this might not be news to you, but i’ve had these images for over four years and i dig this bike because it’s a vincent black shadow, so here it is:
it was built by redneck engineering (with a redneck website from probably 1995). photos by michael lichter.
build specs:
name: 1951 vincent black shadow, “curves”
frame specs: mono-shock curved backbone using engine as stressed member
rake: 50 degrees
gas tank: handmade custom by redneck
rear fender: handmade custom by redneck
front end: tubular springer custom built to yeild 4″ of trail
engine: 1951 vincent black shadow 1000cc dual carburetor v-twin
transmission and primary: vincent
exhaust: handmade custom by redneck
wheels and tires: two 3.5″ x 18″ wheels by weld forged wire, 150/70-18 tires by avon
she’s also for sale. “80 grand or best offer.” i know that’s a lot and maybe if you had 70k laying around she could be yours. i figured it would be over 100k. it’s a vincent black shadow chopper with a monoshock suspension and four inches of trail. with that tight trail and suspension, she’s a rider!
i’d paint the wheels black and give her perimeter brake rotors. yeah…
After Miami the calendar shows a bit of rest on the political front – but not for me: I have to come back out to California and ride that ******* fiendish Vincent Black Shadow again, for the road tests. The original plan was to deal with the beast in my off-hours during the California primary coverage, but serious problems developed.
Ten days before the election – with McGovern apparently so far ahead that most of the press people were looking for ways to avoid covering the final week – I drove out to Ventura, a satellite town just north of L.A. in the San Fernando Valley, to pick up the ****** and use it to cover the rest of the primary. Greg Jackson, an ABC correspondent who used to race motorcycles, went along with me. We were both curious about this machine. Chris Bunche, editor of Choppers magazine, said it was so fast and terrible that it made the extremely fast Honda 750 seem like a harmless toy.
This proved to be absolutely true. I rode a factory-demo Honda for a while, just to get the feel of being back on a serious road-runner again… and it seemed just fine: very quick, very powerful, very easy in the hands, one-touch electric starter. A very civilized machine, in all, and I might even be tempted to buy one if I didn’t have the same gut distaste for Hondas that the American Honda management has for Rolling Stone. They don’t like the image. “You meet the nicest people on a Honda,” they say – but according to a letter from American Honda to the Rolling Stone ad manager, none of these nicest people have much stomach for a magazine like the Stone.
Jesus! Another tangent, and right up front, this time – the whole lead, in fact, completely f***ed.
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