Welcome to North Carolina

Having only been here a short four days, I woke up this morning and decided to explore the area. A quick look at the forecast could only convince me more: blue skies and mid to high 60's. It was a bit chilly when I set out, but the sun warmed my back through my black leather coat and several layers. After a quick pit stop to give the Daytona an unleaded drink, I set off North on NC86. Leaving Chapel Hill around 9 AM meant that the road was somewhat crowded, although with ample room to breathe, but the traffic was just a reminder that I needed to be on my toes, as well as my best behavior in the cockpit, to avoid incident on my first exploratory ride in unknown territory. The pressure I was feeling from the traffic surrounding me disappeared as soon as I crossed over the intersection with I-40, the highway swallowing most of the vehicles that had previously surrounded me to sweep them off to their 9-5. This opened 86 up to me, and pretty much completely to me. The further I pushed on up it, the more it revealed the true character of this state to me. There were old wooden fences hugging the edges of rolling green fields, and the cows that happily grazed in them. Otherwise, I must say, this road was mostly uninteresting. There weren't many rises or dips in elevation, nor were there any corners challenging me. Bodies of several dead deer hinted at me to keep my pace under control, and I was happy to oblige. I had set out towards Alton, Virginia to find Virginia International Raceway, a very attractive plus to where I'm living. I've yet to ride it but I'm very excited about the opportunity to do so.

I never found it either. I eventually found my right onto route 119 and was immediately elated to find that this road offered me far more twists and turns than the previous, so I picked up the pace a bit and took full advantage of the clear, smooth warm tarmac. A sign which read simply, "VIR" pointed to a quickly approaching left hand onto a different road so I grabbed a handful with my right hand and not long thereafter was greeted with a sign saying, "Welcome to Virginia!" Sweet. I pulled over to soak in the surroundings. The tarmac changed from newer to older, though still smooth at the Virginia line. The fields on both sides of me were walled in by forest, and showed signs of being crop fields. I snapped a couple of pictures and was about to get back on and push towards VIR when I realized that my rear tire looked strange...strangely glossed over. Tales rushed into my head, recounted by previous owners of Triumphs, likening their motorcycles to the Exxon Valdez. Suddenly this analogy didn't seem so funny to me, a Northeast boy in some sort of Middle of Nowhere between N.C. and Virginia. If I were to lose all of my oil (the leak seemed pretty bad, small puddles were forming, dripping off the fairings) out here, I would have no savior except the kindness of a passerby with a truck. It seemed that the oil was coming from the filter-ok-all I have to do is tighten it without burning my hand. I realized something was awry when the filter seemed tight as could be. A quick trip to a nearby gas station and my two saviors came to my rescue. A couple of country men stepped out of a truck, I approached them and asked them for a filter wrench, and we met in the middle with a pipe wrench. One of them took it upon themself to try it for me. "Ya got a hole in ya filter," he very frankly and simply put it to me. "You know you need to ride it to Roxbury, there's a Kazuki dealer there (read: Kawasaki), they'll give you a new filter." I punched in said dealer to my GPS, was there a quick 15 minutes later, one eye on the road, one on my oil light, and was elated to see when I arrived that they were also a Triumph dealer. They gave me a new filter, topped off my oil, and chatted me up while I waited. A quick hot dog at the gas station down the street and off I went, whee whee whee all the way home.

Return of the Blog

Long time no update! Here's a nutshell: my teaching tenure is done, and since then lots has happened in my 2 wheeled world. (whirled). After lots of trying way too hard, I finally unloaded my 996. In a funny twist of fate I also ended up selling my XR200 to one of my former students, and, on the same day no less, picked up an XR500. There are but five letters to describe this bike; here's a puzzle: t b s a e . Give up? It's a BEAST! What a wheelie machine. It's not without its faults, however. It will probably require a new transmission, and I have already had the carbs off more times than I care to recall for some jerry rigging.

Guess what? I got a 999. I am annoyed with my 675(see earlier posts). It's turned into a gigantic wiring and electrical nightmare that I decided if I'm to ever get on the road on a sport bike this summer, I'll have to buy one that works. So I did what I always do: buy one that's close to working and spend thousands less on it :D

Perhaps more details when there's not a bunch of bikes needing wrenching in the garage!

Daytona dive-in and a dirty bike ride.

After a busy work week that tested my patience as well as my immune system I was quite happy to return to home base and get my fingers dirty! I devoted one evening to depleting funds on E-Bay and stocked up on a few essentials for my newest project: a 2009 Triumph Daytona 675. A quick few words on the bike in general, and then a few on mine specifically. The Daytona is a 3-cylinder sex machine on two wheels. A bit different from your common inline 4's, the Daytona's 3 cylinder propulsion pack emits one unique sound. I've often heard it likened to the note on a V-12 Ferarri. Mine in particular is not the finest of specimen of the model year (yet) which received a few noteworthy changes from it's 2008 MY siblings including a greater oil capacity, a 2-3 horsepower increase, and a (not significantly) remodeled front end. My particular model has a highly modified front end; who needs a speedometer, headlight, or straight forks, anyway? I picked up this front-end crash bike from a salvage yard and am putting my creativity (and funds) to the test. I'll pepper some quick pictures of the slowly moving project on here, but I've yet to use this feature so I can't guarantee where the pictures will actually end up! Here is the bike as it was when I got my hands on it.






And now I've really only successfully gotten a key made for it (which currently doesn't open the gas tank-minor problem.) and made it more naked:
Unfortunately I can't do much more work on it until I get the rest of the parts, hopefully over the course of this week. I'm also waiting for a sand-blasting cabinet to come, and I bought an old kitchen oven off a guy in a nearby town in order to do some powder coating. My plan is to powder the triple tree, the rearsets and the wheels all matte black to match the frame. This is partially because i think it would look nice, and partially because the front rim is tweaked and scratched, and needs to be fixed to hold air and not pebbles.
In other news I got out for a quick dirt ride this weekend, which actually ended up being a mud ride, which actually ended up being a fall in the mud ride and probably get water in the airbox/carb as I'm laying in a pile of muck ride. Lots of colorful words ensued. Somehow or another I got it started enough to ride it back to my (poor excuse for a) truck and drive home. It was still pretty darn satisfied to get out and play around in the warm weather we're so happily enjoying now!

There you have it. Look back for more interesting posts re: the D675 project. Hopefully there will be some good results next weekend!

a one week update

What a busy week it's been. I was happy to have Friday evening off from my restaurant job-it takes a lot out of you to teach all day, then go and run around a restaurant until 11 at night! I took advantage of it by taking some time to relax. What better way to do so then firing up a moto and going for a spin? It was perfect weather, so I took a nice jaunt around town on the 996. I feel a bit rusty in the cockpit after only dreaming of it for a few months, and I'm a bit worried because I'm already bored and used to all the same routes I've always taken around town. I'm going to have to put some useful miles on some bike this summer doing some good exploring of new roads. Riding around in circles downtown just doesn't cut it.
I was able to get some worky stuff done as well. I brought my 82 Suzuki GS550 out of storage to prepare it for a (hopefully) soon springtime sale. Much thanks to Kelsey for letting shack up in her garage for the last 5 or 6 months...there's a severe lack of storage space for motorcycles at my house. And if I thought it was cramped in there in the fall, you should see it now (or at least a few days ago.) It made my eyes glitter with joy to open the side door and look at 5 motorcycles staring me right back in the face (dad also brought his 79 Suzuki 750 home-a wonderful bike that I should dedicate a post to at some point.) Taking up residence were his bike, my 86 XR200R, 82 Suzuki, 2000 Ducati 996 and 2001 Ducati 748.
I had an interesting even occur on Sunday (or was it Saturday? It's a little blurry-you'll understand). I was asleep after a long hosting shift at Margarita's, having a few drinks for a friend's 21st and just not getting caught up after a long week of business, peacefully minding my own unconscious business at around 330 in the morning, when my slumber was brought to a screeching halt by what might as well have been a slap right across my mouth. My phone rang. Cloudy eyes. Can't see. I am so not teaching today, why is my alarm ringing? I think this all went through my head, probably in a salad of different languages, as my mind often operates when I'm groggy. I finally realized I was getting a call from an unknown number-it was "Tony." "Hey, did you just get out of work?"
"No, I'm sleeping..."
"Oh, I thought you told me you got out of work at midnight"
"That was three hours ago. What the hell are you doing up?"
"Oh you know man, I just lef da club."
Right. Here we go. I'd spoken with him a day (a week? who can remember at that time in the morning.) before as he was interested in buying the 748. He was located in Lowell, Mass., had a strong accent that I couldn't place (or understand for that matter) and was mostly interested in kicking my tires until I dropped the price to what he wouldn't mind paying for the bike. This went on for 20 minutes. Why did I talk to this ass hole for 20 minutes? I essentially hung up on him when I told him that I wasn't interested in negotiation with him anymore.
The next morning I was awoken in a similar fashion by the same ass hole. What did this guy want? To fight some more, and drive my price down. I said no and hung up.
I was supposed to driive to Portland and drop off an engine and pick up a tire mounter/balancer (successful trip, by the way) so I loaded everything and set off. 5 Minutes down the road he said he'd take it, delievered, today for my asking price. Good god. I turned around loaded it up and was home at 1030 that night, somewhere between 500 and 600 miles later. I drove another hour home to MDI and crashed, exhausted but happy after a long day of hard work. "This is what it's like," I told myself. "Tony" was sketchy, but I never was afraid. I was just said for the motorcycle-such a perfect bike, and I knew that as I rolled it up the mud trail to the concrete walkway infront of his apt. building in the rain, where it would sit in every rain storm, that that moment was the end of that beautiful motorcycle's days as a great condition piece. Adieu, cherie.

New projects to come: An old 2 stroke on/off road dirtbike and (fingers crossed) a crashed 2009 Triumph Daytona 675! I'm VERY excited to get my hands on that one. Pictures still to follow!

I've been contemplating starting a blog for quite some time. My purpose is simple, but multi-faceted. In an effort to get my new lessons learned in a (somewhat) concrete form, as well as save my friends and family from a bit of what it means to spend more than a few moments with me; and by this I mean the inevitable switch of conversation topic to something related to motorcycles, this space is my attempt at making that an optional part of my life to learn about.

Born out of a simple lack of anything better to do with my time, and matured to adolescence at best as the waining moments of summer breathed their last cool, crisp breaths in fall, my boyish obsession with motorcycles has become ripe and exploding. I've given up trying to figure out why, I just feed it; and well fed it is. But the obsession has turned its shoulder on the immature curiosity of my former 10 year old self and has turned a (very) curious eye towards the inquisitive mind I've developed about the processes that make these machines tick. I have learned at the very least one thing from each motorcycle I have owned, and that is a number that is constantly growing. Each one has its own personality, its own flaws, its own way of speaking to you, and its own way of teaching you. Although the running machine is but a culmination of precisely timed miracles in engineering and science happening at once, it is hard not to feel as though it literally comes to life when you flick the key, wake it up, and kick it over, be it with a snap of your heel or a minute push of the thumb.

Although my interests often wax and wain slightly less seldom than the moon itself does, I've been riding this proverbial two wheeled wave for a while now, and am looking forward to doing so for a long time to come. Just as our species itself does, my interests do evolve, but you can probably count on the fact that all entries here will have something to do with motorcycling or mechanics in one way or another.

As a busy spring approaches I want to thank all who take the interest in my interests, but more importantly I want to thank all of you who DON'T take interest in my interests, and have been relentlessly subjected to them time after time! This is my attempt to relieve you! If you do subscribe to this obsessive subculture as I do, then read on and enjoy. Most importantly, ride safe.

Garrett