New Steed

Here are a few teaser pics of the bike, taken from the Crashedtoys website.  It's in my garage, and already stripped down quite a bit.  I'll start another blog on that machine shortly, and have a link to this and my RC51 site.

Low miles -- only 6176!!

Damage is almost purely cosmetic -- side fairings, tail, etc.  Shift and brake pedals are dented as well.

This alternator cover is scratched up as well, but no oil leaks -- some paint will take care of it, if I even bother...

Considering the condition, and the price I got it for, I can't believe it was written off.  I may keep track of the costs publicly, but for now, I can say that I got it for 1/10th the price new... do the math!

The plan it to try to get it on track as inexpensively as possible.  Things like a decent shock and a USD front end will cost, as well as some machining work to the front wheel.  However, I'm gonna avoid going the full-fairing direction and create a machine similar to this ER6n that was raced in Europe.  I've already found cheaper options to the side fairings, the headlight/bikini fairing, and am angling for a bellypan I can modify to make oil-retaining.  I'm also going to see if I can fabricate a home-grown slip-on, using the zx10 TwoBros muffler I had from the supermono.  I've changed the oil and fired up the bike, and it seems to run nice, at least on the stand... stay tuned.

Hitting the big time

So, Doug and Wilson and I went to Mid-America Motorplex.  Makes my local look like a paved MX track.  I wanna go back really bad!  This is our pit, with the TPL transporter.  Sunday was crap and wet, but I did get out once before packing it in.  Saturday was too good to push it on Sunday and bring home a broken bike.

Here is a pic of a portion of the track.  My camera has no hope of capturing the size -- long, with the top guys doing about 1 min 45 sec laps.  Going slow and cautious on the 'mono, but still having an absolute blast, and pissing off guys on bigger bikes in the infield.

And I guess I have made the big time -- Performance Bikes Magazine printed a 1-page feature on the 'mono in the most recent issue.  Feels pretty cool that they devoted an entire page to the project.  Will likely get it scanned so I can post it proper.  Will also buy a couple of copies of the magazine, and maybe get the page dry-mounted.

The big news is that I was able to score a more competitive LW bike off of an online auction called Crashedtoys.  A 2008 EX650R -- or ER6F in Europe.  It doesn't look like this right now, but I hope it will look something like this in the near future.  Dad picked it up in Minneapolis for me, it runs, although it has a "junk" title -- hence the cheap price, and perfect for a racebike.  Will have to start another blog!!!

updates

Not a whole lot to report.  Mid America is coming up on June 18-22 -- a real "mancation" planned with Wilson and Doug, who have both been there before.  I can't wait -- only 2 weeks away.  In the interim is the next MRA race.  Will bring the mono in the hopes of doing a bit more testing and tuning.  I did raise the forks up in the triple by 10mm to try to get some more weight over the front.  Might have been a bit of overkill, but I can always halve that length if it is too skittery.  I can also fit the steering dampener, which I will take with me.

I have also started another helmet-painting exercise.  This time, I got a Roof Diversion helmet from the UK.  Not many of these around these parts.  It was in VG condition -- a display model, apparently.  It is very light, and is quite an expensive helmet when bought new.  This had a 2002 build date, so it is not legal for racing, so I was wanting a nice street helmet.  It originally came in red, and looked like this:

What I plan on doing is painting it in Gulf Oil colours, orange stripe, with a dark blue pinstripe, on pale blue.  The striping (I hope) is this pattern:

Here's where I'm at as of today -- tire bead breaker is acting as a helmet stand.  Orange has been painted and masked, and now the blue pinstripe has been taped:

I'm simply using Testors plastic model paint at this point.  Goes on fairly smooth, and the grey primer covered well over top of the stock red.  The helmet itself was scuffed with a plastic scuff pad -- no abrasive sand paper needed!  The last helmet I painted, I used auto-air.  A very coarse paint that required layers and layers of clear, along with wet-sanding in between.  I still plan on applying multiple coats of clear -- here's hoping less sanding is required to get a shiny finish.  I have gulf oil stickers in hand (hopefully they are small enough not to be affected by the helmet's compound curves) as well as replacement "ROOF" decals on the way.  Stay tuned.