June 12, 2010: The second meeting from chopperstyle.nl*, a forum for low budget bike (re)builders. I myself am not an active participant in this forum - nor in any other forum - but I visit chopperstyle more than I visit any other forum. So why not just join? Several reasons: I prefer to communicate as little as possible about my bike projects to prevent 'noise' in my design. In addition, I earn my money day by day giving my opinion about anything and everything; in my spare time I limit it as much as possible. And my past experiences on forums ended usually in a verbal fight. Finally, working behind a mill and lathe brings me more than sitting behind my keyboard. I just prefer the advantages of a forum (such as a party) to meet people instead of avatars and pseudonyms. Call me old-fashioned but I follow the motto of guru Floris Velthuis: 'real bikes, real people'. ;-)

This time the chopperstyle meeting was at forum member Ortwin's place in the town called Mill. For me it was about next door, just 30 miles from where I live. Signs indicated which obscure exit I had to take into a forest.

* A number of photos in this post come from this site.

... and even a custom banner.

The weather was just fine so Ortwin (middle in photo) planned an 80 km trip. Along the way we (= six bikes) paused at the biker friendly camp site de Hei. Main topic (not surprisingly): bike (re)building.

After the trip about twenty 'chopperstylers' arrived from the north, east, south and west of the Netherlands. I met a lot of nice bike enthousiasts. Campfire, beer and good company: what else do you need?

Important social activity: talking bikes. Here we are at the Saks' Harley. The thing looks like after the Apocalypse, but looks are deceiving: he rides it every day.

It was a colorful set of bikes: a red Harley with a sidecar, a not so red CBX, a Maxim 650 with frills, a loud 500cc Kawa ratbike with seatpipes, Ortwin's chopped XV920, a Super Tenere. To name but a few.

Erwin came on his GL1000 sidecar. Its beautiful little exhausts produced a dark brown sound. The bike is still not finished becaus he's (like always) busy with a thousand things at the same time. One of those things was a noble cause though ...

... working day and night at Pepe 'The Man Without Legs' sidecar. To get him riding a bike again forum members like Erwin worked entirely for free on his sidecar. This way Pepe was present at the party.

Who said anything negative about forums? ;-)

The BBQ was constantly overcrowded. No wonder because it delivered some very good snacks. And of course the inevitable raw-chicken-with-burnt-exterior, for those with a strong stomach.

I enjoyed my first beer at 15.30 hours and my last fifteen hours later, at 06.30 hours. As it got later (and lighter), the discussions got more and more intense. Not about the Soccer World Cup (lucky me), nor about motorcycles or forums, but ... about politics, which is an interesting but tricky topic. Some got so agitated so that it almost got out of hand. Not pretty.

After a good night sleep of not less than one and a half hours I got up. The joint breakfast was good. Ortwin put, being a good host, a nice weld on Erwin's bike and everyone was prepared to go home. All in all a good meeting.