Smash Palace Bike Show THIS SATURDAY!!!

I've been a bit shit at posting here lately cause I've been sooo stupidly faaarking busy! But hey, ya'll better know about this... THIS SATURDAY at 12pm is the Smash Palace First Annual Bike Show – it'll be like all our previous bike nights rolled into one mental extravaganza. A bunch of the guys have built new bikes for this show and you can be sure there'll be some weird twisted excuses for motorcycles there. So yeah: 12 – 3pm at the Pallet Pavilion, and then we all pack up and head to Smash palace for the afterparty... which, if the HFoS party there was anything to go by, will be a total fucking knees up!

This (above) is the second poster I did for this event, after the venue was changed just after I did the first one. Free risographed posters available at the show...

XL185 ready for 'Smash Palace Shearers Run'... sort of

We're off this Friday on the second annual 'Smash Palace Shearer's Run' up into the mountains. This time instead of all going on small bikes we're all going on dirtbikes! So I've spent any free time I could squeeze out of this week painting my bike – see it how it used to look (bright blue) here. I actually ended up not minding the blue, but I'd always thought I'd paint this bike up and so this seemed like the time to do it.

My plan was to paint it these colours (black and gold) and then to hand paint some texts on the tank and also on the front mudguard... but alas time hasn't quite allowed for me to do that! Which is a bit of a fucker.

Also the seat, which I was planning to cut right down, I've ended up just having to quickly recover today so it's ready to go tomorrow. This has been really disappointing also, and is something I'll look at when I'm back. I dunno if the seat as it is will even survive the weekend to be honest!?

Watch this space for photos of our trip, it should be pretty bloody awesome with the following events being run:

1. Longest wheelie
2. Biggest jump
3. Longest skid
4. 1/8 Mile drag
5. Slowest 100m
6. Wiggle woggle
9. Best learner
10. Best expert
11. Best fall
12. The Greg award (for the most fixing of other people's shit)
13. Barrel racing

Ride to see Anna Dean

Rode up to Nelson last week to see Anna at her folk's house – Dean's Nursery. Anna's just back from 3 months in India, and her mum had grown this amazing wild flower garden. I haven't been to Dean's Nursery for 5 years we all realised, and I've gotta make sure I go back more often. I love it up there! The ride up and then back down through the mountains of the Lewis Pass was totally amazing. Bugger all traffic, beautiful country, and some of the biggest fastest sweeping bends around. Luckily I avoided the fuzz pretty much just by chance both days! I got back just in time to swap the Thruxton for the Norton and head into Bike Night at Smash Palace on that. There was a 'Master Class' on which featured Keith McLeod and his 80 year old AJS racer. Keith gave us all the low down on patina, which he was fairly passionate about to say the least. I couldn't stick around too late cause I'm still living in Akaroa and wanted to get back before dark... which I didn't. Because it's been so hot lately they've been dumping gravel and grit all over the big hill before you get to Akaroa – it's a fucking mess. Better for cars I guess, but lethal to motorcyclists... another big old 'fuck you' to us all from the powers that be.

Bike Night 8 November 2012

Bike night again – a bit of a quiet one... cause it was bloody cold I guess! A good one though cause Paddy had another Indian there – a 1928 engined chopper built in the 70s in nelson, a new one he just got from Nelson yesterday (that must make it 15 he's got now?)... also a new guy showed up on a late 60s Triumph bobber (didn't get his name!?), it was fucking cool. Chris had the CB350 he just bought off Jesus there, and Joska bought along his CB750 cafe racer that we haven't seen for a while... 

Bike night continues to totally fucking rule...

First kinda actually warm night at Bike Night at Smash Palace tonight! Was busy like I've never seen it before, heaps of people everywhere, not all bikers obviously. In a funny way I kinda miss it being ten of us sitting in the snow. But tonight was pretty sweet – Chris's new green wheels, Ray Coleman's Norton, Paddy's Indians, some dude's old knuckle head Harley...

Was good to see the bar busy for Johnny's sake. I reckon it's gonna be a crash hot summer for his bar, bring it on.

Grant's NV750 bobber build

Grant Hosking, who we've met through the bike nights at Smash Palace, is chopping up his Honda NV750. You can see the project as it develops on the 'Anything Spoked' website here. I think this is Grants first build, but he's an engineer of some sort so he obviously knows what the hell he's doing! Can't wait to see this show up at Bike Night again...

Bike Night 16 August 2012