200 horsepower

BOBBER (MORE-OR-LESS)

Springer front-end, but no suicide stuff, and no tractor-seat.

Yesterday (Sunday, January 13, 2008) my sister-in-law made her annual Christmas visit.
That is, my wife’s brother’s first of four wives — Carol was also my wife’s matron-of-honor.
Included are Carol’s only daughter Debbie (who is approaching 39), her husband Kevin (almost 48), and their only daughter Christina, age 13.
Together they all live in Carol’s ancestral homestead west of Rochester she inherited from her parents.
“I don’t know how they can do that,” Linda always says. “I sure couldn’t live with my mother.”
Well, that’s Linda’s mother — “Who me, domineering? Well I never! Don’t you dare ever bring that up again!”
Kevin is heavily into the custom chopper Jones.
He’s now onto custom-bike number two. Number One was a gigantical Big Dog I once photographed.
Number One locked it’s tranny in second-gear, so he demanded his money back (50,000 smackaroos).
Number Two is more “old school;” springer front-end with suicide shifter and clutch, and a sprung tractor-seat (like the old Harleys): i.e. the clutch is by left-side foot-pedal (not hand-lever), and the gearshift is by tank-side lever (not foot-shift). (—Also like the old Harleys. Hand-clutch and foot-shift are current practice.).
Kevin loudly claims the motor gets 200 horsepower.
I always take these claims with a grain of salt.
I can see getting maybe a “hunderd” horsepower out of a big V-twin, but to get 200 horsepower it would have to hold together at 8,000+ rpm.
Too much weight flailing around a fragile knife-and-fork crank.
Although I can see it generating gobs of torque — but torque ain’t horsepower.
Ya also can’t enlarge a 45-degree V-twin too much. With that narrow a cylinder-spread, the cylinders cross up.
A long discussion ensued about what color to paint his “tins;” the tank, fenders, and other sheetmetal parts.
“That front fender weighs 70 pounds!” he bellowed.
(Um, with that much weight out there, and I doubt it weighs 70 pounds, how do you get it to change direction?)
“That front-end’s been extended 12 inches!”
“So how do ya get it to turn a corner — like into Ellis Drive?” I asked.
“Ya stop,” he bellowed.
“143 mph on the Thruway goin’ to Lake George,” he shrieked.
“Well, it better be on the Thruway. Don’t ask it to make a curve,” I said.
“Ape-hangers 18 inches high!”
“What are you, an ape?” reprising a question my wife’s Aunt Ethelyn would have asked. (That question was deftly avoided.)
“So what color, Uncle Bob?”
“Well, if ya can’t change the frame-color, and it’s black, maybe everything should be black.”
“How about white or silver? It’s got red rims.”
“How about red?” I said.
“It would be a fire-truck.” he said. “I don’t want no fire-truck.”
“It also would be cop-bait,” I said.

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

The “Sweet & Sassy” stretch.

“How about pink?” I asked, firing up on my ‘pyooter the pink stretch I photographed.
“Ugh!” Kevin said.
On-and-on the discussion went; hour after hour, even after I walked the dog.
I fired up various chopper web-sites; some blasting rancid rock-n-roll riffs among turgid pictures of grizzled road-warriors and big-boobed Baptist hotties displaying acres of deeply-shadowed cleavage.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” crowed one site (VengeanceMotorcycles.com).
(“What would Jesus ride?” I thought.)
“Can’t you photograph my bike and change the color like they do at ChopperLand on TV?”
“It would probably be a lotta trouble,” I said. “I could probably do it with Photoshop, but I’d have to figure it out.”
“No pinstripes,” he said. We eyed a photo of a purple ElectraGlide bagger with no pinstripes in one of his many chopper magazines.
My Norton had a single gold pinstripe on black that looked pretty good.
Nothing was ever decided.
“I have to see the bike,” I said.

“Linda” is my wife.

“Tranny” equals transmission.

“Hunderd” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “hundred” is spelled.

RE: “knife-and-fork crank......” Harley-Davidson uses the knife-and-fork crank: a crankshaft with a single common crankpin, and one cylinder has a rod that engages that crankpin singly (the knife), and the other cylinder has its rod that spreads into two parts (the fork) that snuggle around the other rod. This is so both cylinders can be inline, instead of offset. The “forked” rod tends to break — and the “knifed” rod has to be small.

My sister-in-law (and the others) live on “Ellis Dr.”

“Ape-hangers” are handlebars that rise high to the hand-grips; so that ya look like an ape. (Often seen on chopper-bikes — they render little turning leverage. Just “the look.”)

“My wife’s Aunt Ethelyn” died a few years ago at age 97. She was very cool.

I’m actually only “Uncle Bob” to my niece, Debbie, my sister-in-law’s daughter.

“Sweet & Sassy” is a nationally franchised hair-salon for young girls. It recently opened a franchise in Rochester.

A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness.

A “bagger” is a motorcycle with rear saddle-bags.

My first motorcycle was a 1975 850 “Norton” Commando.