tisdag 25 december 2012

Supertuppen Saga / A Journey To Sweden

Street Chopper published a sweet article about our little two wheeled adventures last summer, in their September issue, the article is done by my cousin Adam Wright.


I've got a black eye in this photo, can't remember why though?
View the article online, right here: Street Chopper

söndag 23 december 2012

The Quadcarb says MERRY X-MAS!


Quadraphonic Carbratonic Sim Salabim
Rigid Hips wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
See you in 2013

tisdag 18 december 2012

Original Speed-E-Shift Manual

Here is the complete original Speed-E-Shift manual:

Merry Christmas motherfuckers (in an Easy E accent)

torsdag 13 december 2012

Vardhalla Fork Covers


Rigid Hips Vardhalla dust covers - even harder to find than the originals.


Here's the raw casting ready to roll, they are a bit oversized so they need to be cut down about 1/4" in height to get the correct proportions.


Getting the step on top just right requires a few alu-surgical procedures.


Here comes the scary part, since the covers are really long, cutting this far away from the hub without having the lathe's dub inserted at the top hole is something that requires sobriety of Amish proportions, if you want to avoid vibrations.


More scary cutting, getting the top perfectly flat is important if you don't want to cause unnecessary stress to the material when you bolt them into the fork legs, I added some extra thickness in the castings on top to make them less bound to break over time, something the original Vard INC covers are known to do.


Starting to mill out the side for the top trees.


Made by hand.


One done, one to go...


Cutting away the sides for the lower trees.


Left to right: Raw casting / medium-rare casting / well-done casting.


Made by frozen Yeti hands somewhere inside the frozen thundra of Stockholm, Sweden.

tisdag 11 december 2012

Rigid Hips on Instagram


The chrome eyed Springer monster says:

Instagram

måndag 10 december 2012

Scandinavian Frost Hammer / Magick Of The Speed-E-Shift

Ok, here's some more of my mystery Speed-E-Shift that probably was set up for dragracing sometime in the 1950's, and when I've had some time to get into it I've realised it's acctually even more genius than I first noticed. Since this is a 'one piece' construction with the pedal integrated in the frame the geometry has been re-worked, for faster shifting!
If you know how the regular Speedy Shifters look you also know that the middle 'vertical' lever is useally a bit longer and reaches down about another 1.5" or so before it bolts up to the pedal lever, this one has the pedal lever in the same bolt as the bottom rear 'horizontal' lever, which means less pedal movement to hammer the gears in place = faster shifting.


This is how the Speed-E-Shift works folks, it's not all smoke and mirrors after all.



In this clip the Scandinavian Frost Hammer, as Brandon named it, is bolted up to a 1947 frame and transmission with a 1946 rotary top.

The clip begins in 1:st gear with the little handlebar lever pulled, then the lever is released as the shifter hammers down through all 4 gears (notice how it skips neutral and goes directly from 1:st to 2:nd)!

Then the little handlebar lever is pulled again to make the shifter shift back up through all the gears all the way back to 1:st (finding neutral is only possible when shifting back up)
And if you feel like it you can adjust the springs / wire tension so the L-shaped lever on the back of the shifter helps to lock the neutral in place, however I can't really see the point because it locks neutral in place perfectly without it, and besides that I didn't really tune the setup all that much before I shot the clip, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of how the Speed-E-Shifter works, bring back the 1950's!

lördag 8 december 2012

1968 VOX


1968 Vox Sidewinder Bass and 1968 Vox Ultrasonic Guitar, these has a ton of onboard special effects, the guitar has a built-in E tuner, distortion booster, treble and bass booster, Wah-Wah and repeat percussion effects. The bass has a built in G Tuner, cosmic fuzz plus a treble and bass booster...


Here's John Entwistle with his Sidewinder Bass, and Pete Townshend smashing his Ultrasonic Guitar, but lucky for Pete these instruments came with a 5 year warranty.


Only bad thing for me is, if I felt like getting into smashing: the warranty expired 39 years ago...

onsdag 5 december 2012

It's Not About Paying Dues If You Do It Out Of Love

I finally agreed to have a full scale interview in the Skatemag, something I've been a bit afraid of to tell the truth, skateboarding just means too much to me. This is my first skateboarding interview in 14 years, kind of a big deal to me. I won't post the interview here since it's in Swedish and really long, but here's the photos. We (me and Robin Nilssen) shot everything during two frosty weeks early November, just before the snow fell.

 
Frontside Grind
I remember coming in to Stockholm City as a little kid and seeing these planters for the first time, I was so stoked my heart almost stopped, I will always remember that feeling - there was a rumor floating around saying Ron Allen had done a Rock 'n Roll here, something that seemed so incredibly unreal, I just couldn't understand how anybody could ever come up to the edge no matter what trick.
And little did I know it would take until I turned 17 years old before I finally got around to grinding these planters, wait I mean 27 years old ...oh sorry I mean 37!
 

Fakie Nosegrind
I never run bigger wheels than 50 millimeter due to major wheel-bite problems, so going backwards over the sketch part at the bottom of this bank in a fakie ollie position was something that turned out to be a lot harder than the trick.
 
 
50-50 Transfer
This curved rail is built of stainless steel, and nothing grinds more unpredictable than stainless, so I acctually had to wax the rail before I made it, but I would never tell anyone because waxing is weak.
 
 
Fakie Kickflip
The early/mid 1990's had a huge impact on me as a skateboarder, but still it was possible to get me out of the 90's. To get the 1990's out of me however is obviously harder than Fakie Kickflips.
 
 
360 Flip To Fakie / Switch Ollie back up
This spot is right inside the heart of Stockholm City, under the 'Kungsbron' bridge, the hard part is not pissing off the homeless people living there, and it's not really hard to 360 flip it either, the hard part, at least for me, is coming back up due to the curb the bank begins with, but hey - getting back up is what skateboarding is all about.

tisdag 4 december 2012

Footshifters Of The World Unite

 
The physical practice of the ancient Oroboro Thoro symbol is to quickly shift through a four dimensional cosmosis.
 
 
...But who can say for sure? - the only thing I wonder about right now is; what's the total amount of gears these went through over the years..?
 
 
If Sigmund Freud rode a Knuck he would probably think hand shifting had a bit too much in common with masturbation, so my guess is Sigmund would run a B&H Footshifter. But then again, what do I know about partying, or anything else?
 
 
Not a mouse in sight.
 
 
The mechanical remains of at least one suicide pact just waiting to get back in buiness. Somebody call the CIA, or Jim Jones.

lördag 1 december 2012

'The Hammer' / Speed-E-Shift Dragracing Prototype


I finally found my foot shifter, I can't believe it! And the one I found turned out to be something a lot more gnarly that I could ever imagine, now I may have limited imagination but just look at this magnificent portion of racing history!


This is a single unit Speed-E-Shift with the clutch pedal integrated in the frame! And since it’s got the Speed-E logo stamped on top of the molded weld that holds the clutch pedal I would say this one was a special order from the ‘factory’...


Now I know I’ve seen some old black and white photo of what I remember to have been Frenchy LeBlanc using one exactly like this one on a dual carb Knucklehead sometime in the early 1950’s. However, I can’t seem to find the photo right now – it was in a magazine or in someone’s collection and not online.


Since all pedal action is downwards only, the Speed-E-Shifters came with this neat little handlebar lever that is used to reverse the mechanism, pull it and the shifter will shift back down through the gears again. There was two types of handlebar levers available for Speed-E-Shifts; 1950's Panhead Police siren levers and one other slimmer type.


This construction is so genius it's almost mortifying, the front lever makes sure you find neutral while shifting down and the other lever is activated when you pull the handlebar lever to shift down. Now you need to start in the gear you stop in, so I guess I'll need some practice.


Just look at that beautiful Logo and Patent Code stamped on top of the pedal mount, this fact would have to mean the modification was done at the Speed-E-Shift 'factory'. Since I saw the Speed-E the first time I always wanted one more than anything but considering how hard they are to find and also how much money they go for I didn’t even really look for one, and this time that was what did the trick.


Just look at that knurled pedal, I won't be able to feel fear or hunger ever again.


The shifter frame, if you compare it to the standard Speed-E-Shifters, is moved forward and mounted on the bike about 1” closer to the front, watch the rear bend in this shifter frame (right where it bolts up to the oil tank mount) that bend's got more of a 75 degrees bend than 90 as on the regular Speed-E-Shift frames, and the front mounting holes up front are drilled about 1” back to compensate. This Speed-E also mounts real low, real nice and tight against the primary. At first I couldn’t understand why they changed the way it bolts up to the bike, but after I bolted it up to my own bike I think I realized why it’s built the way it is - because of dual carburetor clearance! And also to get a good clutch rod angle, even the pedal is shaped to give perfect clearance for a dual carburetor setup.
Can it get any better..?