Grease Monkeys - Reboot

So... Grease Monkeys has been around since 2010 and let's face it, its got pretty stale over the last couple of years. It’s like a project that was started with all good intentions and then was abandoned while we went off to look at the latest shiny thing. It was always there in the back of the garage and you saw it every time you went in there but there was always something else that needed done first. Now, it’s time to pull off the tarp, blow off the dust and give it another go.  First, a history lesson.

In the beginning were the Rattlers. Rattlers was designed to be a very small club for people who built their own bobbers with hand made or repurposed  parts for as little money as possible.

“We are the guys who have to save, sell something, tell lies and wait for that cheap donor bike to show up, scavenge parts and scrap metal we think might come in handy to build bikes. The club ethos is to construct and ride low-budget 'Do it yourself' old school style bikes, be they metric, American, or British.”

The Rattlers started the first NZ forum for people who wanted to learn, share and build their own bikes. The original crew would meet up regularly for rides or garage raids where they would visit each others sheds to hang out and see what the members were building. The forum got to be hugely popular very quickly and covered all of New Zealand and beyond. While it was great to see so many people who were interested in the bikes and lifestyle, the range of styles and the numbers started to pull the club away from the original ethos of a small group of Auckland-based people with hand built bobbers. Friendships were strained and the forum was closed to the public and only accessed by the original members. That left a lot of potential builders with no-where to go. Enter the Grease Monkeys.

With all the members of the old forum looking for a home, we found a site that allowed you to create and host a forum for free. That sounded like a good deal so Grease Monkeys was born.

Grease Monkeys was always thought of as a club. Just a bigger and more inclusive club that anyone, anywhere could join. You didn’t even need to have a bike but you had to be planning one, building one or modifying one you already had. The most enthusiastic group of new members turned out to be in the Wellington area. There was a huge amount of skills around and the Wellington crew organised sessions where you could learn to weld, work metal or leather. The guys created frame jigs so they could hardtail stock frames or build rigids from scratch. The quality of engineering on some of their bikes was amazing and they even appeared in mainstream bike magazines. Lots of build threads were started, including a few of mine, but as any builder will tell you, starting a project is easy. Finishing one is a whole different story.

Grinderfest.

When the Grease Monkey forum was at its most popular we decided that it would be cool to run our own show. The idea was that you had six months to build and complete any sort of custom bike. The emphasis was on doing it yourself. We didn’t want to see a load of stock Harleys with bolt on catalogue parts. This wasn’t a fashion show for parts dealers. It was all about making the most with whatever you had around. The builders would post pictures of their bikes as the builds progressed as a way of providing inspiration for other potential builders and to show what ordinary Kiwis were capable of with limited resources. Projects ranged from fully custom mopeds to a twin turboed Subaru monster with a hand built frame with swing arms at both ends. The actual show ran for a week  with different events on each night. While a lot of excellent bikes were built and we had a great time, control of the show was eventually taken over by the venue and by the prize giving it had lost it’s way a bit. Lessons learned. Next time it will be better.

After Grinderfest everything seemed to be a bit of an anti-climax and the forum started to decline to the point where it is now. We still get a steady stream of new members but there’s nothing much going on in the way of build threads and only a few people get together for rides.

Time to make some changes.

Reboot

The original idea was for a club that anyone could join. The sort of club where you could meet up with like minded people, share ideas, learn a few skills and most importantly, get out and ride hand built bikes with a load of other hooligans. We’re going to make it like that again.

In this club it doesn’t matter what sort of bike you have. All that matters is that you are completely involved in making it your own. Cool as they may be, this is not for people with fully faired sports bikes with beautiful carbon fibre body work and remapped fuel injection. It’s not for stock Harleys with chrome kits. If you have one of those bikes and took a grinder to the frame and made your own seat and exhaust you would be getting there. Like the forum says, we like bikes with that vintage vibe; cafe racers, bobbers, choppers; trackers or brats. Cut down scooters or funked up mopeds are fine.

It doesn’t matter how you ride. While we may build the odd fast bike it’s not compulsory. If you have a 125cc bike that only manages 60kph but you cut it down and made a few pieces yourself that’s just as important as a hand built Panhead or BMW tracker. If we are out on a run some people may want to race but you can go at your own pace. Its about having fun on you bike. That all.

Its not a club with strict rules. You don’t have to turn up for meetings every week. You don’t have to turn up at all if you don’t want to. We will have club nights and BBQs and runs. We will post these on the forum and you can turn up as often or as little as you like. Everyone will be able to have their say in what the Grease Monkey club becomes and what it does. Bottom line is that this a a social club for garage bike builders; people who want to create, ride and enjoy their own motorcycle. It will never become a patch club or somewhere for macho outlaws. There are plenty of places to go if that’s what you are looking for. This is meant to be fun for everyone.

As a start its going to be based in Auckland. Mostly West Auckland as there are a few people in this area who are interested in putting the time and effort together to kick things off. I would love to see it being picked up in other places as well. I know that there are a lot of talented people in Wellington and Christchurch that could set up their own crews. Towards the end of January we will set up a BBQ and kick off session at Salt Lake Cycles in Helensville (my workshop) to get that first group together. If you think this is for you then jump on here and let us know.

This sort of thing takes a lot of organising and Coops has offered his time to help me pull it all together. Coops was the one who finally got me off my ass and try and get things moving again so I’ll turn this thread over to him now.

We think this will work out and will give us all something to inspire us to create new and exciting customs and provide talented and enthusiastic people with the platform to get into the oil stained world of home built motorcycles.

Over to you Coops.
Irish.

Awesome, thanks Jon.

There may be some, or many out there of the 230 forum members who are like me, I signed up to the forum after stumbling across it while trying to find inspiration and know how on the net for a bike I was building, I was creating a bike of my own style and taste, and as there were no bolt on kits available.. I had to do a lot of head scratching .. how much of the frame can I cut before I need a low volume cert? where will I mount the indicators.. how does this work? and so on... I was stoked to find this forum and read through the posts picking up info where i could, well I've been a member for just over a year and until very recently I hadn't met any other member ...
To back up what IrishJon was saying... about any bike that you have cut down, or funked up being all good, the bike I was building was a GN250 bobber.

So, I finally met up with another member , Scotty who helped me out with some electrical work after i posted a shout out for help .. we spoke about getting together for rides, which lead me to contact Jon and organise a meeting... personally, my desire to see this club take off since meeting Jon and Sara has doubled..
ok, so that sounds a little tree hugging, humus eating poofy.. but dang it they're a great bunch of people.

I totally agree with Jon...
"The sort of club where you could meet up with like minded people, share ideas, learn a few skills and most importantly, get out and ride hand built bikes with a load of other hooligans".

"In this club it doesn’t matter what sort of bike you have. All that matters is that you are completely involved in making it your own".
"Like the forum says, we like bikes with that vintage vibe; cafe racers, bobbers, choppers; trackers or brats. Cut down scooters or funked up mopeds are fine".

The common desire for this club, a fun group to belong to... like anything there will need to be some sort of structure to enable things to run smoothly, why not get a club logo made up? the odd badge and pin here an there? some sweet black T shirts to wipe your greasy mits on after doing an oil change.... how far this goes is up to you, the people... the members.

Come along to club meets, we have a sweet place to hang out in, and it's a great ride out there... learn a thing or 2, get inspired, and just hang out with a good bunch of guys and girls with no false pretences of being something we are not.. and that is, we are NOT a biker club that is about to start drug smuggling, or robbing old ladies for pension money.

So, Grease Monkeys Bike Builder Club ... Hell yes, count me in.

Please make yourself known, stop watching and start getting involved... you wont regret it.

Thanks
Coops
027 6300017

I'm interested, though my resources are extremely limited.
Will I have to give up smuggling old ladies?

Depends how much you're getting for them. I could do with another revenue stream.

The little old lady market is flooded these days, barely get tuppence.

Awesome. Keen builder here.

Im into cars now and only come here for shameless marketing promotion.
I think the rattlers kind of devolved back into a cosier thing called vandals or something, same group of guys pretty much I think? Byron, Jon61, Scotty, etc.
This is what Im into now, got addicted to boost
I dunno how long I'll be allowed to hang around here, Irishjon has been very merciful. My last bike build was in 2013 but Im always on the lookout for a project so another could still happen in the future I guess?
Anyway thanks Jon there is a need for a forum like this. That aren't any others in NZ that I know of.

Hey Brett. You know we miss you when you're not here.

haha okay

Where's Woody?
I miss him.
I even miss Doug, well a little bit

That’s not a bad choice of cars there Brett, so all is forgiven.
As bikes are addictive …. You may very well be back with an angle grinder in hand before you know it.

Interesting, even though I said …

“Come along to club meets, we have a sweet place to hang out in, and it's a great ride out there... learn a thing or 2, get inspired, and just hang out with a good bunch of guys and girls with no false pretences of being something we are not.. and that is, we are NOT a biker club that is about to start drug smuggling or robbing old ladies for pension money”.

Smuggling old ladies seems to have caught the attention of a few? Are there some Demons in the closet ?
As long as we all keep an open mind, we can’t go wrong … we could even make a special badge for every 10th old lady smuggled?

In the closet or out, my Demons & I are now on the same side.

Either my browser is having a seizure or the look of this forum is changing...

Looking good, Jon!! Keep it up!

LOL , no seizure ... just an injection of colour into the site.
Thoughts on choice of colours etc would be greatly appreciated.

I'm thinking the Black, Red and Gold go together nicely... I am also looking at getting a club logo (small patch) made up and a Facebook page using these colours, so if the combination wants to make anyone hurl, please speak up now.

It's not me. I've handed the controls over to Coops. Be nice to him. I'm retiring to the shed

Loving the forum and the clubs ideas, keep up the good work and may it go from strength to strength

Thanks Lenny.
This is a club for the people, so if you have any ideas please feel free to put them out there.

I'm digging the momentum that's starting to build here, exciting stuff, can I get a WOOT WOOT

WOOT WOOT
I'm looking forward to getting my project under way and hitting a few events

Lenny, you have an interesting build ahead of you... Some pictures would be great.
It’s be almost 24 hours, have you finished it yet?

Haha I like that " interesting " bloody scary would be a closer description, I've taken a few as it is, with the plastics off and the piss poor welding but I'm having trouble putting them on( bloody computer thingys) I'll keep trying,
Well in the last 24 hours I've sat in the garage smoked a few cigarettes and tried to visualise the finished ride, and generally shit a brick at what lays ahead haha

Yeah, unfortunately posting pics on here can be tricky, but it is possible and a how to can be found under the “G’day my name is” topic.

Some say interesting, others say bloody scary, I guess you will have to tell us at the end of the project.

Good luck with your build, and may the force be with you .

Only an apprentice am I pffft !