Micah Spicer of Florida has just finished his custom #19 on a Voodoo Vintage SHORT-CHOP frame and it is bang-up flat-out COOLNESS ON WHEELS!

He completed his build in just five short weeks!!!  You must have been burning the oil buddy!

From Voodoo Vintage:  Let me just say- Nice work Amigo!!!  You nailed it!

No front brake, no front fender, no padding on the seat,,

Makes as much sense as lowering a pickup to me.
It LOOKS good, but its useless to me.
It represents what is wrong with the world to me, all about looks, function be darned.

I think JOG understands VERY well. What you're looking at is a death trap.

Back in the day I built several death traps myself.
BUT, when you watch one of your friends go sliding past you to T-bone the side of a truck because he couldn't stop, No front brake & no suspension, rear end hopping up & down, you change your mind about what looks cool. :'(

When he got out of the hospital, with a permanent limp from a compound fracture of his left leg, we rebuilt his old Triumph with a front end with the biggest brake I could find. And we took the struts off & put shocks back on. From then until his death last year from brain cancer I never saw him ride another bike that didn't have a front brake.

When you've seen someone go down because the ape hangers he was so proud of broke off at the lower bend from the stress of a hard stop, they don't look so cool either. I've also taken the time to teach a friend how to use his front brake effectively after he went down on a ride where his brother stopped in front of him & he couldn't. Today he rides with much more confidence & hasn't been down again in over 20k miles.

You see, I've done the stupid stuff, like the trick that got Indian Larry killed, so I've paid my dues & have a right to speak on it. Hell, I still occasionally due something stupid on my bikes. But I won't recommend it to anyone & I won't build or help you build something I know to be unsafe. I currently ride a bike with a car tire on the back & pull a trailer, but I won't tell you to do it.

In the past year i've advised several people NOT to get a bike, because after talking to them it was apparent they had no clue how to ride safely. And each one of them was telling me about the new H-D they were getting for their first bike.

Go ahead & build you one. Nobody's going to stop you. But if you live through the wreck, don't expect me to visit you in the hospital. And I won't come to your funeral either.

Yeah yeah, I know all about brakes.. the front brake is 2/3rds of the stopping power... if you just have a back brake you have to plan accordingly... or in lay mans terms don't be a dumbass..  

But those metal seat pans hurt my arse just lookin at em...

Correct, most agree riding isnt so safe, so, knowing that, does it then seem reasonable to wear a helmet backwards? Or run with no brakes? Or create a suspension that fails to maintain good tire & road contact? Or would it be more reasonable to ride a bike designed to aid in giving the rider the best chances of controlling the hazards?
The argument that riding is, by nature, hazardous , therefore, eliminating safety features is of no consequence is a bit like acknowledging parachuting is a dangerous sport, so, packing the chute carefully is really not important.

kevinphan wrote on 12/26/11 at 05:21:44:


Riding isn't safe but I've never heard anyone argue that removing the front brakes is fine because it looks better without them.  I hope everyone rides that way before they have kids. No kid should be made an orphan because their idiot father was a slave to fashion...

Joe F wrote on 12/26/11 at 09:18:25:


I never agreed it was safe to remove your front brakes, in the end it's none of our bikes, just cluttering up this guys thread. Some people get it, some don't and that's fine.

voodoo wrote on 12/26/11 at 09:44:10:


Now, Mr Voodoo, this is a much better answer than your post suggesting I just drive a car. I've visited your website & think you offer some really nice products there. Maybe not to my taste these days, but I wasn't knocking your product.

In this day of product liability & lawsuits that name everyone involved in any way, I would only suggest that you use care in offering your approval of a customers use of your product in an unsafe manner. As you should already be aware, there are people constantly working to outlaw m/cs as a whole, and many trying to make any modification from stock illegal, which would kill your business. Obviously, you are aware of the problems involved with the licensing or insuring of modified bikes or you wouldn't build frames using a stock neck so as to avoid some of those hassles. As someone who once built what Texas terms an "assembled" vehicle I can tell you it took a stack of paper work 1/2" thick & several visits to various agencies to get it titled.

As we have many newbies who come to this site for advice, we riders who have seen the bad things that can happen when unsafe modifications are made should make it a point to speak out. None of us would like to be named in a lawsuit, or see this site or a vendor named because of alledged approval of unsafe practices.

Wow, Kevin & Built, guess you put me in my place, huh!
Now if you still think you can plan for the car or child that runs out in front of you, keep dreaming. The only way I see you could aviod the dumbass label you threw out there is to not ride a bike with anything less than working brakes on both wheels. I'm not telling you to be ATGATT because that really only effects you & the people who care about you & is your decision. I'm certainly not an ATGATT person myself, but I do ride with the safety gear I'm comfortable with.
But in this case, your decision to ride without a front brake could easily injure or kill someone else.

Now hopefully you can accept this advice in the spirit it is given. It is certainly not intended to upset you or cause you any harm. I see it as no different from pulling up beside someone at a light & letting them know their lights aren't working properly. If you can't accept that, then the problem is on your end, not mine.

BTW, Mr Voodoo, I've been successful driving a car on the street & in competition at CC Speedway in the not too distant past. Right up until a wreck that even my safety gear didn't keep me from suffering an injury. If my current situation changes, I will be out there again. Would you like to be a sponsor on a racecar?