During a recent posting fiasco about California Law I stated "the heck with it, I'm going to the freestyle WHITE ZONE where I can let my mind wander and warm to certain chinese engine and bicycle philosophies as they occur." If you like the forum posts that are more "you ask/computer responds" (Kind of Star Trek voice computer style - short n sweet) You need to pass this post up ... If you like SHORT posts then for sure you also need to pass this one by. But if you like nursing a beer in a bar by yourself while overhearing a tipsy but not fully drunk person reflect on a pleasant discovery, and realize he's found a little niche of happiness in that revelation, then read on. I'm feeling poetic,and 'creative" ( to quote Augi who I'm almost positive wrote about this style of post with me in mind!) I'm in a mellow funk of satisfaction with this build. I'm also providing a promise to Newbies of a wonderful experience they might not arrive at for miles n miles after the build is complete,and might MISS IT ALTOGETHER if they don't look for it or in fact ,if they really decide they don't want it.I call it the "SUBTLE COMPROMISE". Many are, even as we speak, cracking open bicycle cartons or engine kit packages with a mind focused on the specific 'intent' they have locked into their minds since the day they ordered the kit, and selected the bicycle. "This is to drive to work and save gas" says one. "This is to get at least a hint of what a real motorcycle feels like when I finally save up for it" says another. "This is for the breakneck need of speed I want because nothing seems faster or more dangerous than 40 mph on a bicycle " says the agenda of a third. It's in the gentle 'reworking' or 'dulling down' .... the "rounding off of sharp agenda edges'" we originally had in mind when we started the build that will ... can .... might ... begin the magic that occurs later if we soften and compromise to that initial rigid agenda we all had. No agenda mellowing, no magic ....sad, but I guarantee it. ... It's only in a final resignation to let the bicycle engine literally BE what it is and DO only as much as it does where the real fun starts. The "drive to work/save gas" agenda lasts up to the first experiences of 38 degree mornings ,or freak days when business suits are expected to be worn to work for some reason, or a take home paperwork task project that has caused a twice as full paper folder or briefcase with no room in the usual spot on the bike. Or when the realization that the gastank is a mystical irrationality of highs n lows, seeming to make a tank last forever,then abruptly seeming as if a hole has appeared from nowhere and is giving you only 20 miles to the half gallon.Not to mention work 'suprises' where everyone feels like a party somewhere, some females are hot to have a drink with you and another ... and you're on a bicycle. The "need to pretend I'm on the motorcycle I'm saving for" can be the most disheartening agenda of all . These engines are for more defined and narrow purposes ..... and that Harley agenda can never be met nor satisfied. Riders with that agenda run WOT continually, try off road jumps, try long 70 -100 mile excursions with limited tools, or just the opposite, overloaded dangerous topheaviness of saddlebags filled with thermos bottles,, 20 pounds of tools, spare bottles of 2 stroke oil and gas, and a handlebar bedroll ... until they look like a poor mans version of Jim Bronson. The Bicycle "for speed and danger agenda" plays out quickly as both bike and engine usually fail in a beautiful harmony of parrellel failures so closely related to each other and to the maniacal abuse they have recieved that its a choreographic display of failure that only the perfect laws of physics can provide. The small power inverters (DC to AC),The phonograph record player, the 12 inch plug in mini refrigerators that hold no more than a 6 pak and a half dozen sandwiches, The plug in to cigarette lighter plugs for walkmans and cd's, and in fact portable CD players are 5 excellent examples of products that unlike most 'tool-like' equipment we buy are usually , because of their very nature and function NEVER abused. We plug them in and accept the results,period. To lable and use these Chinese engines in that same context will provide years of pleasure. "Man! they say to me upon veiwing the "Stallion" ... especially in it's new lighted Christmas tree like form . "Bet that's as fast as it looks"! ... and it is, but I've learned the secret ... it'll never have to go there ... It'll never have to be feverishly run WOT because I'm late for work. It'll not ever be overloaded with the burdens of a full dresser because my real cycle will do that handily. .... When 'Kickin' down cobblestones,lookin for fun and feelin' groovy ".... (with no unrealistic expectancies) becomes the TRUE agenda for powering up .... THEN the magic begins !
There is another issue with these kits - whatever manufacturer they come from... Some people dont have a choice but to use them as commuter bikes and have to get to work for a given time... which means WOT to make up for the times when some idiot in a MB E-series blocks you.. There are very few people (sane ones that is) who would try and do a scrambling course on an underbone moped.. but havent really got hold of the concept that a frame designed for 15-20mph jumps with 150lbs on it is not gonna work at 30+mph with 250lbs on it... I have always been of the careful disposition, when I used to borrow courtesy cars they were looked after and its the same with my bike... I wont force it to do more than it can... These machines are almost infinately customisable which your average CD player isnt. In a sense we are relearning what the average cyclemotorist learned in those halcyon days of the 40's and 50's but we are also taking the development of these machines to a new level because of new technology... An example is engine power... 1.6hp from 32cc versus 2hp from 98cc I would love to see someone make a sleeve valve two stroke - the only engine that runs better the longer it goes ... or maybe a version of the rotating cylinder valve 4 stroke... but thats not feasible because there isnt (at least in the UK) the same 'home engineer' ethos as there used to be. In some cases we are going back in time - aka the belt drive machines - which to a degree is even aping the larger machines 750cc+ which in many cases can be aftermarket converted to belt final drive... In many ways we are going right back to the start of the motorbiking era and beginning again - long may it continue.. And if you want luggage space - buy (or build) a trailer... Jemma xx
Ahhh ... you "speed n danger" folks need to reserve just 1 day a week to find your particular engines 'sweet spot' .. that magic place between 18 and 28 miles an hour where neither bike nor engine vibrates, the front calipers do this marvelous 'click ' and sway forward grab that slows you with the precision of a $1000 racing bike, and the engine suddenly settles into this vacuum cleaner like ... or maybe a turbine like whine is a better term ... oh man, then it's ALL good !
Excellent thread.....I need to read this again, to soak in all the points you touched on. The reference to "Then Came Bronson" was kinda distracting!! Really took me back!! :lol:
Bronson was the show that started me on the long lonesome highway to 13 motorcycles over the years ... You want a real walk down memory lane, go to the Then Came Bronson" website ..... I paid $168 on ebay for a sealed in box Bronson Harley kit I had made as a kid ... Back then it was $9.99 I think ! ... And I still have all 4 of his albums plus his "coolin Soup' cd he made in 97 I believe. (He never could sing but he tried like heck. )
Wizard - Thanks, I think I could feel the wind in my face. The young lads around here are looking for a place to hang their hat, as it were. I am looking for the place I was at 40 years ago. I have ridden just about everything on two wheels and except for a few bikes I could never own, I love this thing. I like the way it needs me. My dad and I were talking a few years ago and we decided that this was the problem with the new auto's, they don't need you any more. Ill explain, a little bell comes on and voice tells you I need a service, and mind you this is not something you can do. My brother got a new car and the thing calls the dealer if a light comes on. His car was telling him not to worry about the trouble code and it turned out to be the cars mechanic, you notice I said "the cars mechanic". He the owner never got to chose one. My happy time engine needs me and I need it, and this keeps us happy. Having fun, Dave
That was a great way to put it Egor ! Ya, you have me remembering when we could stand inside the engine compartment and practically lean our butts against the firewall ! "It needs us" .. what a great way to put it !
Great thread Great thread wizard, thank you! "My happy time engine needs me and I need it, and this keeps us happy." So true Pete. My happy time bike and old work truck are very similar. When either is hurt, failing or bleeding fluids. I can turn a wrench and fix what ails them. No need of a $10K computer to ask my $1K computer what is wrong, you can feel it with your hands. Great joy and satisfaction in taking care of some thing that takes care of you. My wife laughs at me when she walks in to the garage and catches me staring at either. (Usually with cup in hand. Some times coffee, some times beer) They are my baby's and I love, loving them and taking good care, to take good care of them. (a buddy of ours once when asked why men were like this about machines and tools told my wife; "It's like shoes to us" lol, and she stopped asking)
Ha, the "cup in hand" ... you stole that from me !!! .... (Something really "official" about either preparing, thinking about what's next, thinking about what went wrong, or just admiring .... with the official beer or cup o joe !
crusin I thought I was the only one that went to another plane when I ride my bike...smelling the fresh cut grass and whisteria blooming on a spring morning as I cruse to work enjoying the warm sunshine. or the time I went down a country road to be chased by a bull (yes the bike can out run a bull lollol) then pulling over and laughing so hard i had to get off the bike. even those pesky broken plug wires that you fix with a knife as the world speeds by. Then relaity bites and a cr people almost hits you so you take the ditch and run up the other side thinking some rather bad words then you think try that B(** your 4 wheeler can't go ditch running.
All the while reading this post, I was trying to remember the star from "Then Came Bronson". Michael Parks! I can see him scraping those used bricks with his new chick to make enough money for gas and food. Wow, seems like a thousand years ago. Oh, it was. Gunna, live life my way. Wiz, do you remember the movie "CC Ryder" with Joe Nameth? Had a zebra painted chopper. That was a lot of brain cells ago.
I love the scene in the supermarket... just casually walking around making a sandwich :lol: many dead cells ago haha !!!
I think of all the 'cycle' and 'freedom' related movies I watched, the biggest mystery to me was the fame of "Easy Rider" ... unlike Then Came Bronson, CC Ryder, The Wild Ones, etc, I just had never gotton around to watching that movie until would you believe ... 35 years later !! .... Comcast was playing it and I told myself there would just never be a 'full circle' of bike movie completeness without seeing this one .... As the closing credits rolled I sat there astounded that this piece of trash had actually lowered my IQ some 40 points ! ... That this was a money making agenda drawn entirely toward the drugged out rebel of the day was clear. Poorly painted examples of the dreaded 'establishment' were so bad that even the goonies in the back woods of Burt Reynolds "Deliverence' had a better agenda in thier dim-wittedness. I had never thought what I had mentally put right up there with "Rebel Without a Cause" was such a thin b movie I now place right beside the entire "leprachan" series in importance as a film. (I know I'm gonna be introuble here so I apologize right now to everybody who thought this was some deep message sending masterpiece!)
