Story Book

[bobcat]

Wow ! I was just laying here watching American Pickers and these guys found an old Indian V twin.
It was a 4 vale/cyl made in 1918 ! I thought the RC166 was an ahead of it's time tech. marvel.

This rusty old thing still turned through, not locked up.

A second look at that motor and I don't see where there's room for 4 valves, much less 2.
They must have it confused with a different motor. It looks more like a two stroke.

[Jeff Bennetts]

He's going to have to learn to ride first. Good starting point, don't you think !?
Then he needs to find something ride and learn to maintain while getting familiar with the CBX.
I've got the R&D platform motor for basic mechanical training as well as the ICOA . If I can keep
him focused I believe he'll be a good/great mechanic.
I had 73 KD125 Kaw. that's been sitting for more than 15 yrs. parked on the deck behind the house.
I told him that if he wanted to dig it out and clean it up and sell it, he could keep whatever he
could get for it and (hopefully) put it toward a good street bike. He dove in head first and now
needs to learn all the markets and values. I know he's got his eyes on one of my CBXs.

Sounds like a good plan Bob, my grandson just turned 1 yr old last month and I was thinking how most likely the first powered bike I buy for him will be electric. The neighbor boy has an electric bike and it’s amazing how quickly he adapted to it from his regular bike, he was flying around with agility and confidence within a couple hours and is now doing jumps and he is only 5 yrs old.

[bobcat]

But what kind of mechanical ability would he gain from maintaining an electric bike ?
I hope you show him what we used to do in the "good old days" !

[bobcat]

Memory lane ? Close calls.

Once again in my CB500 four days I was riding south bound on IH 35, a two lane divided hwy. at a time
before the roadway was widened and modernized. There was very little shoulder bordering the right lane
and the left lane was bordered by a curb with a white stripe painted about a foot away. the lanes were
narrow compared to today's standards but the speed limit was still 70mph entering the outskirts of Dallas.
I came up on two 18whlrs., one in the left lane and one in the right lane slightly ahead of the other.

I was in the right lane as I closed in behind the truck in the right lane having just passed the truck in the
left lane and there was just enough room for me to safely (?) ease over to the left lane to get past the
the other truck. I was about halfway past the trailer when I saw his turn signal come on. OH S..T !!!
He was moving over into my lane and I didn't have enough room to accelerate past him and before I could
get on the brakes he was all the way over in the left lane with his buddy in the truck behind me bearing
down on me so I couldn't jump on the brakes.

All I could do is move over next to the curb, probably on the white line, freeze and back off the throttle
and ease on the brakes as I could see the huge tires of the truck pass slowly inches from my handlebar.
All I could do is brace myself for either brushing the curb which would have sent my bike right under the
truck tires or catching my throttle grip/brake lever on the truck tires sending me under the truck behind
me at 60mph+.

My frozen concentration however paid off and God must have decided it wasn't my time and I was delivered
to a gap between the two trucks where I quickly moved over to the empty right lane, down shifted and sailed
past the truck that had moved over on me. I let the driver know how I felt about the encounter with a series
of hand gestures. I took the next exit, stopped and shook for about 10 min.

Some time later I rode that same stretch of hwy. and moved over as close as I dared to the white line and
wondered how it was possible I hadn't crashed.

[Jeff Bennetts]

But what kind of mechanical ability would he gain from maintaining an electric bike ?
I hope you show him what we used to do in the "good old days" !

There’s enough ICE projects in my shop for the next 3 generations to learn on! But I’m afraid those days are numbered, have you seen the Stark Varg, one hell of a machine.

https://youtu.be/ozEEvlgtTPE?si=9HpSq3xABKmOMbJy

[bobcat]

Looks like a bike, Jeff, but there's just something about "electric" that just doesn't feel right
to this entrenched traditional old man. It has no soul.

[Syscrush]

I like electric motorcycles. I want an electric motorcycle. But for my use, it's hard to see one ever making sense for me - even with a couple more generations of battery & charging tech.

I don't use a motorcycle for commuting or running errands - my bicycles are way better for that in the city core - for both speed (I love sailing past gridlocked cars in a separated bike lane then parking right outside the door of wherever I'm going), and for utility (on my cargo e-bike, I can carry either my 5 year old or my 8 year old easily, and can even handle both of them together on the back for rides under about 20 minutes).

My use case for motorcycles is basically just sightseeing trips - and basically any ICE motorcycle can cover 120 miles of interstate or mountain riding before needing fuel, and then be ready to keep going after a 5 minute fill-up. Electric motorcycles are so far from this that it's hard to imagine them getting there in the next 20 years. The Livewire claims a 70 mile freeway range and a 1h charge time on a fast charger. Double the range and at least 3x the charging speed would be needed to compete with an ICE bike for me.

Now, if I had a 20 mile commute through scenic country roads with minimal traffic, an electric motorcycle would be an amazing way to get to and from work, with the occasional fun detour. But that's never gonna be me, so I don't see that I'll ever have one - though I would really like to.

[bobcat]

I can't imagine making an electric motor look cool.

I guess you could put cards in the spokes to at least make one sound cool.

[bobcat]

Hitting reserve... again.

When traveling I use to carry an Army surplus canteen full of gas for that occasional situation
where you hit reserve and don't know how far the next gas station is by looking at the map.
This was not one of those times.

I had decided to take a couple of weeks off to go wandering around the Rockies from central
New Mexico to Denver to visit my cousin before the Fall semester of college began at NTSU.
I had rounded up a handful of fellow Z1 riders to come along only to have them all back out
of the trip at varying points before departure date so I decided to go alone. I would have
preferred to have the company of a young lady but finding one willing to ride that far for that
long proved impossible. Funny, but I'm married to one now that would have gladly come along
and on her own bike !

However away I rolled (lots of sub stories along the way*) across the long straight boring roads
across the northwestern flatlands of Texas. The gradual appearance of hills then mountains
was a welcome sight after so many small towns and grain silos. I took all the backroads I could
to come into Denver from the west and there were several times I thought maybe I should have
brought the canteen along.

I made it to my cousin's place* in Denver where I rested up from catching a cold on the second day
of the journey after a freezing night in an insufficient sleeping bag.* While there I got in touch
with a friend who lived in Midland, TX. and made plans to visit him and his wife on the way home.*
After buying a new rear tire at my cousin's bike shop and a couple of short mountain rides just west
of Denver it was time to head home via Midland. I took the most direct route I could find on the map
which included very little Interstate hwy. or heavily traveled roads. It was about central New Mexico
where I started to run into problems. The road I was on was heading directly into some increasingly
threatening thunderstorms.

I came up on a rest stop that consisted of a concrete table and benches in a wide spot in the shoulder
of the two lane hwy. It was time to break out the map and make some decisions. The next town down
the road was too far away to reach without hitting storms and I was too far from the last town to turn
back but there was a road that went due east that connected to another road that ran parallel to the
road I was on. The problem was that it was shown on the map as not paved and about a 40 mile detour.
However it appeared to be a way to skirt the storms so I decided to check it out.

The gravel surface appeared to be well maintained and I could cruise 40-50mph comfortably across
short rolling hills. The landscape was barren except for short grass and scrub brush with barbwire fence
on either side about 20ft from the road. After a few miles of this monotony with no signs of civilization
or traffic, it became a little eerie and uncomfortable, unlike anything I had ever ridden on but I had
come too far to turn back. Surely I will see a ranch house or truck soon I thought. I had kind of let my
guard down cresting these short rolling hills surrounded by nothingness when I topped one where I
could see the color of the gray gravel change from light gray to dark just in front of me.

Before I could gently get on the brakes without sliding I was in about 6-8" of mud. A heavy rain shower
must have passed over long enough to soak the road. There were no ruts in the road to indicate anyone
else had driven through it and I was fighting hard to keep from crashing in such a foreboden place.
Left, right, lock to lock then SPLAT ! My whole left side was submerged in mud. The Z1 was almost
impossible to pick up and once on the side stand the bike was almost axle deep in the gooey gravel.

I wipe myself off the best I could and began looking for a stick or something to clean the caked in engine
fins, chain guard and chain, wheel spokes and front brake. Nothing like that to be found, I had to unpack
the tool kit and use a screwdriver to scrape with. Fortunately nothing was broken and it started after
some extended cranking that nearly drained the battery. I climbed back on and proceeded, feet out,
through the mud and then finally got to some dry road again and stopped to try to further clean up the
bike. The fenders were so packed that the wheels would barely turn.

I got the map out and tried to estimate how much farther I had to go before reaching the connection
with the paved hwy. but I could only guess because I didn't think of setting the trip meter when I turned
onto the gravel road. All I could do is continue and hope not to get into any more mud. I still had not
seen another soul the whole stretch. Then the motor started to stumble. I had hit reserve ! The map
didn't show any indication of a town at the connecting point with the hwy. and nothing for quite some
distance either way from that point. The reserve capacity on my Z1 wasn't very much and I began thinking
about the canteen I had left behind.

Finally I reached the paved hwy. and it was nearly dusk as once again wishfully looked at the map and
began thinking about the many years before when I had run out of gas and wound up taking the tank off
my bike and handing it to some passing strangers in hopes of getting it back with gas in it. Then finally
along comes a passing car but it was too late to try to flag them down but it was a good sign that life
existed on that stretch of road and I wasn't out of gas yet so I proceeded south "conservatively" but as I
approached a large hill the bike began to cut out. All I could do was shake the bike side to side and then
pull on the choke lever. The motor picked back up briefly, on then off, full throttle then down to what
felt like one cyl. but I HAD to make it to the top of the hill even if I had to push it.

The top of the hill would give me at least a view of oncoming traffic both directions and it seemed like
a better place to spend the night if I had to.
Finally, I managed to reach the top of the hill. I might have even used the starter motor in 1st gear but
there was no way to describe the range of emotions that raced through my mind when I BEHELD the most
glorious sight just ahead at the bottom of the hill: A TRUCK STOP !!! I gave the bike a good shove, jumped
on and coasted all the way down to the first gas pump and the station was open.

I walked in the door after filling the tank to the brim and the guy behind the counter asked "what happened
to you ?"
It was another 20+ miles to the next town and station and they had a motel and a car wash. I checked in and
once again had to explain my appearance. Then it was off to find a store that had beer. To my surprise they
had Pabst Dark which I had never seen before, got a six pak and headed back to the room for a nice hot bath.

I made it to my friend's house in Midland the next afternoon after fighting the urge to stop at every gas station
along the way. The next day we all went "sand surfing" at Monahans sand dune state park. I got dirty again
but at least it was dry ! Climbing back to the top of the 30-50ft dunes was tough but the ride down made it
all worth it. You figure out the moral to the story.

[Syscrush]

You figure out the moral to the story.

I'm pretty sure the moral is: "Go out and do cool stuff!"

[bobcat]

You figure out the moral to the story.

I'm pretty sure the moral is: "Go out and do cool stuff!"

Get to the top of the hill, whatever it takes.

[bobcat]

Well, I had another story to add to the collection but I got the old "error-failure"
notice when I hit submit, even after using the ctrl+a,ctrl+c, then ctrl+v. It just flat wouldn't
accept it and now I've lost the text except from where I can't retrieve it. and my clipboard
shows "empty". There was a lot more to the story too.

[NobleHops]

Author and edit your stuff in a Word doc or similar, THEN paste it here, Bob. That’d be foolproof.

N.

[bobcat]

Author and edit your stuff in a Word doc or similar, THEN paste it here, Bob. That’d be foolproof.

N.

I don't know how to do that.*

*function
Until I get this figured out (it was about endurance racing) I could just replace it
with another racing story. I don't know what went wrong but I tried to save it to
my download files and it temporarily blocked my email acct. access !

[bobcat]

Try this link :

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&i ... _lucvm48z0