DECEMBER 2009 BIKE OF THE MONTH - WINNER(S)!

[Tim]

For December 2009 DO THE TON Bike of the Month we have a tie! Leading the pack together and crossing the finish line neck and neck are Loud Bike and Beat the Clock! They will both be featured (as you can see) in the DO THE TON site banner for the month of December.

See below for their respective stories and images. Worthy bikes both.

 

[Tim]

Beat The Clock

I’ll never forget my first ride on “Beat The Clock”. I had been waiting for a break in the weather for a few days and anticipation was high. That special time came on a late summer morning. The sun broke through the clouds and the rain was gone. The journey had been long and all I could think about was the thrill that awaited me. I skipped breakfast and headed to the garage.
Memories of a long transformation were fresh. Late nights were greeted with busted knuckles. I wore her grease under my fingernails from day one. That day was last winter just before Christmas. I first spotted her behind the previous owner’s garage, on her side. She was no more than a mound of snow. Her current owner hadn’t had her running for a few years and at first he thought she was gone. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the bike had fallen over and was hiding under 6 inches of snow. My heart sank and my expectations fell. But I knew I needed to try to give this Honda a new lease on life. The previous owner and his family had come upon hard times. He tried hard to show care as he brushed the snow off. He tried, but I know the bike was not loved. She was broken but I knew her potential. This was to be my new project and this guy and his family would have a little extra cash for Christmas.
I had the bike running tops by early summer. It really didn’t take much in the way of mechanics. I rebuilt the carbs and found a couple of fried wires. The rectifier was bad and so were the coils. Once I got it running I stripped her down to the bare frame. I sanded, cleaned, polished, and prepped until my fingers bled. Every bit of powder on the bike was stripped and painted with appliance epoxy. I gave the frame a coat of appliance epoxy silver. Other bits were done in appliance epoxy black. I found that the appliance epoxy is very picky and sometimes I found my self redoing a few bits a couple of times over. If it is done right though, it is bomb proof and smooth as glass. Next I prepped the motor and hit it with high heat gloss black. The chrome pieces were done with high heat clear.
I started reassembly and before long she looked like a new bike again. By the time the snow left, I had myself a 1975 Honda CL 360 café racer. The transformation was complete. So I thought.
After a few rides it grew old. I did a lot of work to turn my winter find into this café racer but something didn’t seem right. The bike didn’t have a soul. I can’t explain it. I parked her in the corner of the garage and that’s where she sat.
A couple of months passed and I even considered selling. But during that time I studied the bike. It wasn’t until later that I looked back at my inspirations. I knew right away what I needed to do. She spoke to me for the first time. She was not done. I realized that I let my love for the café have too much influence. She needed a little more work. She was going to have a bobber feel but would be a throw-back not only to the café racer but my other love, vintage board track racers. It was a done deal and I knew just how I wanted her to look, and ride.
I had already done all the grunt work of painting and polishing etc. All I had to do was give her a face lift. So I removed everything café such as the seat and tank. My homemade rear sets were to go too. I knew I wanted not only mid controls, but the bike needed to be longer and lower. I studied the rear triangle and the swing arm. I figured the top shock mounts needed to be a little higher and the swing arm could be about 4.5“ longer. It would give me about the perfect ride height and it looked like the shocks would still articulate in reasonable fashion. So I cut my swing arm and tacked in 4.5 inches. A brace was left on the top seat rail that I had welded there for the café build. I figured it would hold everything from going catawampus once the cuts were made on the seat rails. I then proceeded to cut the top shock mounts. After a few mock ups and looking at the angles, the placement for the top shock mounts were located and it was decided that the new swing arm needed a total 5 inches added. I welded in the new shock mounts at the top of the seat rails and then added gussets. It was ready for mock up again. The battery I had relocated to under the tail behind the seat for the café build, was moved to just above the swing arm. It was mounted in a nice box I welded up. Then Dremmel was used to cut the spades..
The alligator seat from eBay was a nice find. The seller was Motheroadcustoms66 and it arrived in no time. A Model A tail light was added and things were starting to take shape. Chris Fiaccone at www.motofiaccone.com did the final swing arm work for me. Once it arrived I spent a day sanding, prepping and painting. The paint on the frame was feathered and repainted where I had done the new work.
The tank and rear fender were pretty much the final pieces of the puzzle. The tank is the factory 360 tank that came with the bike. I decided to do a 50’s hot rod style lace paint job. For that I laid down a base of Rust-oleum Metallic Dark Bronze. A day later I wetted down a piece of lace table cloth and taped it down. Then I sprayed it with Rust-oleum Metallic Antique Brass. I then topped it off with a clear coat from an aerosol can as well. For that I used Maxx 2 K clear. It is a two stage clear that comes in an aerosol can. The result speaks for itself. I then finished off the build using brass bushings, spacers, washers and brass wing nuts where applicable.
So, I’ve spent endless hours with bleeding hands and sweat on my brow, but now she has a soul. She is an extension of me and every time we hit the wind together, we become one. I am part of her and she is of me. I am a man trying to beat time. I dubbed her “Beat The Clock”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XS1gZWtxuY

 

[Tim]

Loudbike:

Sat in a barn for about a year before I got to it. I'm not sure why it didn't run but a big part of it was that the ignition switch was rotted all to hell. The PO decided it needed to be black... everything needed to be black, I disagreed.

I learned to ride a motorcycle on this version:

Now: *ftp site is unstable today, these are going in and out*

This is the article I wrote for The Horse, they titled it The Japs Are Coming! which was the subject line of the first e mail I sent to them:

My dad was never into this motor stuff, what he gave me instead was a drive to build, fabricate, and create. It started early with plastic models and at some point I discovered motors… much of what followed, up until today is a blur. Thank Bob Dole for the internet where I decided to document it all, otherwise I wouldn't know what to write in these pages.

Back in 2004 after returning from Daytona bike week I was ready to find myself a bike. I didn't know what I was looking for but I knew I'd know it when I saw it. When I came across the bike you see here it was sitting outside of a computer store not running, rattle canned black, and boring as stock can be, it was perfect. I could see the bike that I wanted it to be within it, underneath all the junk that Honda piled on it so many years ago, I was sure there was something cool. The next weekend it was spread all over the garage floor an there was a bucket of spare parts that weighed in at about twenty pounds. Project Loudbike had begun.

Having slapped it all back together leaving out anything I felt wasn't absolutely necessary I rode it until the motor gave out on my about a month later. Too many revs for too long on the highway did it in. Having done away with the clocks I can't ever tell what It's revving at or even how fast I'm going, so I might have had the thing pegged for who knows how long. The breakdown was my opportunity, and that's when the whole thing really started to come apart. I broke it down completely and painted the frame with the biggest HOK flake I could get through my gun, stripped the tank, made a new seat from scratch, installed new bars and flipped them under, got all new spokes, a new rim and had all the rolling stock powder-coated gloss and satin black. I thought maybe it was best to try the professionals this time for the motor. One of the employees of a local Triumph specialty shop decided he could take it on as a personal project, so I handed it over, and never saw it again. He moved to Georgia in the middle of rebuilding it and took the motor with him. By this time I had gotten my hands on another CL360 basket case and quickly robbed the motor out of that one, but I never could get it to run right and I eventually found myself on Craigslist throwing money at a go cart motor. That's right, a 360 powered, long wheelbase, sand dragging, backyard built go cart. That's the motor that's still in it to this day and all it needed was a little Scotch Brite lovin'.

Loudbike is the first of many Dropbars Bikeworks projects. I was able to learn a lot about what the hobby needs, and have a number of pieces in the works to help keep these bikes on the road. There's only so much space in these pages and I was really only able to touch the surface. For more info on Loudbikes' build, any of the other projects going on at Dropbars, or just to ogle more pictures of our model Rain check out www.dropbars.com (Sorry, this is a lie, I still haven't been able to get a decent gallery working on my website). My thanks goes out to Rain and my photographer Darren Mcabee for helping me out.

Kit, Dropbars Bikeworks