Sons Of Anarchy

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Did you miss the latest episode of Sons of Anarchy? Season Final 12/1/09 Click on Photo.



Dyna Super Sport Fork Project now Posted for viewing. Click on the Projects Tab.

The Meaning of The Day: Colors/ Colours - Signifies a motorcycle club or organization patch.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Harley-Davidson Museum Photos

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Keeping up with my "TWITTER" updates is easy. Just scroll down, it's at the bottom of the right column.

A few weeks ago I took a ride to the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee Wisconsin. The way the weather has been this summer I thought I would never take this ride. It was a good day to ride. The weather was great. Blue skies all day.

The museum was dark inside and my camera does not take good photos inside a building. I had to doctor them a bit. This is why I took so long to post these pictures.

I’m going to add a new Project to the Project Page soon. With photos. I wanted to Post a lot more projects by now but I can’t seem to find the time. I take the photos so I have to stop working so I can take a photo of each step. The project photos also need to be in sequence and I want to add captions to them. 

This Project is a 2001 Dyna, Super Glide. It had some lower fork damage caused by some Pool Chemicals splashed on them. The paint and clear coat had to be striped off. The owner decided to have the forks polished  instead of a repaint. The finished product was well worth the time spent.

So check in often, click on the Projects tab to see if I Posted this new Project.

                         Here Is The Museum Slideshow, Enjoy

Meaning Of The Day: Ding - A nick or scratch in the paint.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Happy 4th Of July

 

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Happy 4th of July biker buds. Lets have a safe and enjoyable week end. I won’t preach the do’s and don’ts of safe riding. You all know them, Right?

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Carnage On Our local Highways

 

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Keeping up with my "TWITTER" updates is easy. Just scroll down, it's at the bottom of the right column.

Hope you all had a safe Holiday weekend. For some, the Holiday was deadly. Five bikers were killed in three separate accidents in the Chicago area. One accident was caused by a biker heading south, made a U-turn to go back north when three other bikers also heading north smashed into him. The police said that speed was a factor. Speed was a factor! What the hell is trying to say. If the north bound bikers were not going the speed limit the accident would not have happened? The speed limit out there is 65 MPH. If these bikers were traveling 30 MPH, speed would still be a factor. The fact is, the biker making the U-turn caused the accident. I hate it when they bring up the fact that a helmet was worn or not worn. That speeding was or not the cause of the accident. The fact is. If the dip stick that caused the accident was paying attention to his or her driving the biker would still be alive, PERIOD!   

The other two accidents were caused by cagers not paying attention to their surroundings.

When are cagers going to get it. They need to pay more attention to their driving. They need to keep a safe distance from motorcycles that are in front of them, so if the motorcycle needs to stop in a hurry they can stop without plowing into them. CAGERS BACK OFF!

Every time I ride I have cars tailgating me. I have to wave them back with my hand because grabbing the brake lever making the brake light go on does not faze these morons a bit.

Ride safe.

                               Courtesy ABC-7 Chicago.

Meaning Of The Day:   Dip stick - An derogatory name for a person who is acting or has acted like an idiot.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

My First Detailing of the Season

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Keeping up with my "TWITTER" updates is easy. Just scroll down, it's at the bottom of the right column.

This week my first detailing job of the season was a Victory Vision. And then came a long a Honda Gold Wing Trike. The Victory was not easy to detail. I could not use my lift because the bike has no lower frame rails around the engine. The oil pan is exposed and I did not like the idea of putting the whole weight of the bike on the oil pan. So I had to leave it on the floor.

The Honda trike was like detailing a car. It has automobile wheels and tires on the rear. It has a dashboard, adjustable air vent grids and much more up front to clean. It took longer then normal to clean this bike. I will surely charge much more for future trikes.

Ok, now lets keep those dirty bikes coming.

Victory Vision

Honda Gold Wing Trike

Meaning of the Day: Detailing - In-depth cleaning, polishing, waxing and other maintenance to make a motorcycle look great.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

New Riding Season Is Upon US

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Keeping up with my "TWITTER" updates is easy. Just scroll down, it's at the bottom of the right column.

The new riding season is almost here. Weather willing. Were still having snow here in the Midwest. 3” snow fall Sunday in Huntley IL. Because of the weather my detailing hasn’t gotten off until this week. I have a Victory Vision I’m detailing before Saturday.

Lets all have a safe riding season and watch out for those cagers because their not watching out for us.

I’m Posting a few photos of a Sportster I was riding on the Fourth of July weekend 1971. A driver turned right in front of me making a left hand turn.

I lost the photo that showed the top of the tank pushed in about about 2” by my groin area. I still feel pain there every once in a while. After all these years.

Meaning Of The Day: Cage - A car, truck or van. The sworn enemy of motorcyclists, more commonly known as automobiles. The name stems from being all cooped up inside a closed shell, with no contact with the outside air.

Cager - A person driving a car, truck, or van. Cage operator, or driver.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Harley-Davidson Refutes NY Times Article

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Harley-Davidson refutes New York Times article, "Harley, You’re Not Getting Any Younger" (Click on Link in my Twitter) with a two page spread.

Harley-Davidson two page spread.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Motorcycle Lifts and Jacks

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A lot of bikers do maintenance, clean, or store their scoots using a lift or jack of some kind. In this Post we will cover Harley's, Dyna Glide model, using the Craftsman/Sears yellow aluminum jack. To make things easy, when you read "Sears Lift" it will stand for, Craftsman/Sears yellow aluminum jack.

The Dyna is a very hard bike to put on a lift. Because the engines oil pan is lower than the frame, Harley welded a Protector Plate to the bottom right side of the frame to protect the oil pan. You have to use 2x4's or the Harley-Davidson Lift Adapters. Using either method is not the safest way to go.

Protector Plate View

Left Side With 2x4's

See How Narrow The Lift Is

H-D Lift Adapter

As you can see in the above photos. The Lift is not stable. In photo two, the bikes weight twists the lift and makes the bike lean over. The adapters aren't any better.I don't have photos using them because when I found out they sucked, I sold them on eBay.

I like visiting Biker Forums. One of them is, V-Twin Forum : Harley Davidson Motorcycle Forums. http://www.v-twinforum.com. I Posted my experience with this Sears Lift. Here is the Post.

Start:
I know people are using the Sears yellow jack with no problems.
This is my experience with it:

I used the Sears yellow jack for two years using 2x4's for winter storage. I never liked the way the jack wobbled side to side when the bikes wheels were lifted off the ground. So I only lifted it high enough so the first safety notch was set on the lock bar. The bikes wheels just barely touched the ground, this kept the jack from wobbling. Year three I used the H-D adapters and they were no better then the 2x4's. And now that I know the orange and black parts are held together with two sided tape I would never have used them. I taught they were glued or fused together.

I was getting the bike ready for riding after a winters sleep. I was raising the bike so I could release the locking bar. Turning the handle gently like they said in the manual, the release valve got stuck so I turned the handle a little harder and the jack just dropped down and the bike fell to the ground. The straps get loose when the jack is lowered so they did not help. I never lowered the bike without siting on it. All I wanted to do was release the locking bar. You can't do that sitting on the bike. You can use this jack solo but I think this jack should be used with two people.

With all the $$$ I spent replacing all the damaged parts I could have purchased the J&S Motorcycle Lift. Last year I did purchase one and it was the best money I've spent for my Bike.
End

The Sears Lift can be used with Dirt Bikes and ATVs, but not a very good idea to use with a Harley-Davidson. I have a Link to the J&S Motorcycle Lift Web Site on my Links page. This lift is made for Harley's.

Just be care-full with any lift you use. You can be seriously injured and not to forget the cost of replacing the damaged parts when the your scoot falls.

Meaning Of The Day: Dumping the Bike/Dumped the Bike - A zero speed spill. A bike is dumped when the rider applies brakes while in a very slow turn, or is trying to get his bike up onto (or off of) its center-stand, or is walking the bike and it gets away from him, or forgets to put the side-stand down and tries to get off the bike, falling off a jack or lift, or any of dozens of other 'dumb' things that lead to losing control of the bike and its laying over onto the ground.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Twitter Addition To The Harley Blog

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I'm having a little trouble updating here on the Blog at times because I'm busy with my eBay store and getting ready for the detailing season to start. Buy the way I'm going to dump the store because the fees are getting way out of hand. I might do Auctions time to time, but no more store. I'm now working on an E-commerce store that I hope will be up and running in a couple of weeks. When it's ready the Tab will change from eBay-Store to E-store.

So with all that is going on I don't have the time to Post as much as I like. It takes a lot of time to do research on what I want to say the day of the new Post. I also have to hunt down photos I think you buds will like to see. All I can say is, keep checking in. When I grab up something interesting I'm going to Post it.

So that you all don't think I gave up on this Blog, last week I decided to register myself on Twitter. Twitter if you buds never heard of it before, is a real-time short messaging service. You can see it now on the right side of this Post. I will write something that comes to mind at the moment. Maybe two or three times a day. If you like everyone can join Twitter and become followers.

I went over to Woodstock Harley Saturday for their 2009 open house. I got there, took out my camera and the ###### thing would not work. The battery would not hold a charge. The battery is only 7 months old. So no photos to share. I was so ###### off.

The party was not as good as past years. I guess the bad economy was at fault. The last two years the weather was cold and wet. This year the weather was great for riding and hardly anyone rode their scoots. Lets hope this isn't the sign of the times. I said hello to some people and then went back home.

No photo today

Meaning of the day:Indie Shop - Independent, not franchised

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Almost Dumped My Harley Yesterday

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The weather was perfect for a ride yesterday. We almost broke the record temp. for the day, 74°. We had a few days of warm weather before this but the roads still had dry salt dust and sand on them. It rained a few times before yesterday and it looked like the roads were clean. So I took the cover off the bike and decided after the long, long, long winter, it was time to ride.

So I took a ride over to a detailing shop in the area to see how much they are charging for their service. On the way there the roads seemed they were clear of salt, sand and gravel. When I arrived I had to make a left turn off the highway to enter their parking lot. I moved into the left turn lane stopped and waited for oncoming traffic to pass. When it was clear I started to make my turn, I turned on the throttle just a little and my rear wheel slid out from under me. I quickly backed off the throttle and saved the bike from falling on it's side.

All I was thinking, what a way to start the new riding season. I was told by many old timers. Don't ride until there has been at least three good rain days after a long winter. I guess your never too old to learn new tricks.

Now after this scary ordeal I went into the shop and started to ask some questions. I wanted to get an idea what they charged for different levels of service. They are charging almost 20% to 25% more then me across the board. That made me feel good because I think my customers get their moneys worth using Biker Joe's. Now if any new customers think I charge too much I will give them this shops phone number so they can compare pricing.

If you frequent this Blog you have noticed, I Post many fine looking scoots here. I'm signed up at a number of Biker Forums. This Forum, V-TwinForum.com has a member who's name is bosken. He lives in Sweden and has a 2007 Custom Street Bob 103ci. I think it is a really cool looking scoot. Looks like he's done a lot of custom modes on this bike. With his permission I'm pleased to Post a few pics of his ride.

2007 Custom Street Bob, Sweden style.

Meaning Of The Day:W.H.O.R.E - We Haul Our Rides Everywhere. Those people that trailer their bikes to about 2 miles from an event, and then unload them and gently ride them in, only if there isn't going to be any rain, dust or dirt roads. I wish I could afford to be a W.H.O.R.E.....

Now You Know:Biker Joe

First Post Of The New Year

The Official YouTube Channel of the Harley-Davidson Motor Co.

I haven't Posted since New Years because I could not think of anything to say. Last year I bitched about how bad the weather was all winter in my Posts. This year I did not want to repeat myself. I will say one thing, this winter season has really sucked. Could not get in one day of riding.

I haven't detailed any bikes since the early days of November so I've been looking for some work, but no luck. I won't be attending motorcycle shows this Winter/Spring, because I can't afford the price of admission and parking. I will have to wait for the dealers to have their open house parties. These functions are normally free and you see the same people that go to the local shows. Usually the MOCO sends out their tech guys and bring with them a few new model bikes for us to look at and even let us test ride them.

I will be visiting the new Harley museum this spring and will post photos if they let me take take them inside.

I'm having a big problem here buds, no one is leaving comments here on the Blog. I spend time thinking up interesting Posts for all to read. I take a lot of interesting photos and Post them here and still no comments. Maybe there are so many motorcycle Blogs out there no one has time for posting comments on all of them. I just like to know if anyone is visiting this Blog and if you like what you read and think it is worth coming back.

I'm still going to Post interesting subjects and photos on Harley's and other manufactures bikes when appropriate . I hope all of you biker buds will come visit more often and leave a comment or two.

Will post again soon so check in often.

Ken, my son has a friend with a 2005 Heritage Classic. They live in sunny Florida.

Meaning of the Day:Yard Shark - Dogs that come out of nowhere and try to bite your tires. Caution: Can cause motorcycle crashes, handle this type of situation with care.

Now You Know: Biker Joe

Happy New Year

The Official YouTube Channel of the Harley-Davidson Motor Co.

It seems like I said this yesterday. Happy New Year! biker buds. Boy, time goes by fast when your having fun.

Not a bad year, 2008. It could have been better but surely could have been worse. Got my Bike Detailing started. My eBay store was so, so. I still have a lot of Dyna, take off parts for sale. I even offered free shipping to spark up interest. I think the bad economy was the main factor for slow sales.

Keep safe, I will Post again soon.

Ride Hard, Time Is A Passing

Meaning Of The Day: Oil Pressure Warning Light - Too Late Light

Now You Know: Biker Joe