In seach of m143

[hacksaw]

What year is his scrambler ?

[m143]

Hey Hack, I have a 2022 XE.

[hacksaw]

Ok. Thsts newer tha I thought.i have a brochure for a2017 I think. Is it basically the same as your “22?
Lists a lot of accessories and what not. I would be happy to send it to u. It’s nicely done. Rather a book kind of thing than a pamphlet . I have no use for it

[motogrady]

I still think you should write a book on choppers.

How it happened.
Maybe why it happened.  
The details.
Who did what, who made what.

Straight from the hip.  
Not like you’d do it any other way.  
You were there. You saw it.  

“Choppers.  1945 to 2025.”

Yeah, you outta write that book.  

[hacksaw]

I wasn’t born until 1952 so the early chapters would be hearsay. But I would be accurate than Paul d’Orleans whom has taken a lot of garbage as fact and even published it as so.
My issue with writing is I have a bit of AHAD which leads me to wander from focus.
It’s true I lived much of the scene since easy riders . But of course east coast and west coast evolved slightly different.
I have studied many writings on the beginnngs and have kept up with the grey beards I knew as a youngman.
Even local towns had different styles.
BSA was the most prevalent bike in southern ct.
and sportsters . Then chopped panheads.
But I personally liked the 50’s stripped bobbers. Which mi Indian was survivor of.
Long bikes were kind of a 70’s fad bcz of B chopper drive in movies but they served no purpose in New England winding hilly roads . Indian Larry bikes have normal layouts and are good “bobbers”and help make rideable ergonomics the good trip . Which harks back to post war bobbers like Chicos gang rode in the wild one. Or at least stockish frames. Those bikes that lost fenders or bent lights and stuff. Just in general crazy use.
Also local racing run what u brung bikes that had easy take off lighting and cut down fenders.
Flat track and desert racers , scramblers etc. it all came together . Then guys like Big Daddy Roth out in cal started building choppers . The 60-70’s magazines (which I still
browse thru ) promoting choppers and advertising parts and of course surfers and flower power types.
The counter culture. Sons of Lee Marvin /Brando . That’s their dad’s deal . But easy riders movie brought it all home. Woodstock . Album covers of Janice and Hendrix on choppers. Far out man!
So now there is kind of a retrospect on that and some folks still building long bikes.
Some never stopped traditional choppers .
I still
Like cutdowns or bobbers with basic stock frame geometry
Glad for that. I mean they can be chopped but done with a sense of rideable cool

[motogrady]

I’m with you on the attention disorder thing.  

I dunno.  I’ve had this discussion with other guys, more along the Spanish dirt bikes of the 60s/70s.

Thing is, history becomes what is written.

If it’s true or accurate is almost irrelevant after 30 years or so.  Even now, if it’s not documented, it’s the guy with the biggest mouth that people of the present take as gospel.
Mostly.

Maybe break it down into years.
An autobiography kind of.

Just put down the things you heard of or did as a kid, and take it thru today.

Myself, I’m more interested in the technical stuff.
But small stuff, like East and West having different sub cultures, I mean, I’ve never heard of that.  
But can see it being a real thing.

I say start at 1945, because I’ve always heard that’s when it started. You wernt there, but you must have known some of those older guys that stripped down those army surplus bikes, what were they, WLAs or something, and started it all.

Or is that not how it started?

Just write that stuff down, when you feel like it.  
Manuscripts aren’t pretty.
They don’t have to be organized from the get go.

I mean winters coming, what else you got going on?

[hacksaw]

Wow. What you say is true.
People will believe whatever they hear if it’s told them over and over. The bigger the mouth works unfortunately. So called experts and even Harley itself has printed myths to the point it’s become history. Even if it’s not true.
Peanut tank is one of the
Suicide shift another.
Those are technical
The fallacy the cliff vaughs built Capt America
Or that Harley created an outlaw image
Is total BS history
But people believe it .  
But it’s propagated by mainstream media magazines.
I don’t have the platform to debunk this stuff.

[motogrady]

So, from your point of view Hack,from what you heard,
when did guys start chopping motorcycles?

[hacksaw]

Mid 60’s ? I don’t recall seeing any around  here before that. perhaps a little earlier in California I remember Barger saying that I think they took  those old 1950s kitchen sets  apart and take the metal chrome pieces to make handle  bars.
That had to be early .

[hacksaw]

But remember there were plenty of rigid frames around rusting so idk exactly when frames were getting chopped at first. There was an era where a lot of stock Brit’s and japs got 6 over forks . Sportsters too . But weren’t choppers. Forks by Frank was big. They are still in bizz . Though Frank himself is long gone.

[Fatfatboy]

I'd read it, for sure. Maybe an article in a magazine. "How the chopper really began".

I remember it started in SoCal in the late 40's with bobbers the was military surplus that GI's nabbed up and chopped off the extras to lighten the bikes for performance and racing.
he choppers came along in the 60's with everything from Bezzers, Trumpets, Sporty's and big twins with bike designed more for show than go with long forks, raked necks tall enough for a football to be thrown threw, coffin tanks, king and queen seats, franks fenders, tall sissy bars with custom designs in between the tubes, swing arms tossed in place of weld in hardtails or Paugco frames for a whole build. Good for straight roads or long sweepers and just looking cool with your gal on the back with bell bottom jeans and feet resting on O-ring foot pegs clamped on the frame just below the drivers a$$ and her knees about shoulder height.

In the 70s I remember the CB750's gettin the same treatment with chromed out motors. I had a survivor a short while in the 90's. Hardtail with Invader wheels, open front end (no brake) six bend bars and long girder front end. Faster than the big twins but a total death trap. I think I paid $500 bucks for it.

I actually like the long choppers over the boppers i I were to have my choice. One of each would be the bomb.

[motogrady]

Ya that’s kinda what I heard thru the years.

And the human side was more than one guy found civilian life, how can one put it, lacking, maybe boring after the war.

So, they’d work some mundane 40 hours a week and weekends let go a bit.  The camaraderie they found with a platoon of guys or whatever was replaced with the guys that rode together.

And the Iron Crosses, the German style helmets, at first were actually stuff they got during active duty.

Heck, my father, rest his soul, brought a Japanese sniper
rifle back from Guadalcanal.  Didn’t talk about it much, but there it was.  Spoil of War. I believe with time, he reflected, and maybe regretted some things.  Like I said,
by the time I got to know him, he really didn’t like talking about it.  

But, fresh from the battle, for a time at least, he must have been proud of what he did to get that rifle.

I mean, if he wasn’t, he would not have brought it home.
Same with the German helmets thing.  

[hacksaw]

most of the guys were unemployed.
and to F2, dont believe everything, or perhaps anything, you read in a magazine written by Paul d'Orleans. his Vintagent web site was good. but he has no real chopper experience except what anybody told him. which was mostly buell crap hearsay. he is a west coast dandy. he may be a wonderful person, i dunno. but his extremely gullible relationship with cliff ? Vaughs and the building of capt america has left many people believing wrongly on the bike. he has also written about harley davidson inventing the bad boy biker persona. HD for years worked against that type of connection. only to jump on that bandwagon 30 years or so later to push Dark Customs model sales.
there are people out there that know the truth. but they are not mainstream press types. look for the new ER mag just out under  new ownership or Traditional Chopper magazine.  

as to honda cb750 choppers, i like the motor. much nicer than the laterDOHC model.  but most of the chops ran straight pipes  . 4 straight pipes sound like shit. horrible. and many of them just dont have a torque range really suitable for long bike cruising. truth is back then choppers were made out of a multitude of models. vertical twins from Japan and Britain. british chops are still popular. what killed japanese chopping was that japanese oems were dumping jap bikes on the usa to take a huge market share . dumping at below wholesale costs . costs that were backed by the japanese gov. until Reagan stepped in. this made Japanese based choppers unpatriotic and the aftermarket chopper stuff for jap bikes dried up. you could once buy rigid frames for just about any 60's jap bikes. VTwin harleys eventually took over the market.

in the mid west and west coast and where ever, there is many long bike hard core riders. up here in the north with hills and curvy back roads  long bikes were mostly for "cool guys" that didnt really ride them. thats imho. of course a few did. the terrain just didnt promote that. they were more like the T bucket of motorcycles. thats long bikes , not the slightly extended fork rigid framed  , mainly pans , sportsters, and to a smaller degree BSA's  and triumphs.
indian Larry bikes pretty typical of purpose built ridable frames. despite all the trick shit and fancy gimmicky involved check his frames. larry bikes handle. he was building out of NYC and the original Horse magazine he wrote for was out of new york. very respected counter culture stuff. very hep.

[Fatfatboy]

motogrady wrote

And the human side was more than one guy found civilian life, how can one put it, lacking, maybe boring after the war.

So, they’d work some mundane 40 hours a week and weekends let go a bit.  The camaraderie they found with a platoon of guys or whatever was replaced with the guys that rode together.

And the Iron Crosses, the German style helmets, at first were actually stuff they got during active duty.

Heck, my father, rest his soul, brought a Japanese sniper
rifle back from Guadalcanal.  Didn’t talk about it much, but there it was.  Spoil of War. I believe with time, he reflected, and maybe regretted some things.  Like I said,
by the time I got to know him, he really didn’t like talking about it.  

But, fresh from the battle, for a time at least, he must have been proud of what he did to get that rifle.

I mean, if he wasn’t, he would not have brought it home.
Same with the German helmets thing.

You nailed it. Being bored and sick of the mundane of civilian life is what started a lot of the old gangs from WW2 to Afghanistan.

Troops coming home after seeing and doing what troops did and trying to fit in they needed a release and to be with like minded men. Kept them from killing fluffy when coming home from work so they’d hangout do big kids stuff. Hill climbs, racing all that fun schtuff. Around these parts it was mostly clubs that started in CA and made their way up here. Galloping Goose, H.A., Banditos, and a few locals, El Forasteros & Saddle Tramps.
I’ve never patched with them but have friends that I rode with that did. They had great parties and sponsored weekend bike events that were always fun but a bit to shocking for my sheltered bride so so have pretty much quit going after jumping the broom.

It always baffled me how these gangs were rivals but when they all got together in a cornfield on the weekend to have bike games, bands play, drag race and flat out party they pretty much stuck to themselves. I miss those times.

For the most part totally road rideable modified bikes with a few long chops thrown in.

One of the coolest that comes to mind was one morning I drug my still drunk from last night butt out of my tent into the sticky morning air and there was a dude with one leg hoping up and down on his chopped shovelhead kicker so he could run into town. R E S P E C T.

[Fatfatboy]

Yeah. By the time I got the Jap chop they had pretty much ran their course. I still see a survivor pop up on MP here and there. I have a soft spot for them.

[hacksaw]

HA partying in a cornfield with Banditos?
Maybe I am wrong? But don’t the Banditos wear a patch that says KAHA?
Meaning kill all hells angels?
So I find this to be extremely unlikely .
The was a time very early in the game when clubs were friendly in the early 60’s there is a famous Danny Lyons photo from his book The Bike Riders showing an Hells angel riding pillion with an Outlaw.
But that  is before certain bizz issues and territories
Changed everything.  

[Fatfatboy]

hacksaw wrote

Maybe I am wrong? But don’t the Banditos wear a patch that says KAHA?
Meaning kill all hells angels?

You may be right, I may be crazy.
I don’t recall seeing KAHA on their batch. Of course I didn’t pay much attention to the patches.
Patches. We don’t need no stinking patches.

The one I do remember said “ God forgives, we don’t”
I’m not sure which one had that on their patch.

In the cornfields, everybody was just partying having a good time there was no gangs related junk going on. They were typically put on by the local Harley dealer or independent shop or an mc organization.  

I do remember some events had signs up stating in No colors or cuts Allowed.

[hacksaw]

They may have removed those patch’s after that battle they had in Nevada with 81 as it makes them look premeditated. Whst was thst? McLaughlin river run? I can’t recall.

Galloping Goose is a el Forestero founded
Support club. So of course they get
Along.

[Fatfatboy]

hacksaw wrote

Galloping Goose is a el Forestero founded
Support club. So of course they get
Along.

Well at least some can do it.

When the Laughlin thing went down I’d have some riders & non-riders ask me what really happened like I knew something just because I was wearing a CMA patch, I guess, I would just shrug my shoulders because I didn’t know or really care.
After that is when we saw a lot of NO COLORS signs go up at bars, poker runs, etc.
Everyone started to hang their cuts on their bikes but didn’t wear them indoors.
It’s a shame really. The HA threw the first kick but the Mongrels really started the whole thing along with a couple cops trying to make the HA look like trouble.
After it all happened the Mongrels stuffed their colors in trash cans and such but the HA kept theirs on giving the HA the “victory “ if you can call it that with three guys dead and 12 or so thrown in prison.

[hacksaw]

How do you know 81 thru the first kick?
Anyway it’s mongols . No r .
Not that it actualy matters because that’s not the issue.
The issue is 81 did win if Mongols took off their colors. Thats surrender.
And those cornfield guys? Leaving their colors on their bikes just for a few beers? They didn’t deserve those colors . I once turned my colors inside out to be where  I needed to be. But left asap .
If you are saying el forestero took off their colors to attend a cornfield party I just can’t accept that.