Zed's Dead, Baby. Zed's Dead.

Despite a professed hatred of freak show bikes, I sure like to build freak show bikes. That is to say, if it's a freak show I'd like to be invited to. I put this together for my buddy Josh in Santa Rosa:
The inspiration for this one was somewhere between an old school bobber:
And a cafe racer:The frame is a 17" aluminum MTB frame, raw, with an arching top tube that gives off a moto-meets-Schwinn Stingray vibe. Bars are motorcycle drop bars. Giant brake levers are first generation Dia Compe mountain bike levers, which I put on everything because they rule. Lever boots are a must:Left side gets a micro bar end mirror, for seeing when the fuzz is about to put the kibosh on your mean motor scooter party action happy fun time:Whereas the right side gets the speed selector--7 lucky speeds--courtesy of a Shimano barcon:
Tape is Cinelli Mike Giant limited hoo-ha. Stem is a mega-tough, über-ridiculous Dirty Dog skull jobber:
Beautiful machining and anodizing. Despite the amount of material carved out inside, the thing weighs about as much as two or three normal stems. Ridiculous on any other bike...ridiculously awesome on this one. Good thing the spacers are carbon.

Braided steel cables by Odyssey give a custom moto feel. Gusset forks and retro brick cruiser tires. OWL decal on the head tube because Josh is the head hooter at Our Wrecked Livers:
Avid BB7 caliper with a Dirty Dog skull and crossbones rotor:
God is in the details:
Polished Profile widowmaker chainwheel, red ano beartraps, raw Stolen cranks, and a Paul chain keeper:
Skull are important:
Rally-striped banana seat, cut down sissy bar, Moon Eyes license plate:
All this and an Coupe de Ville?
And an awesome pooch named Lux, to boot. Some guys have all the luck:
Now for the randomness. Psychedelic clouds in the Presidio:
Strange interlopers:
They're here for our weed, y'all. This high art sculpture is in a store next to the newly re-opened mini golf in Clearlake. It's got a ton of tribal motif T-shirts with pitbulls on them and sayings like "Nor Cali Grown,"and posters of the "Indian 10 Commandments," enormous dreamcatchers, wolf face sculptures, shit like that. For Clearlake, the place is like a museum of fine art.
Speaking of art, if you see your mom this weekend, would you be sure and tell her: