The hazards of a nightlight
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May10

The hazards of a nightlight

by Rob Campbell on May 10, 2012 at 10:46 pm

I was about five or six and I had a really cool Popeye nightlight. It was the kind you just plug in, and it starts putting out rays. No switch.  Which meant it was unplugged the rest of the time.  I’ll never forget my first good electric shock, which came from ol’ Popeye. I’d forgotten to plug the light in and really needed it to be on (it was dark!), so I felt around with my fingers trying to plug it in. POW!! Mild house current shock.  It sure made my fingers get that prickly electric feeling.  I was pretty sure I was okay, so I made no fuss about it and went back to bed. I was pretty sure I was to blame somehow…

I’ve been getting some riding in this week. My commute to work is a whopping 2.7 miles. I found, however, that my forks are bottoming out. I put a lowering kit in it a few months ago and it seems to have been too much. I think I’ll go back to stock–I still have the springs that came with it.  Fork oil ain’t cheap, but I can’t stand that sound and feel of the fork innards beating the crap out of themselves.  It handles just fine either way, it just looks cooler a bit lower.  Meh–bikes is for riding, not for lookin’ at.

Oh, I almost forgot. Check out the latest from Kevin Moore at Bikes and Buddies-Mini Bike Mayhem.  Can’t go wrong with a title like that!

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Apr17

In defense of clubs, associations, and riding groups…

by Rob Campbell on April 17, 2012 at 4:00 am

I’ve been thinking lately about the benefits of clubs, associations, and riding buddies.  For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll will not discriminate in any way between kinds of clubs or the public perception therein.  I have no intention of developing a discussion here for or against any club for anything they do outside the realm of riding motorcycles, so don’t even start to go there.  I think you’ll see why and get my point.

To make my point, I’m going to make a parallel to fitness and exercise.

I’ve always thought of myself as a relatively healthy guy.  I’ve also always thought of myself as a pretty avid rider.  The fact is, however, that my actions support neither of these. In the last ten years I’ve logged so few miles on my bike it’s embarrassing. More than the embarrassment, however, is the ache for the throttle, saddle time, straightening out some turns, the simple loss of miles.  Similarly, I’ve managed to have my health gradually decline, both through inactivity and mediocre nutrition.

In some ways these are both a result of hard work and a young family. I work pretty hard at my day job, I do this crazy comic strip, and still work on giving my family the time they deserve. In the process, self care gets put on the back burner, along with good times on the bike. The priorities aren’t wrong, they’re just different than they used to be.

About six months ago, a co-worker invited me to start working out in the morning. I was sold immediately. We’ve been hitting the gym five days a week ever since. For sure there are days when I’d rather stay in bed instead of waking up at five, but my gym pard is expecting me at a quarter to six.  Hard to say if I’d be there so consistently if he weren’t there. It’s become habit, much stronger as a result of teamwork. The friendship gained strength, too.

Conversely, on the bike I’ve always been sort of a lone rider. You’re not waiting for anyone, and they’re not waiting for you. But at this point in my life, it also means I’m getting on the road a lot less–even if the bike wasn’t parked and awaiting repair for several years (I’ve had this bike for over twenty). I have no plans to go out and join a club, an association, a pack, or any kind of organization, but the whole gym experience helped me to see the value of riding compadres.

If I’m expected to be at a pull spot at a certain time for a ride, or if someone will be stopping at my house to get out and do some miles, I’m going to be ready. I’ll make sure my bike is good to go, safe running and fueled up, that I’ll be on time. All these things bring up my sharps as a rider, and are good for the soul as much as time in the gym is good for my body. Having some good riding buds is a way of making sure I get out there and do some miles, that I make time for this thing that too often gets put on the back burner while I tend to the task pile that never seems to shrink.

So the long and short of it is, let your pals drag you riding, or get out and drag them along. In the course of writing this I realized I need to get on the bike out there with one of my good friends, so the conversation was had and the bike is getting inspected and remedied where needed.

Who are your riding buds? Are you a solitary type?

 

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Apr05

Mini Chopper for Sale

by Rob Campbell on April 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm

Inside scoop here. The Vocational Club at the school where I teach built a mini chopper this year and is looking at selling this one to fund the next. These San Benito High School students have worked hard on creating a first class mini chopper.

All parts are either powder coated, chrome, or stainless steel. It features a Brigs&Stratton 3.5hp engine, a rigid frame and fork, and chopper style seat.

The vocational club is asking $650, but if you buy it through me we’ll knock $50 off the price. Shipping, of course, will be extra, unless you’d like to come pick it up here in Hollister.  Proceeds to to the San Benito High School Vocational Club to build the next machine.

Check it out.  Ricky, the builder is featured in the pictures with the bike. He is now fixing up a family heirloom Triumph 650, apparently the third generation of his family to own that particular bike.


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Apr05

Biker Prose

by Rob Campbell on April 5, 2012 at 3:00 am

I have no idea how I found this site, but I was surfing around, following links from one cool biker site to another when I came across Bikes and Buddies, a blog done by a guy named Kevin Moore. Kevin appears to have a number of talents and skills, including writing and bike building, among others.

The blog includes a number of prose pieces of some length, written by Kevin. Each contains a narrative, often a memoir of sorts, that combines action, bikes, and humor. The dude knows how to turn a phrase, to be sure.

Moore writes about stuff we as bikers will relate to and understand, and he does it in a way that makes ordinary road experiences extraordinary.  Running out of gas, starting an old engine, adding to a road’s roadkill count; these things happen to us eventually, I think. Elevating them to legend requires that the pen (or keyboard) not just be mightier than the sword, but sharper as well, and Bikes and Buddies nails it each time.  In referring to how much starter fluid a certain bike required, Moore says, “enough to set fire to Satan himself.”  In describing highways of all kinds, his imagery is strong–thick enough you could eat it with a fork, but you use a spoon to get every drop.

The only thing I’d like to see at Bikes and Buddies is more. I subscribed to the site by email so every time he puts up a new piece, it comes to my inbox (you can do that here, too).  I get the impression he puts a lot of work into his writing, because it is tight and well crafted, lacking errors of any kind.  As correct as the writing is, it has no lack of character in the least, making the read personal, enjoyable, and accessible.

Bikes And Buddies:  Give ‘em a read.

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Mar22

Other Biker Cartoons

by Rob Campbell on March 22, 2012 at 3:00 am

Frankly I think it’d be pretty scary if I was the only dude (or chick) doing biker cartoons. That would suggest that maybe there was no demand for the stuff.  But apparently there is, even if, at the moementthere are only a few of us committed (not the asylum) to biker comics.

Naturally there’s a reasonable history of cartoons made by bikers for bikers.  Any discussion of this stuff has to start with Hal Robinson, who penned a ton of great stuff for Easyrider Magazine.  Hal passed in 1984, and I’m pretty sure Easyrider has been destitute of biker cartoons since that time, for the most part. You can get a feel for more about Robineson and his work in this article at The Selvage Yard. Artistically speaking, Hal was a master of ink, using (from what I can tell), all manner of inking implements, from pen and in nk

Talking about Robinson naturally leads right into a discussion of Thunder Baggett. Thunder was young guy in the mid-late 1970′s who dug bikes and art.  Through a series of correspondence with Hal Robinson, he managed to glean a thing or two about inkin’ art, doing biker comics, and getting his name out there. Thunder’s work has appeared The Horse, Outlaw Biker, and Supercycle.  Currently you can find his work in Cycle Source on a regular basis.

Better still, you can get your very own Art by Thunder on the wall of your house–I have one and it freakin’ rocks! Thunder will work from a photo of your bike or car and embellish it as only he can.  He’s awesome at perspective and a variety of forms of artistic expression. He also creates event maps, cartooned maps of major bike events.

Motobasturds is a weekly comic found online and created by Matt Marino. Matt also did a strip for a while called KnJ Moto, which was more about the racer crowd.  Y’see, Matt has the moto bug in a big way, and he’s not afraid to draw it out of himself.  Get it? Draw it out?  Anyway, Motobasturds features a couple of bikers and bikerettes (did I just make that up?) who hang around a shop and a bar. Matt’s moto expressions are terrific, and show that he’s another toonerator who knows his gears.

I’d be extremely remiss if I didn’t mention Jon Towle. Jon does a strip for BikerNet, the oldest biker website around, called Nick the Dick. Mildly NSFW due to language and sometimes suggestive cartoons. It’s a biker cartoon, after all. This cartoon is well drawn and colored. Towle definitely knows his trade.

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Mar20

Motorcycle Fiction (and more)

by Rob Campbell on March 20, 2012 at 2:00 am

I was surfing around a few various biker links and came across a site containing a pretty comprehensive list of books, movies, music, and more at a site called Motorcycle Fiction.

What you’ll find at Motorcycle Fiction are descriptions, links, and images related to well over 100 books, over 40 movies, and 18 albums relating in some way to the biker lifestyle.  There’s even a strong chance you’ll find something of value that you’ve never heard of.

If you’ve been around bikes a long time, you may at times think that you’ve found all the biker material that exists and on some level get a bit of an “I knew that” attitude.  I get that sometimes, but I get snapped out of it a few times a year by coming across new and unseen (by me) stuff about bikes.

I remember in the late 80′s being exposed to some VHS stuff put out by Easyriders Magazine.  There were two dudes who were or had been members of the Galloping Gooses MC riding side by side on a couple of early sidecar rigs on which the sidecar wheel leaned with the turns, as well as a ride up some canyon around Los Angeles with a biker on a badass custom chopper.  VHS seemed pretty new at the time, and I found this stuff to be pretty cutting edge–an Easyrider video magazine.

Since then, of course, there has been an explosion in biker media of all kinds, to the point where it’s impossible to have the remotest grip on what’s actually available.  There are web sites upon websites, more forums than you can find, digital downloads, podcasts, YouTube channels.  If you stop to think about it, it’s really kind of dizzying. The demographic has shifted some as well, and expanded to include, ah, anyone, which includes the kinds of closeted geeks and techno wizards that are able to come up with some of that stuff.

So it’s likely that there’s media that connects with bikers that isn’t found at Motorcycle Fiction, but it seems to me they’ve done a pretty good job getting most of it.  With any luck, they may well feature The Book of Jones when it finally comes out.

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