Visit to Shed 5 with Pete

What happened to Deus?

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.

Pete's Matchless

Visited Pete while I was up in Auckland in the weekend, and got to see his Matchless for the first time. It's had an engine rebuild, but he's waiting on clutch plates. He was talking about taking this to the Cold Kiwi in a few weeks. Whiskey's on me if you do Pete!? (That's his Indian in the background, which was on here a few posts ago when he took it to the Born Too Late bike show.)

Photos by Mark Gore

Mark Gore took these photos for HFoS issue #1 out at the art school last Thursday night. The top bike is one of Johnny Moore's and the bottom one is James Oram's (which has been on here before, but photographed terribly by me in the middle of the night). These are going to be used to illustrate Johnny's ode to small bikes. I wasn't going to put stuff for the zine up here, but when these came in they looked so goddamn good I just couldn't help myself. Makes me want to get Mark to do all my photography!

Shane Norrie's van

 

This is my friend Shane's van. It's no motorcycle, but it's the next best thing cause you can live in the fuckin' thing! And he does. And has done for years. Well actually he's had a few, this is his latest. I think he still owns another one? His plan was to have one in the North Island and one in the South Island. He has running water, internet, porthole windows, all sorts of shit, and he does it all himself. He knows all kinds of useful shit and will be a good man to know when it all turns to shit. He can be found making cocktails outside parties, or making coffee at the beach, and is an all-round general good cunt. We drove around the coast of Wellington on Sunday until this big southerly rolled in. Watching people running for their cars from the previously sunny and calm weather was a hoot! Good times.

Norton gearbox shell

Finally after many dollars, many miles, and many days, it is here! Taking this around to Alastair Mears tonight hopefully, so he can reassemble my gearbox on his bench and test it out there. Fingers fucking crossed this will be the end of my gearbox trouble (for some years to come at least!)? That big hole you can see there was the problem, it had been slogged out by the bearing on the mainshaft spinning in there.

Fuck you Customs

Mostly it's been pretty cool lately, things are starting to come in for the first HFoS issue, been talking about getting dirt bikes for the summer, you know that sort of shit... and have also been waiting around for my gearbox shell to show up from Norvil, getting all excited about getting this gearbox problem resolved but also feeling like I'm starting to run out of fuckin money to throw at the thing. And then BAM! This shit shows up in the mailbox. My gearbox shell is being held by Customs and they want my hard-earned before they'll let it go. Bastards. I have rung up and complained etc, and found out that anything over about $450 you bring into the country you have to pay GST on and also there's an 'Import Duty'. Shit I guess there's someone hard at work on my parcel and hey they gotta get paid for that hard work eh? No. Fuck you Customs. I already paid tax on this motherfucker when I purchased it from England. Anyway,  have now — of course — paid the theiving bastards, but am still waiting to see the  thing. Send me my fucking gearbox already.

Norton update

I'm currently waiting on a new gearbox shell from Norvil in the UK. Tried for ages to get one here, found a couple of secondhand ones but they had the same problem as mine. Basically the mainshaft bearing had been spinning in the case and had slogged out the hole. It was pretty bad actually, Alastair said it was the worst he'd seen in a while. Really hoping this is the cause of my problems, but he didn't seem convinced as he thinks it's a layshaft problem only. My thinking is that because the mainshaft was able to move, twist slightly even, in the casing, then it could be putting unusual force on the layshaft and pushing it out ever so slightly so that it would bind of the kickstart shaft. Anyway that's my theory.

Since I'm waiting on the case to arrive I decide to start work on repairing the earthquake damage to this bike (I have it strapped to a work-bench against a mattress now cause these quakes seem to be an ongoing fucking problem). I think all that's wrong is the 'Z plate' that holds the muffler on is bent, so took that off today and will see if John can straighten it (without it breaking) in a press or something.

Hoping to get this shit sorted and get the Norton rolling for the Mods and Rockers run coming up in August?

Born too late

This is my friend Pete and his Indian that's been sitting in his garage for ages. He finally got it roadworthy last weekend and took it to the 'Born Too Late' motorcycle show in Auckland. I can't quite believe this tractor is actually on the road. This bike was in the back of my van when it died going through the Desert Rd. The only reason my van went on the trip was to take this bike... which did nothing but sit around and look good. It never even started. And then it killed my fuckin van! Still great to see it on the road. And nice to see Pete hasn't 'restored' it.

I stole these images from One Percent magazine's blog here. (I gotta get the last couple of issues). Also spotted my good friend and ex-bandmate Andrew Tolley who must have been playing at the show...

Shit I wish I could have been there. I miss all these good cunts!

Just Deserts

I'm watching way too much footage of people ripping it up in the desert... I really need to get myself to one. With a motorcycle of course.

Christian's CB 350 Cafe Racer

This is Christian Condo's Honda CB 350, the one I mentioned in the previous post. Christian is the owner/operator of the Modern Motor Cycle Company in Melbourne. He's a great chap, and I was lucky to bump into him while he was riding around on our last day there. I heard this bike coming, and thought shit that sounds interesting and then this thing rolled up. I had no idea it was Christian until he pulled over and lifted his visor...

This bike has some amazing details; the speedo attached to the front right-hand-side fork, the incredibly low and swept-back clip-ons, the straight-through pipes, the tail-light... shit you'd never get away with that in NZ!

Modern Motorcycle Company

Just back from Melbourne where Stuart and I have been plotting HFoS first issue. It was a great trip, a lot of talk, a lot of eating, and a lot of drinking... shit I just couldn't keep up. It was great to see what else Stuart's been doing, some great stuff on his risograph (I shoulda asked for some samples to bring home Stuart?).

I got a bunch of photos of shit I might put on here, but I'll start with these...

This is the 'Modern Motorcycle Company', run by Christian (whose head you can see behind the counter there) in the same large warehouse space that Stuart's studio and risograph etc are set up in. This is a large space with a bunch of people all sharing the rent and doing interesting shit, it's called 'The Compound Interest' and can be found here. I've mentioned the MMC before on this blog, and I was pretty excited to get to see it and also to meet Christian. Stuart and I had planned to interview Christian on my last day there, but our organisational skills combined with various quantities of beer and whiskey the night before meant that it didn't quite happen. We will sort something out with Christian for this first issue though. Anyway that's the parts department (above), and this is his main workshop area (below)...

I've already posted photos of Stuart's CB175 that Christian is helping him rebuild, but Stuart has also purchased this 1920-something Triumph single which, until he gets around to it, is on display in the workshop.

There's also this great old James Captain that Christian is getting fixed-up as a 'daily runner' for someone. What a job!?

Christian was saying he's super busy, which seems like good news. But maybe he's a bit swamped? I don't know? Hey Christian if you want to employ a pretty crappy apprentice gimme a call yeah? This (below) is the engine out of Stuart's triumph... and some old race leathers Christian had picked up. Man it really was just a shop full of shit I coulda looked at for hours. Christian didn't have his bike there this particular day but i did catch him riding round town later on in the visit – I'll post some pics of his very cool little CB350 cafe job here later on. In the meantime... cheers Stuart, it was a really great visit. And Christian, it was great to meet you man!

James Oram's Honda

On Saturday night we went to Zina Swanson and James Oram's mid-winter Xmas party. James had already mentioned he'd picked up a couple of bikes that he'd been working on and so I was pretty keen to see them. He picked up this little Honda for about $500  and has made some great mods to it. James is an artist with a training in sculpture, so I guess he should be good at making shit, but even so for his first ever bike this is pretty fuckin cool. I really like what he's done to it. He made the seat and handlebars himself, and repositioned the battery. He painted the tank, cleaned up and painted the engine, put a foam air-filter on, and also wrapped the header pipes. It's amazing how cool you can make these little bikes look with not too much work. And it's a sweet runner too.

James got her started and I ended up going for a spin at about 2am and after quite a few drinks! (Got in big trouble with the missus and have had to promise not to do that again.) I didn't realise the tail light didn't go either, so I would have been an easy target for any prowling coppers. Anyway, got back safe and sound, and James put the lil' Honda back to bed (I love it when people keep their bikes inside the house).

James is actually selling this bike (already has a buyer I think), and has started on his next project (below). I can't remember what the hell kinda bike this is/was??? I know it's a big single, and was ugly as sin in it's original state. But he has big plans for this sucker, and has stripped it almost completely. he's getting the forks cut down soon... can't wait to see what he does with this.

Real keen to James to write something for the upcoming Head Full of Snakes publication...