Chopper Hostel

Today the temperature dropped, and snow is expected later on. I’m settin’ up a woodstove in the Danger Hut and choppin’ wood. Yet today, I’m still shoppin’ by shape at the grocery store so I can fit it all on my chopper. Might be freezin’ up on some of the roads on the way home. I’ll have to throttle carefully, that summer throttle will have to wait until reliable traction returns. I probably should think about gettin’ my truck ready to roll but that ol’ Shovelhead sure loves this cold air.

It seemed like a lifetime without my bike on the road and now that it’s ‘up and runnin’ I just hate the idea of putting it away for the winter. “…but I just started riding again.”.

I just have to throw a little money at the truck, and it’ll be good to go, or I can just fuel up the bike and put those years of experience to use on these wintery mountain roads. I know I’ll put off driving the truck until the last minute.

What can I say, I’m a simple idiot. I currently have a warm home, a tiny income and transportation to the grocery store as long as the roads ain’t frozen. I’ll adjust this only when it becomes an absolutely necessity and I’m just about there.

I’m not big on change, to tell you the truth. I’m not against it, I’m just not in any rush to do it. Some may call it procrastination, I call it easy to keep track of.

The winter sucks, it’s a lot of work, costs a ton of money and it forces you off your bike before you’re ready. To add insult to injury, the bike runs better and better the colder the air gets and not much runs better than a warmed-over Shovelhead eatin’ big fat cold air. This is the kind of weather that made me fall in love with old bikes with cast iron cylinders. Being analog goes a long way when the air is fat.

I guess with all the newfangled gadgetry, fuel injection, ECU’s, harmonic balancers and liquid cooled heads, every day feels like a fat air day, you just don’t know why. When you’re flyin’ primitive, you know everything goin’ on. A good runnin’ motor makes your dick bigger and if all I need to keep my dick huge is to know the simple parameters to keepin’ my motor on top of its game with a few manual adjustments, a few turns of a few screws and your hangin’ low and you know exactly why. I like my bike simple, life’s already too complicated.

Honestly, I have no idea what’s goin’ on in the Harley-Doodleson world these days, but I guarantee that it ain’t about simplicity. Fuckin’ things are wired up to more mystery boxes than the space shuttle but are about as cool as crocks. Efficiency replaced purpose and a soul was replaced with complications and fuckin’ stereos. Fuck AC/DC blasting at stop lights, I’d rather listen to solid lifters, a rattlely clutch and a well-tuned Shovelhead.

I’d try my best to ride through the cold bits for a while, but I have a laundry list of shit I want to do to the Latowski before the Hostel opens up in the spring, this will be one of the few times winter has rolled in and my bike is still running. Usually when I’m not ridin’ it that means somethin’ big and expensive went south and a rebuild is in order. This time it’s not even mechanical really, it just want it to be a cooler chopper…weird!

I have my S&S heads that I need to get some work done on. I cooked one head when I blew the head gasket but that is something I’ll get done in time, I’m in no rush to pull that motor apart. I’m just focusing on building the seat and shit like that, probably won’t get to work on the heads ’til spring when I paint the motor and frame.

I only need to have it done and ready to rip by the first week of June, ’cause that’s when the party is. Party you say? Yup, Hostel Takeover 2 is gonna happen and this year I’m givin’ everybody enough notice that I don’t want to hear any excuses about why they ain’t on their cool ass chopper ridin’ the local mountains!

Chopper Hostel is what is gonna keep me sane for the next few, cold months. I’m havin’ it the same as last year, first weekend in June. I would love to have this placed packed to the gills with heavily modified choppers (in the true meaning of the word) long front ends, cast iron cylinders and plenty-o-attitude for the locals to balk at.

I want Chopper Hostel to be the place you go to ride your winter builds. The ridin’ here aint fast but it’s technical . It’s third gear all day long and the frame draggin’ is second to none! To have a yard full of cool assed sleds and the motherfuckers that built ’em ridin’ , wrenchin’ and camping is about as close to heaven as I’ll ever get.

With that in mind, I better make it through the winter first. I’ve done it before and I’m confident this cold season will be better than simply makin’ it ’til the birds come back.

The main focus right now is just gathering wood for the winter months. I’ve a few trees on the property marked for the wood stove and their removal will help create improved campsites. There’s surprisingly few trees on site that I want to get rid of. There’s a few standing dead trees, oak, walnut and hickory mostly victims of lightning strikes and should be enough to get me close to spring. A few months of wood will be great but I don’t think that I have that on my property.

I did move that damn woodstove again, from the other side of the property back into the house, more importantly into the office/ studio thing so I’ll be warm and dry while I’m workin’ in there. Although I’ve decided to find other means to make money other than portraits for a while doesn’t mean I’m gonna quit painting. I’ve had a few ideas of my own I want to leave behind on canvas before I go. That’s another reason I’m excited to have people use the grounds, I want folks to see what I’m workin’ on in person. The stuff is a lot better when viewed in person so that’s how I want them viewed from now on.

Now that the trees have lost their leaves, and the ground cover has died off I can see how much clean-up is still needed from the last few subhuman tenants. After five years of cleaning this place up, I always expect it to look as bad as it did the first time I ever saw it. This year, to my chagrin, the only real mess are the ones that I made and not leftovers from the misspent past. The only fires needed is at the campsites by the creek, the final remnants of the recently removed pikie camp. Come spring this will be some prime primitive camping. It’s really amazing to see how far this dump has come.

At this point in the game, it’s time to decide what other improvements besides campsites, I want to have done before the spring. First and foremost I have to build proper out house’s both his and hers. Nothing fancy just functional and clean. An outdoor shower is already in the works and the tent/addition to the Danger Hut will serve as the bike shop until I can erect a proper building for it. For now, the tent will work just fine.

The biggest addition to the complex will be an outside kitchen separate from the house where guests can cook their own meals, have use of a refrigerator and be able to eat well without spending a fortune eating out. I want to make the grounds self sufficient enough that even if riding isn’t on the days itinerary, you can eat, sleep and bathe without having to venture off site. It’s a nice touch if you just don’t want to deal with people on any particular day.

So far this fall my attention has been focused on heatin’ the Danger Hut. After a few years of freezin’ my dick off I’ve gotten better at winter. This year’s goin’ to be the warmest in my house so far. In previous winters all my attention is spent gettin’ heat for whatever I can afford that day. This year I’m relying almost exclusively on the woodstove. There’s enough standing dead trees around to keep the stove full as long as I keep on cutting and processing it.

Burnin’ wood is very grounding. You wanna be warm, you gotta get up and make it happen. Winters a downer and it always gets to me but burnin’ wood is a big job and if you need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, not freezin’ is strong incentive.

So, I’m out markin’ trees to fell and winterizin’ the house. Keepin’ busy and not gettin’ caught up in the greys of this time of year is a priority. You get your brain hooked to one of those self depricating trains of thought and a few months can go by before you can get your dick out of the dirt. I’m not dealin’ with that shit so building Chopper Hostel is the long-term plan to help avoid those winter fuckin’ blues.

So I’m off to take a scrape around the mountains while the weather’s still cooperative. I have a new battery, and I’ll get the truck runnin’ tomorrow. Today though, it’s a good day to get out and fill that riding void while I still can.

If you like what I am doin’ and would like to help fund the build, I could really use the money as writing is the only cash income I have these days. Jump on down to the handy donation form below and send a few bucks in my direction. My whole existence is funded by you guys at this point so pardon me for passin’ the hat but it’s my living right now.

As always, thanks in advance for your continued support….”GTP” out!