London Motorcycle Museum

Last Sunday I went to this place 5 minutes away from the Ace Cafe. An old farm converted into a sort of museum where the barns now store old bikes. Half of them belong to the family (father,sons and grandsons) the other half belong to people who leave them there only for exhibition and dry storage purposes. Buying selling and fixing old motorcycles (special attention to Triumphs) has been the main family business for a long time now. The father, who also own's REG ALLEN London motorcycle shop dedicated his life to racing, rebuilding and collecting bikes.

A humble place full of old memories and stories told by the owner's son who's spent all his live around bikes.  A place where british motorcycles are worth much more than just money.

DYI wheel stand

 Gary (guy who works with me) decided he was going to buy a wheel stand for balancing and trueing motorcycle wheels at home.  Adrian (the other guy who works with me) said we could build one without spending money. I had to intervene to balance things up and said: "We're using new bearings".

Why? Lots of reasons. To make Gary feel bad for spending £100 he doesnt have, to have something to do because there's nothing going on these days and because we dont realy need one but I will in the future.

Here it is, my new wheel stand that cost £6.  Eat the overdrafted

Enfield Classic show

These pictures were taken this morning in Enfield at a very small bike show. Sun shining on chrome and everyone was happy for taking their time polishing every bit of their bikes last night...

 

The guy who owns this 1927 Norton 500 saw me taking pictures and came over for a chat and very proudly spent the next 15 minutes explaining to me how everything works. Original bike with original filth and dirt.

 

 

Finally on the road

Learning from my CB500T, I decided NOT to spend so much money like I did in other rebuilds. It's a bit of a race to see how far can you go, spending the least amount of money possible.
I decided to sell the old engine in bits. Sold half of it by now and managed to pay for insurance and road tax.
£800 I spent in total buying and getting it on the road again. Luckily the forks and brakes where free.
Here she is. Reborn and road "legal" at last. Another great fun to ride Hugo Special, but needs tyres. These are old, dry and dangerous.

My first Micrometer

My first micrometer was given to me today by the new guy in the workshop. He's been working with us for 2 weeks now, never had a mobile phone, doenst hold a car license because "never had any interest in cars, really"  eats bananas and gave me this precision tool from when the inch ruled the world. The price is still in Shillings (pre 1970) and it cost something like 72p when £1 was worth 240p.
Although I might never use it, I'll keep it as a mark in time and to remind myself that England's not all about greed afterall.  Hail to the hippies!

2 jumbles and 1 classic bikeshow

Closer and closer...

Land of plenty

Someone I never spoke to, in person or on the phone,I  never saw, never emailed, sent me FREE OF CHARGE these Harris foot pegs because mine where blue and ugly.

It took me a while but they're in.

Thank you once again, Chris!

The end of phase 1

Finished exhaust

Number board and a trip to Brighton

 

Went down today to the South Coast and drove past this place between Eastbourne and Newhaven called Beachy Head. Every 500mts you have a "Pay and Display"car park. I wonder if the cattle gets to graze for free...

Today's work

I came up with this idea for a headlight some months ago. I thought to myself, "this will look really nice and so far I've never seen it on a bike". Well I've started today fabricating the bracket that will hold the headlight and I managed to finish it.  I used left over bits from the exhaust system I'm making, including a piece of pipe, two inches of the original exhaust mount to the frame an angle grinder and a tig inverter.

Somehow the enemy managed to get hold of my blueprints for this highly engineered setup for the front light and here it is.

I was quite pissed off because they even chose the same side where I wanted to mount the headlight BUT they had the decency of using an oval number board. This prevents any chances of me suing the offenders, leaving me as the guy who copied the Wrenchmonkees...

 

Back on to it

 

Replaced the stock TRX forks with these Thundercat ones keeping the TRX wheel. Straight fit, just 2 spacers needed to be adjusted for the wheel.

Fabrication started on the downpipes.