Ssssstingray

Collection of vintage Schwinn bikes outside of Bill's Cycles in Woodside, Queens (NY).
My boyfriend and I went on a very long (somewhere around 30 miles) bike ride this past weekend to check out Flushing Meadows park, and I hit the brakes when I saw this fine assortment of vintage Schwinn Stingrays and Fastracks outside of a bike shop on Roosevelt avenue.

Once we made it to the park, other sparkling sights from an era gone by included the giant Unisphere, constructed for the World's Fair '64/'65 (which was a horrendous failure)...


(Note the severed tree that was just part of the damage from the tornado that ripped through the area two days before, which tore down the street in front of our apartment as I was looking out the window worrying about the putrid green color of the sky...)

And the other abandoned building from the Fair, the New York State Pavilion, which used to look like this:


But now looks like a horrific abandoned futuristic circus big top, prime for the set of a B-grade slasher movie.


I was inspired to practice my circus skillz.

Saturday Surfin'

My brain is a little foggy from the first late night out I've had in a very long time (I must be getting old), and I don't know if it can spit out a well constructed, cohesive and entertaining post for you. So instead, here's a list of all the tabs I have open in my Firefox browser window. Soo much stuff to learn, so many millions of words to read...it's a little overwhelming sometimes, this internet junk.

The Jalopy Journal, H.A.M.B. messageboard - reading about this year's Hot Rod Hoedown that happened in Bensalem, PA last weekend. (An aside: somebody on the board PM'ed me to tell me literally, this one sentance, "I like your website." I'm a success! Huzzah! Somebody give me my Miss Popularity sash already, goddamnit.) The always reliable Mr. Ralphy, who likes to take and upload his photos as fast as I do to Flickr, has a bunch of shots from the show.




Custom Torino Wagon with awesome metal flake paint job, via mister RALPHY on Flickr.
I've noticed a lot of these late 60's muscle mom-wagons popping up at car shows lately, which I think is funny. Maybe it's a weird gearhead version of an Oedipal complex. Something about hauling ass and layin' rubber in a loud, sexy, powerful, vibrating, souped up version of the car your mom shuttled you around in as a child sounds like an issue you need to discuss with your therapist or maybe your cat, after polishing off a handle of whiskey. This one, a '71 Ford Torino Wagon (or so I think, anyway...I first totally misclassified it as a custom '68 Pontiac Tempest wagon), had a pretty sick flake-paint job on the hood.




Dice Magazine Blog
My motorcycle building buddy Peter mentioned to me that he thought he would have seen me last night at the Dice Magazine issue release party at Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (a former auto parts shop turned booze slinging bar, catering to the greasemonkey, punk rock, metal crowd). Instead, having not known anything about said release party, I was out until 3am elsewhere in the city - and then rode my bike all the way back to my hood near Coney Island.


Cover for issue 16 brought to you by Coop!
Having missed what sounded like a good party, I went back to catch up on the Dice blog and see what else is going on. HOWEVER, I then realized they basically have two blogs, one on their site that is just NEWS (where the party info was) and the other one I am reading, more 'lifestyle section' than news...which confused me. But whatever - they can have a million blogs for all I care. I'll still forget to read them, but not because they aren't awesome, but because I'm an idiot. And that means I'll continue to miss out on all the good parties. Damn! I need a personal assistant.



Panheads Place - The History of the Knucklehead Engine
There's nothing I love more than when some nerdlinger in this universe who is obsessed with some particular item or pasttime or person has something interesting to say or a wealth of information I'd like to access and makes it all available on a website of their creation. I especially like it when these websites are really poorly designed and filled with animated GIFs and you have to close a pop up window at least once a minute. IT'S AWESOME! MOST FAVORITE THING EVER OMFG!


HOLY SHIT IT'S PANHEADS PLACE WELCOME BIKERS! LOOK there's an eagle!! Microsoft Paint RULEZ!
Despite it's total lack of graphic sensibilities, this website about the history of the various original models of Harley engines over the years pretty much covers everything. Nerdlinger starts his history of the knucklehead enging by talking about the standard three drops of oil for every five seconds of runtime the old Harley flatheads had. That right there is something I didn't know, so I can't dis the guy for teaching me something. SOAR WITH US!

Also, check out this sick knucklehead custom chopper from the Rumblers show back at the end of August, and another that's a shovelhead, which I have video of riding away from that spot (albeit sideways video). I swear, those Rumblers photos are coming soon...if you haven't already found them on Flickr.


The "Speed Fetus" has a luscious ass...just look at that rear end action!



Shovelhead custom chopper in Brooklyn.




The Dart Project
A story about a boy, a car (stock 1966 Dodge Dart GT), and a transformation from mundane Mopar to divine dragster.



I remembered the Frenchy who runs this website - he's an artist and pinstriper who goes by the moniker Empire32 and his Kustom-o-graphics. I'm pretty sure back in the early youth of thegreasergarage.com, we were linking to that guy's work and raving about it even then. So I guess posting about his Dart project somehow completes the circle of internet life.



Thesaurus.com - so I could look up a snyonym for the word "boring" that begin with the letter "m". (Told you I was braindead.)



Flickr Upload window - I'm desperately trying to upload a video from the Rumblers show I took, but it keeps getting 99.5% complete and then never actually finishing or showing up in my photostream. As soon as that changes, you'll get to see the video right here. Impatience is a major imperfection of mine.

*UPDATE* It finally uploaded! Burn it up!!

...and here's the rubber carnage left behind.



Coop's Flickr Photostream
...because who doesn't like a little high quality dirty art fetish photography on a Saturday morning? I'll take my coffee with a dash of milk and a little bit of nip.


Kumimonster & Ulorin Vex and a pair of old schwinn fastbacks - photo by Coop

...yep. I think it's shapin' up to be a damn good day.

ROD-A-DAY:: ...hey, that's not a car!

You're right, genius! It's not. What it IS is a 1948 Whizzer motorized bicycle - our "RIDE-A-DAY" instead. (I have to give my love to the beautiful bicycles of history too).

This photo is courtesy of jerbec via Flickr, from the AACA East Coast Nationals, Hershey Park, PA. Hershey has had it's share of decent car shows over the years, several of which I've attended.

The Whizzer, originally created back in 1939 by airplane parts manufacturer Breene-Taylor Engineering in Los Angeles, was actually originally just an engine made to attach to any pedestrian bicycle for obvious increase in travel speed. By 1948, they had created their first pre-assembled motorized bicycle, the "Pacemaker" (below)...

YES.

...and then in 1965 they went out of production. Who wants a motorized bicycle when you can have Mopar Muscle...AM I RIGHT??? (I jest. Mostly.) Then in 1997, somebody got the great idea to start making them again, and you know what? They really aren't all that bad looking.

However, neither my wallet nor my ego could take the hit of toolin' around Brooklyn on one of these puppies. Give me another thirty years when my joints can't take constant bike peddling and then maybe I'll come around. But only on a vintage model, because as we all know, they just never make 'em like they used to.