So long story even longer, I fished around on eBay and found that the result of the mortgage crisis was that people were literally giving away parts for fat tire builds. It was bizarre - like name your price or something. There seemed to be no limit to how low they would go. I bought an 11 inch wide fender with internal wire tubing for $15. No, I'm not making this up - I was surprised as you! The wheels were a bit of a challenge - but not really. I found some guy who did a take-off of brand new rubber and wire rims from some big-dollar chopper and now these "new" take-offs were just "taking" up space. Rubber, rims, wire - everything for $400. Seriously, I couldn't look these kinds of prices and slices. I was at a bit over a grand and was rolling up on the lift. Plans? Who needs plans when you're flying by the seat of your wallet? I never did space out a fender before, but i figured if those goombahs on Discovery could do it and get paid for it, I could do it for free and how bad could it be? My choice of spacer? The ever present (at least in MY garage, buddy) spark plug box. Taped those bad boys right to the rubber with some duct tape and we were ready to do some cuttin' and drillin'. I got these rear fender supports for like $75 and most amazingly, they fit the frame predrilledholes like nobodiess busienss. With this half inch space in place - an Idea began to whirl around in my feavered brain. You'll see where it leads to the worlds first "Outer Seat Linear Spring Gizmot"...really, what else could you call something like what I was about to reveal?

The Snake Bike... The fact of the matter is that I was beginning the construction of a bike that I would never be able to ride. I've found that bikes with good rear suspension actually make the whole thing feel better and (in some cases) make the spinal issue fly away like a match put to yesterdays newspaper in a warn California breeze. But again, the fact remained that I was still in mid-attachment of this wheel to a hardtail frame and my most recent revelation indicated that I'd better STOP and STOP SOON. So I did. And sat down hard and did some real thinking about what I was doing. I was acting like there was not issue, like there was no growing old and like there was this crazy place on some forgotten highway where middle -aged guys really became young, dumb and full of come 22 years olds and the laws of physics and traffic tickets simply didn't apply to us as we flew down imaginary highways wearing nothing but engineer boots, tight blue jeans and a sleeveless with the loyalty of the month grinning bloody in the representation of some crazed animal or better yet, human anatomy. The name above was always a mythical place and the rocker on the bottom was always a deviant form of manslaughter. The lowest one read the letters of our hometown. We smelled the blood beyond our white-caked nostrils and the only thing that settled our sour stomachs from the previous evenings retching was more silver cans of the stuff that got us there in the first place. MORE>