25 Apr 2011
I just wanna give a big shout out to my new mgmt team.
24 Apr 2011
Original SD Cycles Hells Kitchen NYC T-Shirts.
Start collecting your original SD Cycles Hells Kitchen NYC T-shirts now. Go to the new English Don Website and order the first 3 designs. Available for the first time in over 15 years these iconic shirts are a MUST HAVE for all serious fans of true chopper history. Each month another great 'OILYRAG' will be added however as another goes up one will come down so snap them up now before you miss them. Collect them all, buy spares, just remember how sad you were when your original one wore so thin it shredded or how pissed off you got when the ol' lady tossed it out or used it to wash the windys. Maybe you put on a few pounds since those wild days of debauchery and hard riding? we carry them in stock up to XXL. You need bigger? Drop us a line on the contact page when you sign up to E.D.'s mailing list, we'll hook you up.
Open House in Hells Kitchen
Open House in Hells' Kitchen.
English Dons' SD.Cycles offers NYC.
bikers a haven in Manhattans' Hells' Kitchen.
Word and pics by Genghis.
Ain't motorcycling fun? Chock full of pleasant surprises? The other day, Patty anI headed over to Mabels' garage so we could ride to SD.Cycles' open house. According to English Don the reason for the special occasion was "To thank all of our friends and customers for supporting us". I can dig that, man. I was only too happy at the prospect of partaking of SDs. food and grog! Merrily went me ol' lady and I to start the Mabes up.
"Whi-i-i-r! Whi-i-i-i-i-i-i-r-r-r-r! Whi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-r-r-r-r-rrrrrr-ah! Click! Click! Click!" Shit! The fucking battery just expired, and my broken leg is still mending from last Mays crash. Oh well! Just another happily predictable day in the life of a happy biker-camper. In words of TE.Johnny Mitchell of the NY. Jets, "It ain't no surprise". The beauty of NYC. is that not havin' a viable set of wheels doesn't ground ya, man. There's allways mass transit.
SUBWAY TO HELLS' KITCHEN.
SD.Cycles at 540.West 38th. Street in NYC. is at the southwesternmost end of Hells' Kitchen. Patty didn't feel like a trek on the A.train so I took the ride to English Dons' manor alone. When I arrived there, I noticed a horse being hosed down next to SD.Cycles' building. The shop is located right next to a stable. SD. also shares space with Cycle Therapy, a japbike outfit, and the combined space is fucking huge, man. Don took me for a tour in the freight elevator of the severl story building and it was impressive. There are four warehouse-sizes floors just dedicated to storage of motorcycles that the shop is working on or selling. This is in addition to the spacious shop and showroom area that SD. and Cycle Therapy share. Quite an enterprise. I saw several examples of the SD. trademark....a rigid looking swingarm featuring a four speed Big Twin frame with a flat fender rigidly attached to the swingarm. This style of bike is becoming more popular on the east coast.
As befits a party in Hells' Kitchen, there was plenty of food for all at the open house. The crowd included riders of custom Harleys and Sportsters from all over the NYC. area and a few black kids on fast japbikes from Harlem. Everyone got along and there were no visible attitudes. Just a lot of tire smoking and wheelie-pulling. I left just as the street was getting really crowded with SD. customers and friends. Snow and visiting Flynch showed up in time to get a few shots of Don doing a burn on a Sportster.
Since there are no Harley dealers on Manhattan Island it's good to know that you can pick up some plugs and oil from an independent shop like Dons'. Before he and Steg (Psycho Cycles) opened their respective shops Manhattan Harley riders had to cross the bridge or ride through a tunnel to attend to their scoots' needs. Provided their bikes started. At least I know that a new battery for Mabel is as close as the nearest subway stop!.
Cookin' in Hells Kitchen
Cookin' in Hell' Kitchen
Iron Horse customizes a Japbike.
The New York Motorcycle show was held in mid-February at the Jacob Javits center on Manhattans' trendy wes side, overlooking the Hudson River and the scenic cliffs of New Jersey. The motorcycling public was invited, as it is each year, to cram its collective self inside the massive convention center complex and, for a nominal fee, bear witness as various manufacturere and aftermarket suppliers unveiled their newest products for'96. At least that's what they tell me. I didn't go. It sounded too much like a very expensive commercial.
English Don of SD.Cycles had a better idea...the anti-bike show show. His shop is located right across 11th. Avenue from the Javits center, and he figured why pay a grand to rent a stinky little booth in the queasy belt buckles-to-asses environment (which wouldn't be such a bad proposition if more chicks were into motorcycles) when he had the use of an entire New York City block to host his own shindig? For free!
So Don invited the Horse to hang out while he snagged the unsuspecting pedestrian traffic as it wended its way to the convention center from nearby parking lots and subway stops. The prospect of Don and his cohorts at SD. waylaying disoriented tourists like a band of latter-day highwaymen was too much to resist. Besides, Don had promised, "I've reserved a sledgehammer for ya".
What a coincidence. Scattered amongst the flood of responses to the IH.Questionnaire that ran in #141. and #142, were a couple of requests for customizes jap bikes! Never let it be said that the Horse doesn't drift whichever way the wind happens to be blowing. We can vacillate with the best of 'em! And what better opportunity to serve that segment of the readership than with our very own japbike project?
I told Don I'd bring my own hammer...namely the 20-pound Canadian Railroad Piledriver sent in by Woo from Toronto. I only wished that our project bike was one of those new super-righteous, six-cylinder Honda Valkyries, or the Yamaha Royal Star on display at the Jatvis show. I think we could do a lot with one of those fine machines. Oh well. we vowed to make do with Andy Riskins' Nighthawk.
Andy works at SD.Cycles and his Shovelhead chopper was featured in IH.#137. Thanks a bunch for your help with the Iron Horse Project Japbike, Andy!
Fritz and I arrived at SD.Cycles just as the Nighthawk was being prepped for its big moment. We ran into Paul Cox, Knucklehead Steve and the beauteous Martha from Psycho Cycles, and consulted with them about how we should proceed with the project. Japbike. It was agreed that as much excess stock stuff should be removed as quickly as possible to ensure that this particular project doesn't drag its ass like every other friggin' IH. bike project. True, in its stock form, this bike easily ranks as one of the most beautiful and stunning motorcycles ever produced. Any way you look at it, the Honda Nighthawk stands with bikes like the'36.EL, the stiff-dick Indian Chiefs, the SS.Brough Superiors and the original Low Rider as a motorcycling masterpiece. From its flippant, flirty, plastic tail section to its sexy, engorged instrument cluster, the Honda screams, 'Ride me, you beast!" By garsh, who were we to deny its siren song of form following function?
As incredibly beautiful as the Honda was, we were hoping to improve upon two-wheeled perfection. As everyone knows, the best tools for this type of custom work are Harley Special Tools #1, #2 and #3. That's an eight-pound, a nine-pound and 20-pound sledgehammer, respectively. With great care and painstaking attention to detail that has to come to typify the Project Japbike, Andy administered the first carressing touches to the 'Hawk with a #1 tool. Inspired by his unfettered enthusiasm and energetic approach to the task at hand, Paul, Steve and your humble reporter pitched in. In no time, West 37th. Street was filled with the sounds of furious, on-the-fly customizations as each master builder threw himself into the project seemingly guided by an almost-supernatural, perhaps, holy sense of proportion an aesthetic that seemed to function as a collective unconscious which lent greater frenzy to the orgiastic artistry of the endeavor no matter who was wielding the tools. It was as if Jackson Pollock had created an abstract interpretation of a Nighthawk. A true work of art was taking shape before our very eyes. Many could not bear to face such intense beauty and had to avert their eyes. Pieces of the Honda were quickly and efficiently removed to reveal the gorgeous form beneath all of that formerly flawlessly functioning hardware. Less-is-more rules! Remember to tag and bag everything you remove from your bike so you don't lose anything!
Finally, after all the tools had shattered and the hammerheads went flying into the crowd, the Project Japbike was finished. Everyone was awestruck. As daunting as our task had seemed, it appeared that we had, indeed, achieved the impossible. The 'Hawk had become art. It had been elevated into the realmof pure concept. We had unleashed the true, raw nature of the Honda which had only been hinted at previously by the factory product. All were speechless. What can one say in the presence of absolute perfection? In a heart-wrenching moment of pathos, a nameless biker stepped out from the crowd and christened the beautiful, gorgeous bike with a golden gesture to which no words could ever render justice'
Twenty minutes to complete an Iron Horse project bike has to be a record! If any readers have suggestions for other possible project bikes, please let us hear them....
Snow.
Beginners Pluck
Beginners' Pluck.
You're looking at a beginners' bike!!!
Yep, hard to believe that this blacked-out, jockey-shiftin', ape-hanging', rigid-framed Shovelhead belongs to a first-time Harley rider but, as they say, them's the facts. Another startling fact is that thiss class chopper is its' owners very first street bike, period. But what could have possibly possessed a first-time street rider to go to such extremes with his inaugural mount? What could have inspired such an uncompromised commitment to custom biking....one that often takes seasoned bikers years to achieve?
T'ain't no mystery, friends. It's the same ol' story we've heard so many times before. A heartwarming tale that involves a young impressionable lad whose empty gourd is polluted with pulp fiction and biker trash which thus determines the course of his later life. However, in this particular instance, the story has taken a kinda cosmopolitan twist. The kid was an Ecuadoran Indian.
Danny 'Indio' Almeida was born in New York City, but shortly thereafter his parents moved back to their native Ecuador, where young Danny spent his formative years. He remembers his first fateful, celluloid encounters with bikers: "From the time when I was eight to ten years old I watched biker movies. They were popular down there, subtitled and everything. The image of bikers enjoying freedom on wild custom motorcycles really appealed to me".
Indio, as his NYC. friends call him (in recognition of his proud 'Inca' heritage) was never the same after witnessing the excesses of the '60s. biker exploitation genre. His Shovelhead chopper is as much a tribute to A.I.P. and Roger Corman as it is to English Don and Manhattans' SD Cycles. The Hells Kitchen custom shop produces what Don has called "industrial strength customs", and Indio was attracted to the uncompromised, no-frills chops that rolled out its doors on West 37th. Street.
Hmmm, Mature, Eh?
Jockey Shift, Ape Hangers, Rigid Frame, Open Belt...
If Only More Bikers Were As Mature As INDIO.
"He came in here to kind check thing out and spotted a photograph on the wall". said Don. "He said he wanted a chopper built just like the one in the picture...and I said he could have it. I sold him the picture off the wall...and the title".
Off the wall, indeed. Indios' friends gave him all kinds of grief for buying a photo, but he knew what he wanted. "I never lost my fascination for these kinds of motorcycles", he said. "I told my Dad when I was ten that I wanted a motorcycle like the ones in the movies. He told me, 'I'd rather give you a gun than a motorcycle'! But I knew that before I died, I'd have a chopper".
Those sordid, anti-social celluloid influences had an even more direct effect on Indio, however. His shocking confession follows: "I shouldn't tell you this, but what the hell. Our 12th. grade class had saved up some money for the senior trip, my plan was to steal the money and buy a bike. I broke into school and found that they had put the money in a different hiding place. I was so mad I started turning things over and throwing boxes around. Then I found the six 'Hasselblad' cameras that belonged to the Biology class. I sold them and bought a stolen yamaha 125. dirt-bike". Indio hastily added that he has grown up and is now "more mature". Hmmm, mature, eh? Jockey shift, ape hangers, rigid frame, open belt...if only more bikers were as mature as Indio.
"I'm 28. years old", he said. "I've been saving up for years and can now buy the bike I always dreamed of...a real chopper". Now if only he can ride it! Indio has not yet ridden his 'dream machine'. I spoke to him the day before he was going to get his registration and license in order. I guess I was a little cruel. "How the hell are you going to ride that in NYC. if you've never owned a street bike before"?
Thanks to English Don, Indios' chopper won't be as good as a gun. He finagled a fuckin' kool little set-up that will enable Indio to get used to his slapstick Shovel without embarrassing stalls, tipovers or head-ons. Look closely at the left-side shot of the mill and you'll see a clutch cable extending back to the clutch arm which is also engaged with the suicide pedal. Don explained the trick modification: "We fabricated a clutch arm that would allow for the use of both a hand lever and clutch cable and a foot pedal and chain depending on what the rider wants. It's a great idea for New York City, man. You know how you get stuck in traffic and your bike heats up and your forearm gets cramped and you can't find neutral? Just stomp on the pedal man and she ain't going nowhere. Kind of like having training wheels for a jockey shift, too".
Taking the suicide out of the suicide shift was only one of many neat mods' performed on Indios' Shovel. The gorgeous, hand-tooled leather dash/seat/p-pad combination was a Paul Cox creation. The three-bullet, sidemount tail-light cleans up the traditional, full hinged fender and that looking-forward 6.1/2" CCI. headlight on its' chrome stalk complements the sky bars. Indio should be able to get away with it in NYC.
It's certainly refreshing to see young riders getting into traditional, outlaw-styled machinery, especially a first timer like Indio.He makes us all look like beginners.
23 Apr 2011
The new English Don Website is open for business
22 Apr 2011
Blue Bike Blues. Snippet from the E.D. autobiography.
fROM THE UPCOMING AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY ENGLISH DON
and the chapter titled, Blue bike blues.
............It's 2 30 am, middle of the week, the streets are cold and silent, London in the 1970s and they roll the sidewalks up by midnight. It had been another great night out up in The West End. I was 18 and burning both ends of the candle with gusto.
The exhaust note of my BSA one lunger cracked and boomed bouncing off the storefront canyon of the Uxbridge Rd as it snaked West through Shepherds Bush, Acton and on home. A damp , misty drizzle swarmed around the street lights. Earlier that week I had finally tracked down and fixed a problem where moisture was running down the ignition wire and getting behind the points cover, by way of a dry cracked rubber boot and gromit. Whenever it rained the bike would stall out and die at the Shepherds Bush roundabout heading into town or at the same spot on the way back. I had gotten real fast at whipping out the points plate, mopping up the wee puddle in the timing cover and drying the points with a cigarette lighter. Out with the plug, rotate the cam and set the gap( Another great learning experience sadly missed by today’s spoilt middle aged entry level 'bikers'). This time my 35 pence investment in a new gromit and cover gasket ensured me of a hot dry spark and I was already miles past the benchmark stall location. A few choruses of "My little Sister's got a motorbike" by Crazy Cavan was in order so I sang along in my head.
Down a gear, a quarter wick of throttle takes me up and over the hump that landmarks Ealing Common Underground station then into fourth gear on the down grade. The slap echo fades, replaced by the deep hollow thump from the megaphone muffler as the buildings peel away to line the North Circular running perpendicular towards Hangar lane. The lights are green, wiping my steamy goggles with the greasy thumb of my gloves was a bad idea so I pull them down around my neck and hunker low into the collar of my Lewis Leather jacket, squinting as pin pricks of rain begin to jab at my cheeks.
The prince of darkness, Mr Lucas, provides me with a meagre yellowy beam barely enough to see through the wet fog expanse of vast Common parkland. Lucky the road is straight as an arrow 'cos their aint no light poles until you get to the other side. Not another soul on the road I was alone.
After a while the orange glimmer of Ealing Broadway appears reflected in the wet sheen on the street. It had been dry and sunny for a week or so and being an arterial commuter route the blacktop is well worn and heavily patched. A good old gutsy downpour usually breaks that grimy surface and washes the dirt down the camber to the gutters and drains but this nights' mist was dank and sinister. The moisture, insufficient to flow merely lifted the oils in a slick film and daily rush hour traffic through town ensured plenty of cage droppings to form 20/50 weight black ice. Back in the shelter of the tightly packed buildings, bright town-centre lighting gives me a false sense of security. A storm of big city riding lessons for an overconfident young rocker was gathering just down the road a piece and I was about to drop my guard.
Down a couple of cogs slowing into a 45 degree left hander, off the gas I was expecting to ease on the brakes and stop at the T junction by the North Star pub but again, the light was green in my favour. HAHA, I gunned 2nd gear through the intersection and wound it on up. Acres of plate glass amplified the bratatat machine gun exhaust ricocheting up from street level to violently invade the bedrooms of the drones slumbering in flats and maisonettes over the store fronts. 'I AM HELLION', bwahahahaha. Up into that satisfying 3rd gear and it's never ending powerband, the onslaught of speed and noise pleasingly wicked and rude. Passing between opposing department stores Bentalls and John Sanders the evil din is lifted a full four stories up and over the rooftops escaping to be heard as far away as South Ealing, surely.
Coming up fast, the road forks. The last long 45 degree curve to the right and the Uxbridge Rd becomes a straight wide boulevard for 3 miles to the Hanwell Clock tower. If I catch all the greens I could be in bed in 20 minutes. The left fork is Ealing high street heading South. In between the fork is Middlesex County’s version of NYCs 'Flatiron Building' and occupying the sharp facing corner was Lilley and Skinners' shoe shop. Approaching the bend I was too quick and I knew it." No problem", I reasoned with myself. I had taken this baby at least oooh, a dozen times, in the dry, in daylight.. "Just get off the gas, lay it hard over, power out of the curve and the bike will stand back up with minimal fuss"....Time to add a couple more yawning hazards. Days before I had made the wise choice to postpone replacing the balding rear tire instead spending the coin on that rockin' megaphone muffler and a ' must have' set of Z bars. Well my traction and grip, or lack there of, was about to get a whole lot worse.
The cherry on the cake was a sewer cap so old it was prolly laid back when Jack the Ripper was pioneering nip and tuck surgery for gentlemen's escorts. The cast diamonds and makers mark had long been polished smooth and lubricated with oily rain, it lay in wait at the apex of the curve. Off the gas pull her over, sweet, now power on. My wheel spun wildly on the manhole then as it found grip after the cap, bit in hard and the ass end came round from the right standing me up for a high side sending me out of the saddle for what seemed an eternity. With the bike now at 90 degrees to the kerb, my fingertips barely touching the bars, I landed back in the seat grabbing a big handful of throttle. I shot forward across the sidewalk and slammed into the knee-wall under the shoe store window..........
As I regained concious I could hear a voice asking of my welfare, barely audible over the bells of the burglar alarm. There I was dazed and bleeding surrounded by broken glass and a 100 sets of Hush Puppies. I sat up looking down at my right hand, willing it to rise and wipe the warm blood now filling my left eye and flooding my face and neck, it would not move. "Are you alright?" said the London Bobby leaning into the storefront, his hand gripping my knee and shaking it. "What?", I blurted, He repeated, "Are you alright?. Are you hurt?". In a panic I blurted, "Where's my bike, where is it?". Looking down at the glass strewn sidewalk the Beezer lay silent. "Pick it up", I shouted. "Pick it up, all the petrol is leaking". "Don't worry about it son, are you OK?" dismissing the importance I felt for the machine. "Pick it up!!", I bellowed, he complied, wheeling it to one side and setting it on the kickstand. I had now butt-shuffled forward so my legs dangled over the window's edge, a shattered collar bone rendering my right arm limp and useless. Again the copper asked me if I was alright, looking down to my bare hands I demanded "where's my fucking gloves?"...."They're still on the bike you plonker", chorteled the patient cop. Sure enough my gloves were clenched in a death grip around the handlebars, I had shot clean out of them at the point of impact.
Luckily there was a Police call box on that corner and the Rozzer dialled me up an ambulance. After helping me out of the window and steadying me on my feet he asked "Have you been drinking Sir?", to which I replied "No, I've been fucking dancing, what do you think?". "Now, now there's no need for all this bad language",he said, adding an apologetic, "I have to ask these questions, Police procedure y'know". He made me keep my helmet on and chatted amiably waiting for the meat wagon. When it arrived they sat me in a chair/hand-truck type affair after binding my arm to my chest and staunching my lacerated brow. As I was loaded into the wagon I asked the Cop, "What about my bike?", "What's gonna happen to it?" He assured me all would be ok and closed the van doors.
The new Ealing Hospital was not yet built so they took me all the way to The West Middlesex in Isleworth. After a couple of hours I got X-rayed, had my eyebrow stitched and left with my arm in an immobilizing sling. I took a cab home to the rooms I shared with "Shaun the Boy", my workmate and fatefully, the guy I bought the bike from.
Dawn was breaking and the birds were loud and irritating as I lay down awkwardly on my bed. My room mate had woken demanding a full account of the wreck and was now doubled over pissing himself laughing. Just then the doorbell rings. Shaun looked out the window. "It's the Old Bill". Sure enough a black Police Transit van was parked outside the building and several Cops were milling around. "Ahh fuck, they're gonna nick me for sure". I hobbled down the stair and opened the street door. A burly sergeant with flat cap and long coat asked my name, after confirming it he curled his finger under my chin and with his other hand pointed to the sidewalk gathering."Step this way Sir and join us on the pavement". To my disbelief they opened the van doors and lifted my (not too badly) battered bike down, then parked it behind the hedge in the front yard. -With hands clasped behind their backs some rocking heel to toe in shiny black boots, they formed a semi-circle round me as the Sargent lectured me on the dangers of motorcycles, novice riders, faulty equipment and inclement weather. He never once mentioned drink driving, liability, property damage or insurance. After 10 minutes they bid me good day and left. No radios, computers, shiny green reflective jackets, sporty German saloon cars and piss poor attitudes like today’s, by the book, weenie Police.
Those were, "The good old days", for sure.
ENGLISH DON. APRIL, 2010.
