Enhanced Crater Lake Panorama

Leslie Baird's done it again. I hire her for various graphics stuff, and as usual she shines. Compare her corrected panorama to the one I posted earlier. http://www.lesliebairddesign.com/

The Banana Leaf

Every time I come to England Dick, Marie, and I go to the Banana Leaf restaurant, which has
second to none south Indian cuisine. So I figured I'd get a snap of the couple in fronta it. Last night's dinner was no exception to their superlative and award winning flavor. Indian food always suits me well.

I'm in the U.K. now -

Here's a photo of the Red Baron - Charly Boorman's bike, and the Original Sin - a Baron's Speed Shop house bike. I'll have more pictures up soon...#

A sidebar to the Thruxton project

Well, in desparation I sent my fairing off to the only guy in the us who manufactures windscreens, and had him custom fit one. Four months later, with DAILY calls towards the end, he finally (tries) to send the fairing and fitted clear windscreen. But THAT gets lost, and sent back to him. Then, he finally sends it for REAL, and someone in the feeding chain has their way with the box. See the photos for a nice gander at it.

Happily, nothing inside got hurt. I had hundreds of dollars and months wrapped up in the fairing with the custom rework, and if the windscreen didn't work I was going to be outta luck and would have to start all over again on that part. So I feared the worst. It was not a nice time in my life, believe you me. I don't think the windscreen vendor likes me very much anymore.

But, as you can see from my previous blog, no damage occurred and we'll just chalk this one up to very sloppy handling by UPS. I like them perhaps 65% of the time, but no way 100.

The Thruxtonized Thruxton

Well, this project started back in August of '09, with purchasing the parts for making my 2006 Triumph Thruxton look like a vintage Thruxton, only with an electric start, quieter, less vibration, no overheating, and no leaking fluids. Norman Hyde provided most of it, with a rework done brilliantly on the fiberglass and the tank paint and graphics by Kevin Miller, at http://www.millerpaintandgraphics.com/ . His superb workmanship is evident. He easily earned my continued business based upon his stellar results here.

The clear windscreen was a nightmare that I will not re-tell, but the good news is that it's on, and it's perfect. Everyone knows the supplier, who's a very very nice man, but he couldn't keep his promises, until, um, FOUR MONTHS later. To his credit, he finally got the job done, and well. The moral of the story is, purchase the raw fairing and windscreen from ONE person, IN PERSON, and insure that it fits before handing over the bucksheesh. Thanks to Brian for wisely suggesting the well nuts (rubber outer with a T-cross section with the metal threaded part floating inside). It allows the clear windscreen to adjust well but not be overstressed where the fit is tight.

What's new over what what was stock? Front fairing and brackets, windscreen sidemarkers (Kevin craftily added the flat spot on the fairing to make these fit just so), front fender, front alloy fender bracket, seat, upholstery, tank, tank strap, rear fender, rear light/license plate assembly. I also added a thermometer and clock mounted tidily on the triple clamp up front and have added rear sets. The rear sets get rid of the annoying hinged footpegs which drove me bananas. And I just had to flip the clamp on the shifter shaft on the transmission and presto, a perfectly aligned GP shifting 5 speed, just like on the Thruxton, just on the wrong side.

The mirror is a NON-lane split RCS billet framed convex mirror, just like on the Triton. Of course the dingalings at Moto Corsa only sell the LANE SPLIT version - and lane splitting is illegal in the US. If I tell them this fact, they'll just get confused, think I'm an ass, and forget, so they sell that lane split one forever. Anyhow the RCS mirror is "design overkill" but, hey that's just what I needed. You can pick up the bike with the mirror - it's just that strong stable and sturdy. On my Triton this mirror is an absolute minimum necessity.

The fiberglass is from Norman Hyde (thanks Norman!), and although the fiberglass needed reworking and and painting by the brilliant Kevin Miller, it's an overall great retrofit. I planned on this setup the moment I bought my Thruxton in 2007. I'll say out loud that it needed work, so be prepared to work the fiberglass or have someone do that for you. The rear seat hump was all oblongy and outta round, so that took work. The rest was minor. The brackets and hardware were great. I was not initially happy with the rear license plate/turn signal assembly but in the end it all worked out. It took some fitting, filing, and mods, but the final result is great.

I repeat myself, but the tank paint job is spectacular. The lettering is slightly raised and is perfectly done. Kevin has his patented process here. This tank has NO orange peel, and has depth and all that jazz. Plus he and I went over the colors and schemes a LOT to get it right. He was a delight to work with in this area, which can be the one where arguments flare up. Not with him. He was perfect that way.

Future work? I still have the pesky issue of having the correct silencers on the back ( Unless Norman Hyde has mercy on me and provides the correct silencers, otherwise these will be one-off silencers and surely very spendy) , and will probably go to swept back pipes, and then delete the air injection on the exhaust port, but that'll be it. (O.K. there's the air intake removal and you have to re-jet the thing once the new pipes and silencers are on and the air injection is removed. Oh, yeah, there's the alloy chain guard all designed with more air than metal. Eventually better tires and shocks will be on the bike, but hey let me use what I have on it up first! ).

Thanks again to cousin Tim on assisting on the original dry-fit of all the stuff before it went to body and paint. It made the re-assembly a low-stress breeze.

Enough said for now.

Jeff

Crater Lake.

Well, I sorta went along for the ride but actually got a few hours of cross country skiing in, and the good news is that I can with the boots that have the pivot bar on the front. Technology has come a looong way, but I ended up using my trusty Raimer poles since the ones Ed graciously lent me postholed too easily. However the boots and skis he lent me kicked ass.

Speaking of kicking ass, Ed managed to circumnavigate Crater late in 23 hours 32 minutes, 12 of those hours were camping. So, fantastic time. Considering his bivouac on the opposite side of the late was punctuated by a late winter storm overnight Friday/Saturday, he had a lot of pluck to continue on the next 2/3rds overall distance. Fortuantely the weather was going to clear and I had the happy occasion to radio him the good news at around 7 Sat. morning. I had camped down at the Sno-park next to the Huckleberry campground entrance the night before, and the morning rain/mix snow drops on the truck didn't bode well. Brian was home so I managed ot get a cell call to him to get online and check the weather. Thanks Brian! I met up with Ed on the

east end of the loop just a mile in early Sunday afternoon.

The scenery was awesome, both there and on the trip there and back. Oregon is the most beautiful place in the world. When we came back it was dusk and we took the Brooks exit and the wine country and small towns and scenery were second to none. I don't know why I liked it so much, but it was a great trip overall.

Here's a pic of Ed getting his stuff ready to go, and a crude panorama. My friend Leslie Baird is going to stitch the photos together PROFESSIONALLY, and you'll see the awesome difference. In a few days.

Spring has sprung.

Yes, even at the old grey battleship, there are hints of brighter days ahead. For some reason the azaleas which are carefully groomed are goin' crazy. And it's been a wet and cold late winter/early (non) spring. I was outside taking a break during a hellatiously busy day at work, and noticed the burst of flowers. I really needed to take a picture. Not bad for a phone camera (rapidly my favorite way to capture images. And I MEAN, a phone. Not an Iphone or all that fussisticated stuff.

Here it is:

The "Bins"

If you don't know what the "Bins" are, or as Otis and Pete call it, the "Pound Store", ask a friend.
For Made in China clothing, it's a great source of raw material. The refinery needs the oil from the ground. The nuclear power plant needs the uranium ore. Made in China fashions needs vintage silk by the pound from the "Bins". Note the large blue plastic bins, which on a 15 minute period, cycle endlessly through the store, being picked over by people of all walks of life, for all reasons.
We'll leave it at that.