Category Archives: Bike of the month

Bike of the Month June 2017

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Build it, run it, break it, fix it then repeat. The life of a drag racer can easily be likened to that of a drug addict. They spend all of their available cash and time working towards their next fix, even if it means ignoring the trivial things like food, clothing and sleep. The principle difference is that while a drug addict wants the hit to last longer, the drag racer does all that they can to shorten the experience. I’m reliably informed that once you’ve tried it, you either love it or you’re wrong.

Our bike of the month for June goes to Gary Hester AKA et1170. Gary has been evolving and racing this bike since he bought it nearly 7 years ago. Starting life as an 1100ET the bike now sports Katana styled bodywork. Gary was one of our first Winged Hammers and I like to think Hanma-Shin has had a hand in his results this year.

What I love about this bike and Gary’s story is that he has clearly never had serious money to throw at it. His success is a steady one. Carefully building on the previous years results with the parts that he could get. There are no turbos, no nitrous, no mega bucks cylinder head work- just oldskool, DIY air-cooled engine tuning in a shed. That, said if you read Gary’s thread you get the sense that Gary’s addiction will inevitably lead to forced induction and more…

Congratulations Gary you are June’s Bike of the Month.

Members discuss this here

 

Bike of the month May 2017

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General Scarabaeinae, the shit roller.

Some lunatics out there believe that everything has a designer, everything? Come on! Even the dung beetle? Think about all the key aspects of said species, it’s anatomy, its environment and the fact that its life consists of rolling turds that can be 250 times its own weight with its back legs using the milky way for navigation and they’re not even its own turds…

Come on people…

Rat bikes cannot be designed, they too evolve. You can tell when someone’s ‘designed’ one they are usually covered in cable tied plastic rats, poundshop Halloween skulls and spent cartridge belts…oh and some form of anarchy branding. If you’re sporting de commissioned mack tens and FTW pike nuts but are taxed n’ tested you’re Greenday not Agnostic Front.

A good rat bike has time served and stories to tell in its accumulation of bodges executed so well they became fixtures. It has battle scars’ not false patina. A sense of “that’ll do for now” and with time being a very abstract idea, “for now” could be forever.

We tend to covet the bling from Yoshi, Harris, Dymag and other well designed objects, however at the last OSS gathering, it was awesome to see the public’s attention grabbed by the on going evolution of General Sh*tter. Congratulations Jaffa you are BOTM. (just loose the ebay stickers)

Read about the build here. Members discuss this here.

Bike of the Month April 2017

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Don’t pick it, it’ll never heal.

The wound is generally more impressive than the scar it could potentially leave, this trick framed oil boiler looks more than tough enough to take what would appear to be a backhanded ‘pimp slap’ compliment on it’s chin.

In this age of teenagers sporting ‘homeward bound’ neck art (they’ve probably never done a paper round let alone a stint on the ogin) this is a mighty blue illegible tattoo, it’s a miners hob nail to the (now) trendy white soled ‘brahhn’ red wing bootie…the battered original Simpson to the plastic predator. I got that beat-the bull shark to the appendix etc. etc.

Anything but evolution of necessity would (in my mind) ruin this bike, but I think this dude knows his onions (pardon, Monsieur) and wont succumb to such nonsense as to dress his Gaulian gash in fancy paint, polished alloy or a brahhhn seat.

Congratulations yann711r vous êtes vélo du mois!

Read about Yann’s build here

Discuss this article here.

Bike of the month March 2017

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BOTM march 2017

The faculty of judgement.

Come on, tell me you don’t like that front end combination of chunky loominum hooped spokes, 6 pot Pretechs gripping early Suzuki discs iced (white) with a perfectly proportioned mudguard, and a period ‘cherry on top’ fork brace? Well I do.

I like the big negative space (once obscured by the side panels) that now accentuates that positive 8 valve flatty draining 1085 cubic centimetre’s of OSS.

I like the slightly stubbed rear opposing that monstrous ‘Mr Whippy’, the balance of yellow and the gradient of the white flash. I even like the rear reflectors!

Some parts I dismissed because I hadn’t taken into account the brief, an AMA inspired gs1000. so with that in mind I made a call and a sensible conclusion. Congratulations RUSSP your GS1000 special is BOTM.

P.S  That rear sprocket will never win me over.

Read the build thread here

Bike of the month February 2017

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BOTM FEB2017

Death is only the beginning…..

Really?  For the most part, death is the end. It’s back to the tabular arrangement in order of atomic numbers for you, unless of course, you’re one of them ‘arty’ types, in which case you might believe or wish-think there is a after life.

Anyway, here at OSS we love giving old skool muscle another round in the ring, all be it , after some ‘Frankinstien’ intervention. It’s a  second stab at it, so to speak. Some do it by constantly evolving, others by digging up the forgotten.

I’m ‘arty’ enough to be agnostic about life after death for us, but if there is an after life,  when I’ve finally punched my ticket and I’m left for dead, please stick me on craigslist for $400, hopefully busa1300 will have a punt and bring me back.

Congratulations Busa1300 your GS1000 resurrection is Bike of the Month.

Read about the second coming here

Bike of the month January 2017

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botm-january-2017A stylish beast of burden.

Style, we all want it….don’t we? but at what cost?

The thing about developing your own style is it takes time and effort…and a total disregard for excuses. An idea that you feed with whatever it needs and 99% of the feedback is negative…or a positive negative. The time and effort spent on the various ways of how not to do it is far from wasted.

More failures than success, but once you hit that sweet spot you make it look so effortless and flowing….but then comes the crux as the audience offers praise and, undoubtedly critique, your mindset has changed….more, more, more.

I have no idea how many times Blower1 failed to succeed in his style, but style he has. Congratulations on bike of the month.

It’s not important what you think but how you think, the mind is a beast….feed it in anyway you can.

Viz

Follow the build here

Discuss here

Bike of the month December 2016

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bike-of-the-month-december-2016Less is more, more or less…

There can’t be too many occasions when its perfectly acceptable to replace the mighty heart of an EFE with something….erm…well, a bit less EFE-ish

The EFE is a legend in OSS  folklore and a brute in stature, from the humongously sized (and priced) headlamp, its no nonsense alpha bodywork  and its squared off arse. You don’t mistake an EFE for anything else or indeed anything less…

or do you?…say without its monstrous 16valve atlas stone?

5840abb7906fb_duckmotor-jpg-fcc6d722602ed8fcdc929e9237444e67

An idiom wriggling inside a can that’s rattling inside Pandora’s box, a Russian doll painted as a biker…. we could , or more accurately, those follically endowed, could split hairs and possibly a pint over such a premise… I guess it’d be prevalent to ask someone so old-kool and oldskool they probably had a highway hi-fi phonograph in their race van…

I guess one reason could be when N/A is not enough….I’d  be well happy to have such a beast of a conundrum.

Congratulations Clive AKA Duckndive, you’re bike of the month.

Read Clive’s build thread here

Bike of the month November 2016

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botm-november-2016

Ticking all the boxes…

BOTM first of all must fit within the rules, after that I haven’t picked bikes I’d like to own, just builds that have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’..be that in the amount of info the member has shared on the site, through to ‘I can’t believe that’s the same pile o’ shyte from the first post’.

A bike that has evolved to Tom’s exacting standards (these can sometimes be winced at but never shunned, Tom has not got all his frequent flyer saddle miles on luck alone) and as I type this he is still awaiting a part to complete the next episode, which I’m sure is not the final chapter.

I’d ask any newcomers to the site wondering what OSS is all about to firstly RTFR, then read Havocs AnerchEZ RatRod thread. Pretty is as pretty does….. congratulations Havoc on BOTM, the evolution will not be televised.

Discuss this article here.

Bike of the month October 2016

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botm-october

As I pondered B.O.T.M whilst watching Bill Cummings being fed to the sharks by Largo it occurred to me that…

A) I spent more time choosing it than being entertained by it.
B) Picking a B.O.T.M. can be as tough as selecting a 007 DVD.
C) This is not Dr NO.
E) Sometimes I should put things back where I found them.
D) Missions are better with a plan.
6)F.T.S.

I guess if the mission is to cover just over 400 meters in a straight line from a standing start, as quickly as possible, whilst looking slicker than a Leen pot, then this months recipient has made a fine job, well done Quist, your slingshot drag bike is this October’s bike of the month.

….BTW Desmond has boost in stock.

Read more about Quist’s build here.

Discuss this article here.

Bike of the month September 2016

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For the last year the Admin team have selected the bike of the month and then either myself or Minx have written the article. For the next 12 months Vizman has kindly volunteered to write the bike of the month piece. I’ll be posting an update on our plans for the coming year  shortly and these include a continued drive to find additional contributors for the front page.

Next month when Vizman’s training is complete he will publish his own content but here is his debut as BOTM editor:

BOTMsep

BOTM by Viz

Wayne Kemp once wrote about building a vehicle. He was more than likely bustin’ a gut in Detroit as opposed to Hamamatsu, nevertheless we could all relate to his relentless sentence on the production line, watching as you help build something you could never afford …..(it obviously wasn’t a song based on ‘Henry’s’ plant)

Wayne didn’t have the internet to flick to the latest pages of NWS (always assumed ‘Not Work Safe’) but you have. I recommend you go take a fag/tea/dump break and witness something far removed from the chopped up slab bones of the first introduction….. ”yeah but WTF has this got to do with that?”

Well, I’ll tell you.  By congratulating clivegto for producing BOTM, read about it here.

Mr Kemp let someone else record his song ….that dude was Mr Johnny Cash, aka the man in black, and as you can see from clivegto’s own interpretation of doing things ‘One Piece at a Time’ you can create something really kool….and black*

*the best colour according to Viz