We’ve been debating for the last 12 months or so when is the right time to update our popular J&P Cycles’ Vintage Catalog. And the irony is that by now, our vintage book is vintage in and by itself.

But we’ve corrected that situation and, in fact, we promise to issue a new Vintage Catalog on an annual basis from here on out. Seriously. We promise — new year means new vintage catalog. You can bank on it.

Scheduled for release real soon, the J&P Cycles Vintage Catalog Volume No. 8 will be packed page to page with more than 13,500 individual part numbers. And a whopping 1,500 of… Continue Reading

J&P Cycles flew a crew out to the V-Twin Expo in Cincinnati this past weekend so everybody could get a first-hand and up-close look at what our vendors have in store for all of us this season. A good part of the reason we all even work here is so we can attend exclusive motorcycle industry shows where our vendors debut all the products they have been developing over the winter.

What that means is, everybody who’s lucky enough get inside the doors of this exclusive exposition are laying their eyes on literally thousands of new motorcycle products and accessories for the first time.

And because J&P… Continue Reading

A few months back, Tim Barcz, who is my boss here at J&P Cycles, called me into his office, which in and by itself isn’t out of the ordinary. But what he said after I closed the door was something you don’t hear every day.

Seems he’d just received a phone call from producer of the top-rated TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and those folks were looking for a little help. They were filming a segment of the show in Iowa and they had called Tim to ask if we’d be at all interested in rebuilding two motorcycles for the family highlighted in the show. My response was brief:… Continue Reading

The motorcycle community lost a great mechanic, friend and enthusiast last week in Florida.

Mark “Tex” Adams was doing what came natural to him last week — helping out somebody in need. Mark stopped to help a woman who had run out of gas on Interstate 4 in Florida when another motorist veered onto the shoulder and struck him.

I had the opportunity to get to know Mark when we worked together at KTM. He was an excellent mechanic who loved to tinker on anything with a motor in an effort to get it to run perfectly. On more than one occasion, Mark helped me develop new products for the… Continue Reading

Here in the frozen north — and we are officially frozen now —  it’s time for our annual Winter Workshop, where we here at J&P Cycles help you decide what projects you want to take on for your motorcycle and then show you how to accomplish your goals. Whether you’re a certified technician or just like to putter around in your garage, we’ve got the know-how and information you need.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 4, (with an hour break for lunch) we will be offering an absolutely free workshop at our Iowa location only. We’ll be on hand with fistfuls of tips… Continue Reading

We say this every year, but it’s true: Our 2012 J&P Cycles catalog — refurbished, renovated, refined and featuring 1,064 pages — is our best ever! And we mean it this time. It’s chock-full of the latest brand name items from S&S, Custom Chrome, Vance and Hines, Drag Specialties, Bikers Choice, V-Twin Manufacturing and others. This catalog is your one-stop place to shop.

The 2012 catalog offers a whopping 40,000 individual unique numbers, ensuring you that we’ll probably be able to handle all your Harley parts needs. Over the last couple years, we’ve been using product specialists to bring new and exciting products to each chapter… Continue Reading

If you’re still in denial that riding season is indeed over for the year, and you’re a little hesitant about putting your bike in winter storage, just stick your head out the front door and take a look. Winter has arrived, baby, and there’s no two ways about it. Heck, it’s even been raining in Southern California and they never have weather!

And unless you’re a motorcycle newbie, you know that putting your ride in hibernation doesn’t mean rolling it into the garage and putting the kickstand down. If that was your best thinking, we’ve got some more bad news for you. Winter storage requires some action on your part.… Continue Reading

There’s always been confusion and conflict when it comes to any discussion about oil, which is of course, the lifeblood of our beloved motorcycles. And I’m probably not going to bring world peace to this topic with anything I’ll say in today’s blog post. Truth be told, this topic has created more debate on our Riders Forum on the J&P Cycles website than any other subject.

In fact, I’m mostly going to stick to the facts in this post, steering away from the controversies for the most part. First off, let’s explore the function of oil in an internal combustion engine — the educational portion of this… Continue Reading

When producers from the long-running ABC television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” called us in early October and asked us to work some mechanical magic into a pair of three-decades-old derelict bikes, our crew jumped at the opportunity.

A couple of our top techs rounded up a van and trailer and drove the 90-minutes from J&P Cycles’ headquarters in Anamosa to West Union, Iowa, to meet up with the ABC crew and surprise Audrey Gibbs and her six children.

The back story is this: Seven months after her husband died, Audrey Gibbs suffered a brain aneurism that left her legally blind and raising six children… Continue Reading

Patrick Garvin, one of our more prolific bloggers and motorcycle tech experts grabbed a microphone and wandered around what he calls the “belly of the beast” here at J&P Cycles, asking a sampling of employees for their New Year’s resolutions.

Were this a bank or financial institution, you would expect those resolutions to center around balancing a checkbook or putting more into savings. But J&P Cycles sells motorcycle parts — about 130,000 of them at last count — and our employees seem to have a common theme when it comes to resolutions.

And that theme is this: Fix the bike that’s in the garage. For example, senior technician… Continue Reading