Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Ever since I sold the sidecar rig, I've been pondering whether I wanted to get another motorcycle or not. One of the fatal flaws of the sidecar rig was that it was freakin' enormous -- so big that I couldn't fit it into the garage with all the other stuff that lives in there. But another motorcycle, well, that'd fit with just a bit of clean-up.
I had been eyeing Suzuki SV650s for a while (years, in fact), and almost decided to get one. But then I found out that Suzuki is sort of discontinuing them, only making the model with the fairing, which I don't like as much. I looked around for one for a while, but eventually gave up when I got too close: I realized that although the SV650 is a cool bike, I'm just not willing to give up the weirdo cachet that comes with riding a Ninja 250.
Of course, one of the things I really like about the 250 (which ranges from "very small" to "a girl's bike" to "lame" depending on which mainstream motorcyclist you ask about it) is its very smallness. With that smallness comes adequate power, and pretty good gas mileage. There's only one motorcycle I've ridden which gets better gas mileage, though: my Honda CL175, now dressed for track duty (and thus thoroughly illegal for road use).
I was looking around for another Honda 175 at the same time I was looking for an SV. I found a few, but they were invariably in terrible shape (being 35+ years old, and now viewed as ridiculously small, and usually treated as being insignificant). I looked at one that was "mostly there," partially disassembled, sitting out in the rain. Pass. I found one that was almost, but not quite, running (but also very corroded and cruddy looking). Pass. I finally found one that looked fantastic, but the seller was asking way too much for it. Pass.
Only that last one, I had offered to buy it for $1000 (he was asking $1400, so it was a long-shot, since people are rarely willing to accept that they've priced something way too high, no matter what it's actually worth). The guy came back asking for $1200, which was just too much for me, and I said no. I thought that was it, until I got an email about a week later saying he'd take $1000.
We signed the papers, and handed over the bits a week ago. I now have a 1973 Honda CL175, in surprisingly good shape.
Of course, it wasn't all smiles and giggles. The seller neglected to inform me that by dropping that last $200, he'd also be withholding part of the package, the new old stock original Honda service manual (which had made my eyes light up, and was part of the reason I ever made the offer in the first place). I had to find that out days after we'd finished. He actually had the gall to offer to sell it to me for $30. Once I outlined the deal from my perspective ("Are you seriously telling me that now that we've signed and traded money and bike, you're changing the deal?"), he relented.
The bike itself, although in very good shape, has a few very pressing problems. I was able, for instance, to drive it home (a story in its own right, although one that would mostly consist of me saying, "And then I had another terrifying moment, but it went ok").
However, the list of problems was daunting, as far as getting the bike home safely: the electrical system turned out to be missing a ground connection, which meant that the headlight and taillight were roughly as bright as a single votive candle; the steering head bearings have a powerful detent at center, which means that steering force is uneven -- this is a frightening thing to have on a two-wheeled vehicle, where steering equals balance; the clutch was assembled wrong, or has the wrong springs, or something, so that anything over about 1/3 throttle causes it to slip. I solved the electrical problem (it took me over a day of working on it before the blindingly obvious problem made itself known to me), and now have parts in hand to fix the steering and clutch.
One of the things I wanted to do with this bike was to get it registered as a collector vehicle, and to do that like I wanted, I needed a vintage plate. I found one via one of my racing friends, who had a small collection. My bike is now registered with a 1973 era licence plate, and never needs to be renewed. It's a cool deal.
The process of getting that plate registered was, however, a bit bizarre. I want to call it Kafka-esqe, except that I stood in one spot the whole time, and the licensing agent did all the hemming and hawing.
I went up to the nearest licensing subagent to my house, and was seen immediately. After I'd explained what I wanted to do (title transfer, registration, and collector vehicle status), there ensued the most unbelievable display of ineptitude I've ever seen. The person behind the counter read the instructions, and re-read them. She explained to me (several times over) that she'd never done this before. She consulted with her manager, and a coworker (several times over). She got up and consulted instructions elsewhere in the office, coming back with a photocopy of the sheet in question. She explained to her manager that she still had pneumonia, "but I'm not contagious." The computer system confused her (to be fair, it's one of the awful state systems that would confuse anyone, based on some ancient VAX machine in the basement of a dusty office building in Olympia, accessed via serial lines). She entered the data wrong (several times over) despite following her own careful instructions, calling out each step as she went.
When it was all over, I'd spent nearly an hour standing there, having completed a transaction that really should have taken about 15 minutes. I wasn't annoyed exactly, as much as I was completely amazed. In the middle of all this, she'd actually looked up at me with something of a winking expression on her face, and said, "and I've been here for 30 years," implying that she really knew her job well. I didn't say anything, just nodded and smiled. I did a lot of that: nod and smile.
And thus, the story of the new CL175 so far. We'll see what kind of travail is involved in replacing the bearings, and I'm intensely curious to see what the previous owner (who said this was his first bike, and the first one he'd worked on) did to the clutch. Once I have those two problems conquered, the bike will actually be somewhat rideable. I still have tires coming in to replace the ancient rubber that graces the wheels now, but that's less urgent, and less daunting, since I've done it before. (I've done the steering bearings on a Ninja 250, and the clutch on a CL175, too, but who knows what kind of excitement will be revealed once I get the cover open...)
Posted at 13:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater