No sooner had I returned from the El Diablo Run two weeks ago than did I see ChopCult member and EDR survivor Kirk's Mother Fucking Space Olympics (?) ironhead for sale in the 33 classifieds. Kirk's curiously named vessel was a favorite of mine on the fourth running of the devil, and several guys I spoke with agreed it deserved to be in the running for best in show. It didn't take that honor, but Kirk's bike did turn heads everywhere he parked it.

We asked Kirk to tell us about his experience on this year's EDR. Here's what he had to say…

I rode EDR with my coworker Ryan. He took his 2009 Triumph Thruxton with a rack and my 2-gallon gas can. He called himself the Mother Fucking Space Olympics support crew. I would not have made the gas stops without that can and Ryan. We trailered down to Temecula in time for the Biltwell party and hung out for a while, but we were far too anxious to ride so we actually took off that evening and made it to some little town about 15 miles from the border and stayed in a hotel on the ride route. We did get sort of lost that night and accidentally added an extra 50 miles to the ride, but we weren’t complaining. I was pretty nervous being on an untested bike, but fuck it, you have to just do it. The next morning we planned to sleep in, but that wasn’t going to happen with EDR’s siren call. When we heard bikes outside the window we saw Sumo and the guys he was riding with gassing up across the street. Needless to say we packed up immediately and hit the road for Pizza Hut. We made Pizza Hut on the border, gassed up and planned to wait until the main group arrived in a couple hours. That lasted about 20 minutes before we were again overcome with the call of EDR and we decided to go it on our own.

We were pretty nervous heading into Mexico with the route to San Felipe only in our heads. I remembered Mapquest listing like 10 turns before hitting the Mexican 5 and was a little overwhelmed at first when we hit the city streets. Thankfully the system of street signs were as good as any in America and the route to San Felipe couldn’t have been clearer. Once outside of town we hit the straight-line desert highway, seeing not much more than cow skulls, wrecked shacks and rocks for hours. This may sound uninviting, but the view, the roads and the experience were amazing. I soaked up every second of it with a retarded smile under my mandana.

We were among the first to hit San Felipe, but were befriended by a member of the Vagos MC who was in town for non-EDR reasons. He pulled up on one of those souped-up off-road golf cart things and offered his help. He got us sorted on finding Kiki’s and where the best places to eat, then he spent a while checking out MFSO. We ran into him again the next day downtown and he shot a ton of photos for his son who is building a Sporty.

The time in San Felipe was killer. The food was great and the townspeople even better. We had originally planned on crashing in a palapa, but I’m stoked we decided on a room. The AC was ice cold! Plus I got to see Jeff Holt from Street Chopper magazine in his underwear when he broke into our room to take a shit in the morning because our drunk asses had left the key in the door all night. We also had a three-way shower with him the morning we left for Ensenada. Mmmm… Jeff has such soft shoulders.

The road to Ensenada was the best yet. The scenery and elevation was changing constantly as we passed wild horses, Mexican semis and a motocross race. I figured we’d be getting passed all day, but we ended up passing several guys on suspended bikes. I ran out of gas just short of the gas station, but we had that 2-gallon can so all was good. We hit one military checkpoint with the 18-year-old soldiers carrying machine guns. I couldn’t help but laugh thinking what the armed kid thought at the sight of me on my bike with a felt mustache glued to my bandana answering his questions. I think the other guys in his group giving me thumbs up while checking out the bike helped get us through quicker.

Coming down the mountain into Ensenada I realized that I didn’t have directions to the hotel. Shit, I couldn’t even remember the name. I did remember people talking about cruise ship tourists, and that the hotel was tall and pink. I saw cruise ships docked as we descended, so we headed in that general direction and easily found our digs. The stay in Ensenada was a lot mellower, probably because everyone had nearly killed themselves in San Felipe. The view of the parking lot from the fifth floor was rad! Rows and rows of bikes, and other dirty riders hanging out shooting the shit and wrenching.

I had to do a little wrenching myself, removing and resealing the generator, fixing an intake leak and the usual front to back bolt tightening. I was stoked at how well the bike was doing, as I had expected the worst. Ensenada was more touristy than San Felipe, but it was nice to see two opposite sides of Mexico. We shopped for Mexican crap, ate killer food for two days and met a bunch of cool fuckers from all over the place. Monday morning found us hitting the road around 7:00 to run for the border. We hit some rain, almost hit a crazy fucking dog that ran barking directly at my front tire, and split the nutso pedestrian-filled Tijuana traffic all the way to the border crossing. The ride from the border back to Biltwell was almost depressing, but welcome at the same time. We were beat, but stoked! Overall EDR was fucking amazing in pretty much every way and I know we will both be back next year!

Year make, model of motor: 1973 Harley Sportster XLCH 

Frame: Paughco, no stretch, stock rake 

Builder: Jason "Snake" Steed at C-51 Customs in Novato, CA 

Build time: 6 months

Motor man: Unknown. My guess would be Gary Coleman, just before he died 

Fork model and mods: 35mm Narrowglide, lowered 2”, Terozzi clip-ons 

Front wheel/tire model and size: 21” Avon (Air inside was imported from Tibet) 

Rear wheel/tire model and size: 18” Avon (Air inside imported from Compton)

Custom fabbed bits: Tank is a narrowed 1978 Husqvarna. The master cylinder is a finned Hurst/Airheart piece and the front disk and rotor are mid-'70s Sporty. Rear fender is a modified Front Street Choppers piece. One-off exhaust. A bunch of custom brass shit that I did. Drilled sprocket cover. Vintage automotive fog light. '39 Chevy taillight on custom made license plate bracket.

Painter: Mexican guy in back of my buddy Matt’s shop. Seriously

Thanks: Snake; Mike Tyson for his sexy voice; Charles Nelson Reilly for being a great role modelleather crafter: Franzini Bros. in Novato, CA

To learn more about Kirk's bike, check out his listing here.