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126:02
Place
La Mesa, California
La Mesa is a city in California, near San Diego. He’s just telling listeners where his shop is.
Term
Panhead
Panhead is a nickname for a classic Harley-Davidson V-twin engine era (early-to-mid 1950s). It’s named for the distinctive “pan” shape of the rocker covers, and it’s a common reference point for shops that rebuild older Harleys.
Car
124 M8
That “M8” is Harley-Davidson’s newer engine family, and “124” means the engine is 124 cubic inches. It’s a way of saying what kind of Harley engine he rebuilt.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is how the engine delivers fuel using electronics. He’s saying he can’t properly work on that kind of setup because he doesn’t have the right tools to test and adjust it.
Term
dyno
A dyno is a testing machine that puts a bike’s engine under load while measuring how it runs. He doesn’t have one, so he can’t tune or verify fuel-injection changes the way he would for carbureted setups.
Car
Yamaha V star
A Yamaha V Star is a type of cruiser motorcycle. The speaker is saying they bought one, took it apart to learn, and then decided it wasn’t for them.
Car
84 FXR
“FXR” is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle model. “84 FXR” means a 1984 one, and the speaker is saying they just finished building one from scratch.
Term
motor swap
A “motor swap” is when you take the engine out of a bike and put a different engine in. The speaker is describing how they kept changing engines to get the bike working and then selling the engine.
Term
break it in
“Break it in” means you don’t immediately beat on a freshly built engine. You run it carefully at first so the new parts can settle in.
Brand
Harley Davidson
Harley-Davidson is a famous motorcycle brand. The speaker is basically saying that when you’re around that brand’s world, you feel like you’re experiencing the local motorcycle culture.
Brand
LNS motorcycles
LNS motorcycles is a brand that makes custom motorcycle parts. The host is saying they can upgrade your bike with both looks and real riding-focused components.
Term
air cleaners
An air cleaner is the part that filters the air going into the engine. Custom versions can change how the bike breathes and are also popular for their look.
Term
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber is a strong but lightweight material used to make performance parts. The idea is to make parts lighter without making them flimsy.
Brand
Kabuto motorcycle helmets
Kabuto is a helmet brand for motorcyclists. The host is saying their helmets are designed to be safer and more stable at speed.
Term
Crest Spoiler
A Crest Spoiler is a helmet feature that helps control airflow. The host is saying it helps the helmet stay steady at high speeds.
Term
Wake Stabilizer
A Wake Stabilizer is a helmet shape/feature that helps air flow more smoothly around your head. That can make the helmet feel more stable when you’re going fast.
Term
MIPS safety standards
MIPS is a safety system inside some helmets meant to help reduce the twisting forces your head can experience in a crash. It’s one of the reasons some helmets are considered safer.
Term
ACT tech
ACT tech is a specific helmet technology used by the brand. In this ad, it’s mentioned as part of what makes the helmet safer and better built.
Term
MotoGP race helmet
A MotoGP race helmet is a full-face helmet built for motorcycle racing. It’s made to handle high speeds and provide protection, and it usually has features to stay comfortable in hot conditions.
Place
Texas
Texas is mentioned as the hot-weather place where the host rides. They’re saying the helmet works well even when it’s very hot.
Term
shaft drive
A shaft drive is how some bikes send power to the back wheel using a metal rod (a driveshaft) instead of a chain. It usually means less fiddling and cleaning than a chain setup.
Term
26 or 30 inch tire
That “26 or 30 inch” is the tire’s size (how big it is overall). Bigger tires are harder to mount, especially if the shop’s equipment isn’t built for that size.
Term
zip tie
They’re describing a hack for putting on extra-large tires. They use zip ties to hold the tire in place while it’s being mounted, then cut the ties after the tire is seated.
Term
anything over 240
“Over 240” is likely the tire width—240 millimeters is a very wide tire. Extra-wide tires are tougher to fit and mount, and they can need special setup to work properly.
Term
tubeless
A tubeless tire doesn’t use an inner tube. The tire seals to the wheel by itself, which can change how the wheel looks and how you replace the tire.
Car
Pan America
BMW’s Pan America is a motorcycle made for long rides. Here they’re talking about the wheels and tires, and how that setup makes changing a tire different than on other bikes.
Term
wheel bearings
Wheel bearings are small metal parts that help the wheel spin smoothly. If they go bad, the wheel can start acting weird or feel loose, and you may hear grinding or get vibration.
Term
hub
The hub is the center of the wheel where the axle connects. If the hub is damaged, the wheel can wobble or feel unsafe even if the tire looks okay.
Term
spoke wheel
A spoke wheel is a bicycle wheel where the rim is connected to the center by thin rods (spokes). If something loosens, the wheel can get out of alignment and feel off.
Term
plugged
Plugging is a quick way to seal a puncture in a tire using a rubber plug. It can work for some flats, but it’s not always the best or easiest fix.
Term
patch
A patch is a more permanent fix where you remove the tire and seal the puncture from the inside. It usually takes more time than a quick plug.
Term
18 inch
“18 inch” means the wheel rim is 18 inches across. On bikes, that size changes what tire you can run and how the bike looks and rides.
Term
130 tire
A “130 tire” usually means the tire is about 130 millimeters wide. Tire width affects the bike’s look and how the contact patch sits on the road.
Term
21 front
“21 front” means the front wheel is 21 inches. Changing front wheel size affects the bike’s stance and how the proportions look.
Term
nine spoke rotors
They’re talking about a wheel/rotor design that has nine spokes. The point is that the style is popular, and they’re saying it’s not crazy expensive.
Term
four speed cover
A “four speed cover” is basically the outside housing for a four-speed transmission. It’s the part that covers and protects the gearbox, and it can give clues about what transmission is actually in the car.
Term
four speed gearbox
A “four speed gearbox” is a transmission with four forward gears. Different transmissions change how the car accelerates and how it feels when you shift.
Term
mounting
“Mounting” means the brackets and hardware that hold the transmission in the car. Saying the mounting is for one setup but the gearbox is another usually means parts were swapped or mixed.
Term
trap door extension
A “trap door extension” is a named piece that extends or covers part of the transmission/drivetrain area. Here it’s being used to describe what external parts were included with the four-speed setup.
Term
kicker
“Kicker” here is slang for the complete set of parts. The speaker is saying it wasn’t missing the key pieces—it was the whole package.
Term
cold start
A cold start is when you start the engine after it’s been sitting and everything is “cold.” Because it’s harder to get the fuel to burn right away, you usually need a few extra steps before it fires.
Term
choke
The choke is a starting aid that makes the fuel mixture richer when the engine is cold. It helps the engine catch and run until things warm up.
Term
electric start
Electric start is the battery-powered starter that turns the engine over for you. If it’s not working right, you may have to use the correct starting steps so the engine actually catches.
Term
LDL
“LDL” is a short acronym here, but the speaker doesn’t explain what it means. It sounds like a step you do for the bike or for learning the starting routine, but we can’t be sure which one from this clip alone.
Term
chopper
A “chopper” is a custom motorcycle style with a stretched, dramatic look—especially a long front end. People often use the term to describe a whole vibe and community, not just one stock bike.
Term
performance baggers
A “bagger” is a touring motorcycle with saddlebags. A “performance bagger” is a bagger that’s been upgraded to feel faster and handle better, not just to ride comfortably on long trips.
Term
low rider soft tails
“Softail” refers to a Harley-Davidson style where the rear suspension is tucked away so the bike looks more like a rigid frame. “Low Rider” is a Harley model that sits lower and is meant to be comfortable in a laid-back cruiser position.
Term
FXRs
FXR is a Harley-Davidson model line that people often associate with a more aggressive, custom-chopper vibe. The speaker means riders are starting to gravitate toward that style instead of only sticking to one “era” of bikes.
Term
carbureted stuff
“Carbureted” means the bike uses a carburetor to mix fuel and air. It’s usually associated with older-style engines, and people often like the classic sound and feel.
Term
T bars
“T bars” are a type of motorcycle handlebar shape. They affect your riding position, and the point here is that you should choose what you like and learn by trying things yourself.
Car
dyna
“Dyna” is a Harley-Davidson model line. The speaker is saying their first Dyna had certain handlebars, and they learned from trying it and then adjusting their setup.
Term
full face
A full-face helmet is the kind of motorcycle helmet that covers your whole head, including your chin. They’re talking about how it affects how they ride.
Car
Dyna FXR performance baggers
“Dyna FXR” is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle model. The host is saying that when they ride that kind of touring “bagger” bike, they wear full-face helmets again.
Term
39 millimeter
They’re talking about a specific bike size measured in millimeters. The point is that they prefer a certain size range because it feels and looks right to them.
Term
49
They’re saying that if they’re going to use a bigger size than 39, they’d rather go to 49. It’s basically a preference about what size works best for how they like the bike to feel.
Term
swinger bike
A “swinger bike” means the bike uses a swingarm for the rear wheel. The swingarm is the arm that pivots to let the rear suspension move.
Term
spring arm
A “spring arm” is a way of mounting the rear suspension so the spring is built into the swingarm area. People bring it up when they’re trying to match the bike’s original style or period-correct setup.
Term
springer
“Springer” is a type of front suspension fork with a classic, older design. People argue about mixing it onto other bikes because it changes the bike’s period-correct look.
Term
period correct
“Period correct” means the bike is built to match how it would have looked and been set up back when it originally came out. It’s a way of saying the build is historically accurate, not just modified.
Term
carb swapped
“Carb swapped” means changing the carburetor—the part that mixes fuel and air for the engine. People do it to make the bike run the way they want, especially after performance upgrades.
Term
wheelie
A wheelie is when you accelerate and the front wheel comes up off the ground. It’s a sign the bike has strong pull, but it takes skill to do safely.
Term
third gear
Third gear is one of the gears in the bike’s transmission. It’s often used for strong acceleration without needing to rev extremely high.
Car
98 Evo
“Evo” usually means the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, a turbocharged performance car. They’re saying they got a 1998 one cheaply and then spent a lot of money upgrading it.
Term
rollers
“Rollers” sounds like a way to test how the bike pulls while it’s moving. The speaker is basically saying the bike performs well under acceleration.
Concept
hate finishing a project
They’re saying they don’t like being done with a project. With older bikes, there’s always something else that might need fixing or upgrading, so it never really feels finished.
Term
primary fluid
Primary fluid is the oil that lubricates the motorcycle’s “power transfer” area between the engine and the gearbox. If it’s leaking, something in the seal/gasket system there isn’t sealing correctly.
Term
torque sequence
A torque sequence is the specific tightening order for bolts. It helps the seal/gasket get compressed evenly, which prevents leaks.
Part
O ring
An O-ring is a small rubber seal. When it’s squeezed properly, it stops oil/fluid from leaking—so if it’s not sealing, you’ll see fluid seep out.
Term
seals the primary to the motor
This means the seal between the engine and the primary-drive cover. If that seal doesn’t get compressed evenly, oil can leak out from the seam.
Term
primary leak
On a Harley-Davidson, the “primary” is the drivetrain area that transfers power from the engine to the transmission via a primary drive. A “primary leak” means fluid is escaping from that primary drive housing area, which can be messy and can also lead to damage if it runs low.
Term
gaskets
Gaskets are the sealing parts that go between components to stop oil or other fluids from leaking. If you have to take things apart later, you often need to clean off old material and install fresh seals.
Term
scraper
A scraper is a tool used to peel off old sealant or gasket leftovers. Cleaning that surface matters because a new gasket/sealant won’t seal well if old material is still there.
Term
RTV
RTV is a silicone sealant you can apply to stop leaks. It hardens on its own at room temperature, so it can help seal a gap where fluid is escaping.
Term
foam at gasket
They’re talking about using a foam gasket instead of an O-Ring. Foam can squish into tiny gaps, which helps stop leaks.
Term
misalignment
Misalignment means the parts aren’t lining up right. If the seal doesn’t sit evenly, it can leak.
Term
torquing a bolt
Torquing a bolt means tightening it to a specific “tightness” number using a torque wrench. That number helps make sure the bolt is tight enough to hold, but not so tight that you damage it.
Term
dirty threads
If the bolt threads are dirty, tightening gets “harder” because extra friction builds up. That can trick you into thinking the bolt is tightened to the right spec when it isn’t actually clamping correctly.
Term
chase the threads out
“Chasing the threads out” means cleaning up the bolt holes/threads so the bolt can screw in smoothly. It helps the tightening process be accurate instead of getting stuck from grime or damage.
Term
false reading
A “false reading” means the tool’s number doesn’t match what’s really happening at the joint. With dirty threads, the bolt can stop at the torque number but still not clamp the parts the way it should.
Term
prep work
“Prep work” is the careful setup before you put everything together. Doing it right helps the parts fit correctly and makes the final tightening and assembly more reliable.
Term
check for flatness, trueness
“Flatness” and “trueness” mean checking whether a surface is perfectly even and straight. If it’s not, tightening can’t clamp evenly, which can cause problems like leaks or parts not sitting right.
Term
twin cam
“Twin cam” means the engine uses two camshafts to open the valves. More specifically, it’s a Harley-Davidson engine type, and the speaker is saying it’s usually easier to keep from leaking.
Term
residual
In this context, “residual” refers to leftover fluid/oil that remains in the system after assembly or prior operation. The host suggests that even a small amount of residual fluid can get slung around and create enough pressure to force a leak past a seal.
Term
shift shaft seals
Shift shaft seals are small seals that stop oil from leaking around the part that moves to shift gears. If they wear out or aren’t seated right, you can get oil seepage there.
Term
drip
They’re talking about oil leaking from the bike. A small “drip” is treated as less urgent, but if it’s more than that, they say it’s time to fix it.
Term
guide pins
Guide pins are like alignment pegs that help parts line up while you assemble them. They help prevent the parts from sliding out of place before you tighten everything down.
Term
dowel pins
Dowel pins are small metal pins that help line up two parts perfectly. They make sure everything goes together in the right position so the bike doesn’t end up slightly crooked after you bolt it together.
Term
inter primary
“Inter primary” is the area in a motorcycle where power is transferred from the engine into the drivetrain. If it’s assembled correctly, the bike runs smoother and you avoid problems caused by misalignment.
Term
swing arm
The swingarm is the part that holds the rear wheel and pivots as the suspension moves. If the drivetrain is mounted correctly relative to it, the bike’s alignment stays more consistent.
Term
Heim joints
Heim joints are special link connections that let two parts move smoothly relative to each other. They’re commonly used on custom bikes so the suspension and linkages work without getting stuck or misaligned.
Term
solid mount bushings
Solid mount bushings make the engine mounts stiffer instead of squishy. That can reduce movement and make the bike feel more direct and stable.
Term
M8
“M8” is Harley-Davidson’s newer Milwaukee-Eight engine. They’re comparing how it sounds and feels versus older Harley engines.
Term
rocker boxes
“Rocker boxes” are engine covers that protect the parts that open and close the valves. If they don’t sit straight or seal well, you can get leaks or other headaches when working on the engine.
Term
six speed transmissions
A “six-speed transmission” is the car’s gearbox with six different gear ratios. Here they’re saying the six-speed setup on these cars is tough and reliable.
Term
bulletproof
“Bulletproof” is slang for “very hard to break.” They’re using it to say that part is reliable.
Term
Baker six
“Baker six” sounds like a specific engine package/build someone sells. In this conversation they’re saying it costs a lot compared to buying parts used online.
Term
110 CBO
“110 CBO” sounds like a particular engine version or kit. They’re saying you can buy a complete, strong setup for much less money than the expensive option they mentioned.
Term
eBay
eBay is a website where people sell used items, including car and engine parts. They’re using it as an example of how you can find cheaper parts.
Term
gray cases
“Gray cases” means the engine housing is gray. They’re using it like a visual clue for what kind of engine parts you’re getting.
Term
five speeds
“Five speeds” means the bike’s gearbox has five different gear ratios. More gears usually help you find the right one for the speed and riding conditions.
LIVE
Yo, what's up, everyone?
Welcome back to the Fast Life Podcast.
On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Luca from Gastown Garage out of La Mesa, California,
down there in the San Diego area.
He's a custom motorcycle mechanic, machinist, fucking, a little bit of everything, building
cool bikes, doing shoppers, FXRs, all that good jazz.
And today we're finding out a little bit about his background, and we got my good buddy Gabe
from Law Tiger San Diego in the studio with us, who is also the man behind MBD cycles,
no big deal cycles.
They're a lifestyle brand out of the San Diego area as well, putting out some good vibes,
and that's what this podcast is about, some good fucking vibes.
Before we jump into it, please guys check out our sponsors, Arlen S Motorcycles.
If you need to get your bike dialed in, they got it out.
They got everything you need right there.
And if you used offer code FASTLIVE10, check out, you're going to save 10% off on all that
good stuff.
Check them out.
Also if you are looking for a new used bike, look no further than Cowboy Harley-Davidson
in South Austin, Texas.
I bought many bikes for them.
I recommend them.
My next bike will come from them as well.
Check them out.
Links down in the description below.
If you or somebody you know has been in a motorcycle accident, all you got to do is check out Law
Tigers, 1-800-LAWTIGERS.
Remember that code, code, number.
Put in your phone, call them.
If your friend gets knocked out on the road, you know, something happens, just, you know,
call Law Tigers.
They're going to let you know what's your options and get you on the right path.
If any of you guys are going to be at Born Free out there in California coming up, please
come out and check us out at the Kabuto booth, which will be in the food court area of Born
Free.
We're going to have the chopper over there.
We're going to be hanging out all day.
Come try on these helmets, man.
They are awesome.
I love them.
I love them.
When I'm riding my bagger, my FXRs, that's my heads in one of those because I'm riding
those bikes like asshole and I need to be as safe as possible.
So come check them out.
Come say hi.
Come see me.
Hopefully we'll see you there.
All right.
Let's get into this episode.
Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?
Fast life, podcast.
Trying it again, boys.
All right.
Roundus.
So you flew in for some smoking deals on some choppers, essentially.
Now you out here hauling hogs back to California.
I feel like it's Japan coming here just still on our chops right now.
And when he told me you found like this deal and the prices you got them for and I was
like, fuck dude, because all of us are have our mark just about everybody up here that's
into this shit has our marketplace fucking dialed in.
Yeah.
And I'm getting most FXR.
I'm getting notified.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, or Shovelhead or something.
It wasn't on the market.
This is a specialty.
Yeah.
Special deal.
I'm wondering if now like the move is to be because you had talked about offer up before
and I haven't been on offer up in years.
I thought that she was dead.
I'm fresh stinks, dude.
I haven't found anything good.
Actually, I want to pick up a couple parts, but it wasn't just it sends a ton of notifications
every now and then I'll just go and like, yeah, get rid of them because I get like a
little anxiety when I see all the red, you know, notification shit.
And I saw something, you know, had a few shovel couple shovel heads and like a super
E that I was interested in.
I hit the guy up, but it was a whatever deal, but offer up stinks.
I wonder if like Craigslist is still like got some like Jim's and I was about to say
it's right every once in a while.
Pop on and then you type in Harley either you find a good deal or it's just dudes looking
for glory holes.
I wonder the other.
You got to check.
This can actually send it up in the Harley under the Harley list.
Looking for hogs.
I get to hold on.
Wrong.
All caps.
Wrong.
What was.
So you said this this happened on a Facebook group or a group?
No, I'm just part of these like, I don't know, I'm on Facebook.
I'm part of these groups just because I like laughing at shit.
And it's just people posting dumb shit.
And I just like it brings me joy.
And some guy disassembled the Nevo.
And he was like, Oh, these rock custom chrome rocker boxes.
They look stupid.
This won't work.
That won't work.
And I just commented.
I was like, the rocker boxes are fine.
Put it back together.
And then he messaged me.
He's like, Oh, I looked on your profile.
I see all these shovel heads.
This and that.
I got all these bikes from a from a lady and I don't know what to do with them.
What do you think they're worth?
Well, you know, I see a slap side shovel with a magneto on it.
I see another slap side shovel.
I'm like, well, fuck, what do you want for him?
He's like, well, I don't know how much did you pay for him?
It's like, that depends how much would you sell him to me for?
He's like a little dance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not a guy, man.
Yeah.
He throws out a number.
I was like, Don, but the only issue is I'm in freaking across the world in Serbia.
Fuck it.
Let me send you money right now.
I was like, no, it's all right.
No, it's all right.
I trust you.
I won't post it.
No, he's like, they're yours if you want him.
And I was like, OK, cool.
It's going to be a week.
Yeah, that's fine.
I had a few people interested here and there, but it said they're, you know,
it's too far for them.
I'm like, all right, I'm going to send you a Zell, consider it sold.
This and that.
He's like, no, Zell, I'll just wait for you.
So for a week straight, nothing I can do the most anxiety I've ever had.
I go to sleep thinking, OK, so good.
He's going to pull up tomorrow.
Yeah, going to pick up every single one.
Oh my God.
But it ended up going through and freaking stoked.
Nice.
What do you think?
I guess for everybody listening there, tell everybody who you are and your
shop and everything.
Ah, my name is Luke.
I own Gastown Garage, a little shop in La Mesa, California.
I specialize in motor rebuilds.
Where do I look?
Look at me.
OK.
Every day.
That's right.
OK.
Yeah, I specialize in motor rebuilds.
Yeah.
Pretty much everything from M8 back to, you know, Panhead.
Yeah.
I worked at dealerships.
I did all that, that jazz, got away from the corporate shit, started up a shop.
And yeah, definitely more older stuff than newer stuff now, but I just finished up
a, you know, 124 M8.
A lot of fun, but I don't mess with fuel injection because I can't.
I don't have a dyno.
So yeah, it's a little easier for the older ship.
How'd you how'd you get into this thing?
Like, I mean, did you grow up in Serbia?
As a child?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, you're not that old now, huh?
No, 26.
Yeah.
So how did what was the process of you getting over here and starting to
wrench on these hogs?
Oh, fucking hog cranking.
Yeah.
The little hog cranking journey.
I was going to school when COVID hit and I got a fast foot check, you know,
to buy books and shit.
Fuck that.
And so I bought my first bike.
Swear to God.
I started watching unknown.
This is the true story.
Unknown industries randomly on YouTube one day.
I was like, OK, these guys are sick as fuck.
I want a motorcycle and went online, found a Yamaha V star, picked that up with
my book money and tore that thing apart, absolutely ruined it.
And then realized within like a month, I was like, OK, fuck this.
I want to Harley.
Yeah.
And so I sold that, found a dude that was willing to buy this destroyed V star
and picked up my first bike after that.
Got a 2001 sports trip piece of shit.
Didn't run.
So I had to figure out how to make it run.
Got that running.
Got a second sports trip 2006 rubber mounted.
I was like, OK, wait, I hate this one.
It's too fucking smooth and it fires up every time.
This is horrible.
And so I traded those two for my first job as a hundred and twenty inch
rigid, ultimate motor.
It was gangster as fuck.
Super stoked traded both those bikes for it.
Cain brought it back home.
Candy paint.
Like hell yeah, dude.
All it needed was a battery, put a battery in there, hit that starter button
and the wiring harness caught on fire right up late.
And I was like, all right, fuck you.
That's sick time to learn how to wire a bike up.
And it's just slippery slopes.
And so I didn't have any money to learn how to pay somebody to fix it.
And so I had to just fix it myself.
And so all this since 2001 or 2021
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
So what?
So where were you?
Were you already living here in America?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I moved back when I was a kid.
OK, sick.
So what?
Which would path you take?
I mean, you were talking about being in Phoenix.
Did you go do it in mind?
What shit? Yeah.
Well, I was at San Diego Harley and they told me to become a tech.
You have to do MMI this and that.
Yada, yada, we won't hire you if you don't.
And I made the mistake of fucking having my.
And so I did that whole thing.
Had a blast.
I don't regret it.
I had an amazing time, but mostly, you know, from the places I worked.
Yeah, it wasn't the schooling.
The schooling was great and all.
But but nothing beats, you know, behind the wheel.
You know what I mean?
Working at shops, understanding how shit actually functions,
not on a book or on paper or having something set up in front of you
with the tools given to you and knowing that everything you need is right there.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's almost like, I mean, I'm sure you were working at Ramjet for a while.
It was like a, you know, extended education, you know, working in there.
A couple of heads that are running around.
And yeah, that's what I feel like.
I feel like, you know, in my journey on this chopper shit, it's it's like all
these things are kind of like known in that those older generations.
And when you hang out with them, you know, fortunately, I have my brown
cycles down there that dude's been doing this shit since the early 70s.
So it's like easy just to go ask him, hey, man, what is this?
And how do I do it?
He goes, well, you do this, do that.
But you got to remember to do this.
They don't say that in the book.
You know, it's like, yeah, I'm like sick.
All right.
Now, you know, it's like, like what I was getting is you just get like that extra
education that you can't get, you know, sitting across a table in a classroom.
Half the shit's not in the book.
I'll still remember to this day, Tony, I just finished my first full build 84 FXR.
This was like my beater bike.
I bought it as a POS.
I would build the motor, put it in the bike, break it in, sell the motor, put
another motor back in.
It's like my fifth motor swap.
And I was like, all right, dude, this thing's a pile.
And so I stripped it down, put it back together, finished it by the time I moved
to Phoenix.
And I had a rocker box league and I was talking to Tony and I was like, oh, I
can't get this bolt out.
And he like nonchalantly was like, oh, yeah, we used to drill a hole right
through the frame so we can get to this Allen bolt.
That's fucking genius, dude.
What the hell?
Like that's the simplest thing because I just couldn't get to it.
There was no tool, no flush ball Allen.
No nothing.
He's like, yeah, we just drill a hole and boom, now you're good.
I was like, OK.
Yeah.
And then all the FXR nerves like go crazy about that shit because it is.
But yeah, you technically you're supposed to fucking drop the front motor
mount and let the motor kind of sink down.
Yeah.
Fuck that.
Yeah, it is annoying.
Grab a pair of dykes, dude.
Yeah, scratch it all.
Two more.
Tork, we're good.
Yeah, I know.
I know about those things.
Yeah, that's crazy.
So you went to work at it, Tony, how long were you there?
Like messing around with that shit?
I think I was there for like eight months.
Eight months.
And then, yes, schooling.
This was all throughout COVID.
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, the school hours changed.
It was like starting, let's say it like moved four hours ahead or four hours back.
And so now they're like normal school hours.
And now I'm only there for 34 hours a day.
And I was the only other service rider and, you know, I he needed an
actual full time service rider.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, he I left Tony shop and then I started working at Trask,
which is rad because they started fucking like 330 in the morning.
And so that was a lot more feasible for me.
Taking the afternoon classes, working there in the morning.
And what was it like working at Trask?
What would they have you doing?
Oh, sick.
Everything.
I was cutting pipes in the morning, going over to shipping, working a
little bit in the CNC shop, nothing fucking put some hair in your chest.
Working in a CNC shop with that coolant, coolant smoke in the air and 120
degree Phoenix weather doors closed because if you open them, somehow it's worse.
Yeah.
You leave your bottle, you leave your helmet on the table.
By the end of the day, there's like sticky goop all over.
It's like, that's right.
Yeah.
Cause I mean, you, would you pick up the machining aspect?
Cause I mean, all the motor stuff requires, you know, things like that.
And like I said, you got all the, I've seen your shop.
You got the tools to do all that stuff.
That's all Tatra Tatra machine.
Um, yeah.
He's like my mentor from the very beginning.
He does all the old shit.
And yeah, I basically lived in a shop for as long as I can.
I go there to buy an oil filter.
I'm there for four hours listening to him bitch about some issue on some part
that some company made and why they're stupid and a piece of shit.
And yeah, barefoot in the shop.
Barefoot.
Yeah.
That's just bad attitude.
Yeah.
Tatra's a man.
Yeah.
So you got your, you got your sensei as well.
You know what I mean?
So yeah.
So what you get out, you get done with school and then you got that
opportunity to go work a bit house of Harley.
Is that how that happened?
Yeah.
I was originally going to go back to San Diego and then my buddy Drew,
that was working at Trask.
Um, he just ended up going back to Milwaukee.
He loved Milwaukee.
He was like, dude, come back with me.
And sure enough, I did.
I was very thankful for those guys up there.
Know what they're fucking doing.
Yeah.
It's cool working in a shop that's not regulated by California.
Yeah.
Cause I'm like, wait, what do you mean?
You guys are doing one 31 swaps three times a month.
Dude, what's the, Cam jobs?
What?
No, EPA, they got a dino room over here.
Do they got all this dope shit?
Yeah.
And it was sick.
Plus, you know, you got SNS, you got, um, fuel mode, all these companies are
right there and they all work together.
Revolution.
Yeah.
So all these companies work together.
That was the coolest thing to see.
You know, SNS would, when the sports team came out, the RH, uh, they would come
over to test out one of the, you know, the new exhaust pipe they just did.
And so they would ask us like, Oh, can we borrow a sports team?
Sure.
Sure.
They would walk in and they would put the exhaust on a fresh one right off the,
right off the line.
And it was like seeing something before it ever hit the market.
It was kind of sick.
Yeah.
There's something special about being up there.
Like that, that town is just a, I always tell everybody, like mama tried
event is like a great opportunity to go see how much that fucking town bleeds.
Harley Davidson.
You know what I'm saying?
Like when you're there, you just feel like you're tapping into that, like ethos or
whatever you would say, you know what I'm saying?
I love it up there.
I don't know if I can live there.
How long did you stay there?
Fuck a year.
Year.
So you get the whole cycle then?
Yeah.
No, it was, it was a, it was supposed to be good.
It was me and my lady.
We found a real nice spot in a place called the white fish bay that they call
white people bay, just a fucking real clean, nice area.
And then all of a sudden my brother was like, dude, he loves guns.
And he's like, fuck California.
I'm coming with you.
And this was like a month before I was supposed to leave.
Yeah.
I was like, okay, rat, like now I can't move there.
So I got to play side unseen in brown deer.
Not the neighborhood you want to be in, dude.
It was the worst decision of my life.
So I was in a bit of a little interesting neighborhood.
I was the point 001 percent.
If you know what I mean?
So it was fun.
No, but Milwaukee was sick.
Dude, all every single weekend doing the bike nights at the Harley museum, even
going to the Harley museum, the mama try just right down the street.
Everything's right down the street.
And so yeah, I was sick.
The graybeards are a little much, but you know, dude, there
are $50,000 sound systems.
It's like, okay, like I guess.
That's that Midwest stuff though, man.
Yeah, yeah.
That's just heavy out here.
Yeah, they go, I'm not about to have my bike for six months during winter.
Like here's 20 K, like do something.
Okay.
Yeah, it was crazy when I went to Austin, Harley, that huge storage
that they have just for like winterizing bikes.
You know, being here in Texas, like we brought all year.
So it's it's a second one too.
Yeah, I heard about that.
So it's like it's just something different, you know, like different parts
of the country, how they, you know, you'd always hear about like Daytona,
like, oh, it's the, you know, all the snowbirds up north want to come down
and finally get to ride their bike.
And I never understood it much, obviously, because I don't live up in the north.
And I didn't know.
So it's like 30 degrees all the time or, you know what I'm saying?
But then when you like the first time when some mama tried, it's like, oh,
all the water is iced over.
Yeah.
I'm like, that, that shit don't happen here.
You know what I'm saying?
So I don't know.
It was, it was not a culture shock, but it was an eye-opening experience
seeing that and seeing how shit happens motorcycle wise.
I mean, hell, where you're at, you know, you guys never turned it off.
You know what I'm saying?
No, no, no, it rains like twice a year.
Maybe you don't ride that day, but then you ride the next day, you know?
Yeah.
So when you came back to, you know, San Diego, like how did like the process
getting going into starting your own jam, you know, like doing all this?
Yeah, I started working at National City Harley and it was rad.
It was, you know, a bunch of good people there.
And then, you know, it was almost seasonal, though.
A whole lot of work.
We, you know, we're pushing out numbers and then, you know, it starts to get slow.
And then it being corporate, there was too many texts, too many people.
They started doing layoffs and it was, OK, who's the newest guy?
Let the newest guy go first.
And I'm like, OK, look at my numbers, performance.
That didn't matter.
I was the, yeah, I was the only guy working on Pan Americas doing motor,
you know, taking the motor down, putting it back together.
So what the hell you mean?
But that's corporate shit.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so I realized at that point, I was like, there's there's just no way I can
get back into a corporate grind because, you know, they don't care about you.
Yeah. And so that's when, you know, I went to Elko and Harley and I was talking
to them and told them exactly what I wanted.
I was like, OK, I want to go to school.
I want to get all my shirts, yada, yada, because that's something I wasn't
getting before, even at, you know, in Milwaukee.
It's right there.
But there was too much work.
I didn't have time.
And they offered me everything I wanted.
But then, you know, they gave me a ring.
You're like, Hey, do you want to take this job?
And just randomly, I was in an AT&T store doing some something with my cell phone.
I got the call and, you know, I was like, no, like, I don't want to do that.
And then I don't know where just off a whim.
And so I built up a little shed in the back of my parents' house, started
doing bikes out of that thing, ran out of room real quick.
And then here comes Gabe, when I'm starting to look for a shop.
And he's like, Oh, I might know somebody.
Like, OK, let's check it out.
And I went from, Hey, I might know somebody to, oh, fuck, I'm taking over the shop
within like three days.
Oh, that's insane, dude.
And so it's just kind of like snowballed real quick into like, Holy shit, like
I have a shop now.
Yeah, just don't into the fire, basically.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it was the best decision I ever made.
I couldn't be happier.
I'm busy.
I work 15 hours a day, but I wouldn't I wouldn't change it for the life of me.
Yeah.
And it was just just down the street from the pad.
So it's fucking right.
We're going out over there and maybe just rack them too much.
Maybe try to help out.
But yeah, it's a good time.
Yeah, there's something about like, like what I like about your shop, it's got that
that kind of Japanese shop kind of vibe where it's a fun.
It's it's not a lot of space, but a lot of shit happens in there.
You know what I mean?
It's like everything when I say it's a decent amount of space, but there's so
much stuff that you have to kind of like be intentional.
And I always forget that like out there where you guys are, it's to pull stuff
outside and put it back in, like pulling bikes in and out.
It's not a big deal as opposed to here.
I really don't like pulling bikes outside, not this place, the safest place in the
world. I literally get so drunk here, I leave the door open and then go home and
nothing happens. But, you know, rain fucking something like that.
You know, that's just all.
Medities.
Yeah.
I blame a Techo for that.
Techo, he's an old head and he worked with his dad.
His dad built Harleys before him.
Yeah.
And he, you know, I'd listen to what he says and I think it's poisoning me.
He told me is like the biggest waste of space in any shop is walking space.
It's like, well, that makes a lot of fucking sense.
So sure. I don't know if you ever saw a Dune the movie.
They got the Sandwalk.
Yeah.
I called the shop walk.
You got to know how to walk around.
Shuffle.
Shuffle.
The shop shuffle.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
It was rad when you moved in and Techo was there to kind of supervise and like help
you kind of lay it out because it's obviously changed quite a bit.
It's been what, about a year and a half.
Yeah.
And a few things that you would use regularly ended up in the bathroom
just because it was not, you know, like there was like some lockers in there.
It's like this wastes of space.
I just remember clearly like this image of Techo walking around like, yeah,
you got to read it.
I get a rad move that over here.
Like it wasn't my shop.
You kind of just like taking note, right?
Like it was, you know, all of a sudden I got the flat stone.
I got my flat stone in front of the toilet.
And so if I ever wanted to use it, I got to sit down on the shed
and I'm trying to surface the part with a door open.
I remember a customer walked in.
He's like, hello, and he just sees me on the shed or just trying to throw a piece
of aluminum.
Yeah, I'm like, what's up, dude?
Beyond a second.
Hold on.
I got a wipe for your stub more strokes.
Yeah.
Bathroom service has the paint booth too.
Oh yeah.
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Bro, I've had some makeshift paint booths in my years, dude.
You know, you know how like a lot of like like these type of warehouse shops that we're in now,
usually they'll have like a 10 by 10 office at like a door and the rest of the shop.
I remember that I turned that 10 by 10 office just back when I was doing mainly sport bikes
and fucking fairings had a whole high of boosts of part in there, painting shit.
And again, it was, you know, early days.
So it's like, we didn't have to please the internet.
I just had to please the guy walking in.
So the trashy, shitty paint job that it was, you know, it may do, you know.
So now that's wild.
Like how is it?
How is it just down there?
Like, I mean, SoCal, especially where you guys just like bikes everywhere.
But how many shop shops are there really?
I mean, like what you do in the vicinity of just like, you know, because I'm thinking
here just maybe for reference to the question, there's like a few handful of dudes that like
I know about their doing stuff in their garage or whatever.
There's maybe five, maybe four legit business, like non Harley Davidson, but real shops,
maybe even three, honestly, now that I think about it.
And this is a fucking huge place.
Like Dallas, but where that you just drove all the way across.
So it's kind of crazy to me like thinking like, man, there's only we have like nine
dealerships in Dallas, but where it's.
Yeah.
But yet there's only three really legitimately aftermarket shops.
And I think that I can really think of there's probably more.
But off the top of my head where I would, you know, trust anything that they did,
probably three.
There's not there's not many.
You know, you got you got my boy Dom at Howling shoppers.
He's out East.
You got Tatra machine.
I do it.
I do it.
Just all these people, they're two either they don't want to, you know, buy the machinery.
All the machinery is 60 years old.
Yeah, it's all old.
You can't buy new shit.
The tooling to buy it, everything.
It's a whole process to get going.
And it's not something that you could just like Google.
You can go on YouTube.
You got to learn from somebody and that nobody wants to do that work.
Plus there's not.
It's there's so much liability that you're going to make more money changing tires.
You will 100 percent.
It's going to take me, let's say, six months to rebuild the motor.
Fuck in 2020 tire changes will make more money than that.
But it's just more about passion, you know, and that's just what I noticed.
Working in the Harley dealers and all that people get burnt out so quick just
because they're not doing what they love.
You do so many tire changes.
You do so many bullshit jobs.
You just you start.
It turns into a nine to five.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I'd say there's there's a handful of shops, mom and pop shops and
shops that have been around and kind of specialize and the name kind of carries
what what they do, you know.
But I'd say people kind of specialize in what, you know, the service thing.
It's like, yeah, that'll keep the doors open.
And I've seen it and I've brought tires to you.
It's like, yeah, maybe I don't need to bring tires here because it's not what he
wants to do.
Do that.
I think Dustin put me on to him.
The guy that like you got a tire by the guy.
Remember we were out there coyote.
No, I didn't.
Um, Taylor Taylor did.
That's right.
Who was that guy?
Dude, uh, I in Northern San Diego.
I can't remember a little tiny shop that that's all he does is tires.
Like eight ball, maybe.
No, Northern or East.
No, cause we were in Lakeside.
So it might be coyote.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That sounds like right off.
Overalls, 12 inch knife on his hip and his tongue hangs out of his mouth.
I think he does do more than just tires, but like that he was doing tires that day,
like big time.
Yeah.
A little house next to the shop.
Yes.
Yeah.
That's coyote.
Yeah.
Coyote sick as fuck.
I got fucking rad.
So you said like specialized.
Now that makes sense that like, I wonder if nowadays, like there's a, is maybe
there's a enough clientele and maybe because in some way or form, we don't look
at just like our, like my customer base is not really based in Dallas for a word.
Right.
So I kind of, I guess I'm more of a specialized shop in that regard as opposed
to like, if you were the tires and old change kind of dude, then you would have,
you know, you would be handling a local market, which is good money, but it is
mundane and it does, you know, sometimes they blow up in your hand.
Yeah.
Well, that's why like there's specialty shops for a reason.
Like if somebody comes to me, they want to do a tire.
I don't stock tires.
Like I'll tell them go to any tire shop.
You're going to pay less for the tire and you're going to pay less for labor
because that's what they do.
My machine fucking sucks.
And it pisses me off when I do a tire.
Like it really pisses me off.
I hate tires.
So it's like, don't come to me if you want to do a tire.
I'll do services shit like that.
You know, I enjoy him.
But for me, it's motors.
If you want to do oil changes or something, if you got a brand new bike
and you got electrical, go to the Harley dealer.
Yeah, they got the, they got the equipment for that.
If you want to do tires, go to Coyote.
Yeah.
He's a sick ass dude.
Go give him business, you know, and it's just having specialty shops is so cool
because, you know, it's just you have all these different places, all these
different people, and you can build relationships with those specific people.
And yeah.
Well, yeah.
And I've noticed that some people out this way, they want to kind of do everything.
They want to be a motor builder and they want to do service work.
Like when you're doing long term projects, you can't really put those short term
projects on hold for long terms, right?
Right.
Someone, if you say, Hey, man, I need a old change in tires.
What are we looking at?
Oh, three months.
Like, yeah, right.
Get fucked, dude.
I'm going to need another old change by the time you know what I'm saying.
Dude, and on the specialty tip, I hadn't like, I'd noticed this and kind of
knew this, I'm also pretty new to the game.
And like, no, we're just a Harley shop.
And I always thought it was like with like, you know, like a little bit of
arrogance, but not until it's hanging out with you and you move into the shop.
It's like, well, I don't know the other stuff.
And then it kind of totally makes sense.
Or it's like, it is completely different, right?
You need different fucking tools for it.
A lot of different tools.
Yeah.
So yeah.
And fortunately, when people like that come knock in and say, well, send
them over to full throttle because Mike's the man and he knows all his shit.
Yeah.
And that dude is so busy with dirt bikes and ATVs because the desert's right there.
Yeah.
Like come, come like late September into October, he's fucking packed.
And he just stays busy with that type of stuff.
Yeah.
People get butt hurt about that.
I've had, I've had friends that have shops that they'll get like bad.
What are those?
What's the place like?
Uh, Yelp Yelp or some shit because like the dude said, I don't work on,
you know, metric bikes and like those dudes get so butt hurt.
And, and I get them.
They hit, they hit me up too out here because I'm labeled a motorcycle shop.
I'll get a random phone call.
Hey, man, I won this, uh, CBR fucking so and so in a poker match
and it doesn't run.
I want to see if I can come drop it off and get you to get it running again.
I'm like, dude, I don't know what I have.
No, I don't do that.
Or even rare, like old, uh, you know, metric bikes from like the early 90s
that are like just kind of like what he just found, but like bikes, nobody wants.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I do, you're going to have to get like on a Facebook forum and like do
some research to find parts or whatever the fuck's going on with this bike.
You got to find that small community that fucks with that specific bike.
That's not super popular.
They're out there too.
They're, they are out there, but you have to find it.
You can't just take it to a generic shop or I don't know of any shops that are
generically work on metric bikes.
Like you might find a sport bike shop, but they don't really fuck with cruiser
metrics because they're a little different.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So it's like those metric bikes that they'll get the V stars and stuff.
Like I had some homies that used to like chop them up and turn them in a
little bobbers and stuff like that, but they wouldn't fucking doing anything
inside that motor.
No way.
They already ran.
They just like chopped it up, put some Harley parts on it and sent it down the
road.
You know what I mean?
Look cool.
I'm sure that reminds me of some fucking guy.
He called me the other day.
It was like, I got a whole bunch of work done this day.
I was feeling good about myself.
The guy rings my number.
I answer, Hey, do you do tires?
I was like, Yeah, sure.
What's up?
He's like, I got it off the bike.
I'm going to bring it to you.
It's a mag wheel, no tube, no nothing.
Will you do it?
Is it Harley?
Yeah, it's a Harley wheel.
Sure.
Pulls up, pulls out a fucking 300 rear series and full brand new chrome.
And I was like, what the fuck is this?
And he was like, what do you mean?
It's a Harley.
It's like, what fucking Harley has this dude?
Fucking Harley.
Like what do you mean?
Do you do tires?
I was like, yeah, not this.
Do the liability behind this.
I'm not doing it.
And he got pissed off.
Yeah, those tires are hard to put on.
Yeah, dude, I'm not going to do that.
I don't want to do that.
Like I'm not.
Yeah.
And then he comes back with a weighty box or whatever.
He comes back like a week later with some metric wheels.
Like, oh, it's a shaft drive.
This and that.
I was like, dude, once again, like stop, please, please.
Fuck.
So back in the day, we used to have to put big wheel tires on.
We had a tire, the shop out something I used to have.
We'd have a tire machine, but you know, when you're putting a 26 or 30 inch
tire on, it's fucking impossible.
Yeah.
So we used to do the zip tie fucking method where you just zip tied all around
and pop it on and cut the zip ties.
But yeah, that old fat tire stuff, dude, like anything over 240 was pretty much
like just buying new wheel with it already on.
Factor.
I even told the guy I bought some, I bought that one 24 hours starting about
and it came with a whole big dog, big dog frame.
And I was like, I don't want that.
He's like, you're taking it.
All right, fine.
I got a motor.
Yeah.
With a 300 rear wheel and front wheel and all that with a brandy tire.
And I called the dude or the guy came back with the shaft drive wheel.
And I was like, Hey, by the way, there's your fucking tire.
By the wheel, the tire comes with a wheel.
Go take it to the guy.
Yeah.
Yeah, that says gnarly.
I remember when Pan America, those, those spokes, they stick outside the tire
because they're tubeless.
That's how, that's how the BMWs are.
Yeah.
And my buddy at Drew at house of Harley, he bought a panic.
We bought them together and that guy rides like a motherfucker.
I mean, you'll put a thousand miles in two weeks on his bike.
And it was the first time we ever did a tire change on a Pan America wheel.
And the machines weren't spent, you know, they weren't made for these weird ass
wheels that just came out and he gouged the fuck out of his wheel.
Oh man.
It was so just a biggest problem, a thousand bucks per wheel.
Just don't know what you're doing and sure of shit.
It slipped out of the shell.
They started doing those wheels on some of the CBOs too, I think, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
At the same time.
Yeah.
I was like, I wasn't a big fan of the spoke CBO wheels.
They look sick.
I'm not, I don't know.
I don't on the Pan Ams.
They look cool.
Oh, yeah.
I thought on the CBO there, gangster, I ain't doing a tire change.
Yeah.
I think that the, I think the CBO, I had that 22 that I traded that dude's bike.
I think it had those wheels on it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just not the tubeless spokes where they.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like they go to the lip of the wheel.
Yeah.
And I'm pretty sure I'm not, you know, I'm like 90% sure in the service manual.
If you have to true them, says to replace the wheel.
I don't think you can trim.
Yeah.
The spokes aren't, you can't like, you can't adjust them.
You have mags or spokes on your, your, uh, Evo.
I have spokes on the front and a solid rear.
I, I love the way spokes look on bikes, but I will never own a spoke bike.
Why is that?
Just I've seen, I travel and ride bikes too much and I've seen them always.
Fucking run a trip.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, to me, it's like a, there is a nostalgic, really good look
of a spoke wheel on a bike that I appreciate.
Yeah.
But I don't personally, like me, I don't do bikes or customize bikes that aren't
going to be ridden.
And so I just don't find a home here.
You know, like,
Makes sense.
Um, by first bike trip, it was actually that one up there.
Uh, the dude next to me, I'm on the far end.
The dude left to me, uh, that day that's, that's, uh, salt flats.
The day before that we had to buy him a new, we had to find him some new wheel
bearings because they went out on the rear wheel.
Uh, so we found some in Salt Lake, had a buddy shop there.
Let us let us get in there.
The hub was fucked, but you know, we had to knock it.
We had to just kind of hold it in there.
So we got that fixed, got it on the road the next day.
That same day right there, we're in, um, uh, fuck, win a mucka, Nevada, Nevada,
and his front tire has a flat to spoke wheel.
So it has a two.
It's fucking father's day.
So nobody's open.
It's Sunday.
It's nobody's open and Monday.
All the bike shops in those small towns are not open.
So if it was a fucking mag, we could have plugged that motherfucker.
I mean, of course we could have took the tire out, put a patch on it or something
like that, but not realistic.
Then homie from Reno drives 200 miles to pick him up, brings him back to where
we're at party all night, got his bike dialed in two days later, we're, uh,
leaving San Francisco going, we're riding the coast down to LA and then the
rear wheel again, now all the hubs, all the spokes are loose on it.
So I start, I hit up a fucking what's his name at Slabside's, uh, Roger Roger.
And he's like, yeah, I got a, I got a street ball wheel right here.
You can have for a hundred bucks.
I'm like, done, we'll be there in a minute.
This dude's fucking coming.
And it's just like all these problems were just spoke hub will relate to you.
You know what I'm saying?
Like to me, that just kind of ruined that bad taste in my mouth ever since then.
I remember the bullshit doing 5,000 mile intervals and all that.
You have to deal with shit.
Check the spoke tight as I'm just sitting there like a shit on every single fucking
one on my personal bikes.
I don't give a shit.
Like last time I tried to, I put my wheel on the balancer.
I spun, I didn't balance it.
I just spun it, I spin it and it's wobbling.
I'm looking at it.
I was like, dude, I ain't touching that fucking back on the bike.
Dude, come on.
I decided that I'm mine.
That just happened when we put the new tire on my wheels.
We go, go, we put it on the stand and just spins it and it does like this thing.
Or I just look at him and it's like, that's Harley spec dog.
I was like, run that.
That's spec right there.
Dude, put it back on.
Yep.
Oh man.
Yeah, I just, I don't know.
I think the mag wheels, I mean, they cost more, obviously, but like, like this is
my, this is my next set of wheels for my next bike.
Hey, that's six.
Plant five.
I don't know, just the custom wheels from a old J.
Affiliated before you.
So it's gonna be a 21.
That's why you went out of business.
Couldn't couldn't get it right, man, but I saw a raffle like what, like two weeks
ago or something, someone did a mag, a 21 mag.
Oh yeah, that's that.
Uh, that's a new metal.
He, he forges those 21 inch nine spokes.
Oh yeah.
Fucking sick, dude.
They're like 5000 on wheels though.
It's like for the next raffle.
That's, that's the best way to get it.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, man, if you could get like a, like a 18 21 setup of those old
nine spokes, but like, cause I think the 18 inch wheel, they may, the second
old sporser wheel or something like that.
It's like so fucking narrow that it doesn't look right in a lot of bikes.
I could say narrow wheels.
Yeah.
I mean, it looks good on narrow wheels, art sick, but like it has to still like be
proportionate to the bike.
You can't like a board tracker.
Yeah.
Right.
That going on the road.
So I guess maybe the last time I saw 18 inch one on a bike was on an FXR and it
was just too fucking thin for the front.
Just the, the fender and all that, right?
Maybe on a job is perfect.
I run an 18 with a 130 tire on my O seven bagger.
Cause I love that fucking skinny wheel.
Like it's fucking sick.
The, uh, yeah, like a eight, like 18 rear 21 front of that sick.
But yeah, they don't, I don't know.
Like a lot of people make a knockoff nine spokes or whatever.
You seen a beef spot, you know, beef spot?
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I met him once.
He's got those rotors, the nine spoke rotors, those things.
And he only asked like, I don't know, they're fucking reasonably priced.
Yeah.
And they're sick.
My buddy put them on his FXR.
They look fucking good.
I think I've seen those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The good thing about the chopper stuff is how much cheaper everything is.
Hold on a second.
It is.
Like that.
It is way like you ever spent three grand on a piece of shit
transmission that hasn't shit.
Yeah, it's not enough.
Dude, I flew in and the first thing I do, the plane lands today.
You sit behind me, just like, I see the phone coming right here.
It's like, sit and hit the dial.
Let's do the market place.
Yeah.
On the, uh, locate me on the Facebook marketplace.
I see a llama tail light.
It's just a tail light with a fucking llama on it.
I'm like, that's sick as fuck.
Why?
I don't know.
But, uh, hit him up.
Like how much do you want for that?
Hundred bucks.
Okay.
Okay, dude.
That's a cool llama, but I know how to fucking llama.
You used to chopper shit.
It's fucking stupid.
It's crustiest fuck and old and doesn't work.
Vintage double the price.
Finding like an old, like something vintage that has like the right patina.
And if you're trying to match a lot of other things with a certain type of
patina, then you have to pay what you have to pay for your pain.
Extra for crust.
I mean, you can wait.
I mean, you could buy a new one and kind of wait.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm trying to mud.
Let your dog dig it.
And dig a whole barrier.
Like that transmission you found that we had to put on my fault.
Yeah, dude.
This, this dude sends me this listing, uh, for transmission with a kicker,
Evo five feet with a four speed cover.
Yeah.
And it's like, oh, this is cool.
And I don't know if he had changed the price yet, but I'm like, okay,
this is cool.
Kind of forget about it.
It's like, dude's coming down to drop it off.
Yeah.
I was asking, uh, 1250.
And it was, yeah, like he said, it was a five speed mounting with, uh,
with the ear, with a starter and all that, but it had a four speed gearbox in it.
Yeah.
Full four speed or like a four speed, um, kind of like trap door extension
with a four speed cover, full kicker is the whole shebang.
It was sick as fuck.
And, uh, I hit him up.
I was like, Hey, dude, this thing looks like a pile of shit.
Cause it was all crusty.
It looks like it's been in the bottom of a swamp.
And yeah.
And he's like, Oh, I don't know shit about it.
Some guy gave it to me.
Yada, yada.
That was the end.
Um, I'm flugging.
I don't know anything about hardly to it.
Yeah.
I Googled it.
He sent you a 3000.
I was like, dude, this is a CCI.
These things were 1200 bucks.
And it probably, when it was new, probably, I don't know.
And he was like, you know, like it ain't worth that.
He's like, well, give me a price.
300 bucks.
And he was like, yeah, okay, that's fine.
And he sends me his address.
He's three hours away.
Fuck.
Three hours.
You know, I'm getting home at 1130.
I'm not taking a day off.
And then a few days goes by and he's like, Hey, dude, I
really need the money.
It's like, okay, like how bad.
He was like, I'll take it to you.
I was like, okay, how much do you want for gas?
He's like, call it 40 bucks.
Dude, I don't know what the fuck he's driving.
Bicycle powered.
Yeah.
And I was like, okay, it was 400 bucks.
Yeah.
And he said, yeah, 40 bucks.
I was like, 440.
I was like, yeah, dude, done.
And then all of a sudden he was like, well, I just broke both my
wrists though, so I can't drive.
I was like, dude, what the fuck are you offered to bring it to me
with two broken wrists?
He's like, hold on, I might have my buddy bring it down to you.
And I was like, cool, let me know.
Here's my address.
I'm here all the time.
And sure as shit, guy comes down, pulls it out of his, you know,
shitty ass plug and truck bed, drops it on the table.
Guy reeks like shit.
Part looks like shit.
Checks out.
Fucking checks out.
Yeah.
And yeah, hand him the money and fucking there we go.
Put a kicker in his bike, but I wiped it off like just covered in shit.
And then right when we wiped the shit off, just a beautiful polish right
underneath, fucking oily as fuck.
It was brand new.
Yeah.
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Yeah.
But so my buddy, Kyle, he just got an EVO chop and it came with a five speed
kicker on it.
And I just, like I said, most of the five speeds I've ever dealt with were all
FXR transmission.
So I never really knew where I was looking, looking at there.
But pretty sick.
I mean, dude, I went row with him last week or two weekends ago and I'm on my
four speed, he's on his five speed and we get on the highway and he put in
fifth gear and he just fucking left.
I was like, dude, I can't do that.
Right.
Yeah.
Hold up.
Yeah.
The funniest part about his kicker was like, I'm used to, you know, kicking
these fucking pans and shovels and all this, all these fucking clappers.
And I put his bike together and then I go to kick it.
And all of a sudden, you know, I can't even kick it through.
I'm like, whoa, hold on a second.
This thing's actually has compression.
And so I'm fucking trying to kick it, it.
I'm like, holy shit, dude, is this what they're supposed to fucking?
Yeah.
And sure, shit, dude, we, you know, I go through the transmission, everything's
a hundred percent redo the bushings, this and that.
It's just got so much compression, a lot more than the fucking two to one
shovel head.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a bitch to kick over, but Gage got it to a fucking teenager.
Yeah, I got, I've been working on my technique.
That's it.
What's your, what's your, what's your technique right now?
Really?
What's just like kicking it through?
Cause prior to installing that thing, I tried kicking like, I don't know, one
or two bikes and two out of three times a hyper extended my knee.
So I was like, kind of real weary, you know, and so paying attention to how to do
you kind of have to drive your hip down and then like extend your knee, you know?
But a figure cold start is like solid.
It's like three squirts and leave it wide open and then do like three prime
kicks and then click, uh, choke, switch on and it fucking fires right up.
You got to commit.
Yeah.
If you, if you half ass that kick, there's enough compression that either it
backfires or you're just not kicking through.
You can't get through.
Yeah.
I think that's what, so when I first started kicking mine, that was kind of
one of the worry things I had to like, cause you sell these fucking YouTube
videos, flying all over the place, sandals flying.
But, and, and honestly, yeah, like I never thought of, you know, I posted a video
of me like kind of like kicking it over for like the second time that the night
we got it started and I was still scared of it.
So I was like trying to take my leg off of it.
Like it was, but yeah, if you just kick all the way to the bottom, you got to
commit.
And so now I'm, I don't even, it's not, it's not even like a thought in my head
anymore.
It's just like, you kick it all the way down.
Nothing.
All right.
Do it again, do it again.
Um, yeah.
My buddy Kyle's like learning his sequence now.
And I feel like it's just the right of passage on these fucking motorcycles.
You know what I mean?
It's supposed to be hard.
It's supposed to not start.
It's supposed to make you like hate it.
But then when you get it, you're like, Oh my God, I love this fucking thing.
It's a fucking good feeling, dude.
I threatened Gabe.
That was the fucking issue, dude, is that it was a fucking electric start,
five speed kicker.
Yeah.
And he would like kick it twice.
Oh, fuck.
I was like, by the way, I'm going to fuck your starter so hard that you'll never
be able to figure out why it doesn't work.
If you don't actually kick this thing until it fires, cause you have to learn.
You can't just 12 right?
Give up electric start.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, another option, man.
That's, that's what it is.
So did you, did you go down and do the LDL for the last one?
Dude, I wish could have, but I just had with this whole
sort of trip, dude, I was gone for 10 days.
It was like, I had so much work to finish up.
I had all these motors and I was like, okay, I just got to put my head down.
That's badly.
And I made fun of so many people.
We were just talking about this.
All these people, I'm not going.
I was like, Oh, it's the last one you pussy.
Here I am.
Like a nerd, a fucking wrenching middle of the night.
Pissed off, dude.
Seventh fucking monster of the day.
Like, Oh, I couldn't fucking get a shit.
Yeah, it was, was hard for me to twice to two years in a row.
We missed it.
Yeah, we were there yet last year, but made the decision to stay in town.
So what was, how's the vibe, man?
I know we talked on phone a little bit about it, but it was sick, dude.
It was so cool.
And this year they had a party in Ensenada first.
So we left Thursday morning, you know, had a bomb ass breakfast in
Tijuana and just kind of made our way down and it was cool.
Ended up writing with a few friends that I hadn't hadn't written with.
So you know how it is.
It's like that one trip and okay, now we're tight, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
So that experience, like throughout the whole weekend and just like no one's
in a rush, we're chilling, you know, like, okay, we'll have a beer here.
Let's go get some food.
So go back to that one spot.
It was good, that type of stuff.
Yeah.
We were just outside of town and our spot was cool.
Had a little pool in there.
So it's like, we're over the game.
Let's go back to chill at the house.
Yeah.
Come back out later.
And the road from Ensenada to San Felipe is pretty busted.
We did it the first year I went in 23, but the other way around, we started
San Felipe and then went back to San Diego through Ensenada.
And it was bad, dude.
There was parts of like a lot of, I'd say maybe like 75, 80% of the road.
It's got like craters.
So you got to be on your shit and like ready to duck, you know?
And they fixed the worst part they fixed, but it like it's still, again,
you still have the other like 70% of the road, right?
That like, you know, you got to be on your toes.
Yeah.
And then the road from San Felipe to Mexico Cal is just a straight shot.
There's a long interval there.
It's like about a hundred miles.
And so we just had, we knew it was there, brought the bright enough gas.
I didn't run out this time.
And yeah, dude, easy peasy.
Yeah.
We didn't get all fucked up crossing the border this time.
You know, fuck it.
Easy peasy.
I remember my fucking last year with you, that wasn't fucking easy peasy.
So my mom lived in Mexico Cal for years, but years ago, and they changed those fucking
ports of entries quite a bit.
And especially in the last, I don't know, like 56 years, they remodel and
now you have to come in from this side and then do this whole shit, right?
Even though the walls right there.
And last year I had the navigation on and I'm like, okay, it's taking me to the
sentry lane, right?
Sentry lane is like a special pass or whatever.
And like I see it and like, and then these people, just how
me kind of panicking, right?
Slow enough.
Oh, here are you crossing?
And then they put us onto the sidewalk and then up the street.
People three year olds.
Yeah, children.
There's an infant with a fucking little sucker pacifier.
Whistling at us.
Yeah.
It was like a whole thing.
My buddy Patrick caught it on his metaglasses and it was hilarious.
It's good.
We're going the wrong way.
And again, sidewalks and shit.
And then they finally dumped us back into the correct lane.
It's like, okay, now pay us.
It's like $20.
See, just like, no way.
Do you hear some cash?
Thank you very much.
And we just went on our way fucking quarter.
I gave them, I don't know.
I think I gave them some bills, but you know, not enough.
They wanted more, obviously.
And this year was much, much easier.
We kind of anticipated that and just kind of went around and then just fall
off the wall.
The thing that like is like annoying right now is it.
What would you like as someone that's just American, I guess you say,
what do we have to get to cross the border on a motorcycle to go
over there and ride around going into Mexico?
They'll rarely stop you.
Okay.
But rarely means that like you're not doing it right.
That means that like you might not get fucked with, but if you get fucked with
and you got to fucking have this thing that doesn't, that you might not have.
The way it's operated for sure, there is like a temporary visa that you should
should get.
Okay.
If you're going to stay longer than fuck, I think it's like three days or
something, I'll go X amount of miles deep into the country.
Now, in the way the crossing, especially in a vehicle, you know, it gets
backed up, whatever.
And then there's lanes and then you come up to like a, like a random stoplight
basically and if a flash is red, they're going to pull you over.
They're going to ask you some shit.
What do you bring in?
And like it's, you know, if you're chill, then you're chill.
Yeah.
And they're really just looking for like, you know, like commerce stuff.
Okay.
Oh, you got that TV better pay the taxes, right?
That type of shit.
But on a motorcycle, it's so rare that they just kind of wave you in.
Now I hear that I haven't crossed by foot in years.
It's getting a little, a little more, more of a process and they'll want
that visa and those permits and stuff, which all it really means is just have to pay.
It's like a visa or a permit or whatever you're saying, but it's also
like getting Mexican insurance or something like that.
I've never really had it to where they check that dude.
And I'm a Mexican citizen.
So I don't like also I have the dual citizen.
I don't like bring my my excited to go do this with you because I'm like,
I talked to this to you.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then coming back, I mean,
sure, that might give you some grief if you don't have your passport, but
I mean, I have one citizen of this country.
What are you going to like not let you in?
That's always been my attitude.
Right or wrong, dude?
I don't know.
Like I've last year, you went to Rocky Point with Law Tigers and
Dan was with me and I forgot my fucking passport.
And dude, when I took, because I realized it like on the drive down, it's like,
oh, fuck.
And he was kind of pissed and worried, you know, like, dude, it'll be OK.
Trust me, you know, fast forward the whole rally, we're back in and I handed
my license like next time for your passport.
Yeah, you got it, bud.
You got the one right in.
He was kind of like surprised.
I do have a question, Gabe.
When you cross at a motor vehicle entry, can you use your passport card or do
you have to have the book?
I think basically on the way into Mexico again, if they're even asked for it,
maybe maybe they'll send you in to park your bike and go get the permit.
Gotcha.
But it's not like a visa.
Americans don't need like visas per se, right?
It is a temporary permit, temporary visa.
So yeah, contradictory there.
But coming back to you.
Well, I remember last year, like when I got my passport to go to El Diablo, I got
the book and I got the card because I was like, man, I really don't want this fucking
book in my bag in case it gets wet or some shit.
Like so it's like, I just I don't know if you can just use the card at it because
I think you can't you just can't use those like flying overseas, but I think you
can use those for.
Those are specifically for border crossings into like from Mexico and then
into and from Canada.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
I had the card.
It just expired this year, I think in March.
Yeah.
Yeah, we all we were all going to do the El Diablo, like five of us last year.
And so we did.
We finally all got our passports.
All of ours came in except for one dude.
And that's what like ultimately once we hit San Diego, we were hanging out with
Taylor and Dustin and all that.
Josie's or something.
It's like fucking man.
Like we're all all we're all here.
This guy can't get in.
So like, yeah, the one homie, he was like, man, you guys go without me.
We're like, nah, we're not doing that.
Fuck that.
Like, so we, I mean, we just having a good vibe.
And then, you know, Taylor's a dog had just passed away.
The other one.
And we're like, fucking dude, let's just let's just go kick it with a homie.
I hadn't sat around a bonfire with some homies in a minute.
So that was pretty sick.
They gave us like a nice little room, right?
Like a really nice spot.
The cabin over there.
What's what was homegirls name again?
They run Josie's Amber.
Amber, she kicked it was all fucking night.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
She's fun.
Yeah.
Did you go do all that stuff up in Idaho this year?
That sand point shit?
No, dude.
No, I didn't make it out there.
As wild.
But how much like.
Like, what do you feel like a, I'm trying to figure out how to word this question.
Like, like San Diego proper.
Like how do you feel about like the bike scene?
Like how it's coming along right now?
You know what I'm saying?
Like there's like waves of it, right?
There's like, for instance, I'll give you some, some context to my side of this
question here in Dallas.
Uh, we've had these different ways.
We've had a performance scene for X amount of years.
Uh, the chopper scene has kind of had a few ways of like different people, but
it's been pretty consistent.
Um, but it feels like a lot of things are changing right now.
You know what I'm saying?
Like a lot of people are getting different styles of bikes.
Uh, they've already had like two or three performance baggers or low rider soft
tails or something like that.
So they're kind of maybe trying to FXRs, chop shit like that.
You know what I'm saying?
So what do you, do you notice seeing that type of shit in San Diego?
Like people that might have been on a chopper wanting to get on a modern bike
or a modern bike wanting to get older, carbureted stuff.
Shit's getting muddy.
Everyone's mixing up together, but it's like kind of cool because there's,
there's, there's no longer like clicks.
You know what I mean?
You go to a chopper event, FXR pull your FXR guys will pull up and eight will
pull out.
It's all about just fucking hanging out now.
Yeah.
I feel like it's a lot of hipsters on swing arm, sports shoes, but you know,
whatever dude, I mean, we all start somewhere, you know, and you got to get,
it's part of the right of passage, right?
You got to talk a little shit on the sporty, right?
Cause we all had one, you know, five, but, uh, right.
There's, I think, yeah, like, like you said, I think there's a little more
overlap and, um, I think people are looking to be active and just a find
someone to ride with, right?
Cause when you're new, it's kind of, you know, you're looking for that click,
that group and kind of take you out and show you, you know, Julian, my sound
kind of, you know, sketchy because there's a lot of twisties, right?
But if you go with a group and might make it a little easier or, you know,
feel a little more comfortable getting out there.
Um, yeah, dude, it's more overlap and people will end up gravitating towards,
you know, the people they meet or whatever you're on, you know, on YouTube is
kind of feeding your, your, your senses and, and, you know, your taste.
I think it's, it should be ever changing and I don't think it's going to end, right?
Yeah.
I feel like there's this aspect of like, there's a lot of us that are not, when
I say us, like a very small fry of the YouTube world, right?
Compared to, you know, your thrashens and cruises and stuff.
But like, I feel like there's this thing where a lot of us have been kind of,
we've kind of done this for a while or done that for a while or done this and
we're doing these other things.
And then there's a lot of people that want to try those things, but they are
kind of like coming in to it without ever having much of anything else in
before it, right?
So it's more like a chain.
I don't know.
This sounds fucked up.
It sounds like I'm saying it's a bad thing.
It's not, um, I don't know.
I just feel like there's this aspect of, you know, I'm pushed in this direction
because X, Y and Z.
If you're pushing this direction because I am, then that's not really your
authentic reason to be here as opposed to, like you might be saying, oh, well,
if he's doing that now or thrashing is doing it now, it must be the cool thing
to do.
So I need to be cool thing.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to make it sound like it's a,
it's bad to be inspired by somebody, but it's one thing.
If like, okay, I've just, I've been riding this bag around.
I kind of want something new, but I want a different experience.
Do I do an FXR or do I do a low rider ST?
You know, or, you know what I mean?
Like, like, okay, well, low riders T might be like another version of the road
glide, but just smaller.
So it's going to be a different ride, but not as different as a carbureted low
rider or carbureted FXR with some leather pros or some shit.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Dude, in a base, best case scenario, you have people around you that can kind
of help navigate, you know, some of that decision making, you know, for, for,
for you to go, you know, all in or like fucking take a U turn and go back to
whatever else, you know,
but I feel like I agree with what you're saying.
I feel like there's a lot of influence from Instagram right now.
And for example, my little cousin, he's getting into Harleys right now and
doesn't know shit about anything.
He'll come up to me, he got a sports shirt, a little sporty chop.
And he's coming up, Oh, I saw these guys on Instagram and this and what's
a panhead and all this.
And I want to do this to my bike.
And I'm like, where are you learning this shit?
Dude, he's like, Oh, I'm on Instagram.
Stop.
Stop going on Instagram.
Ride your fucking bike.
Enjoy it.
Learn what you want yourself.
Like you said, it's good to be inspired, but at the same time, I feel like you
shouldn't have T bars because this guy, you follow his T bars.
Yeah, you should have them because you want them, you know what I mean?
You got to, you make mistakes.
I remember when I had 17 inch T bars on my fucking 15 street, Bob, my first
dyna looking back now, I'm like, okay, let's just fucking back.
But you got to, you got to try things out.
You got to do it all yourself.
And then, okay, like this is lame.
This isn't me.
But I feel like, you know, I feel what you're saying is a lot of people
getting influenced and they don't know why they're doing, you know, they
don't know why they're riding what they're riding.
I mean, maybe also a little bit devil's advocate or counter argument is that
like, if you think about a lot of the bikes that we're into, when we go
about our bike normally, we don't see other bikes like that.
Like your typical bike night here, bike night at the dealership, you're not
running into a lot of the style of bikes that you build, that you ride, you
know, things like that.
So essentially a big place of seeing these types of bikes is on a place
like Instagram or YouTube.
So then you have like, like, say for instance, a weird one to me, but not
talking shit, but just stating the fact, the new helmets everybody's wearing
with the ear covers, the jockey helmet.
It's like all of a sudden, like that's so big.
There's some dudes that look fucking dope in them.
And then, but I just like, I'm, I'm just, I'm not, I'm not just told them I want to
sit.
I've been wearing the buck club.
What do you call them?
Yeah.
The ski mask and the games like by the, no, who was it?
Adam, my buddy Adam was like, oh, you look gay as fuck.
Okay.
Well, now I can't wear that, but now I'm deaf.
So now I need ear muffs.
Yeah.
No, I feel what you're saying.
I picked up one of those at Chopper Fest.
Like Chris Miller and I are like, oh, there's, there's the guy that makes them.
Do you just like, and he goes to Ventura thing.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what's his name?
Actually, no, it's like the five ball ones.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Fuck.
Yeah.
Snaam will come to me.
But Chris, I swear to God, he went up to the, to the booth, like at least three
times and like, I don't know.
I certainly had a couple of beers throughout the day and, and he comes
back to say, dude, I got it.
Like you should get, there's one left.
I'm like, fuck yeah, take me, dude.
And I want to try to take my money, dude.
It's now or never because I'm going to continue to kind of want one of these
because sure they look cool to some, they look gay to others, you know, and.
Well, it's like, it's weird because I don't think it looks bad.
I just, you just in real time, I'm seeing it.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And I mean, also like I'm guilty of like with the three quarter helmet, like
the slim down one, like I'm guilty, but after it's funny, I went through
this phase where like I didn't wear a helmet at all.
Sick.
Then it's like helmets are fuck off.
And then it's like, okay, well now I want a three quarter helmet, which is
pretty much like not wearing a helmet at all.
You know what I mean?
Just hoping that if I go down, I just do it this way.
Right.
You were the catalyst to me getting the custom destruction one, dude.
When we came out with Taylor, I tried yours on at the garage and it's like,
okay, yeah.
And like I took it off and ordered it.
Yeah, I feel like the customer structure one is, is narrower.
So it doesn't feel like like that's a built one behind you.
And that gives you that mushroom head.
But companies like bill.
Well, even like when Simpson did theirs, like they can't legally, right?
Yeah.
That customer structure is not a novelty.
Yeah.
You get the Japanese model.
That's what I did.
Yeah.
At the bill.
Well show at the bill was showing Carl's.
But yeah, so they had, you know, all these helmets for sale for real
cheap.
And then I found one, it's a Japanese spec or some shit like that.
Oh, and it had no foam whatsoever.
And I asked the guys, what is this?
And do you have more?
And they're like, no, this was a test run.
It's not legal to sell.
And so I got one of those and you got to fuck off for batting.
Yeah.
Because that's what you want to decide.
So it's slimmed down.
So you don't look like a goofball.
Right.
You got to look fucking cool.
You got to look cool.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't think I look very cool in my helmet, but like
I'm also getting to that age where I think I can get away with like
looking kind of corny sometimes, you know what I'm saying?
Like I'm almost like I'm I'm almost mid 40s, dude, close.
So it's like, I feel like I'm going to start being able to get away
with certain things I couldn't get away with in my 30s, definitely not in my 20s
and things like that.
So, but I mean, at the same time, like the pace that you're riding a chopper
at the speeds, like those helmets are perfect as opposed to like, I'm just saying
like they're you on a four speed.
You're not.
I mean, yeah, I'm going slow.
But if I was like, you know, dude, when I when I put on like a full face, I fucking
like get in attack mode and I just I don't ride slow in a full face.
I don't know what it is.
I mean, it's maybe because like when I started riding bikes, I was on sport
bikes and it was full face helmet.
And we just go, you know, you're invincible.
Yeah.
And then when I was riding, you know, big wool baggers and shit, like we didn't
wear helmets at all.
Like it was just fucking backwards hats.
Yeah.
And then you get back on like the Dyna FXR performance baggers, shit.
You're back on full faces and I'm riding like an asshole again, which is fun.
And but now it's like.
I don't know, man, I just fucking do it.
You know what I mean?
And, uh, you know, getting ready to ride out there to see you guys here in
about two weeks.
And it's like, I'm also thinking about the fact that like, I'm going to be
riding all fucking day long.
The sun's going to be fucking melting my face.
And I had a bubble shield, dude.
I'm not that that's gay.
That looks stupid.
So like.
Now I got to get like some kind of thing to go over like most of my face
just during the day so it doesn't get sunburned with some with sun block
and shit on.
And I feel like every, everything that we coined as hell, you have
brother shit 10 years ago is like just the evolution of what we do.
Yeah.
And we get to this point where we just start looking and doing the same shit.
Like here comes Jason, the bandana over.
Right.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
Like I'm not going to do a bandana.
Every time I try to look at it, I feel like that biker dude from SpongeBob
where he's got the fucking studs on his.
Oh, yeah.
The bandana.
Fuck dude.
Yeah, but it's a, you know, I'd like to, you know, the other helmet is that
that Joe King stuff, but it's like 300 bucks.
Fuck.
No, I've accepted the fact that I look stupid as fuck no matter what I wear.
Every picture I see of myself, I'm like, oh, that's a cornball.
I'd make fun of that guy.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, I wouldn't say I want to try somebody's on to see how it
feels and just, you know, whatever.
But, and then it's like, yeah, I mean, if it, if it feels good and it looks good,
then it's worth my money.
But, you know, yeah, that just, I just noticed that the Jocular thing was like
getting super, super popular.
And I figured I'd bring it up because I feel like, you know, it's, it's weird to
say like, I don't want to, I'm not trying to talk shit about it because I, you know,
we're all influenced in one way or another to like try shit and stuff.
But it is kind of weird, man.
It's like before you, you would like start doing something you'd have Instagram or
anything to like, you know, referencing.
Yeah.
Or validated or something.
Yeah.
It's like, cause now it's like, you have to say, no, I saw this on Instagram.
Yeah.
Shit was cool.
So we had it and I fucking pull these on and like, I almost look as cool as that
dude, at least I feel like that.
Right.
I just never see a picture of yourself.
It's never.
Yeah.
I think the Jockey helmet, it's got to be a vibe though.
You got to, you only certain bikes.
Could you pull that off?
Yeah.
If I saw somebody with a jockey helmet on a bagger, I'd be like,
but that's the thing is that they're wearing them with baggers and everything.
Yeah.
They look sick.
You never do.
Yeah.
Anytime you do it.
You never pull it off.
Yeah.
If you're on an FXR or Dinah, okay, I can fuck with it.
Like that you make it work.
But if you're, yeah, no, I couldn't imagine like a brand new road glide.
Lame.
With the stock pipe.
Yeah, that'd be a little clash.
I mean, dad music playing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Come on.
Right.
Bruce Springsteen, baby.
Fuck yeah.
Cool.
We're gonna help you.
You can listen to your Kenny G.
That's, that's a Milwaukee shit.
That's what I would see the gray beers or the DOT helmet.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
With the mushroom head with the music blasting and the fucking handkerchief.
I'm like, okay, this is doing it.
They don't give a fuck.
Dude, I love that.
Yeah, that's a, I mean, I guess that's what I'm getting.
And it's like, you know, basically what I'm getting is I'm seeing things change.
And I feel like I've had this like, Nat living in here for like a fucking
year.
Um, I feel like you're seeing things change in real time.
And, uh, you know, when, when, you know, Instagram really kicked off,
like one of the big predominant scenes in motor, custom motorcycle culture was
Big Wolf Aggers, but it kind of grew on the Facebook side of things.
And then it transferred over into the, into the Instagram world because that
was kind of the next.
Momentum almost.
But for the rest of the country, not so much Cali, but for the rest of the
country, the performance side of things really were birth on Instagram.
You know what I'm saying?
Like performance bagger stuff, all that.
You saw its entire life cycle, which is still going on, on Instagram.
And so now you're seeing these like things change and trends kind of like,
kind of maybe almost like go quicker than before.
That makes sense, dude.
Cause I mean, you got to think these platforms are pushed like it's engagement.
It's your fucking attention.
So it's like soon as something, and I don't know how to look something the other
way around, right?
It's just fucking numbers on a screen or whatever, but something starts to
tick up like this, dude, they're going to throttle that shit.
So people are on it, right?
And it ends up in more screens and you end up finding it, right?
And it's served to you right here, fucking 24 seven, like how it's going to
influence to some extent, right?
And then, and then you share it.
And then like now it's the contagion is outside of the screen.
Yeah.
I feel like that's how those, those Japanese helmets got popular.
Which one's chopper helmets that come real close to the face.
Like little chin strap.
Yeah.
And then you see some big old American dude with one.
You're like, wait a minute.
I think you're right, Jase and Gabe, you got a point with social media.
The bell curve is a lot, is a lot steeper, right?
It starts, the trend starts, and then it hits really hard because exactly
people see it and then they see more engagement.
So they flood people with it.
And then the lifespan of it is a lot shorter though.
Because it's just, you go through those waves a lot faster.
Yeah.
You're saying the jet, you know, it's crazy.
Kabuto, you know, the helmet, the full face helmets that we wear now.
They're, they're old school stuff is called OGK.
So they're old school Japanese company.
They just came to America within the last two years.
And they're the way their company used to be called was just OGK, which is kind of sick.
But they had these old fucking like almost like, I don't even, I want to compare
until like the old bells had like the vents in the, in there, but a real,
like you were saying, like real small.
Yeah.
And I was telling them, I was like, you know, I'm riding this chopper.
I'm not really wearing the Kabuto full face.
I'm riding the chopper.
But if you could find me one of these old school.
OGK.
OGKs, I would be so fucking sick.
OG, OGK.
Yeah.
They're, you know, you're right, man, like that, that style, it looks really good.
There's a, I don't know.
I mean, some of the Japanese stuff feels like, you know, because a lot of them love
that super high Frisco mid, you know, which Corey here, you know, really got famous.
Making those things for a lot of the country, but like it's a look, man.
It's, it's not really like practical.
You know, I don't mean to hemorrhage his like cells, but like for someone like me,
the one surround by cross country, it's not really practical for me to meds, you
know, as opposed to his mids that he makes and stuff like that.
But, you know, when you see those dudes, like under the Japanese dudes on a fucking
high ass bike helmet, like you're talking about tucked in great photography,
videos happening, the angle, dude, it looks like wide angle of the dangle.
Cause I did my mids like that.
I didn't, I love always loved high mids because of fucking Instagram.
130 pound Asians riding these fucking sick ass bikes.
I made high mids and I got real tight bars and I'm riding with my buddy Adam.
And he goes out to me.
He's like, you look like a fucking dipshit.
They didn't feel position riding around.
I felt cool.
And I saw a picture of myself and I go, fuck, I gotta change this.
And then in that position, you hit that threshold.
I don't know, call it like 70, 75 miles an hour.
Now you're like the wind is just, it's worse, dude.
And I went with just mids on the soft tail that we made, the loud house made for me.
And I remember riding to Temecula for a bit.
Well thing and I'm like, dude, I cannot be late, right?
I left with enough time, but I'm kind of hauling ass, right?
On the, on the soft tail, I must have been going on like 85 or something.
And I just like my hips were so sore the next day from just holding myself up
like against the wind with the front end and shit is it's it's I mean,
for for cruising is chill, you know, but like again, that threshold
and it's not enjoyable anymore.
So that you brought up a good point.
Feeling cool versus actually looking cool.
Yeah.
Because it's a blurry, it's a blurry line.
It really is.
And I never know.
I wonder.
You know, this is getting more like.
Yeah.
Send it, dude.
Is is the feeling cool?
Like if you if you just own it and follow that, does it end up looking cool?
Because you believe it.
Or awesome.
Because because I want it.
Yeah, because even after you saw yourself like, fuck it, I don't care.
This feels fucking cool.
Yeah.
Then with that confidence layer over the outside, it kind of like,
you know, it's a different lens that people see you at, right?
Maybe. I think so.
I mean, like I'm a thicker dude and I'm on a very small bike.
So like, I don't I know I don't look like fucking, you know,
Mack Schaff or fucking my buddy, Justin Haney on his bike.
I know I'm I got a belly.
I know it's there.
It's more like Maddie Matheson on a bike.
But he looks fucking sick on his bike.
You know what I mean?
Like I don't hate it.
I mean.
I wish I manifest the coolness out of it.
He's going to make it.
I'm not.
I'm just saying like, like I it does feel fucking cool.
So that feeling.
Do I get away from that?
Because when I saw like a picture of myself, dude,
when I look at myself in the mirror, I'm like, hell, yeah, sick.
But then Devon will get a good shot at me from the wrong angle.
Like, dude, what the fuck?
Don't post that.
Did you?
So it's like there's always a bad angle.
But I mean, I think as I think we're always going to look at ourselves
looking for that bad angle as opposed to like, yeah, you know, it's like
looking at a picture yourself and then like you stare at it after 10 seconds.
All of a sudden, your eyes start moving apart.
I think that there's an aspect of just like staying true to like,
this feels good and I like this.
And you know what, man?
Hopefully, hopefully people are attracted to the fact that I like this
and maybe they'll like it too.
I think that's it right there.
Do I mean, you look cool.
You feel you look good.
You feel good, right?
And those are kind of interchangeable, whatever you put on first.
And obviously easier said than done to kind of believe that and walk that walk,
you know, but it's subjective at the end of the day.
And, you know, I think being surrounded by the right people can amplify that,
right, or fucking like crush it, you know?
Yeah, it depends on if they're more like, I don't want to use the word bully
in this situation because it would fucking fit.
No, you gotta get called out.
Well, that's what I mean.
Adam's come up a handful of times there and I love that.
Like, do what do you think of this?
He checks my ass.
No, that looks so dumb.
You look fucking lame.
But he's not going to stop being your friend.
Yeah, he thinks you look right.
It's like something in your teeth.
You know, you're right.
You got to fix it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's like that.
I feel like you need a sick bike to feel like that because I don't know, like,
I'll write to the shop on my shop.
I feel sick.
I look sick.
Don't.
And then I go to like, I'll have the same gear.
I go to test ride a customer's bike and it's a stock 2017 sports chair.
I'm just like, fuck, this ain't right.
This ain't it.
Dude, I got the half shell.
I got the glasses.
I got the whole fit.
And then I'm just putting around on a stock fucking 883.
I'm just like, dude, no, there ain't no way you could pull this off.
You ran out of bike money, but you got all the fucking gear money.
Right, dude.
That's it, dude.
Well, I watched too many, too many of those dressing videos.
What's that guy called?
Storm?
Storm Rider.
Storm Rider, dude.
Yeah.
Don't got the bike, but I got the drill.
It's mostly in our heads, dude.
I think I think that's kind of less than, you know.
Yeah, I do.
That's how I feel.
I mean, like I said, I've seen some pictures of myself, you know, riding it or whatever.
And I'm like, oh, not as cool as I thought it looked, but you know, I'm fucking like
I said, I think you hit the nail on the head.
I'll take it.
No, too.
You feel good.
And I think if you if you feel good, like he said, you know, it's going to be good.
It's like you'll be happy with what you're doing.
And, you know, the my little Ventura style FXR down there, like that was totally I fucking
hated that fairing forever, ever.
I just like this fairing just doesn't fit anything.
And then when they moved it up a little bit, I was like, yo, wait a minute.
Yeah.
Yo, this is dope.
And, you know, I liked it so much that I wanted to have a bike like that.
Guess who hates it?
Adam.
Yeah.
Shout out to Adam and LabHass.
And then 39 mils.
Right.
But when you put it on that purple dyne, that should look fucking.
Oh, yeah, I thought so.
Right.
Yeah, I like that.
I guess you hated it.
Well, you know, fortunately, like, you know, Corey from Main Drive and I, we share a lot
of very common, I guess the only word that's coming to me is ethos in design.
You know, what's the fucking word I'm looking for?
We share a lot of common, like, design values.
Design values.
Yeah.
So like we went, you know, he's a part of almost every bike or every bike I've
built in the last fucking four years.
So there's this aspect where he has a, like a taste that I respect and I have a
taste that kind of is different than probably this, I'm bringing something to
the table and he's giving me values of what culture is kind of like deemed like
these are the recipes that already worked.
But he's like, well, that does work.
It does look good doing that.
I'm, I don't like anything smaller than a 39 millimeter because I never rode
bikes with 35 or 30, whatever the fuck millimeter front is 33 and 41 looks
retarded to me.
I'd rather just, if I'm going over 39, I'm going to 49.
Well, we'll debate when I come.
No, yeah.
Well, you got.
You got, okay.
So I think that this like kind of crosses over.
So I just love the way she looks.
If it looks sick as fuck, I think it's sick as fuck.
Then you got purists.
You got people who think, okay, you got an old bike, you need an old front end.
You can't put a 39 mil with anything that didn't come with a 39 mil originally.
But you know, you got all these cross.
Okay.
Can I put a spring arm on a swinger bike?
Can I put a springer on this bike?
Yeah.
This and that and all these different like aspects of like, because Harley has gone
through so many fucking iterations of bikes, all these different things that you
can mix up together and there's just so many opinions out there.
It's just like whatever at the end of the day, it's like, whatever you like, fuck it.
Ron, it is like that.
It'd be different if you were fucking apes on there.
Fuck it.
Dude, who gives a shit?
We got these dumb ass fucking apes on my bike now.
It's kind of sick.
Not really.
If you're trying to like tell the world you're building a period correct bike,
then that doesn't make sense to do those things.
But I think technically it's like, if you want, like, I.
Like my job is some values of vintage shoppers.
Yeah.
Some values of the performance, FXR, Dino world that I'm used to.
And that's what came together.
You know what I mean?
And that's in my bike is me and my style and the things I like.
And it probably rides good too.
Probably stops good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's like a drum break would be sick on the rear because you get that
breakless look on the rear wheel.
Yeah.
But I'm not running spoke wheels player.
At the same time, you also want to stop.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Old shit is like cool and all this and that.
But if you think about it like logically, like, OK, like I don't want to die.
Well, I don't want to I want to be able to grab that break.
I want to be able to stop.
I want to have control of my bike.
I don't want to have some part fly off my bike because the bolts fucking 49 years
old and just snapped in half because because you put everything on flat heads.
Yes, right.
I do.
How the fuck do you torque that?
You don't have you know, the side of the road you're gonna fucking.
I got a fever.
But yeah.
There's this old head down in San Diego, Larry at cycle cycle salvage.
And he's got I mean, he's been there since the 80s, dude, early 80s or something.
And I remember going and like we're friendly, you know, and I buy him lunch
and Simon get to talking and it's like, yeah, this is what I'm into.
It's like, dude, that is garbage.
Like we ran that.
And that's why they came up with new shit because the new shit was going to solve
all these problems.
Yeah.
So it's just interesting, you know, that we romanticize or chase this thing.
The just because it's it.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. It's that simple.
Yeah.
That's like my buddy Dave and his fucking Magneto put a Magneto on his fucking
Evo. Evo's are known to just run forever.
They're easy to fire.
They're just a better version of every older.
Right.
Now you take this fucking thing that's never been on a Harley except for
sports or as you put it on the bike.
Now it's impossible to start.
It runs like shit.
You got adjusted every fucking month.
But guess what?
It's sick as fuck.
Once you figure it out.
Yeah.
That's for the guys that just like to I have a little bit of a different
perspective because I don't I don't ride old bikes.
I got not that I don't have anything against them.
I can appreciate them.
Mm hmm.
But man, like I'm not the guy that's excited about wrenching on a bike.
Yeah.
I will.
But I I much more enjoy the experience of riding and being able to to experience
with my friends, do photography, do that stuff, the working and and doing, you know,
service on my bike.
I'll do it, but it's definitely not that I don't get the enjoyment like some of
you guys do.
Yeah.
So like older bikes, like, yeah, no, that's not my thing, man.
That's that is all you guys.
So that's something that actually I had to deal with for a while is I have like
I have like 14 bikes now now that I just bought three and I go through phases and
I found myself actually losing this thing that I love so much.
And I I make it a joke.
I say I got fucking attachment issues.
Shakes love to hear that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I built this one 24 07 road glide, carb swapped it fucking sick of shit.
You'd like to pull it wheelie and third gear gangster.
OK, now what?
Now I'm done with it.
What the fuck else am I going to do?
Now I get bored.
I get another bike.
I got a 98 Evo for 900 bucks, dumped five G's into it.
Why I don't fucking like you already had one.
But that's what like and then I get this, you know, gangster ass, oh, three dyna.
I build that thing up sick as fuck performance.
It fucking does rollers, this and that.
OK, now I'm done with it.
What else?
There's nothing wrong with it.
And then I started getting into the older bikes and I guess it's kind of
stupid to say, but like I hate finishing a project.
And with the older bikes, they're just fucking all this.
It's like it's never done because like, OK, what's going to break next?
What can I fix next?
Because at no point ever in an old bike are you done because the bike will never
let you be done just in the nature of it being old antiquated technology
that's designed for failure.
Right.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that like the one thing for me in the years, you know, I don't
build bikes to the level that are to the amount of things that you do, you know,
because that's your job every day is essentially building a motor, building
a bike at some degree.
Dude, I fantasize the entire time I'm doing a bike about where I'm going to go on it.
Yeah.
And so there's this aspect of once a bike is done, then there's this trip that kind
of consumates, is it consumates?
Yeah, consumates the relationship with that bike.
I was thinking about the stuff you did the beer in.
Consummate.
Consummate the bike.
Yeah.
So to me, it's like that's like my thing is where and I get attachment to the
bikes at that point because I now I have this experience and there's also this
like this phase of building this thing to this point.
And then you have this trip that kind of like, again, you know, really marriages
like you're yourself with the bike and then you know, so like for me, I have
to get on a bike trip like preferably three times a year to some degree, you
know, like here in Dallas, like, like Milwaukee's a thousand miles, Phoenix's
a thousand miles, Sturges is a thousand miles, you know what I mean?
So it's like being a thousand miles away is like gives me a good like, uh, all
right, I'm not at home.
Yeah.
But you know, I'm out on this bike, whatever, you know, um, cause once I
finished, like, you know, when, when I finished one, if I don't do that, then I
have this weird kind of a purgatory relationship with that bike, like the
brown one downstairs.
I was about, I was about to say, Jase, like, I think that's why not that you
dislike that bike, but you don't have that same feeling for that.
Did you even take a trip on that bike?
Well, well, also it's leaking primary fluid everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I, me and FXR EVO primaries are not fucking friends straight up.
You're about to trigger him.
I can not trigger me.
I cannot.
I never seem to be able to get things to line up perfectly to not have that
leak on, you know, cause you have that, you know, you have a motor that has an
adjustment and then you have, you know, you're supposed to do the torque
sequence and then you tighten the middle of the motor down and then, you know,
you had this little less dinky ass O ring, literally O ring that goes and
seals the primary to the motor.
And it's like, I can never not fucking get that to not leak.
Well, it's not even just that.
Like if you think about it, I mean, I have to deal with this a lot, especially
with customer bikes, um, cause I'll take in a bike that's 30 years old.
I do everything in a book that you can to stop a bike from leaking.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, these are, this is 30 year old aluminum.
This has been misaligned in the past.
Aluminum is going to warp.
It gets 10,000 heat cycles.
It's not going to be the same as right off the factory.
Sure.
Like these bikes didn't leak in the beginning, but like everything's going to
twist the only way you can get everything a hundred percent is if you fucking buy
everything new, but nobody's going to do that.
So the amount of work it takes to make these things perfect is going to, it's
just not worth it.
But at the end of the day, it's going to leak, but I don't know.
I've gotten to the point where it's like, it is what it is.
You know what I mean?
Unless you're in some fucking mansion with a beautiful ass driveway and
you don't want to drop on it.
Like, okay, then don't buy it fucking hard.
I'm okay with it leaking, but it's like it was a bike that I was, I was building
it for Sturgis last year and then I missed that deadline.
And then because I missed that deadline, I had to jump on the chopper to
finish for Born Free.
And so once I got it together and I rode it around, it had the primary leak.
It was just a drip at first.
Now it's like, all right, I've literally walked in to get a monster.
It's already dripping, you know, so it's like more than most people want.
But so I, it was always going to be a bike that was for sale.
So you can't really sell the bike for what the money we need to introduce
into the bell dressing.
Oh, yeah.
Um, what is that stuff?
Actually, that's a cinch.
This is how I had that stuff in there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For pay for gaskets.
Fuck.
Yeah.
It works great until you have to fucking remove the part and clean it up.
And you pull out the scraper and you sit there for half an hour and
thinking about how you're never going to use it again.
Basically, once, uh, it probably won't happen to have to Sturgis now because I
have Sturgis projects, but after Sturgis, my brown FXR will go back on the lift.
I'm going to do everything proper one more time.
And if I, and if it does leak still, it is getting fucking RTV like a motherfucker.
It's always on the O-Ring.
Always on the O-Ring.
Yeah.
No matter what.
And I usually do it on the O-Ring and I, and I've done it before and, you know,
gotten away with it, but like this time it just, uh, I did actually the first
time I tried it, it didn't seal.
So I put the black, uh, RTV on it and it still leaked.
Savor.
Use a case saver.
These are used for when that lip that the O-Ring sits on, when they crack for
misalignment, it's a foam at gasket and it sits on the entire seal all the way around.
And so you get rid of the O-Ring entirely.
You can even cut that ring off and it's just a foam at gasket.
You put it down just like you're out of primary, but the best way to stop
leaks is foam at it's extra thick.
It squishes down.
It's going to see, it's a lot more expensive.
It's a $30 gasket versus a 60, but it's going to be worth it at the end of the day.
Yeah.
100%
Yeah.
This point it's like $30 or I pay someone to do it.
Yeah.
Cause I don't fuck with anyone.
Honestly, like, I mean, up to meeting Luke, I had had a couple of sports
tours and did some stuff on the soft tail.
And sure, I got my fucking manuals.
I'm on the YouTube, I'm asking people and, you know, I fucked them shit up.
But like I hit this threshold.
It's like, okay, I know my limitations.
I'd rather just fucking pay him to do it.
Dude, when you seal, what did you use when you sealed my primary on the soft tail?
When, when I got those cases from the Amabond on the, on the inner, but it wasn't
even just that.
It was the prep work I did on the inner delkron primary.
I spent fucking four hours surfacing the entire thing.
You put it on a flat stone.
It's got a little wobble surface it.
Does it still have wobble?
Yes.
Then keep going, keep going until it's perfectly flat.
Prepare the transmission surface.
Make sure every single surface is a hundred percent flat, clean.
Seal everything properly.
Use the proper gaskets.
Use the better gaskets.
Don't cheap out.
Yeah.
The torque sequence.
Do all that.
Make sure the threads are good so that when you're torquing a bolt, it's actually
hitting the proper torque.
You're not, you know, if you got dirty threads, like if you don't chase the threads out,
you're going to get a false reading because it's got resistance.
It's got friction.
You think you're hitting that one 20 inch pounds.
In reality, it's only actually pulling 30, you know what I mean?
Cause it's just a dirty, dirty thread.
So it's just, it's prep work, just like painting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Most important is prep, you know?
So you got to spend that time with prep work, check every single surface,
check for flatness, trueness, shit like that.
And, you know, it's going to take five times as long, but it's going to be worth it.
And get it done right.
Yeah.
You do it once and it'll last.
Yeah.
And this one you fucking do.
I just haven't wanted to pull it apart, you know, and try primary.
That shit.
Yeah.
Fuck.
That is the night.
I mean, the chopper leaks the most out of everything, but that's just like,
that's a four speed.
I mean, you ain't seen on that show.
I'll say that right.
Yeah.
If I could keep dreaming.
Yeah.
So it's not, I'm kind of good with that.
You know, I'm fine with it.
But yeah, the, uh, what's so nice about the, I mean, I guess that's what I do
in twin cam swaps on the FXR is because those motors go together like Legos.
You know, it's, it's really hard to get a leak on a twin cam.
You know what I mean?
So, and what's funny was I had a leak on that bike when I first got it together.
The, uh, it was a starter O-ring, which is just not crazy because it's so fucking
high that like for it to leak, it's just seems like so strange because it's,
it's not like it's in the bath.
Right.
I'm saying.
Yeah.
So it's like you're getting a residual that's slinging around.
That's still causing enough to force it out.
So that was kind of wild.
But, uh, solve that, put a new O-ring on it and, uh, got that a pretty dull
damn, but God damn shift shaft seals on twin cams.
Those things fucking, that was bread and butter on the, in the dealership.
Fuckin every single bike.
Oh, shift shaft seal is four hours.
Cough it up.
Yeah.
I mean, they all leak.
It is what it is.
I mean, if it's a, if it's a drip, okay.
If it's like beyond that, like, all right, now let's fucking address it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's kind of why, you know, you know,
trying to, you know, doing this bike out when you spend the money spent on the
bike, you don't want it to have a drip on the driveway, but eventually it might,
you know, right?
Who knows?
Um, but for the most part, like I said, the way twin cams go together, it's,
it's, it, there's no adjustment in the motor of the, there's no adjustment of
the actual marriage of all those three pieces coming together the same way it
made is as opposed to an Evo, like you have something sitting on here, something
to, like there's so much adjustment everywhere.
You know?
So that's one thing I do like about twin cams.
I'm not a fan of the motors, but I do like how they, they made up to the
transmissions because like you said, there's no guesswork.
You bolted in their dowel pins, guide pins, it's fucking inter primary done.
That's what's also good about like doing one in FXRs is because once you lock
those motors in and your transmission to your swing arm is locked in, your
motor is pretty fucking aligned.
Yeah.
So when you put all your, uh, your Heim joints on everything, like you really
don't have to do much.
If any, you know, what's also good is like, if you had, like we have a solid
mount bushings that, that usually put them on a bagger, but we'll put them on
the FXR, uh, you know, touring stuff.
And that makes it, it's like rigid everywhere.
So everything's perfectly straight.
So then you do all your shit to that.
So as long as your frame is straight, like, yeah, you don't really have a motor
alignment issue.
Am I hearing twin cams swap on the, sorry.
That may swap.
Well, I mean, dude, the Evo feels there's something about a way evil sounds
and feels it like I fuck with that heavy.
Like it's, it's very visceral.
Like it sounds good.
It, a twin cam sounds really smooth, but not compared to M8, but like compared
to an Evo and before, but like Evo's, it feels like it used to fuck around
heavy back in the day, but it's got it's life together, but it still has
like a little edge to it.
It's wild side.
Yeah.
It's all I know too.
Dude.
So I don't know what this.
I hate the rocker boxes on the Evo.
So a little three piece.
Oh yeah.
Oh, they always fucking go all crooked and on.
Yeah.
And I fucking can't stand it.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, the Evo is nice, man.
I just, uh, you know, the twin cam, it just, it's just that they're cheap, man.
You can buy an entire drivetrain.
Uh, and you got to think, man, like they, they made them from like the ones I
care about from like 09 all the way to like 15 or 16 and twin six speed
transmissions that are fucking bulletproof.
Um, I mean, you go buy a Baker six, it's fucking 34 grand.
Right.
You can buy it.
You can buy a fucking badass 110 CBO, uh, motor, whole drivetrain off eBay for
like three grand.
It's all like gray cases, 110 motor, all that shit.
I, I, I stand behind stock five speeds, 100% stock five speeds fucking dime a
dozen, put it in your bike.
They last how long they last swap it real easy.
So quick.
Yeah.
I love five speeds.
Do they're fucking, I think those things are solid as shit.
They're little tanks.
What last year when I, when I built the brown bikes, the first time I ever built
the five speed, like took it apart, took every gear off.
I was like determined.
Cause when you see a cassette out of, out of the case, you're like, what the fuck?
You know, like it's gnarly to look at it.
But you know, I watched these videos, I took them apart, changed all the, the
needle bearings and going on stuff, bought the tool to get the fucking little
clips off of it properly.
Um, and it's so fucking like rewarding putting one together gears,
slipping the gears, putting in the main shaft and the, what they call it the
lay shaft or something on the second or counter shaft, you put all that stuff.
It's just, and then the five speed, you really don't need hardly any, uh,
specialty tools to take it apart.
You should have fucking press.
That's it.
Yeah.
And then you put it in the mode or the, you put it in the transmission case, you
shift it and it hits all the gears.
Yeah.
I feel like on the six speed, uh, on the, um, on the six beads, you have to have
this expensive ass tool just to get the race off of the, uh, main shaft that the
transmission, uh, um, the final drive, final drive thing.
Like there's a thing I can't stand though.
That's one thing I can't stand is the race that's built into the final drive
year.
Okay.
Because on a five speed, the races go back, the rubber seal will wear a
groove in, they leak.
Now on a six speed, you got to swap.
You got to pull the fucking cassette because it's built in.
It's all built into one and they use the ball bearings.
Yeah.
And so you got to pull the transmission, pull that gear out to swap that
spacer out that sits on the seal.
Yeah, that's a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't got the tools yet for a six speed.
I don't really want to, I don't know that I want to.
I just feel like the, the, those transmissions are so like six speed twin
cam transmissions are fucking everywhere on marketplace.
500 bucks for fucking six gears.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously you got to have the right motor and Trent primary to made it
up, but it's like same thing when I, when I built the gold shop and, uh, you
know, that motor is a 2015 drive train.
That motor had 30,000 miles on it when I put it in the FXR and we put about 33,34 on it.
But I was like, you know what?
It's a stock motor.
It just has custom covers on it.
So it's like, if it blows in Ohio, you know, Ohio or Oregon, I'm on marketplace.
I'm going to swap this motor out, put that.
I'm going to do it in the parts.
Yeah.
I'm going to put it in.
I'm going to put it on in a parking lot at a dealership or at a fucking auto zone.
You know what I'm saying?
Like that.
I feel like that was one of the most intoxicating things for me with older
bikes, with the iron jugs, like just the fact that you can take the heads off
without tweaking with the cylinders or anything.
It's like, Oh fuck, I got a head gasket leak.
All right, let's just pop the head off.
They're right there.
Just bam, bam, bam.
What's the torque spec fucking tight?
Fucking tighten that bitch on the side of the road.
So leaking, tightening them more.
Yeah.
It's wild.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm looking forward to riding this fucking chopper.
Callie.
What are you guys?
70 is a 77 motor and trans.
So it's like a 74 inch, I think.
Yeah.
It's it was rebuilt.
I've got probably a little over 2000 miles on it since I finished the bike last year.
I feel like it'd be fine.
But the problem is like, I just don't know if like pushing it too far.
Like, I don't know if there's a limit of what it needs per day.
Like, you got to fuck around to find out if I can send it.
Yeah.
Because I mean, like the thing is, I'm so used to when leaving here, it's like,
it's at least a 600 mile day, like to El Paso or to Albuquerque.
If I'm going west.
Yeah.
Because there's nothing worse than like leaving here and stopping 350 miles away.
Right.
Yeah, it almost feels insulting because you're not at anything cool and it's just like, fuck.
I'm still close to home.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess.
But it's like, also there's a, I don't know.
There's just like this, like I don't have the time.
I can't spend that much time getting across the country.
So kind of like I need to at least be able to do like 500 or 600 miles for like the
first two days.
God damn.
So we're going to see.
I couldn't fucking picture that.
You know, pussy 50.
If I'm going to ocean side, I'm stopping for a break.
80 miles.
I got a plan for that.
Yeah, I love, I love traveling though.
Man, you got an oil pressure gauge on it?
Uh, no.
Good.
The main of my system from twin cam and M8s and all that.
Yeah.
Don't don't get one.
It's just out of here.
I haven't had a most all my bikes other than the roguelite I got now.
I haven't had gauges on my bikes in the last three years.
No, speedo, nothing.
No, not even gas gauges.
Like I have nothing oil pressure gauge on anything older than 99.
I'll scare the fuck out of you.
You're looking at us reading zero.
I'll be like, Oh, cool.
Yeah, let's keep going.
Dude, that ride back from EDR last year.
My cam covers kept break.
Cam cover bolts kept breaking.
So I had a mean fucking leak like the whole way back break.
Dude, I don't fucking know.
I guess the crank.
I really don't know.
It's always figured we figured it out.
Uh, I mean, all the bolts were loose and plus you add fucking 10,000, 11,000
run out. Oh, I can't cover this movie.
Yeah.
And it's side loading all the fucking bolts.
Yeah.
So it's it's a bad leak and I was leading and I kept looking at my gauge, looking
at my gauge like, tell myself I got to keep an eye on this to like top it off
or whatever the fuck.
And it was just not not fun.
Yeah.
On an evil, like I wouldn't have any worries in the world.
Like I feel like you.
Yeah, there you go.
But like this is my first shovel hit and I'm getting more familiar with the motor,
if you would say, and I understand it, but at the same time, it's like still,
like, I don't know, like I said, I'm going to push it pretty hard the first
couple of days to get out there and, you know, it's going to be in June.
It's going to be hot.
So I don't know.
You got to get rid of any mechanical sympathy that you have.
You start hearing clicks and clacks and you're, oh, what is it?
Fucking is it running?
Yeah, keep going.
Key fucking going.
And it may require like, you know, some some maintenance along the road.
But I'm kind of already tuned to that where like there's like a certain
checklist that I kind of like mentally will go over, you know, and then also
like because it's rigid and, you know, motors rigid to the to the frame and
everything like that, like you feel something loose, like you feel.
It just you get so it's so funny how your body adapts to like the way that
bike feels.
And then as soon as one thing comes loose that you would think has nothing to do
with like translate, like like transferring that energy into your body.
And it's like it does, you know, you got to trust your gut feeling.
Yeah.
If you hear a noise and oh, is that a new fucking stop?
Check it out.
And what people fail to do is maintenance, not even like maintenance, maintenance,
but just like your bike could be perfect.
Stop before you ride.
Just throw a fucking wrench on everything, especially with a rigid shit's going
to come loose.
Yeah, it's just the way it is.
You know, shit's vibrating.
Everything's rigid mounted.
You got a rigid frame.
Everything's doesn't matter.
I don't care if you lock tight and shit.
Yeah.
Put a fucking sock on everything.
Check the torque.
Yeah.
Double check it after things are going to come loose, even if it's riding perfect.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, it's a I remember I had a so I have ARP on all my shit, you know,
because that was made back in the day.
And on my exhaust head, you know, on the rear cylinder, it's like I have a tight
little like so I can have like a shotgun style exhaust, have a tight little curve
and the only thing that will fit on it is a three eights box end, but it can't
be a ratchet wrench.
It has to be a normal ass wrench.
Otherwise it like hits the pipe.
It doesn't work.
So yeah, I have like a set of tools.
I'm so fucking good at timing these old bikes now.
You know, I'm running a dyna-s ignition on it.
Like I have it dialed like fucking figured all out.
And I'm glad I because originally I was having problems starting it.
And my buddy swapped it to points for me.
And then there was another dude there.
So while he was doing the points, I was talking.
So I didn't see what he was doing.
And I always felt very uncomfortable about that because I didn't know how to adjust
it or what I was looking for.
Still to this day, don't know shit about points.
You know, points.
But I was having such a hard time starting it, man.
And the reason was, is it like, like, you know, hey, man, I'm having a hard time
starting, you got to give three squirts and do this, do that.
And so you do that and you might get success every once while, but then those
successes become your baseline.
Realistically, those three pumps were literally fucking flooding my bike every time.
And then I'm kicking it out, kicking out, kicking it out.
And I'm glad I got a doubt now, you know, like pretty good.
Every once while, it like makes me work for it, but for the most part.
Yeah, what you got to do is you got to start from a baseline of knowing
everything's 100% perfect.
You do your push rods cold, make sure everything, you know, intake seals,
no leaks, this and that, you know, you got compression, you know, you got
good leak down, you know, everything's 100%.
Yeah.
Then you start figuring out what your bike wants.
You fired up with two squirts, blah, blah, blah.
Takes three kicks.
You wait until it's fully cold.
You don't do that again, because now your motor's warm.
Yeah, you got, that's what people fail to realize that, you know, if you
want to do a cold start, you got to wait until it's 100% stone cold.
You can't just like, can't be warm.
And then, oh, I just kick it in the fires up or this or that.
And it takes time.
You got to, you got to be with your bike for a while.
You can't just like, oh, well, this is how I did it one time and it works.
Do that 10 times in a row.
Yeah.
And now you got it.
Now you figured it out.
That's the other thing I wonder, like, you know, knowing a lot of the type of
customers that I've dealt with in the years and knowing a lot of the people
that, you know, in the bikes, like the performance baggers, the, you know,
even some of the FXR shit, the ones that kind of have showed interest to
wanted to have a chopper.
It's like, trust me, look, if guys that have money didn't exist, and I
wouldn't be in business, right?
Someone that wants someone like me to build a bike or someone like you to
build a bike, then we wouldn't be in business.
But there's this thing of like, okay, you can't buy this bike to be able to
be perfect.
Like you, this is a, this type of bike is an experience that you have to kind
of go through the process with.
You have to, if you make it easy to start, it's not cool.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, if you put a starter on it, then like on a chopper, like that's not cool.
Yeah.
Right.
So my mag is a one kick, but yeah, I'm saying.
I like that.
I think that's the caveat to said person wanting to buy one of these bikes or
have one built is to just be like, look, you, you, no matter how much money you
spent, there's still a right of passage.
You're going to have to go down, you know, and you should be proud.
Like you just know that you'll figure it out.
It'll be okay.
But you have to learn how to start these things.
Yeah.
You know, I just finished up a 61 panhead for a customer of mine.
Really dope dude.
First bike in a long time, got a 61 gangster.
Did a top end on a whole bunch of other stuff.
This and that dropped the bike off to him.
And I said, listen, this is how I started it.
It started first kick stone cold right in the morning.
Fuckin 58 degrees.
This is how I did it.
However, like you're going to kick at a different speed than me.
You're going to do this a little bit different.
Like you're going to have to figure it out.
Yeah.
I can't tell you how to start your bike.
I can't tell you how to ride your bike.
Like I did this for you.
It was, he hasn't ridden the bike yet.
And so I dropped it off and I was like, you're going to have to don't call me
the first time you can't start it after three kicks.
That it's not a fucking brand new bike off the show.
You can't press a button and started.
This is going to take time for you to figure out.
And that's just one of those things that like that.
Like you said, you got to be part of the bike.
You got to ride it a thousand miles because you're going to start it in
every single situation.
Hot as fuck, cold as shit.
Yeah.
You know, in rain, you know, the other thing is I feel like once you learn
how to start your bike and really learn how to start it, like, like I, I know
if it's going to be, I'm going to be kicking for a while or if it's going
to pop off in a minute, right?
Yeah.
But I think that once you kind of get used to how it feels like kicking
through, uh, feeling, you know, whether it popped or, you know, whatever.
Um, I think you would have an easier time starting other people's bike.
Cause like whenever I was having a hard time starting mine, you know,
buddy, like my buddy, Justin Haney will come over and he goes, kick it off
in like two or three kicks.
Like how the fuck did you do this?
Like, well, he, he knows where he's feeling.
He's no, he knows when to try.
I went to just kick it through, you know what I'm saying?
And say they would Corey from main drive, they would just like, like,
manhandling my woman.
That's just happened with Gabe and I right before I left.
I think you were kicking your bike.
It was late at night and it wasn't starting and you were twisting the
throttle like, Oh, I got to clear it.
Um, I got to clear it out.
It's flooded this and that.
And I was like, just kick it.
You just kick it.
And he was like, okay.
And he, you know, no throttle, no nothing.
He kicked it right when he kicked it, it fired up.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And once you figured out, like you said, with experience, like you watch
somebody kick in the bike, you can tell like, Oh, that timing's off.
The carbs off.
He flooded it.
He didn't flood it.
Give him more gas.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Once you get through enough situations, like you just fucking out, you know,
unless it's like, shit's really fucked up.
Right.
Well, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about it.
I mean, I just swapped out, uh, some jets and I was having issues.
The jets I have now are the original jets that was in the bike and I kept
flooding the bike trying to kick it out because I was trying to do the three
squirt shit.
And then I went back to the stock setting and then I didn't really have a problem
flooding it out.
I had a problem giving it enough gas to start, but I had the, what I found was a
common problem with the SNS, Super E quarter throttle fucking cough and hiccup.
Yeah.
And so being that, like when I pulled the carburetor off that bike from, um, the
guy that the FXR that we're building, the guy that owned it was an SNS engineer.
His jetting, I went to those jets and it doesn't do any of that shit, but it's,
they're so fucking tall.
It's a, like, I think what, what is it?
The pilot jet is used like what?
27, 28, 29, five.
Well, it depends what you get, but it's like a stock Super E.
29, five with a 70 and a 40 air jet.
Yeah.
So his is, uh, 32.
68, 60.
Oh, damn.
Yeah.
Tall ass pilot jet.
And it fucking is so smooth when I ride it now.
No hiccups, no kit coughs, but you can't be throttle heavy on it when you're
trying to start it because you'll flood it out.
So I was dealing with that for the longest time on my 80 inch.
Okay.
And I couldn't figure it out.
And if I go larger, I'm fouling out the plugs.
If I go smaller, it's a lean sneeze is what it is.
Um, if, and I can't go smaller, even though it starts easier when I go smaller on
the pilot and it took me the longest fucking time.
And what I ended up doing is I went up a size, a jet size, but now my plugs are
black.
Yeah.
I'm like, okay, well, what the fuck?
So I need to pull my plugs and look at them.
No, that's what I did is I went to a Riley's and I was looking around and I
bought a set of fucking lawnmower plugs, hotter plugs that run hotter and then
are going to burn the carbon off because the carbon that black soot is just
carbon that wasn't burned.
So the plugs were too cold.
I was running, uh, the 12 RC, the champion plugs, standard, standard
heat range, 12s on champions.
And, um, because it was running perfect, but it would just foul up and that would
cause it the sneeze.
And now I'm running lawnmower plugs extremely hot, which is really dangerous,
you know, on the freeway, cause they'll get hot as fucking cause detonation.
But I put these lawnmower plugs in and it fucking runs like a dream.
Now low, I mean, I get no misfires.
I'm putting down the beach hot as fuck.
Yeah.
I'm going slow as shit for half an hour.
No hiccups whatsoever.
I'm going up a hill.
No misfires.
I'm on the freeway.
No sneezing.
And it's just messing with shit.
And you go online.
You, if I go on a forum, you go on anything.
It's going to say, Oh, you're fucking, don't do this.
You're going to blow your motor up.
Fucking it's my motor.
I'm going to do what the fuck I want.
And I put some fucking lawnmower plugs in there.
Fucking runs great.
Dude.
And I mean, anything you'll look up, this isn't even on any fucking chart on
what you should run in your Harley.
Yeah.
This is for a lawnmower.
I mean, what do we have?
We have fucking tractor engines.
You know what I mean?
They might as well.
Fuck it.
Lawnmower close enough.
Yeah.
I feel like going online to seek out information like that is pretty, it's
pretty difficult, you know, like, it's fun.
It's like going on WebMD after us.
Yeah.
You know, like, oh, my, my, my memorable date or something.
You're going to die.
Yeah.
Definitely AIDS.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Toast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just feel like, um, and that's why like, I didn't really want to say what
those jets were because I knew I'd get a lot of pushback because I mean,
dude, a motor, it wants what it wants.
No, no two motors are identical.
I just, I mean, when I tried to, I mean, I'm like,
I travel and I get into these different areas.
Like the, the, I fucking do not like, like super ease, right?
I don't like SS carbs, but they look better than McUnies.
I love McUnies and I understand McUnies very well on the, uh, on a chopper,
though, uh, McUnies a slip fit in, right?
And I don't have, um, because it's a, uh, uh, ST, something case, forget STD case.
Um, we were just talking about STD.
You don't have a car support.
I don't have a car support.
So like I have to, and to put a McUnie on there is just kind of complicated,
not having a sandwich.
I got a, I got a 15 inch drill bit.
That's as I can add on.
So the, um, so yeah, like, otherwise I would have went McUnie on it originally,
but like part of me wanted to learn this and it's like, I want to be able to like,
all right, that SNS is doing this or doing that.
So this is what you do.
And so part of me is still kind of learning that thing.
But so far this jetting was what was on it for the longest.
And then I took it out and now I'm trying to go back to it.
So I have an interesting take on SNS.
I've, you know, I've always axed their carbs.
I've always run McUnies on my performance bikes, this and that, but with choppers,
I'm a hundred percent SNS now, 100% because I've tuned so many fucking McUnies
and it takes so many tools and so much time.
If I'm on the side of the road and something happens, if I'm in Mexico and
I run some shit gas and it clogs my carburetor up, I want to be able to take it
apart. I want to be on the side of the road with three tools in my hand.
Take it apart, blindfolded.
Yeah. You ain't doing that with a McUnie.
There's so many parts on it.
There's so many little gas kids.
There's so many tiny little screws like for the needle, right there.
That was like a four and a half mil and you got to hold the slide up, do all this
and that SNS is on chops.
Like I want it to be serviceable.
That's my whole thing with my bikes is I want to be able to do everything
that I can on the side of the road.
And they're just simple.
They're going to get shit gas mileage.
They're not going to run as nice as a McUnie, but they're simple.
It's beauty and simplicity.
So I mean, when we put that kicker transmission on the soft till it had
that McUnie, the 42 and it ran great.
And I had I was getting pretty decent mileage, but we couldn't fucking
kickstart that thing for shit.
So put the supery and now I mean, it starts.
I went to like fucking with my all of two gallon tank.
Like, I think I get like 75 miles, you know, it's not bad.
I mean, you kind of now that I know, like I'll just play with everything.
Right, of course.
You want more power, you're going to lose reliability.
You want a simpler car, but you're going to sacrifice some fuel economy.
That's you want the bad with the good.
Yeah, you want a really good fuel economy.
You're going to run a CV.
You're going to lose power.
That's what I'm saying.
But it's a given take with everything on these bikes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That chase though, dude.
I mean, you want it not to leak, it's going to be stock as well.
Yeah, I wonder if that chase though is kind of like the bigger reason why
like I might have lost kind of interest in certain bikes over the years.
Because once you kind of figure out your sauce with it or what you like,
it's kind of, OK, well now I've I don't there's nothing to chase about this anymore.
Done here.
You know, yeah, that's it's been a question.
Like, you know, I've been trying to be very introspective as to why my
my tastes have changed so kind of not rapidly, but over the course of the last
three or four years, why at one point in my life, I could never imagine not having
a modern bike in my garage.
And now, you know, it's the one that's in the way.
You know what I mean?
I don't mean that really.
So I don't know.
It's it's it's fine, man.
Like I got I got to get the Roguelad dialed in for Sturgis, though.
That's kind of.
Yeah.
You got a fresh year.
You got a fresh year.
Yeah.
Super, super new one.
And to.
What's that?
What's that tuner company?
Impact.
Impact.
You know, have you seen that?
Oh, my God, it's like a car tuner company that went into the Harley game.
And oh, my God, they they got their own little ECM's or it's a download.
It's a flash.
Impact and it's a waste these bikes up like nothing else.
For real?
Yeah.
You put them on your bike and it's going to be completely different.
It's going to beat any cam change you're going to do.
Damn.
Yeah.
It's all because there's so much money and technology in these
automotive industry with the tuners and they were like, fuck it, let's go Harley.
And they're chasing too now.
Yeah.
And they came out of nowhere and now they're just doing insane work.
I mean, they're throwing DinoJet and anybody else, TTS, all that right
under the water.
They're just fucking dominating.
I've never heard of them.
Impact solutions.
Check them out.
Well, I'm already sponsored by.
Other companies.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Impact.
I'm plugged in.
Now, it's interesting.
Like, I mean, I would only imagine as as the newer Harleys of getting are
getting so much more technology, it is more in line with what, you know, because
the Harleys have always been very far behind the automotive industry, you know.
So with them getting all this new technology, it would only make sense
that now it would be, you know, an easy thing for anybody in the automotive
industry, especially computer wise, to just tap right in.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And it's always been the aftermarket that's fueled this brand.
I mean, and the knuckleheads like us that insist on writing.
I mean, so for generations, it's just what the deal is.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm looking forward to it.
I mean, dude, the fucking bike's fast, dude, like out of the box.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I wrote with my buddy Jerry Lembarro his and I think it was like a
21 or something, his low rider.
We went to Arizona Bike Week and back for the day.
And I mean, I hadn't ridden an MA like that and fuck, man.
I was impressed.
Dude, I mean, the inmates were leaps and bounds so much better than
twin cams in so many ways.
Um, but then Jen Tushit is like almost like leaps and bounds over the
original and mate, to be honest with you.
At least that's what it feels.
Yeah.
And I love that it's cross compatible or at least backwards compatible
that people are putting them on the older motors.
It's basically it's the heads.
It's a head better oiling or something.
Well, they got the different ports.
They got the different everything.
They got variable valve timing, which they did in the America.
It's not as it's the very vibe valve time is only on like a very
few amount of models.
Like it's not on the STs.
It's only on the CBO.
I think they're trying to put it on some other models now, but the
gen two motors initially, um, is basically the head ports are different.
Uh, the oiling is a little bit different.
This is the way they all it, you don't have those oil lines going
to cross the motor on the top anymore, which is much nicer.
If you want to just put ARP bolts in it's a fucking nightmare with those things
over, but the throttle body is different.
It's clocked it a little bit different way.
It's supposedly that's a, I mean, I don't know all the, I haven't done the research
to, we did the fueling podcast and you talked a little bit on that.
I've got those oval, oval ported heads too.
I mean, it's, it's fucking nice dude.
I don't get me wrong.
The, I'll never stop griping about this.
This is my only gripe about that bike is there is no resistance in the throttle.
Dude, I remember it was a dyna you had at the shop.
I mean, like, can you test ride this?
And I'm like, okay.
And I got on it and, you know, riding bikes with carbs only.
It's like, it was just weird and I couldn't get over it.
And I didn't know what the fuck I was.
Yeah.
Test riding really, you know, if you come from a lot of cables to like, uh, it was
weird, you know, thought about wire, then I could see that being like, this is weird,
but like, I kind of grew up on thought about wire.
So thought cables were kind of the weird thing for me originally.
But this new throttle by wire system is just no fucking resistance.
It feels like a high revving sport bike.
Um, and so the problem is, is it like when you're riding your bike like this.
So it's like, you're not even trying to do it, but you're just the bounce, the
bounce of the road in your arm going down is just like whiskey.
You know what I'm saying?
And it, and it sounds like really boomer of me to like bitch about that, but it
is kind of an uncomfortability of like riding the bike.
Like, it's really an initial thing.
We might get used to it eventually.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Like when you're riding, when you get into it, I guess if you're racing, you
probably want no resistance or whatever, but like, I like resist.
I like to feel like I'm making it happen.
You know what I mean?
I can never, I can never stand the lag.
I mean, naturally they're all going to have a little bit of lag, but the
lag of the throttle, that wire, it's like, it's noticeable.
It's all, it's always been noticeable to me.
Not while you're riding or cruising around, but just like, you know, you
kind of grab a little throttle in that like millisecond.
I'm just so used to mechanical.
And I'm not saying that, you know, I grab a fistful of a carburetor, you know,
and it just hits hard immediately.
It won't, but at least I know it's doing something right away.
Yeah.
But I feel like it's like the foot clutch, what you're saying with my foot clutch,
like you hit a bump and then you start fucking hiccuping or like a manual on a
car, you start stalling, you kind of gallop a little bit.
Yeah.
There's just like, it's small little quirks like that.
They kind of make it a little bit, that's the, that's my only complain is the
throttle, but everything else on the bike is fucking badass.
I mean, check my email on it, you know, see what's, see what's going on Facebook.
The other than that, man, like, yeah, so I just, I mean, I got a lot of
stuff to do to the bike and get it dialed in, trying to have a pretty decent
ass trip on that bike through Sturgis and probably hit up like, I want to go
through glacier again, all that stuff.
So big loop.
And then find my next week for that for Sturgis.
Fortunately, Sturgis was like a week into August this year instead of like
being right on the first.
So I'm probably going to leave like, I don't know, Wednesday or Thursday before.
And then I'll get there Friday, no matter what.
And then it'll spend like a week.
We'll do Sturgis for three and a half days and then I'll go ride, uh,
glacier and all that stuff and jam back home.
I could probably do it in like, uh, Thursday to like Sunday of the
following week.
So, um, I'm excited about that.
I haven't, that's the one thing about it is that like it, it solves that problem
of I want to go do a big ass trip in a short amount of time and not have to
worry about my bike at all.
Right.
The thing like riding the shovel head to California in a couple of weeks,
like I might not make it.
There might be a point where, you know, what my born free was Phoenix.
You know what I'm saying?
Or fucking lost cruises or some shit, you know?
So it's like one of those things that like that uncertainty is a little bit
exciting.
Yeah.
Um, but it makes it to where like, I feel like I don't need to go as far as
like I would on a road glide to have that feeling of, Oh shit, I'm out there.
You know what I mean?
Like when you're in Maine on a bike, you're like, fuck, I'm
like, if I go, if I start going home now, I'm not going to be there as fast as I
can go for two days.
You know, when you're on a shovel head and you're in fucking San Diego, you're
like, no matter what, I'm not going to be home for three days.
So there's like an aspect of, I don't know.
Just, it's hard.
Like that's, that's what I'm chasing the most is like harder things.
Yeah, dude.
I mean, that's just where you're at, you know?
Yeah.
Every podcast, I feel like I'm just trying to convince people to get choppers now.
Actually, I don't want people to do that.
I don't want to fuck this up, man.
Keep choppers sheep.
Don't buy them.
Yeah.
They're hot.
Scram nerds.
All right.
I'm good guys.
Yo, good.
Yeah.
Spiro woke me up like it was a Red Bull.
I was the sleepiest fuck.
I'm one behind.
Fuck.
We have some more at the house, I think.
Yeah.
All right.
So y'all heading back to San Diego tomorrow.
That's the plan.
One run, one.
Trying to make it a Phoenix tomorrow.
That's it.
I thought you could make it past that.
A thousand miles with.
God damn.
That's a three day trip for me.
Yeah.
Right.
I couldn't hang with us.
You gotta remember, Jase, they're not from Texas.
East of the Rockies, they're used to, he said, riding his shopper 80 miles over
the coast.
That's that's gonna take everything out of it.
I'm packing a bag for that.
Yeah.
Also here, that's man, that's light work.
That's that's that's lunch.
No, I could imagine that.
I go to the shop, like I'll wake up in the morning early and I'm like about a
head 17 miles to the shop and I'm just like, oh, fuck.
I'm going in the truck.
I can't make that.
So me and Jase are a little different, but like it's real common for me, like on
a weekend, the Texas Hills guys will be like, Hey, man, we're going to go do a
ride.
I'm like, all right, cool.
I'm gonna go jump on my bike.
I'm going to ride Texas Hills.
I'm gonna do the ride.
I'm going to ride home and spend like 500, 600 miles of the day and people that
are from California like, what the fuck?
I'm like, yeah, that's just a Sunday dog.
Yeah.
But I'm at the same time.
We, I mean, trust me, you guys can lane split so you can still move along, but
even lane splitting for 60 miles gets tires.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
You know, like draining because like you're, it's not, you're moving, but
you're also like really plugged in.
So it's like, it takes a lot of, it's tiresome, man.
Yeah.
That fuck ass bikes that we ride.
Everything.
Yeah.
That's, that's my one to the T bar.
I see it honestly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a little narrower between those fucking cars.
I got like a half inch of bullshit padding on my seat.
And slipping dude.
My slipper.
The mink, the slippery mink seat.
Now I got the 50 inch A-pangers.
Yeah.
I think you're going conscious.
Yeah.
You're trying to shit.
Yeah.
All right guys.
I appreciate you all doing, y'all coming through and hanging out.
Hell yeah.
Thank you.
You're having us.
Doing a little potty with me.
Yeah.
So.
All right.
Thank you guys for checking that out.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I got some great guests lined up while I'm about to hit this road out to California.
Fingers crossed.
No issues on the shovel head as I pushed this across literally Satan's asshole.
It's going to be a hundred plus degrees in a lot of areas, but I'm going to try to
ride most of the desert at night to save myself that, you know, that shit show.
Let's hope.
If you're going to be at Born Free again, guys, check us out.
We're going to be at the Kabuto booth hanging out.
Come check out the helmets.
Try them on.
You ain't got to buy it.
Just come check it out.
I just want to, I want you to put it on your head and see how it feels.
That way when you are ready, you'll know what size you are and all that good stuff.
Please check out the sponsors.
Links down in the description below.
It helps keep this podcast going.
And that's how we pay the bills up in this bitch.
So hook it up.
Check them out.
If you want to just support us directly, the Patreon is the number one way to do that
and join our somewhat growing community over there.
A lot of good people in that chat.
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And yeah, that's what helps us get the gas we need to get on the road to go do these podcasts.
So thank you.
Hope you enjoyed it.
We got some good ones coming.
Stay tuned and you guys have a good one.
Peace.
About this episode
Luca from Gastown Garage and Gabe from MBD Cycles kick things off, then the conversation swings through shop life, used-bike deals, and the real-world craft behind Harley builds. Helmet talk takes center stage with Kabuto’s F17 tech and event plans for Born Free. From carb tuning and starting techniques to diagnosing leaks, torque, and wheel/tire service, the hosts keep circling back to hands-on experience, safety, and why specialty knowledge beats shortcuts.
Original notes
Luka is the man behind the San Diego-based motorcycle shop Gastown Garage, and Gabe runs the NBD Cycles brand as well as LawTigers San Diego! They stopped by while in North Texas and bought up some insanely cheap Choppers.
Gastown Garage https://www.instagram.com/gastowngarage/
NBD Cycles https://www.instagram.com/nbdcycles/
Join our Patreon community to gain access to our Patreon-only podcast, Garage Talk, our chat room, and ad-free episodes!
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