Westing by RoadQueen and Musket

Leaving in the morning for points West. FMC's mandatory July 4th shutdown wipes my calender clean for about an 8 day period so I've packed up the RoadQueen (above) with provisions and Tiny's trusty old tee pee - I plan to punch out for a solid week of rambling.

My final goal is Taos, New Mexico. It's a bit of a timing long-shot taking the back roads the entire way so I will be using the dreaded interstate system for some of the trip. The weather is looking WAY sketchy for the mid-west the next couple of days but I'm going to roll the dice anyway. I'm hoping to break through to calmer southern skies as fast as possible so I'll slip out of the mitten in the wee hours early Saturday morning before the storms start to brew. Camera will be in hand so I'll post some images from this wander in two weeks or so. Have a great 4th kids!

One clean little Pan

I love this bike. A guy named Chris built it - that's all I know. I found it surfing through the Jockey Journal. It might have been influenced by Cole Foster's Pan (the copperish one above) or maybe it wasn't , but they no doubt share something more than similar wheels. They both have Wu and you can feel it just looking at the photos. (Note to self: need Panhead project).

My Peach Alese

Some years ago I fell in love with the Porsche 356. There is something about the pure lines, bulletproof engineering and solid build quality of Stuttgart's little tart. I drew them all through school and into "adulthood". About 12 years back I decided that of all the different versions the Pre-A variant (1951-55) was the sweetest. It's rolled under rockers, tiny greenhouse and low slung stance won me over. Definitely not the most advance of the bathtubs from a technical standpoint but in my opinion the most advanced in the styling department. I set out to find one of my own. I looked for years. After a lot of travelling only to find misrepresented rust buckets I found "Alese" (it means a beautiful soul) in my own backyard - almost literally. She's a 1955 1500cc Pre-A Continental Coupe. The restoration took 3 years. Don't let her docile looks fool you - she's a real runner. I've driven her everywhere (and I mean everywhere) and she has never let me down. This is no doubt thanks to two people who never let me down during the re-build - Ted Dunham and Neil Goldberg. I cannot say enough good things about these two guys, whenever I came to a road block (and there were many)they were there with a solution and a pair of helping hands. Thanks you two!

These pics are from the East Coast Vintage Porsche Holiday at Boyne Highlands in Northern Michigan last summer. Great event. Alese even charged the Hill Climb in anger and despite her age and meager HP finished well up the ladder putting almost 2/3rds of the other entrees in her dust. I Love that girl!

Daytona 2008 - part 2

More from the Bike Week vintage races at the Daytona International Speedway in '08. Enjoy...

What happened to style?

Stray away from the herd....

Sweet Lime

" We have not found us yet"

Salty Fritz

Tom Fritz read my last post and sent me this image of him at Bonneville in '06. Funny how it almost looks like one of his pieces. Thanks Tom!

T minus.....

In 2005 Sleepy and I made the pilgrimage from Sturgis to Bonneville. Had a blast! The saltfalts are like no other place on earth. I felt like I was on the moon - in shorts. While were on the subject of shorts; the month before I first went I met a somewhat cranky old timer at the Eyes On Design gig who had raced a Model A in the early 50's at Bonneville. When I told him I was planning on going that year he looked up at me from his ancient sun bleached lawn chair and spat out "Do you wear boxers or briefs?!" For a moment I just looked back at him puzzled, then said "boxers". "Well you might want to think about that one - you can always tell a Speedweek virgin by his delicate steps on the second day." I was miffed. "the salt is like a goddamn mirror junior!" "ohh" I said. Turns out he was damn straight about that shit. I bought a couple pairs of briefs in Wendover and was forever thankful for the old man and his sage advise. So were my attachments...

The pics above are from that first year. The little Orange Model A at the bottom was owned by a guy from California who's name I forget - I'll never forget that car though. He let me drive the piss out of it 10 mins after meeting him. The Details: all steel solo seat that put the drive shaft right below the important bits. Mean old flatty with a three carb set-up and a set of straight pipes that kicked up salt dust even at idle. He tossed me a pair of goggles, walked me through the pre-fleet check list, apologized for the gear lube I was about to get covered with and latched the door down next to me. I felt like I was in a P-47. And fuck-yes it was fast! That one will forever be in the memory banks. Loved that car...maybe it will be back there this year. I'll be there with my old jeans and a fresh set of ear plugs - and my briefs.

Wheelbase a go go....

"So you see if we divide the wheelbase by the trail, then subtract the motors cubic inches, then add the total number of bricks used in the original factory in Milwaukee, taking that number and subtracting it by the number of beers consumed while building it and divide by 2 you get 666 - perfect!"

200 Views as of today!

Zen 0f Neato officially reached 200 hits today. Zon is young so this is a promising start. Thanks all for stopping by. More to come so stayed tuned.

Diesel

Bikes and Barns

The same weekend as Billetproof but a day later was the annual vintage motorcycle show at the Gilmore Barns in Western Michigan. This year I got up pretty late (I convinced myself I did not need to go the night before but awoke with the "itch") and did not get my bike pointed West until late morning. It's a 2-3 hour ride from home and I knew there was a little weather closing in (understatement of the year) so I gave the road queen plenty of spur and got there in under two hours.

The show was twice as big as I remember and the swap meet had grown four-fold. They said the "bike only" pasture was pushing 3,500 scoots. Wow. I guess people like the old stuff. Speaking of old stuff the Gilmore museum is full of it. Here is the story of the museum in a nut-shell - man restores historic barns, fills them with an unbelievable collection of very rare things with motors - all kinds of things, from cycles to tractors, collection becomes world famous, man opens collection to public. Great place for a motorhead to spend a lazy afternoon. I can only imagine how big it would have been if not for the scary weather.

Mucho Wu 4

What has not been said about Tony? If J is the original innovator then Tony is the original intimidator. He showed us every month, through the pages of Skateboarder, how to live it. He also had style in spades. He merged the late sixties surf-style with the violence and brutality of the punk rock era. Fusing the two effortlessly. If you were lucky enough to be pre-wired to pick up on what he was doing then you had found your style, social and cultural homing beacon. The raw energy coming off the pics was very powerful to this 10 year old and it's burn has stuck with me ever since. It scares me to think of how I may have turned out if not for skating and the boys from Venice. Kudos maddog.

In Country

A good friend of mine just returned from a trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I can't get over the images she brought back. Here are a few.