Long and lined up - two lights on top of each other is the only way to go! It's not high and low, it's one light or two - well, screw it, tell the truth here - it's two lights on all the time. They've got doors and windows to roll up and seat belts to hold them in place and climate controlled butt warmers and we've got two little night to fight off the deep dark that rolls out of the mountains as you swing out of the lights of traffic and into that cold night air. You've got two lights to fend off deer and cows and crazies and those bastards riding in an SUV that gives them a warm enema at the same time it flashes a Disney movie inside the skulls of their creepy, fat offspring have the nerve to go "Turn down your lights!" They simply look good too. They're not something you could put on a car, or a sport bike or anything else. They spell chopper the same way the letters do - just one glance and you know what you're dealing with here. This is not a tourglide road-sofa, this is a chopper. The dangerous, crazy kind of bike engineered by guys who flunked out of basic tractor maintenance and then went to work with a blowtorch on their Dads touring rig when he was passed out drunk on the sofa one night while a minister howled endlessly into the stillness of the livingroom about the need to send him $15 "at LEAST!" right there and then. This is so flippin' cool I just can't stand it. It comes from these guys called Biltwell and damned if they don't do just that. It's VERY rare that I pick the SEAT as one of the first design items on a build, but in this case - it just seems to point like a direction sign as to where the rest of the bike should go from an industrial design perspective. This seat is at once utilitarian but graceful, hard but comfortable, stylin' without being overbearing - it's really cool and relatively inexpensive and you can buy one HERE So here's part of somehting that sounds like a plan. I only want to have controls on the right side. (Don't pay attention to that ugly as hell upside down mirror) so I've got an old  73 master cylinder and one of those plates that's for when you want to run these wihtout any electrics. Except - I'm going to drill four micro switch holes in the flat chrome and have Left, Right, Start and Horn because at some point this bike will have to be inspeceed - and I think they'll want those things. Just a hunch. BUT - you say, where is the clutch lever going to be if there's nothing on the left hand side? Stay tuned -you'll figure out the ugly truth shortly!

The Snake Bike... So the deal is I've got to make a bike that understands that I am mortal. Not some unforgiving hardtail jockey shifting crazy machine for a 22 year old - but not a fat-assed, blue windbreaker wearing kinda grandpa kinda Gold Wing, but something that is so freekin' cool that it draws a crowd every where it goes, but isn't like a Billy Lane hubless bike either. It has to get people to see it because they've really never seen anything like it. Gearheads will need to have stuff that makes them go "How did he do that?" and design guys have to go "Whoa, bitchin' style dude, like that monkey bending over so his asshole is part of Aloha!" and people who don't know anything at all will just go "I don't know why, Martha, but I know what I like and that's it!" Not much of a tall order at all - plus I have to conquer that fat tire big-assed thing and keep the cool factor turned up in the face of hopeless factory chopper framing. How will I do this? Power man. Raw flippin' power. Right now the engine I've picked out for the snake bike is a 127 cubic inch monster. Now, the truth hits everybody - there's simply no way on this planet that I will ever come up with enough money to put a 127 cubic inch S&S in there. A Merch of one of those other high-dollar brands is just not going to happen - so we're going Ultima. That's right - the "house brand" of Mid-West (is that right?) is gonna be our power plant. BUT that's nothing. Wait'll you hear about drive train and carburetion - this stuff is gonna be outer space, rock 'em sock 'em robots kinda wild. Hang on to your hats kiddies - here comes Snake Bike Style! MORE>