War Bikes

So I told you I know little about the whole blog thing and had no real interest in doing much with it. I don’t think there is that much to say daily that I need to even start another topic but today is different. Yesterday (Mar 15) my editor and friend, Tim Shamess, pointed me to a web site that made me tingle in the good place.

www.warbikes.com is one serious site to learn about building. War Bikes congers up images of Indians, Harleys, BMWs and Urals to name a few of the bikes popular during war time and I haven’t even gotten into Brit bikes here. I am thinking old iron cared for by geriatric wrench turning retirees that have little else to do their golden years than adjust points and place drip pans under bikes when not wiping down paint with a duster of some sort. How wrong I was.

The videos are free to watch and you can see them in the time it takes for the IP guys at the office to discover you watching a video and then actually scurry to your desk reminding you that ‘Big Cardigan wearing Brother’ is watching you and will rat you out if you don’t stop looking at bike porn instead of making cold calls. By then you can deny even being at your desk at the time in question and nod toward some poor schlub in the next cubicle.

War Bikes is the brain child of Ralph, a guy in Arizona… hold it, that is not entirely true. War Bikes is the show that they are building, the bikes are what Ralph builds using old plane parts to make accent bits and such. They are pretty cool and they are built mostly by hand but use CNC to get some detail work done. What has all of this got to do with anything? I have the chance to bring you the story on this show, the bikes and one very interesting cat. Ralph is straight up and busy! He has agreed to talk with me and in a coming article I will explain more about him, the bikes and what he and his TV friends are trying to do. American Chopper this ain’t. There is way more to this story. Tell your friends about the site. Look them up on Face Space and become a fan. Wait for the article in TMNews. I am going to try to put the bite on Shamess for 1,000 words and it still won’t be enough.

You starting to tingle yet?

Daytona news

Greetings.

I got an email today from my friend Vern at the Canadian Biker Build Off http://www.canadianbikerbuildoff.com/ letting me know that Fred and Francois of "The Rat Shop" http://www.ratshopcustombikes.com/ had picked up GOLD with "Spawn" at The Boardwalk Bike Show/Rat's Hole Custom Bike Show.

After getting the news I immediately posted the info on Face Space or My Book or whatever it's called only to be told that I should have posted a picture of the bike too. I guess I could have but not sure how and not really interested in learning either. You can see the bike at the link above anyway. It was a friend that lives in the U.S. that pointed the lack of pictures out and said that if there were no pictures then it didn't happen... he was joking of course and so was I when I told him we are sorry for bringing yet another GOLD to Canada... we'll have it bronzed.

All joking aside, this is a huge thing for the guys at Rat Shop and good on them for this great award. The fact that they are Canadian is just a nice bonus.