome I need to give a BIG THANK YOU to 5 guys who never said no to anything I needed and with out I NEVER would have got this scoot done, and they are in no particular order:

Tony Prano who helped with a variety of broken fasteners, bracket creation, welding and general tricky metal work. He also kept me perpetually hydrated with a constant flow of cold beer from the little white fridge in his killer poolside garage. One day I'm going for swim in that beautiful thing I swear!

Dwayne Fietzer is responsible for all the metal shaping, fab and welding on my fender (twice!), headlamp bracket, seat brackets and seat/p-pad bases. Whenever I needed it done overnight Dwayne was there and like Tony has a killer work space at home with a cozy vibe that you never want to leave.

Dave Hatcher stitched up my seat and p-pad, tolerated my pickiness and came through with some creative solutions to the design of the seats. He is also one of the most positive individuals I know and spending time with him was/is always an uplifting experience.

Buss Yax (aka BUZZ) was the first local vintage Harley guy who gave a shit about me. He learned me when I needed learnin. Spent a lot of time lookin at potential bikes with me. Even invited me into his warm little world/workshop to improve my knowledge of all things Harley, and also drool all over his sweet scooters. He also introduced me to "Fancy Pan" Joe below. I'm still not sure if I should really thank him for that?

Joe Gardella who really gave me the lay of the land so to speak. When your around Joe it's like getting caught up in a hurricane, before you know it your a million miles from where you started and having way more fun then you should be allowed to have. His collection of bikes is unbelievable and his knowledge of them all is even more so. He has walked me through almost every major issue I have had, bolt by bolt and never tires of my never-ending procession of mundane questions. Thanks Joe!

Without all these characters my bike would still be a pile of parts and my life would be a little less dangerous. SO THANK YOU GUYS FOR ALL THE HELP!!! Sturgis here we come!