When I first took a look at Carsten The-Angry Kraut Fritzen’s little bit of green gold on earth, I thought it had to be an old barn find brought back to life, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah, the rear disc brake is a dead giveaway, but I was too busy enjoying myself just drinking in this bike’s perfect Old School goodness (and I’m so used to disc brakes that they’re almost invisible) and fantasizing about finding an old chop like this. I’ve seen a few come through Barnett’s shop over the years so I know they’re still out there and I really enjoyed those time capsules for what they were in spite of the fifty pounds of cracked Bondo and scary-ass handling characteristics before things like decent rake and trail measurements became understood. Didn’t matter, I just wanted to do the right thing for a piece of our history and have something to look at after I scared myself riding it.

 

   But a feature bike barn find would have to wait as Carsten’s dazzling green metal flake chop is a new build with an old heart by a guy with his finger on the pulse of custom motorcycle history. From any and every angle you look, this new/old cantankerous beast of a bike has it all and not a lick it doesn’t need (unless you absolutely feel the need for one of those old drum brakes that didn’t do much braking). It’s almost like he dissected a cool old chop and made a checklist of anything and everything some guy did back in the day and put it in his barn find Starship Enterprise replicator.

 

   From the stance to the flow to the parts and pieces, it’s all there. From the exposed spring girder fork with a yellow lens headlight in case Carsten’s  traveling to France leading the way to the tidy little sissy bar/fender strut delineating the back end and everything in between, Carsten got it right. The simple (and period correct) chromed laced wheel sporting a classic tread Avon Speedmaster Mk II tire is perfect although some would argue he should have gone the Invader route, but they were (and still are) just a bit too modern for me even if they are older than the hills now. I always thought that the premise was to make the front end look lighter than light and only a laced wheel does that for me. No fancy-shmanchy, welded-up all-steel Invader wheel for this jamoke (me), spokes still kill me, but in a good way.

 

  Obviously you’ve got to have a hardtail frame, but it’s got to be something with the right feel. Not too slick, not too perfect, and not too molded. The fresh coat of glossy black paint is exactly what the bike wants and anything else just wouldn’t feel right. Yeah I know some people did all sorts of wild frame colors back in the day, but that’s just not my style or obviously Carsten’s. Basic gloss black over a clean metal frame sans can after can of filler hiding the sins of a bad builder is just a way of keeping it real from my own wicked old guy perspective. Sitting in the rear wheel cradle is that damn disc brake mounted on a chromed laced steel rim wheel with a Goodyear/Firestone/Shinko whitewall tire (that looked like it should be on a car) just like God intended when He invented the first bobbed ex-police bike Harleys. Whether there was divine intervention or just good taste involved, Carsten did it right again.

 

   A simple form fitting fender that does nothing but fend and give a platform for paint does what it has to and not one silly style point more and frankly, that’s the way it was and should be. Same goes for the fuel tank. It holds enough fuel to get to the next gas station and doesn’t try to manically out-style itself. The gas cap is nothing to write home about ─ it’s a gas cap, not a game piece and that’s the way they were. Same goes for the Moon oil tank which anybody who has a bad thing to say about them doesn’t know jack.

The green metalflake paint Carsten chose for his base coat is timeless and in conjunction with the black stripe running down the middle of the tank and fender and a bit of silver striping is subtle and striking at the same time. Wild yet restrained is the only way I can describe it.

 

   One of the more modern and important style points Carsten chose was the use of a 1981 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead engine to power this ride. Anything from the ‘80s seems modern in context, but realistically, that lump is old. This year it will be celebrating its 33^rd birthday, but its lineage goes back to 1966 so there should be no grumbling or nit- picking his choice of motorvation. After a nice refreshening and some custom mods like the homemade air cleaner, a highly personal 2-into-1 fishtail exhaust with viewing ports, and an almost hidden jockey shifter, this kick-only Shovel was ready to get to work. Carsten likes to refer to his right leg as his pushbutton so he’s gotta work before it gets to work. Sounds very satisfying.

 

  One thing that actually might be somewhat out of line on this ode to choppers past is also one of if not my favorite touch. Notice those foot-shaped floorboards that you probably don’t recognize unless you were a musician (or maybe a groupie)? Nope, they’re not the Moon gas pedal prototype, but a pair of real aluminum Ludwig Speed King base drum foot pedals adapted for use on a bike. How cool. I love the repurposing of these and it only made me want to find out if there were more of this type laying around so off to Googleville and lo and behold, I found a treasure chest of pedals on www.Jalopyjournal.com. Click here and prepare for a long trip down memory lane.  

 

   Maybe you’re not into nostalgia or maybe you just don’t appreciate this vintage style of bike, but you gotta admit you looked and kept looking long after you had all the right reasons for not looking. Carsten’s built a bike that’s not the perfect ride for everybody and I’m damn glad as hell it didn’t, I love it for what it is and isn’t. This is a piece of replicated chopper history that doesn’t look or feel the least bit like a modern day replica and that’s almost an impossible feat to accomplish. Lucky for us a guy born in Kaub, Germany, later emigrated to Fort Hill, South Carolina, named Carsten The-Angry Kraut Fritzen scores 99.6 points (disc brake) out of a 100 on my always ongoing in my head old guy concours.

 

 By the way, I didn’t name him “The-Angry Kraut”, that’s his choice and I didn’t try and find out why. As long as he keeps knocking out bikes like this he can stay as angry as he wants as his work makes me very happy.