Please check out my new blog for all of my work customizing and restoring old motorcycles, as well as some of my motorcycle photography work.

http://manalivemotorcycles.tumblr.com/

A few crappy iphone pics from some shots I took on the Mamiya a few nights ago.  I’ve got a lot of scanning to do….

It’s been a long time coming. Countless hours grinding, welding, wrenching, pondering, but my a few days ago I was finally able to slap a license plate on my project bike and take it out. A 79′ SR500 single cylinder 500cc “thumper”, it is the most fun bike I have had the pleasure to ride. More photos and exciting things to come, more projects and bikes on the go, but a few sneak peak shots. The last shot is the new background on my laptop.

Even though apparently Summer is halfway over, and riding season hasn’t really shown itself yet, we bombed the Sea-To-Sky under the cloud cover Sunday. Greasy spoon lunch, and beers on the Squampton Spit.

We went on a trip up the Sunshine Coast & to Texada Island for Lucas’s 28th birthday this weekend. Three ferries each way, lakes to swim in, seafood to eat, and tons of open road for the Bonnie and CB to rip on. Yup.

We had been vaguely thinking of hitting up Born Free for the past little while, and as the date grew closer it got talked about more & more. So, in typical fashion, I looked up flights a couple days before the show, found some cheap ones, got a good deal on some rental Harleys and we hit the road. Flew into LAX, picked up the bikes, stopped in Manhattan Beach for some Mexican, and then headed down the coast. Three hours into the ride, Luke’s oil pump blows, his bike sounds like it’s going to seize. This is on a 2 year old bike with 19,000 miles. Good ole’ HDs. He happens to break down right at Trestles, an epic surf spot Kelly Slater hangs out at, so we crack a Red Stripe on the beach and wait for a tow to arrive. I crash my bike on the interstate the next day right after Luke picks up his replacement bike, an old man style Bagger. A few scrapes later, some hugs from strangers who were happy I was alive, and we are on our way to Born Free 3. The show was crazy. Seeing that many amazing old bikes in one place is overwhelming, it becomes hard to concentrate on taking pictures because I was salivating at all of the insane bikes that were everywhere. People rode from all over the country to come to this event, worked on their bikes all year round to show them here, and the vibes from seeing such a crew of people so passionate about bikes was something I’ve never experienced anywhere else. We camp out with the Vancouver crew right up the road from the show, and hit up Venice beach the next day for some beers on the beach, and bomb home the next day. All in all, my kind of weekend.

Luke, Lisa, Sandra and I rode to Woodlands on Sunday for a little dockside R&R. Half an hour away from Vancouver, but feels like a million miles away…

Vancouver-Victoria-Sooke-Ladysmith-Tofino-Horseshoe Bay-Bowyer Island-Home. One hell of a weekend. One of those times where you just can’t stop appreciating how amazing BC is, not only for the landscape you admire and have the privilege to live in but for the kind of free-spirited people who live here.

A few Mamiya shots I just got back from the lab….




Papa is the man. He started working on Honda bikes in his teens when they were first coming into the States in the 60′s, he knows them like the back of his hand. I picked up a few tips from him while we were doing some work on Ashley’s CB. Rad times at Illuminati Cycles in Los Angeles.