This was brought to my attention by someone who emailed me. I did a little research online about it and this was the best article I found.

Bikers Bare All, for a Good Cause

article by Olivia Wiznitzer
source:Forward.com

Ken Shapiro has two loves: animals and motorcycles. His new calendar, “Kitty Porn,” combines both. The Maryland native, who founded the Jewish motorcycle group Semites on Bikes, was so disturbed by the actions of Michael Vick — the NFL quarterback who was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring — that he felt he had to take action, albeit it in a rather unusual way.

Ken Shapiro- as he appears in the calendar “Kitty Porn.”

Shapiro rounded up 11 brave volunteers from Semites on Bikes to pose in “Kitty Porn,” which will be used to raise money for the cat house of the Humane Society of Baltimore County, an animal shelter. The calendar features male models who pose nude on bikes, with cats strategically placed for the sake of modesty.

Inspired by the films “The Full Monty” and “Calendar Girls,” Shapiro, a retired kindergarten teacher, was determined to turn comedy into reality. “I thought it would sell,” Shapiro said. “The club itself has 70 members, so then with friends, family members, I figured we might sell a hundred of them, and that was low.”

They’ve presold 100 calendars so far, and Shapiro anticipates selling 1,000.

At first, Shapiro specifically wanted to help dogs. He approached Tom Dudley, who is a member of Semites on Bikes and also the president of the humane society’s board, only to find that it was not dogs that are in need of help but rather cats, which are currently situated in deplorable living conditions at the shelter.

Warming to the idea, Shapiro recruited his volunteers, all of whom are male. He requested that each man send him a picture of himself that fulfilled three specific criteria: They had to incorporate a bike and a cat, and pose nude.

“Kitty Porn,” which costs $22.95 (RK: this includes shipping-I think), contains everything from a man who “looks like Adonis” posing in the woods to a 74-year-old male who posing in front of his fireplace, holding up the wheel of his bike.

The amateur nature of the photographs adds to the appeal, Shapiro said. “These aren’t models — it’s a grass-roots effort.” (From another article) Despite the “out of shape” disclaimer, Shapiro, 55, looks pretty fit.

“One of the guys actually spent six months working out, tanning,” Shapiro said. “When he took his shot, he went out in the woods or something. He had his girlfriend him spray him with PAM. It’s the only shot that looks like it doesn’t belong there. It looks like the cover of Blueboy magazine or Playgirl.”

But that guy, Mr. July, and Shapiro, Mr. January, seem to be exceptions.

“Wait till you see August,” Shapiro said. “We have one guy who’s 389 pounds.”

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. From collegiate cat-lovers to a man who would like a copy of the calendar in time for his wife’s birthday, Shapiro has been flooded with e-mails.

Shapiro maintains that it’s simple, really: “Send us lots of money so we can rebuild the cat house!”

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If you’re interested in buying a calendar to help the kittehs you can send an email to sobikes@verizon.net to pre-order your calendar today. Proceeds go to the Humane Society of Baltimore.

The goal of the Cat House Project is to raise $30,000 to provide new, safer, and more spacious living quarters for the shelter cats while they await adoption. If you want to donate directly call 410-833-8848, ext. 202, or mail a check to the Humane Society of Baltimore County, Attn: Cat House Project.

The 85th annual Laconia Bike Week came one week late this year, but was still chocked with what we’ve come to expect of bike week; bikes, rain, heat, rain and more rain.

We could only spare time for day trip this year (my stinky new job is eating into all my fun “me” time) and it was just a tease. If we plan on spending the whole week (or even just a few days) up in NH we usually take a nice leisurely, back-roads ride up to the Lakes Region. However for day trips we just hit the highway and blast up 93N for 100 miles until we reach the Tilt’n Diner.

Once making it to the diner most people shed their leathers and helmets and prepare themselves for the 13 mile trek to the Weirs Beach. It’s a nice scenic ride that can take up to 3 hours on the busy weekends.

Our first stop was the Belknap Mill. This old mill has a gallery that houses motorcycle exhibits during the rally each year. This year the exhibit was of some sort of acrylic-type paintings with a water color feel by local artist John David O’Shaughnessy. It was like line drawing meets forced impressionist. The show paled in comparison to my friend Art Biker, who had a show a few years back. But I might be slightly biased.

From downtown we headed to the beach, finding parking spots near the very end. We did the typical stroll, down the entire beach up to the drive-in area to peruse all of the vendors. After buying some swag, we were on our way back to our bikes when the skies opened up and we were nailed by the first downpour. Seemed like the perfect time to duck into a local watering hole and wait it out.

As we were hanging out I noticed that there weren’t that many customized motorcycles that knocked my socks off this year, but there was an abundance of photographers. In addition to my favorite motorcycle photographer (again, I might be slightly biased) we saw Michale Lichter and probably 10 other photo crews running around desperately shooting whatever they could find.

When the skies cleared we took the opportunity to jump on the bikes and rode the loop up the the Antler, back down past the Fun Spot and finding our way to the highway. While we were gassing up we got caught in a tremendous downpour and, along with hundreds of our closest friends, decided to hang out and wait for it to pass. Forethought told me to bring my rain gear, but I wanted to travel light (because my rain gear weighs so much?) so I left it at home on the table (perfect place for it, huh?). An hour later it finally stopped and was a bright sunny day again.

The big recent news is that Myrtle Beach’s city council (and some residents) want to end the annual motorcycle rallies. The council passed a new property tax increase, and the extra money will go toward efforts to stop the bikers from coming next year. Also, a motion was passed to cancel any city contracts with biker-related events.

But since the biker weeks are not official Myrtle Beach events, the city is still trying to figure out how to get the bikers not to just show up.

The city says it wants the month of May to go back to being a family vacation month, not a time for rowdy partying.

“It’s what you and your thousands of event attendees do when you are here. It’s not who you are or what you drive. It’s what you do and what your behavior is when you’re here. That’s the issue,” says Mark Kruea. (source: WIS News 10)

Bikers from across county are planning to attend the Horry County council meeting on July 1 at 6 PM to show their unified support for continuing both rallies. “At this point we still have both bike rallies and what we need to do is sit down with city (of Myrtle Beach) officials and talk about how we can make the future bike weeks better,” said Hakim Harrell, CEO of Cycle Shoe International and promoter of the Memorial Day events held at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. (source: scnow.com)

I’m sure you guys have seen this Sturgis widget on multiple motorcycle blogs across the web. I’m happy to post it on mine as well because I think it’s important to stir up excitement for one of the largest motorcycle rallies of the year. If you have a blog or a social network profile out there, feel free to grab the code for the widget and post it on your own profile as well.

One of the more exciting bits of news for Sturgis this year is that mother-f*ing KISS (and Kenny Chesney) will be headlining each of the Rock’n the Rally shows! I’m so, so SAD that I cannot go this year. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t!
I will be hosting a contest to giveaway tickets to each show! Stay tuned!

In the meantime: join the legion that is the KISS Army, put on your demon make-up and rock out to one of my favorite songs:

Here is my (very late) post about last weekend’s trip to Americade.

Did I ever tell you how much I hate riding in the rain?

I have some emotional reasons behind it, but mostly it just sucks. I don’t like not feeling in control and not being able to see very well, knowing that cagers are flying around me and might not notice I’m there.

This is what i was thinking as I headed out the Mass Pike last Friday morning at 6AM on my way to Springfield, MA to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. My husband has this thing about starting a road trip with a Country Boy breakfast.

After we dried off and filled our bellies, we headed north up I-91 to route 2 where we got on the Mohawk Trail and the rain finally stopped (although it continued to be overcast). We meandered our way across the ass-end of MA, then cut the corner of VT up into NY. Riding through NY we rode through a plethora of farmland.

We pulled into our campground (ugh, camping) in Lake George, NY around 3PM. After unloading the bikes and setting up the tent, we made a beeline for downtown to scope out the activity. Having been there a few years ago, we knew the layout and the weird restrictions that the town has on bikes so we went to the Holiday Inn to get a parking pass (yes, you need a pass to park at this bike rally!) Once that was taken care of, we got a good parking spot and grabbed a much needed beer.

Around sundown the clouds finally burned off and there was a bit of blue sky. The temp dropped to about 80 degrees and the humidity went down a bit, too. About 10PM we were really pooped, so we got back on the bikes and hit the 8.5 miles down winding Rt. 9N (everything is route 9 up there, WTF?) and into our little home away from home. After battling the mosquitoes for space in the tent, I got as comfortable as I could and stared at the roof of the tent while my hubby fell fast asleep. The temp finally dropped around 3AM to a reasonable 50-something (and damp) degrees. In true camping fashion, we were up with the sun and back on the road.

Our first stop was the Harley-Davidson area over at the Ft. William Henry at 8AM. It was already 85 degrees out. A quick swipe of the HOG (Harley Owners Group) card and my man had his first ever HOG pin to add to his leather vest. Then we rode down to the convention center and we were the 3rd and 4th bikes parked. I guess we expected things to open a bit earlier than they did!

We hit the vendors at the expo center then took the shuttle bus to the beach, where we spent all day looking at vendors in 95-100 degree heat. It was brutal. That afternoon we went back downtown to get some food and people watch (two of my favorite activities!). That night we sat on a bench taking pictures, watching bikes go by and talking to people until midnight. We gassed up before heading back to camp because we knew it would be a mob scene in the morning.

We got up again way too early Sunday morning. I went to clean up in the lovely campground bathroom facilities (with all of the mosquitoes and water bugs) while my man broke camp down and packed up our stuff. We had breakfast at 4th Lake Diner, which was a real bargain. At 9am when we left, it was already 90 degrees out. While riding it felt like someone was standing in front of us with a hairdryer blasting on high heat. We opted to head back through NY and VT the way we came because the roads were so nice to ride on. Once we got to Rt 2, we just kept on it all the way home.

All photos copyright 2008 Rippin-Kitten.com and Forrest Frazier.

Hey everyone! I’m back from Americade and compiling my post from the weekend. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I found an interesting video clip from Daytona 2008, featuring an interesting trio hanging out together.

If you watch UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) then that scary, yet handsome bald fellow should be no stranger to you: that’s the “Dean of Mean” Keith Jardine, riding his 2008 HD Crossbones. The other guy, who is the comic relief, is BMX-er Michah Kranz. The hot blonde is Jes Rickleff, who was the “winner” (if you can call that winning?) of season one of Rock of Love with Brett Michaels.

It seems like yet another example of Harley-Davidson trying to engage a younger demographic. Hey, it got me to watch!

Sorry that all has been quiet around here this week. I had a large deliverable for work that ate up most of my time (and free time) and prevented me from posting all week. Also, my email for the site was down for two days and is finally back up.

I spent some time over the weekend implementing a couple of new features: one failed miserably, the other was making space for private advertising on my sidebar, which worked out just fine. So, if anyone is interested in advertising on this site, email me and I’ll gladly send you an ad pricing list.

Motorcycle Blogger Beware
You may have seen a button for BikerKiss.com in the sidebar for a few days earlier this week. I was approached by their affiliate program about advertising on this site a few weeks ago. After a lot of emails back and forth (and implementing their button/banner) the experience turned sour when the person who I was working with told me they had expected a large banner running across the top of my site (which was never discussed or asked for and for very little monetary compensation). When I told them I was not willing to compromise my layout for that and was only implementing smaller button sizes that fit in my sidebar, they backed out of the arrangement (not to mention throwing a parting jab at me). Needless to say, BikerKiss can kiss off as far as I’m concerned.

Off for a fun weekend
While most of you will be slumbering (or just getting up for work) at the butt-crack of dawn Friday morning, we will be heading out to Lake George, NY for the last weekend of Americade. It was a last minute decision to go, but we decided we need a break from day to day life. Unfortunately making the last minute decision means we’re going to have to do one of the things that I dread: CAMP. Did I mention that it’s also going to be about 90 degrees this weekend? Oh well. At least I’ll finally get some time in the saddle.