.....I have always been crazy about motorcycles, even though when I finally got one it took me three days to actually get the stones to ride the thing properly. Thanks to the encouragement of my older brother Jon, I finally got it and haven't stopped since.

.....I've owned about a half dozen bikes give or take a box of parts, and ridden a bunch of others. I often enjoy building, illustrating, designing, talking about, reading about and working on motorcycles as much as riding them. Like anything with risk involved, motorcycling has given me my share of close calls, but nothing as terrible as being bored to death or the miserable realization of having wasted my time being too safe. Motorcycles aren't for everyone, neither is breathing; most of us just do what comes naturally. I find the time I spend working in the garage to be some of the best education and stress relief available, and like to listen to music but also find it a good time to listen to lectures and expand my knowledge. Some of my favorites include:

.....Stephen Hawking, Robert W. Loewen, Richard Feynman, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Jello Biafra and Naom Chomsky.

2000 BMW R1200C Stiletto:
••• The Millennium Vulture •••



This is my current daily ride. Three days after the nasty crash I had in 2000 my wife brought me the catalog for the latest BMW motorcycles "I know you aren't going to quit riding, so pick which one you want." She's a real doll =) I find it amazing that she stuck with me through everything and is still good with me riding. I love my wife.

Some design plans for the Millennium Vulture

1977 BMW R60/7-R100/S
••• The Millennium Pigeon •••



Wow, this was my second bike, what a ride! It started as a 1977 BMW R60/7, bone stock, rusted, spray painted flat black and in need of restoration. I began the restoration but somewhere along the way my friends CrazyRob Luedtke and Eyeball Eric Porras were kind enough to take me under their wing and teach me the ways of motorcycle voodoo.
Since we were using our bikes as primary transportation year round in Colorado as well as our project bikes, there was no hope of keeping them stock or pristine. So we made them into petrol breathing frankenbikes, amazing machines that could outperform most of the new bikes rolling off of the showroom floors. This bike eventually had an 11 gallon fuel capacity, could top out at 160mph and did 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. It was incredible.
I rode this bike through the snow, white-out blizzards and four foot drifts. I went through muddy trails to Sturgis, SD several years, ripped up the canyons, rode through rain, sleet, hail, mud, floods, tornados, you name it. I think I crashed it a dozen times.
The downside to all of this was that however much the Germans overbuilt these machines, whatever I didn't out race I out rode. I was constantly burning out clutches, bearings, cables, final drives, suspension, you name it. The Pigeon finally gave up the ghost after seven years and I traded it in for the R850R Roadster. I really wish I would have kept it, but it likely would have crumbled to dust if I would have ever gotten it back up to 160mph again.

Some design plans for the Millennium Pigeon

1989 Yamaha YSR50:



Below is what this bike looked like when I picked it up (Actually, I could literally curl this bike when I bought it! 150lbs wet!). This has been by far my longest project bike at seven years. The motor is a 50cc two stroke with a five speed gear box and it's supposed to have a top speed of around 50mph.

This was a great project, very easy to throw around the garage and almost no headaches. It was a bit like putting together a toy.



Unfortunately with the injuries from my big crash I can't actually ride the thing. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it and just try and get healthy enough to ride it or try and trade it for a Lambretta.

Some design plans for the YSR50

1996 BMW R850R Roadster:


This was an amazing bike! I added a pair of clubman race bars, heated grips, some of the nice enamel emblems on the tank and that old school Malcolm Smith tool bag on the front fender. After that I got so busy riding it I put all of my plans for custom work on the back burner. I drew up a few sketches but never even got around to drawing it up in Adobe Illustrator, I was just riding it too much!


The bike I had before this one, the Millennium Pigeon, was constantly breaking and giving me reasons to fix and modify and replace stuff. This one just kept of going, it never needed anything but more miles.

It hurt to see my Roadster go when that asshole ran it over with a truck. I'll have that memory burned into my head for the rest of my life. The last thing this bike did was wedge itself under the truck and grind it to a stop, a few feet from where I was lying in the street with one fourth of my body shattered. Call it luck if you want, but the bike took the bullet for me.

1979 Kawasaki KZ400LTD:


My first bike was a 1979 Kawasaki KZ400ltd, one of the oddest looking street bikes Kawasaki ever made. It was when they were first attempting to make cruisers and failing pretty miserably. On the good side, a quick swap of the goofy layback bars for clubmans, hack the seat down to a solo, swap the tank badges for the old school W-1 and a few other details and you've suddenly got the worlds coolest and cheapest starter bike!

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1965 Triumph Daytona 500:


I had to pick this one up, what an insane custom jobbie! I actually wrote an article about the teardown of this machine. You can find the write-up of it here:Area 51's Missing Triumph

Some design plans for the Area 51 Triumph

The bike went to my friend Eric Porras when Lisa and I left Colorado.

1966 Zundapp KS100:


This bike was love at first sight for me, then my wife saw it and felt the same way. Needless to say, she won. It's a special edition commemorating the world record set in 1965 at the Monza race, making this quite the rare machine. It took me over three years just to find a tail light lens.


Did I mention it pulls crazy wheelies?
No design plans at all for this one, it's got 1800 miles on it and is practically museum quality, we plan to keep it that way!

1966 Benelli Fireball/Montgomery Wards 125cc:


This one is actually a frame, motor, tank, front-end, swing-arm, shocks and some other random parts at the moment. The only real parts that happen to be missing are wheels, but there are some decisions to be made and a few part to get. The triple-tree on the frame is a Yamaha RD (no forks), but the bike also came with the original Benelli (triple, forks and all). All major parts have been painted red , yellow and silver, but I'm not thrilled with the colors or the quality.

The engine had one case polished to a mirror finish, the rest was a mess and the case on the opposite side was missing. On the good side, I was able to get the other case and I've polished the entire motor up to look like something from the Franklin Mint.

I'm collecting aftermarket cafe racer parts from the late 60's in attempt to make this a nice period cafe racer.
I haven't started drawing up design plans for this one yet, I've gotten too caught up in finishing the novel and my latest illustration series. As soon as those two things are done I'll be getting to this one though.