Carl's Bikes (and other stuff)

Thank you for visiting my web page, I hope you like it! I am a computer consultant (Novell Certified) based in Eugene, Oregon USA. Computers have provided me with a pretty good living for the past 16 years, but if I had a choice (that is to say, if I could make as good a living), I'd rather be restoring motorcycles full time. I am the editor of the Oregon Vintage Motorcyclists newsletter, and I have a small, but interesting collection of old motorcycles, included here are pictures of two of them. OVM Logo

Learn about Oregon Vintage Motorcyclists!

Loading picture of Dodge and Enfield, be patient, it's worth waiting for. This is my 1959 Royal Enfield Indian. The Enfield Indians were sold by Indian dealers from 1953 to 1960 as Indians after the factory in Springfield, Mass. was closed down by Brockhouse, LTD., the British company that had purchased the Indian manufacturing facility. Brockhouse had no association with Royal Enfield, whose motorcycles (along with Vincent, and some others) were being sold by Indian dealers. The Indian Sales Corporation was not involved in the sale of the factory, and shared the right to use the Indian name, so they simply imported Royal Enfields from England without gas tank badges and applied their own Indian badges and decals to the bikes, they then sold them as Indians. This practice was ended in 1960 when Associated Motorcycles of England (Builders of AJS and Matchless motorcycles) bought the Indian name. The backdrop is my 1949 Dodge coupe.
Beech Staggerwing This is a Beech Staggerwing. It obviously has nothing to do with motorcycles, I just like the picture! The plane belongs to some friends of mine here in Oregon.


BMW R69S as found BMW R69S after restoration

Here is my 1965 R69S in "before and after" versions. Before and after I max'ed out my Visa bill!

Restoring my R69S was expensive, have you ever thought about how much you spend when you rebuild a motorcycle? I'm starting to, and I've recorded the costs for some items for your edification.

Do you like that Dodge in the picture of my Royal Enfield Indian? I've been working on it. Here's a picture of the motor after we got it reinstalled in the chassis. The front fenders were removed from the car to make the job easier.

About my background graphic: That's a 1926 Zenith motorcycle that was featured in Classic Bike Magazine about 10 or 12 years ago. I copied the picture using an old computer drawing program called Dr. Halo. I employed a technique that was often used by artists to copy or enlarge pictures, where a grid is drawn or placed on top of the picture to be copied, and a similar grid (scaled up or down) is used on the surface to be copied onto, then each square of the grid is copied individually onto the new surface. It is an easy way to accurately copy pictures, and can be done with only a little drawing talent, as long as you have a reasonable amount of patience.


Carl Best, Editor, Oregon Vintage Motorcyclists Newsletter

best@efn.org

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All content copyright Carl Best, 1997-2002, unless otherwise noted.

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Last revised: February 17, 2005