To Do 2011

Thinking about my last big motorcycle trip, I went into the garage about an hour ago and looked at my two bikes with big ideas in mind. I think this next year instead of doing long-distance travel, I'd like to stay closer to home and do some improvements on my bikes. Here's a quick list of what needs to be done.

CX500

Fit/modify new tank (Deluxe tank! gives me twice the capacity!)
Fit new HD pipes to bike (Had the pipes for a year already)
If time allows, find a new seat cover & replace.

Titan

Rent/Buddy out a trailer and haul it over to the car wash and wash the hell out of it
Take off cover and inspect kickstarter- probably needs new gears
Test bike to see if it kicks over and starts and see how well it runs (maybe a test ride?)
Clean the metal (exhaust, forks, etc)
Air filters
Check oil filter and tank

Needs new/used
Rear fender
Tires
Grips
Kick lever
Rear brake lever
Cables
Battery (or alternate source of power for lights, the bike has no electric start)
Bulbs (probably)
Engine case hardware

Customize (pretty unnecessary stuff, but whatev)
Clubman handlebars
Paint (candy apple red or candy green)
Emblems

I think I can get the bike running and in good shape (if the kickstarter is all I need to replace) for about $400-500. The tires will suck up a lot of the budget at around 120 for both (if I'm lucky). A new kickstarter shaft + lever will run me about $80. Cables will cost around $35 for both, hardware is $20, brake lever is $30, chain is $40, battery is $40, fender is $80, grips are $10.

This leaves me at $455, but it could be more expensive or cheaper. The goal is to keep this bike a budget bike and get it running and looking decent to either keep or sell. Thankfully, it's easier to work on than the Honda.

Canada ride- Part II

Southern Canada is a lot like West Virginia.

If you've ever been to West Virginia and drove around, you know what I'm talking about.

I could say more and be pretty descriptive, but I'd be an asshole at the same time, so I'll leave it at that.

Trans-Canadian Hwy 17 cuts through the most deserted land I had ever been on. I've been to the Badlands and I thought that was pretty deserted, but this was worse. There's no gas stations for miles and miles and my bike had a range limited to about 120 miles at 60mph (including reserve). That day, I stretched it to 150 miles at 43mph. As soon as I hit 90 miles on the odo (where I usually expect to go on reserve) I turned on my left turn signal to let him know I hit reserve. Dad hit reserve soon after that and we rode about 10 more miles without any luck for gas stations, so we pulled over and looked at the map. The map showed a few towns, but we had already passed them and didn't see anything advertising a gas station, convenience store, etc. We decided to push on at 40mph to stretch our gas, and would go slower if we had to. The road was pretty deserted anyway, so nobody would really care if we were going that slow. After riding for about an hour at 40mph (panicking the entire way) we finally pulled over to some sort of rest stop and asked someone if there was a gas station nearby. He directed us to the nearest one (about 3 miles away) but it was one that we totally would have missed if we hadn't asked. It was a tiny ESSO establishment on the side of the road with two pumps and a small convenience store.

Now I had never been to Canada before, so I didn't know that full-service gas stations were commonplace there. A young guy about my age came out and grabbed the pump and headed towards our bikes while we just stared at him. As he was about to touch the bike we our staring faces turned into WTF faces and we stopped him before he could open the lids to our tanks. The pumps themselves were some of the oldest I had ever seen, and I thought I'd seen the oldest ones riding through Missouri last year. They of course didn't take credit cards and had the little numbers that flipped over on the display.

While my dad was gassing up the bikes, I went into the convienence store to use the washroom and get something to drink. I couldn't find the bathroom in there, so I asked the lady behind the counter, who was wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off with a picture of a teddy bear holding a flower on it. I was very polite to her when asking, but all I got out of her was "CAN'T YOU READ!? ITS OVER THERE...dumb f'ing Yankee..." I went back and still couldn't find it but a young girl (probably her daughter) led me to the bathroom, embarrassed at her mom's lack of manners. After that I grabbed a drink and realized I didn't know how to pay in Canadian money and forgot the difference between a "toonie" and a "loonie". I just slapped a bunch of cash on the counter and hoped for the best. The crabby lady gave me a look and shook her head and gave me my change and we were back on our way.

So that was my first real encounter with a Canadian in their own territory, and it supported my theory that this area was a lot like West Virginia. Although, if you said "dumb f'ing Yankee" in WV, you'd probably get tar and feathered or shot. Probably the latter.

The rest of Canada 17 was pretty much the same. My next Canadian encounter was with the Canadian DOT...

When Canada repairs a road, they don't do it one lane at-a-time. They rip up the whole freaking road (sometimes 5-10 miles long) and make you follow a pilot truck and ride over loose gravel and mud to get past the construction. If you don't ride, let me remind you that it's not easy to ride a motorcycle through gravel at any speed. It's best to ride through it at 10-25mph, but doing that and trying to balance your bike loaded with luggage and keep it going straight at the same time while there's a line of honking cars behind you isn't fun. I experienced something like this at least four times on my trip through Canada and this was the smoothest construction I had encountered.

We eventually made it up to Thunder Bay (which has great views, similar to Duluth's scenery), but we found out it wasn't that great of a town. We stopped in a hotel and walked about 5 blocks past tons of strip clubs (we couldn't tell if we were in the wrong side of town or not) to a Canadian Applebee's, where I was introduced to Canadian beer and gravy. Molson Canadian isn't too bad, and the famous gravy wasn't bad either. Its basically a heavily spiced brown gravy that Canadians treat like ketchup. It goes on anything ketchup goes on, but I preferred to just use it for my fries.

After that, in the morning we departed for White River, ON.
Continued in Part III.

Canada ride- Part I

Okay, so I feel pretty guilty about not posting anything in the last six or so months.

The Canada trip was bittersweet. I saw a lot of cool things and actually rode my bike to a foreign country, but 70% of it was ridden in really cold rain. It rained the entire way to Minneapolis, it rained on the way to Duluth, it rained (a little) on the way to Thunder Bay, it rained (a little) on the way to White River, it rained the entire way from White River to the US border, it did not rain from St. Ignace to Flint, but did rain halfway from Flint to Chicago. And then it rained the entire way from Chicago back to Iowa.

So we started off heading up towards Dubuque. We crossed the border into Wisconsin and followed the border a bit and then crossed back into Iowa because my dad got lost. As soon as we crossed back into Iowa it started pouring, but it was okay because we had our rain gear on for warmth earlier anyway. At about 3pm 60 miles south of Rochester, MN the CX had a major meltdown.

During the hardest rainfall I had ever ridden in, I experienced a feeling that was similar to running out of gas when I forget to put it on reserve. The bike loses power, falls behind and sputters as I move into the slow lane to turn on the reserve and speed up. It takes about 30 seconds to kick in and bring me back up to speed, but this time doing so didn't help. I had ridden about 70 miles already, which (depending on the conditions) is when I should usually switch over to reserve anyway. It was still sputtering and revving and demanded that I quickly downshift and turn it off. I did that and sat there for a minute, and then I started the bike back up again. It hesitated but eventually started and idled fine. My dad was about 7 miles ahead of me before he realized I had pulled over (despite my honking and light flickering) and had no remedy for the situation so I got back on and rode it for another 20 miles until it did it again. The rain was coming down in sheets now and was starting to collect on roads in every small town we pulled into, but as soon as the heavy rain subsided, the bike ran fine. When we got to Rochester we pulled the fuel line and put an entire new tank of gas in it (thinking water got into the fuel and fouled it) and then it ran like usual all the way through the busy Minneapolis traffic to our destination.

The next day we departed Minneapolis and headed towards Duluth in partly cloudy skies. It eventually started to rain 100 miles out but after a really boring ride up north we arrived in Duluth where it was nice and sunny. Duluth is pretty scenic and seems like a fun town, but there's a lot of homeless people and nomads with backpacks running around because its pretty much the end of the line for Minnesota. After visiting the cool locomotive station there, we headed up to Hibbing, MN where my next problem arose.


The Duluth area has some of the crappiest roads I've ever ridden on. Super bumpy with tons of potholes. We took a really bad side road to get to Hibbing, where I lost my luggage.
Losing something that's been sitting behind you and providing you with a back rest for the last 400 miles is a surreal feeling. It was a brand new expensive waterproof duffel bag that had all of my clothes and electronics accessories stuffed in it. It had been wrapped down nicely with about 4 bungee cords so I thought it would have been fine, but as soon as I heard the bungees banging against the side of the bike and scratching my sidecovers (and potentially getting into the spokes of my rear wheel) I freaked out and cautiously pulled over immediately. After meeting back up with my dad, we combed a 30 mile stretch of road for an hour and a half, burning daylight and looking for my missing bag. In that hour and a half about 5 cars went down that road coming from Hibbing like us, and I'm sure one of those cars stole my bag. I went back looking for it right away and still couldn't find it. I called the local Sheriffs office (where they didn't do anything about it, of course) and went to Wal Mart (ugh) and blew $100 replacing everything I lost.

Lessons learned: Be more obsessive-compulsive about your bungee cords. Pull over when you rode through a bumpy road and re-tighten everything. Put a card in your luggage with your name and address on it. Make your luggage visible in case it gets thrown into a ditch.

After that and spending a night creeping the NE MN "lost and found" section on CraigsList and talking to local authorities, we left for International Falls for the monumental border crossing.

It was possibly the easiest border crossing ever. My dad went in first and handed the officer his passport and told him I was with him on a trip and the guy waved me through and didn't even ask for my passport. I stopped at the window anyway to hand it to him just to be sure but he just shook his head and told me to have fun. I had my first taste of Vietnamese food in town (A+) in town there and then crossed a series of bridges from island-to-island to get on the main road to start going across Canada.




Continued in Part II.

Recovery.

So Sunday my dad and I drove up to Urbana to fix and retrieve my bike. We rolled in at 9:00am sharp and after coffee and chatting, we got to work on the bike at 9:30. Rolled the bike into Tom's air conditioned part of the garage and took off the tank, seat and grip and loosened up the carbs so we could get at the cable connections. There's really no room in there, so it took awhile. Finished the job at around 12, and I was shocked at the results. The throttle response was really quick and not loose and slow like it used to be. There was way too much slack in the cable, and by the looks of it, it was going to snap on the road anyway.

So we put back on the tank and seat and put it all together and took it out into the driveway for a test ride. It took longer than usual to warm up with the choke on, and when I turned off the choke...so did the bike. The bike would not run without the choke on, which is unusual and just not good for the engine. I took it out on the gravel road about half a mile to go through the gears, and it worked fine until I noticed that the bumpy terrain was making the choke work its way down to the bottom, eventually shutting it off. We took it back to the garage and after tinkering with it for about an hour, decided that the rubber intake ports were cracked through and were leaking air. We sealed them up the best we could with electrical tape, and as long as we kept the engine going and giving it throttle, it would run. If I come to a stop sign and let go of the throttle, it'll turn the bike off at the stop sign. I decided the job of riding the bike home should be left to the elder rider with over 35 years of riding experience, and he was cool with it.


We only got 4 miles before the battery died at a stop sign.
Battery!? We didn't even TOUCH it!
So I got out of the car and pushed my dad for about 1/5th of a mile on gravel so he could bump start it. We got back to the garage, diagnosed the problem, and realized that the battery connections were really loose. A quick fix with a screwdriver and we were back on the road. This time we made it home with no problems.

Grant Wood's "American Gothic" painted on a barn Along Rt. 30 near Mt. Vernon, IA

The next day, we took a look at the carbs for leaks, and found bad O-rings and replaced them. Took off the electrical tape from the boots and replaced it with a sealant, adjusted the idle and it works great now! We found like 5 problems we had to fix in one week, which I guess is pretty good.

I decided I was sick of my foam grips, so I ordered a set of rubber grips from JC Whitney, which will hopefully come tomorrow along with a Vista Cruise cruise control unit. That will be really nice. Took the bikes to the car wash for a quick pre-ride rinse.

Also, my dad introduced me to a bench grinder on Monday so I could polish some parts. I started with my fuse box cover, and it turned out great! The beginning product looked exactly like the cover on the left, and the finished cover is polished up nice :)



I still have a lot to do before my trip Saturday!

Shakedown Breakdown 2010

Yesterday my Dad and I went up to UNI's campus in Cedar Falls just to bum around campus and get some lunch. All was well until we left Cedar Falls and made a stop in Urbana (About halfway between Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids) for some gas. We're quite familiar to the area, because we have some friends of the family that live there. My dad grew up with his friend Tom in Wisconsin, who eventually moved to Urbana about 30 years ago. Tom is an engineer with a knack for inventing anything out of anything, and is like MacGyver on acid (No, still cooler than MacGruber).

Before the ride, I put on the ThrottleRockers I recieved a few weeks ago to give them another shot. I rode from my house from the gas station and decided I wasn't going to use them, but on the ride up to UNI, I experienced extreme vibration (AKA "Honda Hand"), so I decided to stop and put them on in Urbana for the ride home. It's hard to gauge where to place the device on the grip,(The device needs to be placed where the throttle will be turned during highway speeds and cannot be adjusted while riding- try figuring that out at a gas station) so I asked my dad for his opinion. He fussed with it for about five seconds, then we heard a "cllliick" and then we both let out a "shiiitttttttttt". We figured that the throttle cable under the grip had broken, so we wheeled the bike over to a set of abandoned diesel pumps and busted out the tool kit and took a look at it. Sure enough, it snapped and there was no way for us to come up with an improvised fix.

Luckily, we were ten minutes from my dad's friend's place, which was well-equipped with a giant garage, bike trailer with tiedowns, a car, welding machines, any tool imaginable and a pair of helping hands. I decided to stay at the gas station with my immobile machine while my dad went down the road to his house, thinking he'd be back for me in about half an hour. Unfortunately, we found out that he was out of town and in Wisconsin for the weekend. It took us an hour to get ahold of him, but the garage was unlocked so my dad made his way in, and made a bunch of calls. Thankfully we eventually got ahold of his son Mike, who lives in Cedar Rapids and was willing to come up and help us get everything together to haul the bike back to their place.


While my dad was at their house away from the heat, I was stuck at the Urbana Casey's for three hours, with not much to do. I went in and bought a few drinks to keep hydrated in the 93-degree weather, and sat under a canopy with a nice breeze. Eventually, Mike came and picked me up and we went back to Tom's place to hook up the trailer and brought it back to the gas station to pick up the bike. Everything went smoothly; we strapped the bike to the trailer six different ways, and it survived a bumpy 3 mile gravel road. So, the bike is sitting up in Urbana somewhere right now, and will sit there for a week until we can get over to it with a new cable so I can ride it home.
The whole point of this ride was to find problems and get them fixed before we take our big trip. We had a few issues like intermittent turn signals and brake adjustments, but we certainly didn't expect this to happen. My dad carries spare cables with him all the time, but I didn't have any spares on me. He stopped into Brenny's (Our local MC dealer) this morning and ordered a new cable, which will hopefully be delivered by Saturday. While we're fortunate that we found this problem this weekend and this soon, we didn't count on arriving home at 9pm instead of 3pm.

And the worst part wasn't even the cable breaking-It was having to ride bitch on the back of my dad's bike for 75 miles to get home. "I have no shame", I kept telling myself...

O, Canada...II

eBay.

I hate eBay. I rarely ever have success on that site, but it's like a necessary evil. It's one of the best places to find parts I need for my Honda. Last year I did have some success with a lucky find- A KG luggage rack that I think we picked up for $40. A little cleaning and modding and it worked out just fine!

I'm currently looking for a set of crash bars/safety bars/highway bars/engine guards for my CX, that will protect both the bike and myself in the event of a crash or if it just got knocked over. I've lost a few bids on them so far, but they keep popping up on eBay, but are getting more expensive each time. I guess I'll just have to break down and buy them from the bidder for way more than they're worth. I need them in a month!!

Review: Throttle Rocker II.

I love my CX, and my CX loves me...well, up to 55mph. Any faster than that, and she shakes way too much. The handlebar vibration really gets to me, and I do have the liberty of letting my left hand let go of the handlebars, but not my right because I need it to control the throttle. Some days I get up and ride and my right hand extremely numb because I didn't have it positioned right or something. I eventually got over that, but sometimes it creeps up on me and ruins a large portion of my ride.

I started looking for alternatives to make the ride more comfortable (and bearable) at highway speeds, and I found the "Throttle Rocker". ($9.99 at jcwhitney.com) It's one of those "wow, why didn't I think of that?!" kind of inventions. It's a simple piece of contoured plastic that wraps around your grip and is positioned so that you can control the throttle with your wrist or pretty much any part of your hand, letting your hand raise up and stretch and get some airflow without slowing down or letting go of the throttle. I tried it out for the first time the other day and it worked awesome for about the first 15 minutes until it started slipping. My wrist started cramping up because it was in such an awkward position to keep the throttle at 55.

It came with a big fat rubber band to put over your bar to help prevent the device from slipping. I guess it would have worked nicely for grips that aren't foam like mine. With the foam you really don't need the piece of rubber to keep the Velcro from slipping; the Velcro with the foam just works out better. I'll have to test this sans-rubber trick on my next ride this weekend. I ordered one for the left too, but I don't think I'll use it because I really don't need it; I can let go of the left grip whenever I want.

One con I noticed was that it wasn't as comfortable as I thought it should have been, but that's just because I'm using the stock CX500C handlebars, that have ends that just point past the rider, not like traditional motorcycle handlebars. I think that these would be a lot more comfortable on bikes with straighter bars, like drag or Daytona bars. I could put it on the GT750 and see how that feels.

In other news, I haven't been able to work on the Suzuki lately because of school. My classes are wrapping up soon (less than a month!), so I'll be able to tinker with it fairly soon. The CX is getting a new tire mounted in the next two weeks (Just need to remove the front wheel), so I'm pretty excited about that. The Canada trip is still on for June, and I'm looking for a set of crash bars...

O, Canada...

Here's a chart of my progress, in my attempt to collect 48 states by the time I'm 35. Let's be real here; I'll probably never get Alaska or Hawaii.


Forgive my sloppy graph; I did it on MS Paint at 1AM.

Yeahhhh that's right, I'm riding into Canada this summer :D

It's about time...

Anyone following my Twitter account knows that I've been pretty excited about something lately. I try my best to keep my motorcycle tweets down to once or twice a week. Really, I do try...

Anyway, riding season has officially started for me!

Yesterday, my Dad took out his GT750 to the car wash to hose it down and spray on some Enginebrite, then took it out for a ride. I couldn't join him because I had work in an hour, so that sucked. But today I was able to do the same with my bike, but under cloudier skies.

Front tire pressure was down, but I expected that. My rear tire didn't lose any air, so that was convenient. I can't wait to get my new front tire on, it'll feel amazing... Took the bike to the new gas station in town, where a guy approached me about my CX. I love it when people walk up to check out my bike and talk to me about it and listen to them remenisce about their Jap bikes in the '70s.

Their comments tend to vary, however. I've gotten :

"Look at the size of that engine!!"
"Don't your knees get warm?"
"Hey, is that a 500? I used to own one of those!"
"Shit, that thing is OLD"
and my favorite...
"What year did Harley make that?"

After talking to the guy for a few minutes, I went to the "Dirt Trap" car wash down the street. Threw on Enginebrite and did an obligatory "muahahha" as it hit the hot header pipes, causing a nice fizzy sound and smoke. It cleaned up pretty well, but brought many different things about the bike to my attention, like new spots of rust (or is it not new?) and tears in the seat. Meh. It's an old bike, you'll have that.

The CX ran very well. A little sluggish at first, but I expected that because it just sat in the garage for 3 or 4 months. Started up in less than 5 minutes with my electric start, which isn't too shabby for a bike that age. No kickstart on the Honda! Took it on a few country roads to dry it off, then eventually took her home, hoping for a whole week of good weather during spring break next week :)

Wants.

I want a Honda GL650I. Based on Honda's CX500/GL500 model, it's basically just a GL500I with a 650 engine in it. The GL series (500/650, the FIRST Silverwing series...not the Goldwing, and not the Silverwing scooter line) is cool because it included nice midsized touring bikes. Full fairing, luggage, comfortable seat, etc. The GL series had front dual-disc brakes and better suspension than the CX line. It also had a bigger tank and a similar frame, but a sliiiightly different engine.

Here's my CX500 with my touring crap loaded on it in Colorado.


I think it would be cool to have a Silverwing with all the goodies on it, plus maybe an mp3 player and a GPS integrated into the fairing. I know I complain about people that listen to music when they ride, but when you're out in the middle of nowhere on a long stretch of road in Kansas, I think it's acceptable. I just like the fact that it's a midsize touring machine with a transverse GL/CX engine in it. And the 650's engine is blacked out. I'll get one someday...

History Lesson.

Here's a little history on the Suzuki T500.

1968 Suzuki T500 Cobra

The Suzuki T500 was launched in 1968, and was known to the American market as the "Cobra". The name "Cobra" was changed to "Titan" a year or so later, as well as the general appearance of the bike. The 60's were almost over, and the classic styling of 60's machinery was replaced with a sleeker, faster look for the 70's. This bike was famous in the '70s because on the track, it was faaaaaast. It was also used by many for touring, but soon became unpopular in that category with triples coming out from the Big Four (Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki) like the GT750. More power, more comfort, more convenience. Suzuki felt that the T500 had a few more years left on it, so they made a few adjustments for it to compete in the growing touring market.

1973 Suzuki T500K Titan

The look and performance of the bike remained pretty much the same until 1975 when the T500 was replaced with the GT500, which included improvements like a GT750 tank, GT seat, front disc brake, new instruments, etc. The GT tank gave it much more fuel capacity, letting riders go longer and farther without refueling. The disc brake was a nice feature, as most motorcycles were updating their brakes from drum to disc- This update was a lot safer, too. This model was discontinued in 1977, along with Suzuki's GT triple line to make room for their GS series.

1975 Suzuki GT500M

Suzuki History Archive: Suzukicycles.org

Suzuki Progress.

I live in Iowa, and in the winter, it gets cold. Really cold. Unfortunately, I lack a heated garage and I'm not excited about going into the garage and working on a frozen machine. I'll admit it; when it comes to the cold, I get lazy, but not too lazy. I still try to work on things...

So, I started on the tank. A few months back when we got the bike, we took the tank off my dad's GT750 and put it on the Titan, just out of curiosity. We thought our Titan's tank was shot just by looking at it- you can see, it's not pretty. A previous owner must have forgotten to sand down the big glob of Bondo on the side of the tank...and also forgot to paint it after applying that thick coat of ugly purplish-brown primer 30 years ago.

T500 tank

T500 with GT750 tank

The bike definitely wasn't as much of an eyesore after laying the GT tank on the frame. In fact, it looked awesome. But the tank wasn't mine, so at the end of the night my father put it back on his shiny '75 GT and I immediately went to eBay looking for a cheap, fixable GT tank.

After having a few near success stories with eBay, I decided that I should just save what I have for other necessary improvements and try to fix up my Titan tank. First, I dealt with the rust inside the tank.

The rust wasn't too bad. It certainly wasn't as bad as the rust in my spare Honda tank, and had no sludge or crap at the bottom. After looking at a few different solutions to a rusty tank on the internet, I decided to go the "BB-and-alcohol" route. Remove the petcock and seal off the hole, take a container of about 300 steel BB's, pour them into the tank, and shake the hell out of it. This did loosen up a good amount of the rust inside it, but also created this huge cloud of 30 year old rust particle when I opened the gas cap.

Steel BB's, alcohol, and mandatory Bloc Party.

The Michael Westen approach to gas tank cleansing:
Shaking a gas tank full of BB's is like shaking a guitar to retrieve the pick you dropped in the soundhole. You're never going to get it right the first time; you'll get it back in a few shakes if you know what the inside of your guitar looks like so you'll know exactly how to shake it. However, I don't know what the inside of my tank looks like, so it took me at least two hours to get all of the BB's out. Using a rubber mallet to tap the corners and edges of your tank for an hour will eliminate the 30 BB's in hiding you thought you got out the first time you shook your tank to death.

Oh, and magnets don't help you retrieve BB's unless they're on a flexible hook.

After wearing my arms and back out from all the shaking, I planned to run a hose through it to flush out any remaining crap...which turned out to be a bigger challenge than getting the BB's out. So like I mentioned, I live in Iowa where it gets pretty cold in the winter. I brought in a frozen hose from outside and let it set in my warmed basement for about 4 hours, thinking it would thaw in that amount of time. Well...it didn't. So, I took it upstairs to the garage and hit it with a heat gun in a few areas to loosen up the ice inside...That didn't work either. I gave up on the hose and went out and bought a garden hose the next week. Lesson learned: Garden hoses are still full of water when they freeze, and will not thaw until April. I spent an entire day trying to get that hose to work. Hey, I was desperate.

After successfully flushing the tank with water, I gave it a good flushing with alcohol to further clean it up and vacuum dried it for a day, so it shouldn't be too bad when we fill it up in the spring.

What's next?

My First Motorcycle.

In August of 2008 after an extensive (and exhausting) search for an old bike, I came across a 1980 Honda CX500C about 45 miles north of my current location advertised in the local paper. It was in pretty rough shape; the bike was painted in an awful metallic dark blue and featured cheesy magnetic flames on the tank. The left sidecover was missing, exposing the unsightly battery and wiring. The original seat was replaced with an awful "custom" seat that the previous owner was pretty proud of. Signals and lights were changed, and the handlebars were swapped for mini ape-hangers. Both tires were pretty low on tread, and the rear tire liked to go flat a lot. The stator had it's classic CX500 problem, but it ran. We recieved an identical parts bike with the purchase, which was 100% original, but about 80% usable. At first sight, the first CX was ugly. The owner tried to make it look like a Harley...he ended up making it look like it belonged in a 6 year old's HotWheels collection.

So, I was pretty turned off to this bike. It looked like nothing I wanted. I was in the market for a UJM ("Universal Japanese Motorcycle") and was looking at a mysterious funny-looking bike from the 80's. I had never seen a CX before, let alone a transverse V-twin. I hadn't even seen a MotoGuzzi before.

We set to work on the bike as soon as we got it, and eventually got what we needed to have done by late September. Here's a few pictures for comparison.

Honda in August '08, with decals removed. Note the turd-shaped seat, mini apehangers, missing sidecover and tiny signals.

Honda in late September 2008. Note the stock headlamp, handlebars, seat, blinkers, taillight and grab bar.

My first trip on the semi-finished Honda was up to Maquoketa, which was about half an hour's worth of riding. After that, my dad and I attempted to attend a rally in Wisconsin, but only made it to Northwestern Illinois and camped there, due to stator problems on my bike.

During Winter '08/'09, I was able to squeeze in a few rides in December, January and February. My dad and I planned on fixing up the bike more and taking it on a trip to Colorado Springs, where his riding began. Ironically, our motorcycle club was having their national rally in Colorado Springs at around the time we planned on going. So, we took the next two months to fix up the Honda and fix the stator and tire problem and geared it up for a long tour. A new trunk, luggage rack, rear tire, stator, battery, windshield, and other parts were purchased to get it ready. We made the 2,500 mile trip with only a starter problem on the return trip.

I continued to collect more states through the summer and eventually claimed IA, IL, WI, MN, MO, KS, CO and NE. I attended another rally in northern Iowa and was able to cruise around and collect IA, IL, WI and MN in about four hours, which was pretty cool.

The riding season ended pretty early for me, having put the bike away just a week after Thanksgiving. For Christmas, I recieved a set of new Harley pipes to replace my rusted through stock ones, which should sound great. I also recieved a new front tire. Haven't touched my CX yet because it has a new friend in my garage stall that's been recieving a lot of attention lately. Hope it doesn't get jealous ;)

Oh, and I now love the CX500. It's such a unique bike with a very strong cult following all over the world. My feelings for my bike have changed a LOT since I saw it sitting in some dude's front lawn in 2008. All it needed was a lot of love, an organ donor, a few dozen Brillo pads, and a new coat of paint.

An Introduction.

My name isn't important. But I like motorcycles, and that's all you need to know.

I started a fascination of classic motorcycles at a very young age. New motorcycles just don't appeal to me, unless they have a classic look or feel to them. I tend to split motorcycles into several different categories. I won't go too much into that right now; All you need to know is that I love vintage Jap and Euro bikes.

Anyway.

My dad is my motorcycling hero. He has owned and maintained the same Suzuki GT750 since '75 and has ridden it to 48 states, plus Canada and Mexico. As a child, I would join him on his trips and would attend rallies in numerous states. My first long trip was to Nashville and back, from Chicago when I was 10. I spent a week down in Tennessee and experienced high winds, hail, heavy rain, freezing cold- you name it. Did it turn me off to motorcycles? No.

For the next 8 or so years, I joined him on random short trips through Illinois and Iowa. About two years after I got my driver's license, we both decided it was time for me to have my own bike. I took the bars for the first time in the summer of 2007, riding around a local parking lot. I was learning on a 750cc motorcycle- Specifically, that GT (Or "Water Buffalo", as some call it), so it was too big for me to get the feel of anything. A year later I received a 1980 Honda CX500C, which will have it's own story soon. I took and passed the MSF course and got my motorcycle license a week after my 18th birthday.

In October of 2009, I recieved a 1973 Suzuki T500K. This was donated to me by a very kind and generous friend of the family that's been super nice to me every rally I've attended since I was a kid. Oh, the potential this bike has...A story on that bike will come later.

Anyway, I've come here to post my experiences with working on that specific T500. I helped my father rebuild my CX500, but I want to do a lot more of the wrenching on my own, since the T500 is such a simple bike to fix. I'm not a born mechanic. I'm no grease monkey. I don't know how about 75% of my bike works, but I'm learning as I go.