Remember, this blog is now Shed Built Bikes!

Don't forget, this blog has been moved to Shed Built Bikes

Time to say goodbye to blogger: New website!!

As promised: a new website.

The name BMW Cafe Blog doesn't cover the content of my blog anymore, as far as I'm concerned. Furthermore I feel the blogspot-templates don't offer what I want. So it was time to take the plunge and start my own website under a new name.

Shit Built Bikes was already taken by Harley Davidson, so please welcome:

Shedbuiltbikes.com

From now on I will post my blog updates there. You will also be able to easily access the photo's from previous shoots and event photo's. It will also be easier to contact me and manage the pages.

It's not completely finished yet, so some minor changes will take place over the next few weeks, but it's there. Have a look ad tell me what you think.

As a motivator to keep checking in: I have some SPECTACULAR shoots in my agenda, featuring classic Kawa's, classic Ducati's, classic Harley,s beautiful women and much more!

The king isn't dead, but there's a new king :)

For the last three or four years I have been using a second hand Canon EOS400D DSLR for my photography. It's an excellent camera and I enjoyed using it hugely. I know it is nearing the end of it's life. Canon designed it for something like 40.000 photo's and it is way past that point, but still going strong!

Last Friday, if they don't find a way to screw me again, I finally got the very last grade for my MSc study at the department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University.  My parents decided, totally unexpected, to buy me a small gift (thats how they called it over the phone).

The 'old' EOS400D

A Canon EOS 60D! It is a fantastic camera with a lot more possibilities. I am very, very excited about it.

The New EOS60D with my old analogue Carl Zeiss Sonnar

On a less cheerful note. I have to say something about my MSc Physical Geography at Utrecht University. It has been THE most insulting experience in my life. I'll keep it very short: People who have been following tis site a bit longer will know how I detest people who put their name on photo's I took.

A PhD student at my faculty took my MSc research (took me 5 months), put HIS name on it, submitted it and it will be published in a scientific journal in the very near future.

Of course there is a lot more to this story than this, but the details only make it more despicable. Not only that, there is a lot fundamentally wrong with the attitude of the faculty, this is just one example that illustrates how rotten it is. Again, my MSc has been by far the most insulting experience of my life. I would highly recommend people NOT to follow this study at Utrecht University, but instead opt for the same study the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.


I will take all steps I deem necessary against the PhD student and the faculty. 

Update

Sorry for the last two posts. I need the reserve some space for non-bike related (my study) stuff. It will be useful in the future. 

I am working very, very hard on a brand new website, until it's up and running, this blog will see fewer updates. More on this soon!

Look what the mailman brought: Lowside Syndicate No 7!

Fresh from the mailbox: Lowside Syndicate Magazine number 7, featuring my BMW! 

I'm really happy with that, it's a very cool magazine. Very tasteful photography and some great stories/profiles. And I'm not just saying that because I am in it.

Sorry for the crappy cellphone photos. If I scanned them so you could read it, it would feel like (and probably would be) copyright infringement. Just buy the magazine ;)

Issue 8 is just out, so if you get the chance: grab it at a local distributer or order it from their website.

I also got a Acewell speedo cable/sensor. Note: it is the cable for a ACE-2853, it will not fit on the ACE-4453 without some (easy) work. The connectors are different, so I cut the connector of the magnet-sensor that came with the Acewell 4453 unit and connected it to the wires of the sensor. I tested it and it works fine.

Not much biking going on

As you might have noticed: I did not update the blog last week. Partly that's due to me being busy, but mostly it's due to the weather. It's not been very nice on the days that I had time, so the bikes remained in the shed. Here's a short photo story of my past 2 weeks or so:

Winter near the village where I grew up in the Dutch river area (Betuwe)

This is what we do over here when there's ice: We go skating. En masse. Millions of people spend there weekends on the ice or took days off from work to go skating. I did a few trips myself.

A friend of mine bought spikes for the tires of his Super Motard

He asked me if I wanted to come and take photos. Hell yes :)

Last weekend the weather finally improved and it started to feel a bit like spring (although now it's grey, wet and cold again). Those are not birds, they are dogfighting planes! Impressive to see!

Almost as impressive were the signs of nature waking up for the coming spring.

But the singes of spring are there, hopefully the weather will improve soon. I have some very interesting photo shoots planned with bikes that (yet) haven't made it to any blogs, so they'll be BMW Cafe Blog exclusives :)

Lowside syndicate magazine

I just received word that there's some space reserved for my BMW in Lowside Syndicate Magazine's latest issue: Issue 7!

They had asked me for photo's a few months back, so I had a good look around on their website and really liked what a saw. They seem to want to distinguish them selfs from other magazines by the use of very classy, high quality material. So it's a great, great honor for me.

My copy is on the way, be sure to get your copy at the Lowside Syndicate website, or get it from the guys at Dime City Cycles!

Motor-magazine best readers photo of 2011

I submitted this photo for the motor-magazine best reader's photo 2011 contest:

Guess what?

That was a pleasant surprise for me, first prize! I'll get to go along with their professional photographer for a day, I'm petty excited about that since I'm always eager to learn!

My bike year in photo's (and a few words)

Januari:

The year starts really nice with the CB being featured on the largest custom motorcycle blog in the world: BikeExif.

I am working on a Kawasaki KZ for Zoran:

Februari:

We are getting to the final stages of building the Virago. It's 10% of the work, but takes 90% of the time.

We find an abandoned airfield. The BMW is still sporting the fiberglass tank.

And the CX500 sees some daylight again. The CX will spend most of this year in the shed unfortunately. Mostly because of lack of time (study).

March:

Real test riding with the Virago starts

And the fiberglass tank on the BMW fails. The BMW will spend months in the shed, waiting for a solution.

Luckily the CB is turning out to be a great bike. I have been using the CB A LOT this year. It was fantastic to always have a bike that I could use under any circumstances (even snow 2 weeks ago). It was great to be able to go where public transport can't take you and to be able to take a passenger there too.

I finished Zoran's bike as far as I was going to work on it, the rest was up to Zoran!

April:

I get remote flashes for my photo camera. They will have a big impact on my photography this year. But it's a steep learning curve

It was a very busy moth for me, the study demanded a lot of time. Trips like this one were scarce:

May:

Very busy month too. The CB is mainly use for transportation and a little bit of relaxation

June:

Greta weather. The CB sees a lot of the country and now pretty much completely replaces public transport.

I buy a new welder. Great decision, I don't regret it for a second.

I finally find a new tank for the BMW. Great, two working bikes (and the CX for the girlfriend) in the shed. Feels very luxurious.

Juli:

The cafe racer meeting in Achterveld is always an event to look out for. This year was probably the best so far. Hundreds of bikes, great weather and happy people.

The Virago has been plagued by a lot of very small problems, but is now finally running as it should. Time to strip it down for painting.

August:

We bought a Yamaha SR500! Now the Virago is nearly done, it is time for the next project and this bike was a steal. 

Not much to say about August. Not a lot happened in the field of bike building.

September:

The BMW gets featured on BikeExif. Wow. Two bikes in one year. just wow. The great weather makes for great riding and the BMW and CB are now both used for many (nightly) trips around the country.

This month is also the Chopperstyle Low Budget Bike Building Meeting. 

October:

Another photo trip to Amsterdam. Sadly the last time we could use the NDSM ship wharf as a photo location, it is not allowed anymore.

The Virago is getting it's final color scheme.

November

I am now really getting the hang for using the remote flashes. This is one of my favorite photo's of this year:

The Virago is now finally well and truly finished. Ready to start on the SR500!

December:

The weather is dark and wet. The BMW is locked away in the shed, waiting for better weather, but the CB is still being used, for instances to get to the horses where I take this photo:

It's the only none-bike photo in this post, but I have to mention it because it caused such a stir for me that it did change a lot. I am now getting (paid!) photo assignments.

December is also the last time the Vehikel Oldtimer Swap meet is being held in the Veemarkhallen, very close to my home. We find some great stuff for the SR500, can't wait to start on it!

So, that's it for this year. I would like to thank you all, my readers, for showing interest and support. For putting up with my endless stream of photo's, for sending me emails with questions and emails with photo's.

Bedankt!! (thanks in Dutch)

See you next year!

Blogroll

I have a list of links to other blogs at the bottom of this site. Most of them don't need an introduction. You will probably all know Bubblevisor, LeContainer, BikeExif, MotArt and Ottonero.(and most other links the list).

Some of the lesser known ones are really worthwhile too though. MotoMucci had his CX feautered on BikeExif only recently. Clearly a talented builder and all posts are of high quality.

Motopreserve is a blog by a guy from New York. What I really like about his blog is that he doesn't pick photo's form the net to repost them, instead he creates new content by writing some really interesting pieces.

GragageProjectMotorcycles is an Australian based blog. Again, only quality stuff gets posted here, including their own very cool builds.

And the most recent addition to the list: CaferacerBerlin. A German blog and another (you see the pattern?) blog that creates his own content by shooting photo's of bikes and objects in the streets of his home town Berlin. A refreshing new blog.

There's a few more blogs in the list that I am not doing justice by not mentioning them (anythingbutstockbeamers, Motorcycle74 for instance), check them out at the bottom of this site.

Non bike related: A bit of history

This is a small, non bike related, sidestep from what this blog usually is about. Thought you might find it interesting. If history is not your thing, just skip this post ;)


Went to the Grebbeberg today. The Grebbeberg is a hill on the banks of the River Rhine in the center of the Netherlands that was formed in the second to last ice age. The ice pushed earth ahead of itself while expanding to the south and forming a line of hills of which the Grebbeberg is one.

Areal picture with the Grebbeberg on the right

So what makes it special? It's a place oozing with history. From the top of te Grebbeberg you can see the famous church tower of the nearby ancient city of Rhenen (we couldn't today, too foggy). The church is late medieval, but the history of the place goes back much further than that. It is hard to see on the photo, the scale of the thing is MASSIVE and impossible to catch in one photo because of the trees, but you can see an earth wall if you look carefully:

Barely visible in the background: The earth wall that is part of an ancient fortress 

That wall is part of a fortress that is estimated to be from 700 - 800 A.D.. But the place goes even further back in time.... Inside the hill flint fragments have been found that once were Neanderthal tools. 

In more recent time this hill saw some military action too. At the start of world war two this hill was the most important part of the main defense line: the Hollandse Waterlinie. The hill saw a lot of action, pretty much every tree older than 70 years can testify to that.

Every tree on the mountain that is older than 70 years bears a huge number of battle scars caused by bullets and shell fragments.

But that's all the long gone past. Today the whole area is a great place to be with a magnificent forest

And some great views on the river on which I spend the last year doing research: the River Rhine (it's flooding history to be precise). I will finish the report on these researches this week (one of them has already been submitted for publishing. Just not with my name on it, while it is 100% my research. No further comments needed.). As soon as it's corrected, I will be done with the study. Finished.