What Have You Being Doing With Your Non-triumph Today?

I love it you can drop her down a couple and leave your mates in a cloud of two stroke smoke

 

Ah that brings back memories.

 

Poetry.

 

I had its big brother - a 1972 GT550J in blue (TWR 15L) - the one with the 4ls front brake, which replaced my '69 Bonneville. Bought it brand new from Ewbanks in Pontefract (Sept '72 from the second batch of bikes into the UK) and what a lovely bike it was! It too could get below 30mpg!! In around 35,000 miles only two things went wrong ..... starter sprag clutch failed (it stayed that way - kickstart still worked!) and a piston ring locating peg went awol when a mate borrowed it to go to the Isle of Man on. He was in the trade and got it rebored and a full set of pistons and rings etc for next to nowt.
Happy days!!

 

Upgraded the Haemmerlin with a zinc bucket. Stainless bolts obv.
@Dozers Dad , what tyres do I need now?

 

Fitted a carbon fibre belly pan on the gixxer. 3 hours of sweating taking the body work off and then refitting it all but worth it to save 30 grams of weight!!!

 

I make sure I spend an hour on the bog before a fast ride to shed more than 30g of weight

 

Might be a few grams more. I’ve took a fair bit of skin off the knuckles as well !!

 

Learnt that patience is a virtue with my Honda 750 SOHC race replica ish thingy, not used it for 6 months but fuelled it up last weekend only to find fuel pouring from No4 carb , sticking float I guessed, after much tapping on the float bowl with a screwdriver handle it still poured out, I was about to remove the fairing to get at the carbs but thought I’ll leave it to see if the new fuel frees it off, came back to it today, no leaks!, so patience is a virtue !

 

That looks stunning. I bet it sounds awesome

 

Dry gasket

 

Thanks Wessa, here it is on the Dyno a few years ago when I was sorting the fuelling, I’ve removed some of the baffling since but this gives an idea.

 

Well, I did this yesterday--but the forum was down.

Finally got the stock reflectors removed from the forks of my new H-D Low Rider S. A hair dryer and a bit of fishing line can work wonders. And isn't it funny how such a simple "mod" can make the whole bike look every so much better. Tidy, clean, sweet!

 

That sounds glorious, thanks for posting

 

Perhaps the Eurosafety police bear the responsibility for the fugly reflectors, littleade, but I think I've got California to "thank" for the quiet stock exhausts. One state out of 50 runs the show in the U.S. when it comes to motorcycle emissions regulations .

 

Fitted the led headlight to the tdm apparently the French websites meaning of kit is one bulb so had to order another £50 each Can you spot the led bulb

 

Installed a nice leather swing arm bag (aka, purse or handbag) on my Low Rider S. So I now have at least enough storage for some gloves, a hat, a scarf, and one of those windbreakers that squishes up into its own little storage pocket bag.


Then this morning Mr. Sandi and I and two of our best friends, Kelly & Dena, did a nice but C-O-L-D ride to the north of Tucson about 75 miles or so. The temp was about 45ºF when we started out. We were going about 75 mph for most of the ride so I looked up the wind chill if the temp was 50ºF. Yikes! No wonder I couldn't feel my hands.

We planned to turn around in a town called Winkleman but Mr. Sandi turned off just a few miles south of that town to check out a new Native American casino called The Apache Sky Casino. There was a beautiful newly paved winding road up to the casino that led us to think we were driving towards nirvana. In reality the casino turned out to be quite anticlimactic being composed of 4 or 5 trailers placed again each other. And the "restaurant" was a tent with some folding chairs and tables out back! But we were glad to stop to put on some glove liners and stomp our feet and get some feeling back into our hands! From there we rode back into Tucson and had a lovely lunch with the four of us. And we made sure to sit under a portable patio heater at our table on the patio. How could we have gone from 100ºF+ so recently to being so cold I thought I was going to chip my teeth while riding??





After dropping Mr. Sandi off at home I rode to our local Cycle Gear to check out HJC helmets. HJC has a cool helmet with a bronze accent that seems that it will go perfectly with my Low Rider wheels and tank badging/graphics and the brown leather on my new saddle. Alas, they don't have any HJC's in stock at all but said they'd happily order one for me. Still, a good excuse to continue the days riding.

Onward. From Cycle Gear I rode to my local Triumph dealership ("Triumph World" to Mr. Sandi and me) because Bruce the Salesman and Steve the Service Manager both told me they wanted to see my new Low Rider. So I sucked it up and rode a bit more. When all was said and done today, I was pretty much out and about on a motorcycle from 8:45AM to about 4:30PM. I call that a Very Good Day.

 

Thanks for the wind chill chart Sandi, here’s a suggestion, these really help down to 5 degrees C, at which point even on max heat your hands will feel cool but never cold/painful, (at ten degrees C they keep your hands toasty warm), batteries last over 2 hours on max setting but carrying a spare pair of charged batteries sorts that, no messing about connecting wires up to the bike so convenient as well.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153710256130

 

Thanks, Mark! I actually have some gloves like these but have rarely worn them. Usually I think that my regular winter gloves with liners will do me just fine. Until they don't. Yesterday I didn't even see fit to start out with my warmest gloves and quickly found that to be a mistake.

 

Thanks for the reminder about these little gems, littleade! I've used these in the past for bicycling in the winter and found them to work great. I'd forgotten about them, though. I think they would work great in my winter motorcycle gloves. Plus they are easy enough to tuck into a saddlebag or pocket to have if needed.