PRAYERS FROM INDIANA

One of my poems, “Prayers From Indiana” has just been published in the Spring edition of Time Of Singing, a literary Christian poetry journal. They define Christian in the broadest possible way, which pleases me. It’s a small journal befitting my quiet little poem.

 Click on the image to enlarge it.

More Miller Time

It’s been a while since I updated this blog. Blame it on life getting in the way. Since the last update. I’ve raced a couple of times; replaced numerous parts; spent way more time working on this 40-year-old motorcycle than I ever thought possible. But…

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I still find connection to so many things in my life that are important. Here’s an example. Last October I had a travel week that wore me out. Monday a.m. catch a flight from SLC to DFW. Spend the day in meetings, then a business dinner. On the way to dinner, some fool rider on a clapped out, beat up Kawasaki Versys weaving in and out of traffic gets my attention. Because the weather is awesome in the Ft. Worth area, (low 70’s) I roll down my window. The sound of a parallel twin fills the cabin and it’s a soothing echo of the past. It’s my CB 350 echoing off the retaining walls on the front straight at Miller and into the front seats of my rental Jeep Liberty. I’m at peace and have yet to have my first Bombay Saffire Martini.

On a more mundane level here’s a couple of more photos from this year at the vintage races at Miller Motorsports Park.

Miller racing

Wow it has been a long time since I was last here. Sorry. Just wanted to post a couple of images from my last race at Miller Motorsports Park. I finished second in the 500 Sportsman class and I think sixth in the 350 Sportsman. This is the third year I've done this race and though the bike has changed, I've still struggled a bit. Mostly because the engine is not competitive. My corner speed has been on par but I lose time off the corner and down the straights. Even my wife said, "Hey we need to get you a better engine. Yours even sounds slow." Gotta Love that woman.

So as I came on to the front straight for the checkered flag in the 500 race, the engine let go. So now I have no choice. Mega power here I come. With the suspension sorted out, higher footpegs and now that I've lost about 30 pounds, I think I'm on the right road finally.

I'll work on it throughout the winter.

Paint

Paint. It should be easy. My father was a custom painter and a world-class pinstriper. Back in the ‘70s at the start of the custom van days, my dad hooked up with the pot-smoking, cocaine-sniffing son of a guy who owned one of the largest mobile home manufacturers in Elkhart, Indiana. This guy set up his son in business to manufacture “custom” vans using the manufacturing processes that the mobile home guys used. The company was called HeadRest Vans with the logo using a silhouette of a long-haired, bearded hippie.




My dad cranked out some truly custom muralled replicas of Frank Frazetta’s Conan the Barbarian, and any number of desert and mountain landscapes. At first it was one or two vans a day, but once he had to paint 20 vans a day to keep up with production, my dad snapped. In his soul, he was an artist, even if he never quite knew it and could not work under a mass production schedule. But before he left the business, I worked with him and learned how to paint. Lines, colors, how to use a spray gun, clear coat. And perhaps most important of all how to buff out a clear lacquer coat.

My dad spent the last 15-20 years of his life living blissfully in a converted 40-foot bus with my mother, following the motorcycle rallies and muralling and pinstriping Gold Wings. A pure cash business. He was proud that I had finally graduated with a Masters degree, but he was most proud that I was working in the motorcycle business at Cycle World Magazine. I’d show up at a his winter address in Yuma, AZ with a new bike and would get dragged around to meet his and my mom’s buddies. At the time I dreaded those trips, but now that he and my mom are gone, I remember them with increasing fondness.

So when it was time to paint the CB350’s new tank and seat, I missed my father. I would go the automotive paint stores, and the smell of the paint and tape would bring so many positive memories of him right to the counter. So many memories flooded over me. Too many. Too much weight. I couldn’t buy the red or white paint I wanted.

When I smell burning leaves in the fall, I’m transported back to a specific day and a particular place when I was ten years old. When I smell automotive paint or masking tape I’m awash in a tsunami of memories, places emotions and vehicles connected to my father. This simple task of painting a motorcycle tank and seat became a struggle for me that I still do not fully understand.

Determined to work through this on a random winter Saturday, I gathered my 15-year-old son (for courage I guess) and drove to the paint store. It was closed. On a Saturday. I took it as a sign that this was a task best solved alone.

A month later I was back. Alone. All was good until I was flipping through the paint chip book, looking for the perfect red. Too many choices and too many reds. Then I heard my father’s voice saying, “Ford Candy-Apple Red.” Perfect. It was as simple as that. It’s probably not the official Honda racing red, but for me, my bike and my father there could be no other color. He had painted so may race cars, motorcycles and even fire trucks that the color is like a ribbon running through his life, into mine, and one day, I hope, through my son’s.

After the stress of buying the paint, the actual painting was a simple, peaceful act. Holding the tank on my knees while sanding, taping and polishing the finished paint was a meditative experience.

Oh, one other stress point had been the cost of buying the spray gun, at least $120.00. While the paint guys were mixing my paint, I saw a wall-full of rattle cans, so I asked if they had a my paint in a spray can. They said they could put any color in a can. Peace Like A River! I was out the door for $65.00 rather than $200.00. I got the paint, and exercised my fiduciary responsibility to my family to keep the cash out lays to a minimum.

Do It Yourself!

More and more as Americans we live in a state of fear. TSA people make us feel like criminals as they take away our toothpaste and shampoo. What’s the Terror Alert Status today? Our 401Ks have disappeared and no one can get a job. Those who have one are afraid of losing it.  We’re saving our money afraid of some unforeseen tragedy just around the next dark corner.

Add to that the simple fact that motorcycles have become more complex, more competent vehicles and we have a generation of riders who are afraid to work on their own bikes.  This is not only silly, it can be down right dangerous to not work on your own bike. Even if you ride a Goldwing, you have to remember, a motorcycle is not a car. Low tire pressure on a car is a nuisance and needs attention, but low pressure on a motorcycle is a real and immediate danger.

So what does that have to do with this old CB350 and my struggles with parts? Everything! Installing my own products does several important things. First it saves money. With shop rates at about $85 an hour, you can rack up some real savings in an afternoon spinning your own wrenches.

Perhaps even more important is that it tends to engage me at a deeper level with my bike and motorcycling in general. When I made the bold move to install a product, I started taking a hand’s on approach to my machine. I’ve gained a sense of accomplishment while getting to know this motorcycle better. And believe it or not, I’ve also relearned a couple of simple things.

1.    Read the instructions first. The guys who designed and built these products most likely also wrote the instructions. They know a thing or two about installations, so I’m learning to take advantage of their expertise. A few minutes reading up front would have saved me  lots of time and possible frustration. This time investment helps me to avoid some of the more common and easily preventable install mistakes.
2.    Read the instructions again. This time looking for any special parts or tools necessary to complete the job.  Make sure all the parts are at hand. Without fear, trepidation or undue stress, dive in.

Look, no one should know this motorcycle better than me, and I won’t get that understanding by taking it to the shop.

Ground Clearance

I woke up on my birthday thinking about ground clearance. There's no doubt my 350 needs more. Today's race compound tires are so good the bike can lean over much more than back in the day and perhaps more than it should. Footpegs are ground down, and exhaust pipes drag. And that's where the problems come into play.

At Miller Motorsports East Track, the last corner is called Windup. It's a beautiful 180 degree left hander that's banked a bit and tightens up right at the exit. Try as I might, I could not hit the apex of this corner, so I was forced to run wide at the exit, losing precious drive heading on to the long front straight. It sucked. I couldn't hit that apex because hard parts of the bike were hitting, keeping me from leaning more. I thought it was my foot getting trapped between the folding peg and the frame, but a post race inspection showed it to be the exhaust pipe behind the footpeg. That explains the rear wheel slides.

I'm sure a better rider could have figured out a way to compensate for that situation. Me? My solution was to stiffen up the front fork and purchase a new pair of Works Performance shocks set for my weight. The fork is a story for later, so here's my story about the shocks.

A call to Works with my specifics and less than a week later I'm in my office with the most beautiful pair of aluminum bodies with black springs. My thinking is that the shocks on the bike are too soft so they are compressing too much with the cornering g-loads, thus reducing the ground clearance of the bike. With my new set up, the rear should ride higher, keeping the weight of the bike more evenly distributed front/rear and thus allowing me to lean more and hit that apex. I'm convinced.

And all of that got me thinking. Like I said it was my birthday, and rather than sink into my usual reflective meloncholy, I was instead struggling with my wife whether our 15 year-old-son could/should attend a co-ed sleepover. It seems we were scraping hard parts no matter which way we leaned. We needed some ground clearance for sure on this one. But where do you get that? There's no Works Performance for this.

So we called our friends. We got some great advice from them, and the boy came home. Not happy about it by any means.

Fabrication

Fabrication. What a lovely sounding word. It sounds like all that is right, so professional, so insider. Just typing the word makes me feel like I'm part of an inside group of craftsmen, artists and metal workers. It sounds much better as a way to describe what I'm doing in the garage than I'm out there beating on a stubborn piece of metal with a three-pound hammer until it fits.

To say I’m fabricating something also makes it sound like I have a well equipped workshop, anchored with machines like lathes, belt sanders, band saws, benches and welders, cutting torches and maybe even a CNC machine, a castoff from the recent downturn in the motorsports business.  But no, the reality is my workshop is a crowded two car garage that my wife is determined to turn into her version of Public Storage, forcing me to drag out discarded furniture, old dishware, and other household items with the simple directive, “take this out to the garage."

So when it’s time to work on my bikes—motorcycle or bicycles—I first reach for my car keys so I can park it on the street, thus giving me the elbow room I'll need for my peculiar brand of mechanical magic. My workbench is a set of stairs on the right, that lead to an upper floor that’s unusable as a motorcycle work shop. These steps actually work okay as a fill-in for a proper work bench, except for when I reach for a nut or bolt and inadvertently shove it off the step into the dark abyss beneath. Come spring, I’ll get under there and sweep those bits and pieces up. I should have quite a collection by then.

So, my tank finally arrived from Air Tech, four months late, and...  you’ve got to be kidding. To make it fit, I’m going to have to “fabricate” new front tank mounts, some kind of rear mounting system and then figure out how to mount the seat. And the tank is so long that I’m going to have to lose about 30 pounds just to squeeze in. Who knew that fabrication would extend to my eating and exercise habits.

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Okay, this is something I think is very cool. My wife is deeply tied into the Art scene in Salt Lake City and Park City, and one of the artists we've both been watching develop is Erin Berrett. Fun stuff of all sizes. Not long ago, we saw a painting of a Ural motorcycle with side car and fell in love with it. So for our birthdays, we commissioned Erin to paint my 350. And here it is!

This was how the bike looked when I raced it at Miller Motorsports Park in September. I love the painting for itself (though this photo of it is a bit washed out), but also because it's a very cool snapshot of the bike before i began to change everything, what with the new tank, paint job, and most likely new high pipes. Works Performance shocks are on the way which will improve the rear suspension--right now there is none, those shocks and springs might have worked in the eighties, but they are long past their prime.

CB350 AS A PORTAL

From my first exposure to motorcycles, until I became a professional in the motorcycle business, I have loved new bikes. As I got older and friends began to collect anew the bikes we had ridden in our youths, I still heard the Siren call of a new bike every year. A new bike does not have a "new car smell," but it has a new bike feel. And like falling in love when you're a teenager, I was and still am seduced by the next, latest, greatest motorcycle. 

So, I was a bit surprised to find myself attracted to the idea of going vintage roadracing, and without prodding from anyone but me, finding and buying a mutt of a Honda CB350, that was mostly set up for racing. I fell for the promise of racing on the cheap, with old guys like me.

Well it hasn't turned out anything like I expected. This has reconnected me to a part of motorcycling that I had long forgotten. It's been a sort of doorway to a more fun, more fulfilling motorcycle experience than I ever expected--also more expensive, more time consuming than I had ever dreamed possible.  

So stay tuned. I'll bring this story up to date, then keep it going as I get ready to race at Daytona in the spring. But beware, as Lance Armstrong said, "it's not about the bike."