April 29th 2011

Apparently some german bloke is marrying some english bird today?? How anyone can possibly give two shits about this is beyond me but I got a day off so I managed to clean some of the bike up. Parts below plus a couple of reprints to show you what it looked like at the start...

Am straying from the bobber idea to a cafe racer style bike - closer to my heart but we'll see how that develops.

Successfully cleaned and stripped the brakes. The brake pad pin had rusted tight so a fair amount of swearing and WD40 applied to get the thing off. Am going to repaint the brake body once we get closer to running.

carbs still with Steve so we'll need to wait for that to progress before jumping in any further.

Cafe Cowboy - Cool Short Film

About Dustin Kott, the Californian bike builder who makes custom British style Cafe racers out of old japanese bikes by Bendict Campbell

Cafe cowboy from benedict campbell on Vimeo.

April 10th 2011 - IT'S ALLLIIVVVEEEE !!!

bloody hell - the thing is actually alive. Steve (o' knowledgeable one) came over, we replaced a few fuses. connected up a battery,put the plugs back in, got some spark and ignition lights, reattached the tank with some old fuel and....the bloody thing started. Needed a lot of choke but we've got the old girl going. Ticked over very nicely indeed. Didn't even need the kiskstart so my hope is that this means the major electrical parts are all ok.

sounded good - engine is tight, but with no airbox it wasn't exactly smooth. We then took the carbies off in the hope of giving them a quick clean but a number of bolts are stuck solid so further work will be required. Also, one of the slides appears to be stuck shut so it may need a professional strip down and reassemble but...there is light at the end of the tunnel.

sensational.

Reds top of the table so I feel like I'm back in the eighties....

April 3rd 2011

little progress - my theme song but have been very busy with other things.

key other thing - been to Bologna Italy and convinced the missus that a visit to the Ducati factory was essential. Nice little museum and the factory tour was quite cool. Simply a product line with assembly workers bolting the relevant parts on plus the testing rooms. Saw the manager of the MotoGp team drive into the factory and impressed the tour guide that I knew who he was (I think) - also topped the class in tour q&a so again my ego feels I've achieved something this year. The number 46 was plastered over everything in sight and the guide suggested tour number were up 200% on 2010 which says all you need to kow about why Ducati closed down it's WSB efforts to secure Mr Valentino Rossi's services in GP.

Lovely part of the world, great coffee , food and really friendly people. Small enough to be comfortable (unlike Rome I'm told) with very limited tourist presence. Worlds first university and still a lot of students which means that there are some cheap eats scattered in that quarter of the city. Nice architecture and it has the requisite amazing cathedrals and art that goes with that part of the world.

Images below are the 72 Hailwood, Paul Smart Imola and various WSB winners

Took the TL1000S out yesterday as spring has finally arrived - great to be back on the bike. Hopefully some work can be done on the W650 soon...

MotoGp warming up nicely - Stoner all the way this year is my call.

Caio.