[Deadhead]

Yep. Owsley. Lived there since 80s on a diet entirely of meat. Eat your heart out hipsters. Died in a car wreck. Blamed his heard attack years ago on his mother making him eat broccoli as a kid. Maybe hoffa escaped the end-zone at Giant's and moved there too?

[OVERULD]

I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with all the acid trips he took! Seriously, hadn't heard it was from a car wreck.

[2002Z4CSS]

Linda is a classic! I met her years ago at the Detroit Autorama.

[Deadhead]

OK, gotta bring this back up.

It's the weekend go out there and eject some brass!

[Deadhead]

Did anyone have a bike like this? A friend of mine and a buddy made 2. You could see their heads over a UPS truck. I have no idea how they got on to ride them!

[70Steve]

Back when men were men...imagine sawing down those "single riders" on the old KW and Inter! My arms ache just thinking about it, let alone actually doing it!!
The Inter pic was taken in Australia, Far North Queensland.

I love the old GMC and the caption, "changed from chain to worm drive. 1914."
With a bogie jinker to boot!

Love the old KW's too of course.

[Steve Barcak]

Here is a hip looking, for the times, Mickey Thompson in his pre disco attire with his 73 Grand Am funny. Looks like platform shoes and some kind of weird shirt.

[Deadhead]

Steve,

Those are those waffle stomper hiking boots. Ask me how I know that! LOL. The lady has a matching shirt! Cool that Peter Paul (Mounds Almond Joy) was a sponsor.

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by Deadhead

Did anyone have a bike like this? A friend of mine and a buddy made 2. You could see their heads over a UPS truck. I have no idea how they got on to ride them!

Those bikes were all over my neighborhood in the late 60's. You had to lean it against a light pole to get off and on. We also cut forks from junk bikes and telescoped them over the originals to get the nose up. Lots of torn up knee caps and elbows in my neighborhood.

[goatless]

Originally Posted by Deadhead

The lady has a matching shirt!

I'm sure she's the one that bought them... and insisted that he wear his too. I can't see a man picking out that shirt on his own- I don't care if was the 1970s!

[Deadhead]

Originally Posted by goatless

I'm sure she's the one that bought them... and insisted that he wear his too. I can't see a man picking out that shirt on his own- I don't care if was the 1970s!

Maybe that is why he has that look on his face !

[goatless]

Originally Posted by 400 4spd.

We also cut forks from junk bikes and telescoped them over the originals to get the nose up.

We were still doing that in the '70s to get that cool chopper look. We'd cut up two sets of forks and hammer them over the first set to get the proper rake.
That is, until BMX bikes came into vogue...

[6869GTO]

Originally Posted by goatless

We were still doing that in the '70s to get that cool chopper look. We'd cut up two sets of forks and hammer them over the first set to get the proper rake.
That is, until BMX bikes came into vogue...

We did same thing here in N.H. only used the cross bracing from metal staging cut in half and hammered over cut off forks , and axle just bolted to brace ends. No drilling needed,but youd have to lean over the handle bars going uphill,,hard to keep the wheel on the ground.

[Steve Barcak]

I built chopper bikes too. I thought the cleanest and nicest looking way to do it was to use a Schwinn springer front end off of a 26" paper boy special. Take this front end and fit it to your 2O" Stingray. It gave a good look and stil handled and steered well.
In 8th grade, went to extremes and designed aa bike with a 12' fork extension. Realizing that that length of fork would put a goofy angle on the bike frame, I had a friends dad, section part of the front of my frame to allow a more forward angle to the fork and keep the bike itself somewhat level. It looked great but, by adding to much caster the bike was not rideable as you could not steer it to keep your balance. Oh well,.

Here is another bike. This one ran an injected little chev on nitro. Note the kick stand lifted the rear tire off of the ground. He would stage his bike, put it on the stand, fire the motor and rev it to the moon and then kick the stand off and he would blaze down the track in tire smoke. Talk about nuts!! ..and he lived through the 6Os too! His name was EJ Potter and his nickname was "The Michigan Mad Man"!

I have video of him running this at Beeline in 1965.

[Deadhead]

He musta had some legs to kick start that bad boy! That seat is something else too. Killer photo.

[mechanickeith]

WOW!!!! Just noticed it has "widow maker # 5" on the side cover!!! Wonder how bad numbers 1 through 4 were??

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by mechanickeith

WOW!!!! Just noticed it has "widow maker # 5" on the side cover!!! Wonder how bad numbers 1 through 4 were??

Pretty bad.

EJ was a local (well, not just local) legend.

He ran at one of the local Michigan drag strips one time and was scheduled to make 3 exhibition passes.

He dumped the bike in the lights at the top end of the second pass. Very nasty, scary looking crash.

After eliminations were done, while we were at the tower getting our payout, he came up to speak with the track owner/managers. He had his hands all covered with vaseline and wrapped with strips of clean white cloths, as well as some bandages around his legs. He told them "...well, I'll see ya next week".

They said "EJ, WTH are you talking about?"

He said "...you paid me for three passes and three passes are what you'll get".

Sure enough, he put the bike back together was back the next week to complete the promised third pass.

K

[Keith Seymore]

This photo is so cool on so many levels:

6) That is a really nice lookin' go cart; the kind Barcak and I used to dream about when we were growing up.

5) You've got the whole "cop pulls over kid on go cart" vibe going.

4) Nice Harley motorcycle photo.

3) Apparently taken in Dearborn, Michigan - which is of course where TomV hangs out (not far from where I'm sitting).

2) Requisite '57 Chevy in the background

and - the number one reason this photo is so cool -

1) The kid is wearing a helmet and the motorcycle cop isn't.

[OVERULD]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

This photo is so cool on so many levels:

6) That is a really nice lookin' go cart; the kind Barcak and I used to dream about when we were growing up.

5) You've got the whole "cop pulls over kid on go cart" vibe going.

4) Nice Harley motorcycle photo.

3) Apparently taken in Dearborn, Michigan - which is of course where TomV hangs out (not far from where I'm sitting).

2) Requisite '57 Chevy in the background

and - the number one reason this photo is so cool -

1) The kid is wearing a helmet and the motorcycle cop isn't.

Agreed on all points. I would add that I, too, dreamed of a go-cart like this one and when riding my bike always pretended it was a Harley (used to make a pretty good impression of a Harley at idle and going throgh the gears with my mouth). Then we figured out how to tie baloons on to the front forks and fender braces to let the spokes stroke them and dang if it didn't sound AWESOME...until one would pop and we'd pretend we just lost a cylinder and had to pull over! Man - did we have a bunch of fun as kids just jimmy-dicking around like that. We made choppers out of our bikes with an extra set of front forks, a banana seat, big tall sissy bar and ape-hanger handle bars. Mine had mirrors on both sides of the handle bars, a battery operated light and a speedometer. Saved my money and bought most of those accessories from the local Ace Hardware - he used to stock all that cool stuff.

Back on the photo - I think the cop needs an unfiltered Pall Mall or Camel between a couple fingers on his left hand with a little smoke rising to complete the look.

Remember in the back of Boys Life magazine they had ads for those mini-choppers? Basic mini-bike but with a raked front fork and ape hangers. Man I used to want one of those so bad!

BJ

[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by Steve Barcak

I built chopper bikes too. I thought the cleanest and nicest looking way to do it was to use a Schwinn springer front end off of a 26" paper boy special. Take this front end and fit it to your 2O" Stingray. It gave a good look and stil handled and steered well.
In 8th grade, went to extremes and designed aa bike with a 12' fork extension. Realizing that that length of fork would put a goofy angle on the bike frame, I had a friends dad, section part of the front of my frame to allow a more forward angle to the fork and keep the bike itself somewhat level. It looked great but, by adding to much caster the bike was not rideable as you could not steer it to keep your balance. Oh well,.

Here is another bike. This one ran an injected little chev on nitro. Note the kick stand lifted the rear tire off of the ground. He would stage his bike, put it on the stand, fire the motor and rev it to the moon and then kick the stand off and he would blaze down the track in tire smoke. Talk about nuts!! ..and he lived through the 6Os too! His name was EJ Potter and his nickname was "The Michigan Mad Man"!

I have video of him running this at Beeline in 1965.

Interesting to see this picture. My brother was big into the bike thing and started tracking down these bikes. About 10 years ago he bought a custom built dragster bike built around 1967 and powered by a 427 side oiler. This bike was featured in some magazines back then. I believe he bought it from Don Garlits. The bike is in as-raced condition and he was going to restore it. He also tracked down two of the widow-maker bikes raced by EJ Potter. These were powered by chevy 350s and later versions of these bikes were renamed Bloody-Marys. I know he has all of these bikes documented. Attached are some pictures of the dragster bike in his basement and of one of the Widow-Maker (Bloody Mary) bikes in my garage when he picked it up in MI. Cool Stuff...