$100 bike!

Scored this old XL185 for $100 a couple of weeks back. I had my other one out at the vmx racing and this older guy, Willy, came up and mentioned he had one at home that he was keen to get rid of. I wasn't that keen until he said it went ok and he'd give it to me for $100! Sweet. So yeah went and grabbed it. Willy's a good guy, I must go back for a cuppa' sometime. Anyway here she is... pretty rough – obviously! But it actually runs really bloody well. I'm gonna do it up a bit, I've already got a new seat (from KG for $40!) and new handlebars and levers etc. There's a bunch of nuts and bolts missing – not hard to replace. And I'll tidy the tank up and paint it. The tank looks bad but inside it has no rust at all! I need to get a muffler sorted. At the moment the header runs into that box on the side you can see in the bottom picture there, and Willy's stuffed it full of steel wool or something. Keen to get a muffler like what's on my other XL cause it sounds fuckin awesome. Anyway all going well – and my biggest problem at the moment is being totally swamped at work – I may have this ready for the next race day? Which would be good as I think I've killed the gearbox on my other one at the last race!?

First bikes

I stayed at mum's for a bit last week and dug out some old photos... this CB 175 was my first motorcycle, which I really only got cause I couldn't afford a car. Of course I became immediately obsessed with the whole thing, and spent a good couple of years riding this little thing way beyond it's abilities (meaning some quite long rides around the South Island)...

That's me on the left at about 17 I think. My friend, on the right, is David O'Keefe. Dave was a righteous chap who unfortunately caught meningitis and bloody died on a surfing trip in Aussie in the late '90s.

I quickly realised I needed a bigger bike, and although I really wanted something British – I'd already fallen in love with Triumphs, Nortons, and BSAs by this point mostly because I'd discovered 60s Rocker culture and cafe racers via various magazines – I couldn't afford a British bike. As a poor art school student at this point I bought the next best thing – a British racing green Honda CB 350.

This turned out to be an awesome bike actually, and really quite fast for it's size. These photos were taken when I bought it, and while I modified it a bit (drag bars and chopped down seat) I don't seem to have any photos of it like that. I actually crashed this bike, rear-ending some car in the rain when they hit their brakes for an orange light. (Interestingly enough these photos were taken in Lyttelton, where I have now lived for a quite a bit, and where I used to 'hang around' as a teenage hoodlum. We liked coming over here to watch the bike gangs line up outside the British Hotel!)

My next bike was an odd choice for me really – a bit embarrassing now? although we're talking very early 1990s here and I was only 19 or 20 so gimme a break – also, at the time, it was almost new and cost quite a bit. I put it entirely on my student loan (which had just been introduced by the government) as they didn't seem to care what you spent the money on (I also bought a ridiculously huge guitar amp and took a trip to Spain with my girlfriend!).

Dig my flowing locks? My girlfriend (Silvia Rico Lozano) and I rode this around around NZ one summer fully loaded with tent, sleeping bags, and all sorts of shit tied on. This last photo is of me just before leaving town, must have been '93 or '94.

Shortly after this my cousin, Matthew Woodley, got killed on his motorcycle. He was hit head on by a 15 year old drunk driver with no license. My parents pretty much made me get rid of the bike then and offered me a bunch of cash to buy a car. I bought a Holden Kingswood, which I then obsessed over for the next few years and blew thousands of dollars on! I didn't get another bike until about a decade later, and even then I kept it a secret from my parents for a while... 

Dirtbike

I bought this bike a couple of weeks ago. Got it pretty cheap and am trying to get it fully sorted and awesome for under $1000 total cost. It's an old Honda XL 185 that is in pretty rough condition. I probably paid a little too much for it in hindsight, but whatever it's gonna be sweet. (I'll put up more photos of it when I've done what I wanna do to it.)

I've done a bunch of stuff to it already but never had a camera handy until lastnight when I was putting new brake shoes in the rear wheel. So far I've put on a new rear wheel, stripped and cleaned the carb and replaced the needle, and put on a new throttle cable. And then obviously the brakes last night. Unfortunately the brakes still aren't much chop? You can see the old shoes are actually not totally worn out either. Not sure what that's about? All the linkages look ok, but you have to put a lot of weight on the brake peddle to make it slow down (any advice greatly appreciated). It also needs the cam chain done, but I'm gonna get Kevin at KG's to do that for me (he said he'd do it for $80 all up!).

Once it's running all good I'm gonna strip it and paint it. Oh and make a new seat. Gonna cut down that front mudguard too, or find a more old school lookin one? Guards will be black and might paint the tank gold... would love a metal-flake but can you do that at home? Also thinking about the classic coffee sack seat cover...

It's pretty much ready to ride though. I took it up the Port Hills lastnight, up the Bridal Path, which was pretty fucking fun. Esp cause all those tracks are closed since the earthquakes and people getting killed by rocks up there, so there's no one at all around and I was able to really fang about without worrying about anyone coming the other way. Was a bit worried the cops might be waiting for me at the bottom so came back down without the engine running. Seriously good fun! 

Grant's NV750 bobber build

Grant Hosking, who we've met through the bike nights at Smash Palace, is chopping up his Honda NV750. You can see the project as it develops on the 'Anything Spoked' website here. I think this is Grants first build, but he's an engineer of some sort so he obviously knows what the hell he's doing! Can't wait to see this show up at Bike Night again...

Aaron Beehre's CB100

Watched the MotoGP at Aaron's lastnight, and then made Nadine go sit on his bike because I really wanna get her onto something like this. Aaron's only just got this going again after about a year and half off the road. He got this little CB100 about four years ago and it was pretty screwed. I think it's a 72 or 73. He bought a new Chinese engine for about $400 I think? A Loncin 150cc single and had that put in by Joe at Rocky Point garage. At the same time Aaron did the bike up a bit. It's looking pretty cool now and seems to be going good too. Apparently a lot of the bucket racer guys use these little Loncin engines? Anyway it made me really excited again about getting a small bike for round town and for Nadine to learn on. The MotoGP was great too, crazy crash right at the first corner which took out four bikes including both the Ducatis, one of whom was Rossi. Had a great finish between Spies and Stoner, with Spies looking like he had come from 4th to wrap up the finish, just to be beaten by about an inch by Stoner on the final straight. Those Hondas are fast!

Malcolm's Triumph and Jonty's GB400

This is Malcolm and Jonty... and Sid (dog). Stayed with Malcolm up in Auckland last weekend and got to use his Bonnie as my main transport on Saturday! Malcolm got hit by a car on this a few months ago and it's taken a while getting it back on the road. It's got new Thunderbike mufflers which sound great, and Malcolm has just removed all the lights off the back. He has a repro Lucas tail light, but hadn't fitted the indicators yet. Looking a lot better though. What were Triumph thinking with those awful fucking lights?

Jonty's GB400 is looking pretty sweet these days too. He got this pretty cheap, but it was kinda rough and had this weird kinda red/pink tank. He's got the single seat now, new paint, and has chromed the front and rear mudgaurds. He also has this great little muffler that came off Malcolm's old GB. It sounds pretty great, like a racing single, loud and poppy.

I need to visit Stuart in Melbourne!

This is a project a friend of mine in Melbourne has underway right now, and shit am I jealous. The good man's name is Stuart Geddes and he's also a really great designer. We met while I was doing my Masters at RMIT a few years ago now. Stuart has a really nice image-based blog (I think you still call it a blog?) here called Before & After Science.

This bike started life as a pretty stock standard Honda CB175 (circa 1975 I'm guessing). It was, when Stuart got it, exactly the same as my first motorbike... it was even the same colour. Gold. I'll try and find a picture of mine somewhere, but you can see this one in it's original state on Stuart's blog.

I've been really impressed by Stuart's willingness to strip this thing down to it's bare bones and to literally 'start again'. I understand he is receiving some very useful guidance from a Mr Christian Condo, founder of Melbourne's The Modern Motorcycle Company. Actually I believe Stuart's studio is in the same building as the MMC, but I probably should check my facts? No I'm pretty sure I'm right. Anyway I'm still impressed as fuck with Stuart's display of balls here! I wish I had this kind of patience. I'm always too eager to get shit on the road and ride it. I'm definitely thinking I need to use the Triumph as my main ride, and then get something else in the garage this year that I can seriously fuck with. I'm not sure the Norton is the bike to do this with though? I'm still thinking that once I get it going it might be best to sell it and put the money into something rougher and less straight? It's just so hard to cut up and modify such a good original condition example of an old bike. Here she is again for memories sake:

Sometimes I forget how cool this bike is. The sound, smell, and feel of this thing running hot is something out of this world I swear. I wish I could just put it in the garage and get something else to work on as a project bike, but I can't really afford it and I also don't really have the space. I think I'll advertise it for a good price and see how it goes...

Looking through Stuart's blog and his progress with his Honda really makes me eager to get something I can really mess around with. Check out his skateboard-deck seat. And those header pipes are pretty mean. He's done most of the work himself I think, he even re-spoked the wheels...

That man deserves a beer.

I think I might just have to pop over and buy him one... and have a good nosey around the studio/motorcycle workshop.