ready and waiting

prepped the sportster for its final night here in the BK. the new owner is on his way from PA (you see that Kim!). He is coming with a friend that is actually bringing a frame for my buddy Larry who shares the shop with me...small world. and keeping the Lancaster to Brooklyn bike quota in check.

spin around the block, power washed, degreased the motor, cleaned out the carb, lubed up the throttle, detailed the tins, scotch brited the pipes and said thank you for always being reliable and never letting me down. godspeed sporty, godspeed....(whatever that means) .

Here's to a world without the reliability of a bike that starts with the push of a button and doesn't fall apart.

Pangea Speed *new* Streamliner Bars

Received a nice little package from Andy over at Pangea Speed and decided it was time to mount up these beautiful little bars.

I've always like the rabbit ear bar look, but proportions never seemed right. The either stuck up too much or were way too narrow and straight back making them awkward to actually twist a throttle with.

Well, he made his slightly lower than the last round and wider....aka perfect!?! First thing after mounting them up was lopping 2" off each end of the bars to get the right feel. Then I threw on a gorgeous new brake caliper/master cylinder set up that came from Kim. (more on that on a later date)

re-bled the front brake pretty quickly, but will be putting on new brake lines and throttle cable once the season tells me it is time.

CHECK OUT:

Andy from Pangea Speed on the daily

Andy's Born Free 4 Build Blog

indian, japan, england

more triumphant than a triumph.

more indian than royal.

two great looking bikes that share space with me down at Machina Cycles in Gowanus.

there aren't many bikes that I see and want to just hop on and ride. But that Kawasaki W650 is one of them....of course that headlight COULD be even bigger still though. no.

the biggest thing that always blows my mind is just how many fully stock bikes there are here in NYC. I know that you have to have turn signals, a horn, a speedo??, etc, in order to pass inspection, but still, lets make a few changes.

this past saturday

was way too cold. Thursday was around 50 and Friday was in the low 60's. I had checked what the weather was going to be like last monday and when I saw the forecasts for the nice days ahead, my plan was to call in sick or take a personal day for Friday. But it seems that EVERYONE else at my work doesn't schedule their lives in such a way and sent out 3 meeting requests for said Friday.

Don't people check the fucking weather and then decide if they really want to be at work on nice days around here? In southern california, sure, no need to check, its gonna be nice. You can actually sit around inside ALL DAY on a saturday that is 75 outside knowing that it will be like that tomorrow again, no biggie. BUT here in NY, if its nice outside, you gotta take advantage of it.

Instead, Malcolm and I tooled around Brooklyn on Saturday in the freezing temps. Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Gowanus. Then he got back on the train to hang with his girl after his day "at work".

Great pictures of the day here at Malcolm's site.

shavin' grams

I've never liked the stock sportster pegs that came on my bike, but at the same time never just took the time to make something different. Yesterday I finally just went to the shop with the goal of using the passenger pegs instead of the stockers. But when I put them on, I noticed they were way too wide, so out came the grinder and the shortening began.

the left side stock peg.

I removed the rubber from both the stock front and the passenger peg thinking that since the actual casting is shorter on the stock piece, I could just cut down the rubber from the passenger peg and slide it on and maybe be done with it. Problem is the offset from the clevis mount on the stock peg with the passenger rubber would look shitty.
lopped of about 3/4" to start.

Since I was getting rid of the mushroom end shape that was on the peg's axle, I then broke out the hammer and started working the end back into a slight mushroom end to help capture the rubber. This was about 5 hits into it. there were about 20 more after this.

In total, 5 ribs worth were cut off of the width of the rubber.

unfortunately, my first pass wasn't short enough for my liking, and Henry easily talked me into going shorter so the picture below shows the first shortening (3/4") of an inch and then my final product which is about 1 1/2" shorter than stock. sorry, no stock length picture.

the two pics below show the two different lengths. Shorter and ShorterER below.

much better. quick, easy, fun saturday project is done. There is still plenty of surface for my feet being that the clevis mounts stick out a good deal as well. Now if only my battery weren't dead, I could actually take it out for a ride. Pressed the starter button and all I got was the click, click, click sound. Could be the battery, the starter relay, or the starter itself. fun times.

machina cycles - Brooklyn

upon looking for a decent place to be able to park my bike year round, I happened upon a craigslist ad for a place called machina cycles. they were advertising for either just winter storage (no daily access) or full service rental space which includes your own parking space, 24 hour access to the garage, and full access to the shop area in the back. plus it even has a bathroom and heat. its one subway stop away from our new apartment, or a 20 minute walk, or a 5 minute bicycle ride.

I met up with the shop's owner Euvin Weeber on Sunday to check it out. We talked motorcycles, music, bicycles, design, road trips, etc...I may have found my new shop.

all set up with closed caption cameras just in case and some super high security keys. each person who rents the full service space gets their own key which will open the regular door and the ability to open the full garage door once inside as well.

looks like there will be an open house/grand opening party this saturday, December 4th starting at 3PM. hopefully I'll see you there.

website here

facebook here