The approachable...Sailer Dan

Sailor Dan - Saskatoon from ishtiaq opal on Vimeo.

Bat-tastic

Our boy Jesse came through town hocking merch for the Cancer Bats last night and after an hour long set the band came back on to do another hour as Bat Sabbath. Mind blowing awesome old school metal, but with cancer! Amazing show. Great to see you again, Jesse.

History lessons

Street view of J.N. Walter's Cycle Agent, 329 Avenue B South in 1912. (They carried Harley Davidson Motorcycles & Dunlop Tires).

Little Criminals

Local Saskatoon talent.

Shovels and Rope

Got a rare opportunity to see some live music with my beautiful wife the other night. If there's any one band I wanted to see live this year it's Shovels and Rope. Sorry Du Keeps, it was awesome.

Dice 46

If you ever needed a great reason to buy a DicE Subscription, here it is. Local Saskatoon super dude Cory has his killer CB in the latest offering of the coolest chop mag going. Photos by yours truly, paint by our resident Hate_Machine, Cole Jabush, and pin striping by Dekay. Mostly you get to see some pictures of the Golden Dragon so there ya go.

Home Town

@patbastid posted this pic on instagram. Like he says, you gotta live here to feel the magic. Anybody able to ID the location based on the angle of the Bess?

Kevin Starke Manufacturing co.

Turns out the Frame I picked up with my Shovel project is in fact a little piece of local history. I first heard the name, Kevin Starke, at this years Cyclemania. Some guy I was talking to said he had an old Starke Manufacturing frame in his garage and wanted to know if I was interested. I then started hearing the name again when I started looking for an ID on the frame that came with my Shovel. After doing some research and chatting with a few folks from the interweb forums I've started piecing together a bit of Starke's legacy.

In the late '70's Starke Manufacturing operated out of a small shop in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Far as I can tell they mostly built a few different rigid frames for big twins. These frames have a few unique features that make them identifiable.


First the positioning of the squished tube connected to the motor mount.

Second, the axle plate design and finally the necks are stamped with SM0xxxx (Starke Manufacturing co.). All accounts I've found suggest these were excellent frames and quite sought after during the '80's.

By the late 80's SM co. had closed it'd doors and Starke had moved one province over. In the early '90's Kevin Starke started a new venture out of Red Deer Alberta called Tripoli Manufacturing. Tripoli manufactured several frames including rigid and very popular Softails.


Tripoli sold a lot of frames through SUMAX in New York. My first responce from Sumax representatives simply said, "what are you looking for and why?" After removing suspicions that I was after some dirt or money owed on old Kevin Starke I convinced Max from SUMAX to shed a little light on their partnership with Tripoli.

Kevin made frames for us in the early 90's. He made an excellent Softail frame. At the time Harley had long waiting times to get a bike, dealers were building them with his frames. We were lucky to work with him on some one off exotic frames... some even went into production: Rubbermounted Softail, Rubbermounted Sportster Softail, Rubbermounted Rigid and a Shovelhead Softail. When he passed away, so did his business. He was jovial and had a keen mind for engineering.

Max

Kevin Starke died in the late '90's, but from the fragments of his life that exist on the web it sounds like he had a passion for his work and knew how to have a good time. I'm pretty pleased to find out that my Shovel project has got a little more local flavor than most and I'm looking forward to putting a Saskatchewan made frame back on the prairie highways in the future.

Cyclemania Ink Alley 2011

Pressure is on. The list is getting shorter, but still got more than a few details to work out by Friday. Tick tick tick.

Cyclemania 2011

Cyclemania 2011 is comin fast. Get those turds polished up!

original prairie mule

Saskatoon Hillclimb 1940

More about Saskatoon's Motorcycle Legacy Here

S'toon Police @ Cruise NIght

Saw this post on Kijiji this morning. Fuckin' great. The boy's in blue really have been stickin it to the bikers in this town for the last couple summers. I've seen more stop checks and customs pulled over than I care to mention. And yet the chick who rear ended the sport bike is free to roam our deadly streets. Terrible.

Monster Cruise Weekend Post

An XS650 custom From Toon Tune Cycle Service here in Saskatoon. Nice work by Graeme Rutherford.




A beauty from Northside Customs.Ninja and Keno Kickin it.
Love the swept 4 into 1.







Probably the sweetest Impala at the show.




A beautiful old Shovel care of a wizard.


A Custom creation by Martensville's HamBone Customs.


A few nice entries from the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Group including this 750 Guzzi Ambassador.


Beautiful Flathead. Didn't catch the year.



Loved this cut convertable chev.



This candy Camero was too good to resist. Velvet everywhere including under the hood.



Probably my favorite thing at the show. An Ariel with a triumph engine swap.




Antiquated? Oh no. This mule is pure breed 409.