Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
It's another thrilling episode of Ian Fiddles With Bikes:
Enjoy!
Posted at 08:13 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Today was a momentous motorcycle-day for me. I finally had (almost) all the pieces I needed to get the CL175 safely and legally on the road.
So, I hooked up all the bits and bobs, plugging the gas tank back in (and diagnosing a mysterious lack of fuel flow, which turned out to be basic, run-of-the-mill flakes of rust in the outlet) and getting it all ship-shape. It started, and once I'd sorted out the petcock's clogging problem, it ran pretty well.
I strapped on my riding suit, and headed out for the momentous first ride, trusty video camera riding on the handlebars. It actually didn't turn out to be that momentous: everything basically worked like I'd expected it would. The bike is loud, and surprisingly powerful for "just a 175," but it's still far behind the Ninja 250 in performance. That's fine, I would have been shocked and dismayed that a 1967 design of smaller capacity beat a 1987 design.
Most interestingly, the front brake works really well. I'd been concerned that it'd just be a slight improvement, but Metal Frictions really set me up with a good brake. It's not perfect: although it's now perfectly capable of locking the front wheel up, the transition from moderate braking to heavy braking is rather sudden. It'll take some getting used to, after the beautiful, smooth application and comparatively high power of the Ninja 250 brakes. It's humorous to me that all these comparisons elevate the little 250 (among the smallest bikes you can buy now) so high.
Unfortunately, there were definitely problems. The biggest one is that both wheels wobble like nobody's business (and I mean wobble -- I shot some video of the front tire, and it looks like the wheel is about to collapse; it's not, but somehow the tire is really uneven). I'll have to sort that out. One suggestion has been that I need to put some lubricant inside the tires so that the innertube doesn't bind. I don't know if that'll fix it or not. I hope so -- the other choice is that the new tires are severely out of whack, which would make me sad and delay further riding until replacements arrived. That assumes that I could even get them replaced, now that I've ridden 5 miles on them.
So, it was a mixed success. It ran, but the tires are a problem. I also, in my efforts to free the fork legs, managed to disturb the delicate network of rust holding the headlight to its moorings, so it's now essentially sitting loose in its brackets, held firm by gaff tape. That's like duct tape, but black and 5x more expensive (but right at hand). I have a new headlight (and blinkers and handlebar and speedometer, all hanging from a mass of wires), but it'll take some effort to get it mounted -- the bike is essentially grounded until I do that, since it gets dark so early. I also have to fix the headlight's off-dim-high switch, which is so intermittent that it's essentially impossible to keep the headlight lit except through occasional accident. This may severely limit my ability to ride the bike through the winter.
Anyway, it was nice to get the bike not only running, but riding, albeit a bit wobblishly. That's not a word, but it should be.
I will also have a new episode of the video series uploaded. I'm sure these will be a lot less popular than the countersteering videos, but that's fine. It's interesting to work on them, essentially making my own miniature American Chopper, vintage Honda edition.
Posted at 01:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater