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.