New website

I've had this domain for a while now, but getting it all to work is slow going.  Yes, it is for self promotion because it's called
www.lukepadgett.com

Bike with no name

It can get pretty easy to obsess over a mode of transportation.  Think of all the bicycle nerds you know.  The ones who order screws and pedals on the internet, or get ransomed in the Trek store for the astronomical price of a digital speedometer and a few ounces of lycra.  Or recall the high school years when everyone was saving up their drug money to buy body kits for Mitsubishi Eclipses and Honda CRXes.  Maybe it's four-figure tire sets for your jacked-up truck.  Maybe your Escalade has chrome spinners and a blacked out headlights and neon underneath.  Somehow, transportation becomes more than just a truck or a bike or rollerblades or whatever.

Anyway, point is, there will be no snide down-my-nose-looking upon those pastimes.  Because Katelyn and I spent about a hundred years finishing this motorcycle that encapsulates a hugely deceptive amount of internet goods and unnumbered hours of toil.  It goes pretty fast.  Looks very cool (especially when she's on it), sounds great, and is pretty satisfyingly functional.  Maybe it's a little more than a motorcycle, but since we were mostly trying to come up with ways to get rid of things that usually come on a motorcycle, it's actually considerably less than the bike it used to be.  They called that one the 1980 CB650 Custom at the factory.  This one still hasn't earned a name yet.  Probably since '2012 Honda Bloodsweatandtears 650' is a bit much to say.

I'll post video proof that it exists when I'm happy with the edit.  Which will probably take as long as the bike did.  Maybe by then she'll have a name for it.

Autumn Gone

I spent fall in the West Virginia hills along the New River Gorge, knee deep in autumn leaves.  This is a frame from a series of timelapses that are slowly finding their way into a motorcycle video.  Fall has always been my favorite season.  So many things that leave the forest in autumn die forever, and so much else only sleeps to wake up in spring.  Also, it's real pretty.  No wonder so much deeply ambiguous death-lore comes around the end of October.