A Thoughtful Christmas Gift & 1955 World's Fastest Motorcycle

I came into the shop today and Todd had a Christmas gift for me. It is the November 1955 issue of Cycle Magazine featuring the new fastest motorcycle in the world, a 40 ci (650 c.c.) non-supercharged Triumph streamline run by team Johnny Allen (Driver), Jack Wilson (Tuner) and Stormy Mangham (Designer) out of Texas, which ran an 2-way average of 193 mph. Johnny Allen ran a Triumph Tiger 100 (500 c.c.) at 123.95 mph at the same meet for another speed record. Read the article for yourself!

More Trophies Special Delivery

I got home from the shop on Friday with some boxes waiting for me. My trophies showed up from my race efforts at Bonneville Speed Week 2011. Super cool and motivating. I think this is the first time I ever got a trophy besides a 'Participant' one from something when I was a kid. Hopefully we will need to put up a shelf in the office next year for all the additional trophies from Speed Week 2012!

Lowbrow Customs Featured in New Triumph Brochures

A few weeks ago we got an interesting phone call. Some of our photos, taken by Lowbrow team photographer Jon Glover, were of interest to Triumph Motorcycles. We just got some of the new line sheets for 2012, the flip side being a poster featuring Kyle running down the Salt Flats on his 1967 Triumph at Bonneville Speed Week this year! Pretty rad, and we are honored. Keep your eyes open for them at your local Triumph dealership. The only down side is Kyle's head grew some more and now he needs to buy a bigger helmet, hah!

AEE Choppers Bonneville Pit Crew

Scanned this out of a copy of Hot Bike from December, 1971. AEE Choppers knew how to do it, that is for sure. The caption from the photo above: "AEE Choppers at Bonneville. When Leo Payne and Mel Disharoon of AEE's High Performance Division go racing, they do it in style. Leo's beautiful Molly painted Sportster is backed up by one of AEE's custom Cessna twins, also covered with Molly's epoxy magic, and the wildest pit crew ever."

Lowbrow Customs needs to step up our game for Bonneville Speed Week next year!

Thoughts Over the Holiday Weekend.

This time of the day was my favorite out on the salt...On the starting line right as the sun was coming up with mountains looming in the distance, and a clean white track ahead. Quiet and still for a little while longer. 75 days....

Sneak Peek! Lowbrow Bonneville 2011 Support Shirts!

We have been busy and are way behind with these, but better late than never as they say!

The drilled winged cam wheel was drawn for us by our friend Alan Close, check out his site HERE! The best part about having a print shop in your building is you can walk over and grab the first shirt hot out of the oven! Thanks Greg! We will get these and the natural cotton versions as well photographed and on the site asap, and like last year all the funds will help us get across country and try and snag a couple records at 2011 Bonneville Speed Week! Cheers, Kyle

La Rapide Triumph Race Team, France

I was visiting Wes White at Four Aces last week and saw this rad book put together by La Rapide Race Team of France about their escapades at Bonneville Speed Week 2010. I arrived back at the shop in Ohio to find a copy of my own. Marco of Brooklands Classic raced his pre unit Triumph alcohol-powered race bike in the 750cc A-VF class, while I ran in the 750cc A-VG class, so we were running similar bikes and I watched his efforts with great interest.


Some familiar faces above, including Patrick who we met out on the Salt in his green & yellow leathers and below him Bill in his 500 cc single, Weslake-powered 'Screwball', probably about to set one of his many records he set in 2010 between Bonneville and El Mirage.


Photographer Denis Boussard was there with the team taking photographs and captured a couple really great moments on film. The photo on the right hand page below was captured right at the end of a run, on the return road waiting for our chase vehicles. Marco and myself (incorrectly labeled as 'Kyle' :) ) each had a great run and were high on life at the moment. The photo on the upper left corner was getting our timing slips from the same run at the timing tower. I can't wait for Speed Week 2011!

Bonneville Speed Week 2010 Award

Wes from Four Aces sent me this photo, he opened a box from the SCTA and lo and behold we got an award from our team effort with the Nitro Express (the 'Salt Ghost'). We received a plaque 'Achievement Award' because the fastest run I did came within 2% of the standing national record. This is motivating to say the least.

Check out the Dec. Cycle Source!

We Love Chris Callen and the rest of his crew over at Cycle Source Magazine, they put out a great magazine, especially compared to some of the crap on the newsstand. It is one I honestly enjoy reading every issue cover to cover, and is really well done. They are also a huge supporter of Lowbrow Customs, they publish our tech articles every month and we advertise in every issue. Last month they published the Bonneville Primer article Tyler wrote on our trip to Bonneville Speed Week this past August, and this new issue they not only did our british DIY oil tank tech tip but a 6 page spread on our Bonneville bikes! I am extremely proud of the bike I built and to open a magazine and see it featured is a great feeling! Thanks again guys! Cheers, Kyle

I feel slightly embarassed...

About how excited these carburetors make me. Amal GP 1-5/32" carburetors, with matchbox float. Super clean. I wonder where these could end up?

Tyler

Ah, the good ol' days...

Way back in August when we were at Bonneville... I am working on getting the top end on my green Triumph race bike back together this evening. Memories...

New Cycle Source Magazine: Salt Flats Edition!!!

Thanks again to Cycle Source Magazine for being a long time Lowbrow supporter! There are 7 pages of Lowbrow Customs coverage in this issue; A tech article on setting up a race trailer and a 5 page article called "Bonneville Primer; A rookie's guide to racing at Bonneville Speed Week"! Make sure to pick this issue up, there are a ton of other great articles and tech also!

Bonneville Speed Week 2010 Photos

You can check out our Flickr album of personal Bonneville pics here, it includes photos from when we first left until the end of our trip. Unedited just a bunch of photos, lots of cool stuff, there are 251 of them for you to peruse.


Michael Van Parys hung out on the first Sunday and took photos, these 42 photos are the first batch he sent us. More to come from him, and also from John Glover of Salt Lake City who helped out on Monday and Tuesday and took tons of photos. Stay tuned to the Blog for more as they come in.

Ohio or Bust!!

We're cruising along in the middle of Wyoming and due to the miracle of modern technology we can post this blog from the RV! Today was the last day of Bonneville Speed Week 2010 and qualifying runs ended at noon so we packed up the pit and hit the road, headed home for Ohio. I (Kyle) got a few runs in today, all over 100 and worked on dialing my bike in and making adjustments and enjoying the much shorter lines at the course. Wes got 2 runs in on the Salt Ghost both around 119, not quite as high as Tyler's earlier run of 121 but pretty amazing for such an old race bike. We have a ton of photos and a couple photographers who will be sending uis a bunch more, so keep your eyes peeled for those!




We want to thank everyone who came and supported us as well as all the great people from all over the world we met there also! And a special thanks goes out to the SCTA, the BNI, and all the volunteers who make this massive event happen! Here's a picture of the motorcycle tech crew, just a few of the people who helped us out through the week. See you guys soon, we are making plans to go back as I type! Cheers, Kyle

I broke the Ton on the salt!

We had some drizzles and high winds on the salt this morning and a lot of delays up until 11am but finally the weather cleared up and racing resumed. I had a solid run good shifts through all gears and tried to keep tucked in as possible and ran 105. 762 at the 2 mile!!! I lost a mile at the 2 1/4 mile biut it looks as though I was running rich, so I went over everything on the bike and prepped it for a run I am already staged in line for tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see what she'll do on the last day of Speed Week! Cheers, Kyle

Our First Day on the Salt

I am exhausted from a fun day on the Salt but we figured it would be good to do a post to update everyone as to how it's going. We rolled in this morning and dropped some of our tools, etc to mark our pit area and got in line for tech. Kyle and I had our motorcycles in the race trailer behind the RV and Wes from Four Aces had his bike and the Salt Ghost on his 3 rail trailer. Tech line went quickly, I would say 45 minutes from getting in line to being done, though I had expected much longer.


Tech was a breeze, both of us having read through the rules and put so much time into dialing in our bikes, we each had 1 thing to fix, and it happened we had the same issue. We both had cutaway primary covers and apparently they weren't happy with the exposed clutch pressure plates. I had forgotten to bring assorted steel and aluminum stock but was able to get some 1/8" aluminum strap from the first guy I asked; people are so nice and accommodating at Bonneville.

We both were able to make some guards out of the aluminum and bolt them to our primary covers and successfully appease the Techs. Kyle got his bike tuned and running good for his Rookie run tomorrow while I got my bike to the line for gas a bit late and so I have to get in line tomorrow morning at 7am to get filled up. There is a Driver's Meeting at 9am followed by the Rookie meeting, and then racing begins at 10am. We each get to do our Rookie Run, where you are not supposed to totally kill it, but take it easy and get used to the bike and the Salt. We'll see how it goes!

More run pics!

Andrew Jones sent us in these pictures from our first Airstrip Test Run of Tyler and I running. He had a better position halfway down the runway and a better camera and got some great shots for us! Thanks man! Now back to loading up and getting ready to leave tomorrow!

Airstrip Tests, Second Go

We loaded our bikes up early this morning and headed back to the airstrip for some more test runs just days before we hit the road to Bonneville. It was a perfect morning weather-wise for it, we unloaded the bikes and set up to run. I started my bike and did a first run as a baseline for some fine tuning, and it went pretty well, just a little break-up in my mid-range, but the bike handled great and no issues.
I got back and started to make adjustments while Tyler fired his bike up...slight problem, it was kicking back pretty bad. He realized that in doing some work on his bike yesterday the timing probably got thrown off and since we didn't have the proper tools or time this morning he wouldn't get to run. A pretty big bummer for him but better here than the first day on the Salt.



I got to run my bike a half a dozen more times in between the planes taking off and landing before we had to clear out. Back to the shop, get some work done then any last minute adjustments on our bikes before they go into the trailer. Tomorrow we will load the trailer up and then off to Utah! Cheers, Kyle

Finishing Up The Final Touches

Test run in the morning, final work getting completed. Chronometric tach is in place with new bracket. Can't wait to run this again in the morning with the fairing and my leathers

Tyler

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Loading Up, 3 days 'till we go!

3 days until we hit the road for Bonneville Speed Week! We are excited as hell to hit the road and are knocking out the million details beforehand. We just finished up our race trailer, checking the AC unit (hey Utah is hot!) new tires, pack the wheel bearings, and of course letter it up. So if you're making it out to the flats, keep an eye out for us!
We get a few more hours on Monday for some more test runs at the local airstrip then load the bikes up until we get to wheel them out onto the salt for the first time! Make sure to keep checking back, we will be doing daily updates once we hit the road and uploading video to our YouTube page of all the cool stuff we get to see and do! Cheers, Kyle