this is going to start out with the many lists i drew up while trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my mechanical life partner.
list one(thought up right after jezabelle wouldnt start)
-first thought... damn, it gets hot trying to bump start a 1000cc motorcycle in the middle of a city in early september.
-my basttery is dead... thats obvious
-are my spark plugs fowled?
-who has a truck to get me to a garage?
- call harry.
get bike back to harry's garage(very cush in there, satellite radio, cable television and a decent surround sound system)
-bike back firing
-intermitant spark?
-timing?
- plugs are fowled.
-new plugs... still nothing.
-charge battery.
a few days later.
- battery charged
....fires up.
we ride out to the bar! im pumped!
she dies again...
store her in a.j. and pavlo's back yard.
-get truck
-bring home
-alternator not charging?
find new alternator on craigslist(this is a miracle, if you have ever looked for bmw motorcycle parts you know)
-put in new alternator, nothing
give up.
a few months go by.
bring her down to d.b.m.g.
-charge battery
- starter is drawing too much
- carbs need rebuilt
a few months go by. during this time we build a few bikes and drink a lot of beer. it what we do best.
the decision is made that i need to sell another car to fund my motorcycle. seems to be habit forming... selling cars to fund motorcycles.
-sell car
- buy super nippondenso starter( http://www.motoelekt.com/starter.htm )
-decide to buy new mikuni round slides to replace my bings(good decision!)
- buy new front levers(from a gsxr)
-remove most of my wiring
-valve adjustment
-all lubrication changed
-carbs re-jetted for altitude
-starter and kill switch re mounted
-seat and frame chopped and re configured
-exhaust glass wrapped
-iridium plugs(super hot!)
-cone filters
ready to roll, runs like a top( that is if a top did 120 plus miles per hour)
im just about ready for my trip.
i almost left last night as i was sitting out in golden having coffee(in true cafe style) on a ride.
however, i had to open the salon today and leaving everyone locked out today would have been a horrible career move.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
reasons
pure... simple... adventure.
people have gone down this same road before. howard zinn to prove the zen of working on the bike you ride. peter fonda to find america(however i hope i dont get shot by rednecks in a pick up truck) and several others. im not really trying to find anything, or prove anything. my adventure is just to stare the road straight in face for hours on end with no communication to the world i spend every day in. im not trying to walk in any ones shoes, or have the journey of a life time. im setting out to simply enjoy the sound of my motorcycle on the pavement and the wind across my... well... helmet.
i have thought of trips like this for years and never had the right circumstances to take one. now at the young age of 25 i find myself with some time off and a few friends i can stay with on the west coast. we(travis and i) heading out as soon as travis can convince his girlfriend that leaving the day after her birthday is ok. he is rather persuasive, it shouldnt be a problem. im not really going to plan a route. i have a few places i want to go, and a few people i want to see. this is good enough for me.
people have gone down this same road before. howard zinn to prove the zen of working on the bike you ride. peter fonda to find america(however i hope i dont get shot by rednecks in a pick up truck) and several others. im not really trying to find anything, or prove anything. my adventure is just to stare the road straight in face for hours on end with no communication to the world i spend every day in. im not trying to walk in any ones shoes, or have the journey of a life time. im setting out to simply enjoy the sound of my motorcycle on the pavement and the wind across my... well... helmet.
i have thought of trips like this for years and never had the right circumstances to take one. now at the young age of 25 i find myself with some time off and a few friends i can stay with on the west coast. we(travis and i) heading out as soon as travis can convince his girlfriend that leaving the day after her birthday is ok. he is rather persuasive, it shouldnt be a problem. im not really going to plan a route. i have a few places i want to go, and a few people i want to see. this is good enough for me.
back story.
im sure you have all heard how boys get into motorcycles. they are loud and fast and pretty and make your jaw drop by how dangerous they are. my attraction to them is no different than this. when i was growing up my father used to tell me stories about his 1967 triumph boneville and the adventures he set out upon with his trusty 650 twin. all the stories of riding from tulsa ok, to bakersfield ca in sleet and rain and having his coat stiff with ice were amazing to me. to some that sounds like a terrible idea and that being frozen to the bone while traveling at an amazing rate of speed just sounds down right... well... stupid. but, to a starry eyed little boy looking up at a mustachioed 6'6" man with more salt than pepper in his hair, this was what i wanted to do when i grew up. i wanted to freeze half to death on a well tuned european machine some day. some boys want to be police officers, some want to be firemen (both of which i considered due to the fact that the same man who told me these heroic stories of motorcycle adventure was both at one time or another in his life time) but the stories that really stuck out to me were about my father and his motorbike.
i rode a vespa for a little while, and it was fun, but didnt quite create the same feeling that i longed for. i moved to portland oregon from denver colorado in the early summer of 2006. and had been doing a ridiculous amount of research on a type of motorcycle called a "cafe racer". it was perfect. vintage, fast, loud. built for speed and handling... i had to have one. i sold my car and started looking. i found my dream bike on craigslist by simply putting in the key word " cafe" in the motorcycle for sale section. it was a 1981 bmw r100. i had no idea what that meant at the time, but i knew a bmw motorcylce for the easy price of $1400 was a steal.(i know you may think that paying that much for a used bike that didnt run at the time is kind of stupid, but it will all be explained). the man i bought the bike from had built the bike up quite a bit. custom suspension, powder coated frame, newly rebuilt engine, custom exhaust,etc. i also recieved two boxes of extra parts that included an extra frame and god knows what else. all that really needed to be done at the time was hook up the electrical. easy enough, right? wrong. i ended up moving away from portland and back to denver in a uhaul truck with my motorcycle still in pieces in the back.
i named here... "jezabelle"
upon my arrival in denver i started putting things together and realized how much had actually been spent on the bike to get it into the state it was in when i bought it. i found recioepts and bills of sale totalling around $3500. then i realized that this was not something i could give up on. i found a shop here in denver that would work on my bike (took me a while because most bmw motorcycle shops claim they "dont have the time for vintage bikes") and loaded her up in my dads pickup truck and took her up to boulder. when i unloaded her everyone from the shop came out because they hadnt seen a vintage bmw with a flat black paint job, clip on drop bars, and a cafe seat in real life. this was about to get interesting.
a few days later i got a call from the shop saying they got my bike running and that she was the loudest bmw motorcycle they had ever heard. this made me smirk and giggle a little bit. i got a ride up to the shop and drove her home. this was one of the most interesting rides i have ever been on. the simple trek from boulder to golden on a back highway on a bike that i had never ridden before that had more power than i could have ever imagined. the first time i jammed the trottle open at a stop light my front wheel was pointed at the peaks of the westward mountains and my bladder might have leaked a bit into my black jeans. the second stop light i found myself stuck at revealed a problem... gas... in my right shoe... float bowl stuck. this was an easy fix with a few rather brisk taps with my gloved knuckles. then i was off, seeming to want to ride like a little boy experiencing his first two wheeled bike. cautious, scared, and yet so excited i felt as though i was about to lose potential children all over the inside of the same black jeans i had lost a bit of waste fluids in earlier.
i rode all that fall and into winter, until it snowed so badly right around christmas that i found myself stuck in my parents house with nothing but satellite television and calls to old friends to keep me to keep me entretained.
spring came along and i was back out on the road. it had snowed so much that winter that colorado seemed like it should have been named verde. the hills and mountains were amazingly green and it made riding a beautiful experience. i was riding with some good friends named harry and a.j. their company has always been greatly appreciated anmd some of the best riding stories i have are from rtides with them. we decided one night to start a motorcycle club and call it " the dick bag motorcycle club"(d.b.m.c. for short). it was a funny joke at first but it stuck
i started cosmetology school that june and my wonderful mechanical best friend had to wait the entire 8+ hours everyday for ride time. it almost killed both of us. around september i went out to start my bike and couldnt seem to get anything from her. she was dead(or in a coma more) and i didnt have the time nor the money to fix her. it seemed as though my riding days were over.
i spent the next two years trying to work on a relationship and my career as a hairstylist. the relationship ended, but my career has started to take off.(this is where i end this paragraph because this is not about my ex girlfriend or doing hair, its about motorcycles, done and done)
i started working on a motorcycle with a friend(travis red rocket, he will be refered to many times in this journal because he is my mechanic, my riding partner, and my best friend. a very good combo if you ask me) i used to ride with. he bought a 1981 suzuki gs 650 from a good friend of ours for $200. this beats the seemingly reasonable price i paid for my bike by quite a bit. the first tuesday night we went to our good friend deuce's garage the bike was running a bit rough, but ran and was complete. we did the first thing any cafe racer obsessed kid does to a new bike, took everything off we didnt think we needed and put a pair of clubmans on it. travis ran it around the block and came coasting back with smoke billowing from behind the guages caused by what could only be described as " fuck, there was a fucking electrical fire!"(pardon my french, travis said it not me.)
this night spawned what we like to call "white trash night". its a collection of at least four of us( travis, deuce, tim and myself) with a few rotating people that come and go and either bring their knowledge or just drink our beer. either way the company is appreciated. we spend every tuesday night in the garage fixing, breaking or just looking at motorcycles, all while enjoying the good company of our good friend pabst blue ribbon. this night was great for all of us because we all needed something more to do. we were bored, we all had motorcycles and we all liked beer. simple.
we have dubbed the garage the "dick bag motorcycle garage". its our little piece of dirty heaven in a good friends back yard.
this brings us up to date. my next posting will be about mechanical preparation for my trip, selling my car, and waking jezabelle up from a deep coma.
i rode a vespa for a little while, and it was fun, but didnt quite create the same feeling that i longed for. i moved to portland oregon from denver colorado in the early summer of 2006. and had been doing a ridiculous amount of research on a type of motorcycle called a "cafe racer". it was perfect. vintage, fast, loud. built for speed and handling... i had to have one. i sold my car and started looking. i found my dream bike on craigslist by simply putting in the key word " cafe" in the motorcycle for sale section. it was a 1981 bmw r100. i had no idea what that meant at the time, but i knew a bmw motorcylce for the easy price of $1400 was a steal.(i know you may think that paying that much for a used bike that didnt run at the time is kind of stupid, but it will all be explained). the man i bought the bike from had built the bike up quite a bit. custom suspension, powder coated frame, newly rebuilt engine, custom exhaust,etc. i also recieved two boxes of extra parts that included an extra frame and god knows what else. all that really needed to be done at the time was hook up the electrical. easy enough, right? wrong. i ended up moving away from portland and back to denver in a uhaul truck with my motorcycle still in pieces in the back.
i named here... "jezabelle"
upon my arrival in denver i started putting things together and realized how much had actually been spent on the bike to get it into the state it was in when i bought it. i found recioepts and bills of sale totalling around $3500. then i realized that this was not something i could give up on. i found a shop here in denver that would work on my bike (took me a while because most bmw motorcycle shops claim they "dont have the time for vintage bikes") and loaded her up in my dads pickup truck and took her up to boulder. when i unloaded her everyone from the shop came out because they hadnt seen a vintage bmw with a flat black paint job, clip on drop bars, and a cafe seat in real life. this was about to get interesting.
a few days later i got a call from the shop saying they got my bike running and that she was the loudest bmw motorcycle they had ever heard. this made me smirk and giggle a little bit. i got a ride up to the shop and drove her home. this was one of the most interesting rides i have ever been on. the simple trek from boulder to golden on a back highway on a bike that i had never ridden before that had more power than i could have ever imagined. the first time i jammed the trottle open at a stop light my front wheel was pointed at the peaks of the westward mountains and my bladder might have leaked a bit into my black jeans. the second stop light i found myself stuck at revealed a problem... gas... in my right shoe... float bowl stuck. this was an easy fix with a few rather brisk taps with my gloved knuckles. then i was off, seeming to want to ride like a little boy experiencing his first two wheeled bike. cautious, scared, and yet so excited i felt as though i was about to lose potential children all over the inside of the same black jeans i had lost a bit of waste fluids in earlier.
i rode all that fall and into winter, until it snowed so badly right around christmas that i found myself stuck in my parents house with nothing but satellite television and calls to old friends to keep me to keep me entretained.
spring came along and i was back out on the road. it had snowed so much that winter that colorado seemed like it should have been named verde. the hills and mountains were amazingly green and it made riding a beautiful experience. i was riding with some good friends named harry and a.j. their company has always been greatly appreciated anmd some of the best riding stories i have are from rtides with them. we decided one night to start a motorcycle club and call it " the dick bag motorcycle club"(d.b.m.c. for short). it was a funny joke at first but it stuck
i started cosmetology school that june and my wonderful mechanical best friend had to wait the entire 8+ hours everyday for ride time. it almost killed both of us. around september i went out to start my bike and couldnt seem to get anything from her. she was dead(or in a coma more) and i didnt have the time nor the money to fix her. it seemed as though my riding days were over.
i spent the next two years trying to work on a relationship and my career as a hairstylist. the relationship ended, but my career has started to take off.(this is where i end this paragraph because this is not about my ex girlfriend or doing hair, its about motorcycles, done and done)
i started working on a motorcycle with a friend(travis red rocket, he will be refered to many times in this journal because he is my mechanic, my riding partner, and my best friend. a very good combo if you ask me) i used to ride with. he bought a 1981 suzuki gs 650 from a good friend of ours for $200. this beats the seemingly reasonable price i paid for my bike by quite a bit. the first tuesday night we went to our good friend deuce's garage the bike was running a bit rough, but ran and was complete. we did the first thing any cafe racer obsessed kid does to a new bike, took everything off we didnt think we needed and put a pair of clubmans on it. travis ran it around the block and came coasting back with smoke billowing from behind the guages caused by what could only be described as " fuck, there was a fucking electrical fire!"(pardon my french, travis said it not me.)
this night spawned what we like to call "white trash night". its a collection of at least four of us( travis, deuce, tim and myself) with a few rotating people that come and go and either bring their knowledge or just drink our beer. either way the company is appreciated. we spend every tuesday night in the garage fixing, breaking or just looking at motorcycles, all while enjoying the good company of our good friend pabst blue ribbon. this night was great for all of us because we all needed something more to do. we were bored, we all had motorcycles and we all liked beer. simple.
we have dubbed the garage the "dick bag motorcycle garage". its our little piece of dirty heaven in a good friends back yard.
this brings us up to date. my next posting will be about mechanical preparation for my trip, selling my car, and waking jezabelle up from a deep coma.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)