Enough about me, lets talk about me some more...

My name is Travis and I really like dirtbikes. Actually, I really like going fast on dirtbikes. Flattrack’s on the brink sliding. Trials hop hop boing boing. Even crotch rocket between my loin. Tarmac racing or everyday every which a way riding. I go back to my youth. When mom bought me a mx’er 80. Then straight to a Swedish satanic 6 six speed twin shock 250. I learned in a jiffy. When in doubt throttle out. Balls of a maniac are bound to sprout. So why I come back to knobblies is really no doubt. When the dirt is sticky and the forest lays a line that is tricky. Grab a gear. Lift the front and hook the rear. Feed the clutch some finger and leave some shredding roost to linger. This is my dirtbike. There are many like it but this one is mine. It is my tool toy sublime. My valentine of adrenaline sunshine. It is what I most like. My ol true, far from new. Mother fucking DIRTBIKE.

Cool artsy pictures by my most rad totally bitchin partner.

My workshop is my temple

A sheep in wolf's clothing

I have owned a good running drag bike for over six years and never taken it to a drag strip. Shit, I ant even ridden it in six years. There is a simple explanation for this: It is the opposite of a sleeper. It is a sheep in wolf's clothing. It came to be my bike because it was sitting in a friend's back yard getting destroyed by the weather. After much hackling he finally relinquished it to me on the condition that I operate it in the land speed trials out at the bonneville salt falts. I had a few months to get the engine-less pro level drag bike ready. Step one was enter the BUB speed week- $350. Step two was borrow (with-out returning) an engine from an unsuspecting 1979 GS1000 left to rot in the bone yard at the shop I worked at. Step three was miraculously shoe horning the old air cooled hunk into the ZX frame. I ended up welding the rear motor mount with the engine in place. All I did was rebuild the carbs and on the salt I kept hogging out the main jets until I realized the fuel supply line was doing the starving. So I chopped the stock head pipes a few inches at a time increasing my top speed to 140mph. The pro chassis at that speed is a lot like strolling down the empty parkway at 25mph. It has sat for the last six years while I have blabbed on about bolting a cheap turbo set up on or something that would make it exciting to ride. And then my horsepower loving burn out, belching beloved, hot rodder wife finally inspired me to take it to the drag strip yesterday. The most difficult part of race prepping it was getting it off the ground enough to fit an oil pan under neath of it and get to the salt crusted drain plug. I was happy to check off another form of motorcycle competition. But as I feared, I was slow as porridge on my first run. So, I took off the 18 tooth counter shaft sprocket and replaced it with an eleven toother. I dropped a few seconds but I was still getting my doors blown off by machismo run what ya brung teenagers wearing nike air jordans piloting gsxr600s with ground effect lighting. In staging a little kid looking for somebody to look up to complemented my bike. He was enamored when I told him I put it together for a few hundred dollars. Then He asked me what it did the 1/4 mile in. After telling him he looked like I had just shit in his captain crunch. He quickly walked away with out even any sympathy. On my next run I got my socks knocked off by a dodge neon. My wife called me a slow bastard and said If I did not break into triple digit speed she was going to go home with the ford fairlane driver who could do 100ft wheelies. I knew all I could do was at the least a crowd winning burn out. And that was pretty fun. Because there are only a few things that drive me crazy and two of them are the sound of screeching women and the smell of burning rubber. Ride on.

Where you go'n city boy? Can't get there from here.

One time I bought a shed find for $100. It was from a granny cleaning out here gone back to the earth husband's shed. I have no Idea who the feller was but I do know what he intended to do. He wanted to build the ultimate dirtbike dream machine. He had bought a new champion frame. He had mounted a DT-1 engine in it. a fresh knobby on the back. He even had Timken steering head bearings in the box, Gary Jones Oury grips, and in and amoungst the box of special pistons and heads was a complete Gary Jones MX catolouge. Fuck me running I bought one cherry vintage MX steed from the old lady. The stuff had been sitting for a long time. Now vintage new old stock but once it was the creme of the crop tip top trick ass pony motorcross project. Minus the forks. Maybe he sent them off to be worked over by some geezer guru who drank more than worked. Maybe he was saving up pennies for the ultimate in front end boingers. Who knows why he never finished the project. All I knew is it was mine. And all I wanted back when I got it was a proper flattrack bike as I was in the early years of making my XS650 behave. After getting it home and doing a bit of dust wiping. I fired the mint right out of the virgin combustion chamber with no less than one kick through of the castrol puffer. Even I knew it would be a sacreligous thing to make a flattracker out of some old dead and gone fellows dream of the perfect loamy dice chucking knobblie treading light as a fucking feather moto machine. So i did what I knew I could do and headed to Wyoming where I knew a flattracker want-a-be might get what he wants. A visit to Yoda more of less. Roy Haynes is his name and sheds, barns, huts, and shops full of old bikes is his life long craft. I left the prestine mxer there and came home with a well used complete champion framer with another yamaha 250 engine, complete with wheels and a lot of ware and tare. Nothing a go through and freshining couldnt help. I polished her and painted her black frame white. I left the baby blue metal flake painted seat and tank complete with "Bicycle Shop" sponsor decals. I raced the light weight lightning bolt to wins and when it came time for me to move to the city and open my own motorbike shop I sold her to a friend who brought it out to Colorado to race in our season finally last weekend. It has been four years now since I sold that bike and used the money along with winnings from my only pikes peak win to open my shop. My shop is not just a shop. My shop is my dream come true. I would give my left nut to inform the old fellow who started putting his dirtbike dream together so long ago that despite to this day his bike is in the exact same condition as he left it- It has become something all right indeed.

It aint the years - It's the miles

I am not afraid of getting old. I am afraid of not being young. I have no worries about regretting what I have done or may do to my body. However I do worry about living with regret; Living with the regret of not doing more with all I have. Give it what you got. All you have got. Don't hold back because nothing left over will be worth shit after the finish line of life has been reached.

Glory is found by not giving a fuck