The Adventures of FriarJohn on Two (and Sometimes Four) Wheels

Thinking about doing something like this:

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I’ve gone north, west, south and southwest. I think it’s time to go a little easterly. One of my high school (Billings) and College (MSU) buddies lives in Fort Collins. Another of my college buddies (CSU) Tony lives in Junction City, KS. Sounds like as good a destination as any.

This time it’s bolt-on and from British Customs.

Blood Falcons: This just in!

He’s correct,  it doesn’t look as nice as the LC Fabrications weld-on hard tail, but for those of us who don’t weld (yet) it could be a godsend.

The hardcore Harley guy will NEVER go for liquid cooling, though…

(source)

[Update: This will probably be updated frequently. People keep asking me for more pictures. Stuff is going fast. The sissybar is going to Taiwan! Damn, I haven't even STARTED with ebay yet...]

On the heels of my last post about selling the D&Ds, I just listed several items on BonnevilleAmerica.com in the classifieds. Here is the gallery of images, but I don’t have the prices listed in the gallery, only on BA.com.

Current Item list:

1. The aforementioned D&D mufflers–need stripping and coating SOLD
2. Triumph tall sissybar and luggage rack–usually a very popular item SOLD
3. Stock tail light housing–good for blacking out while still saving your original chrome piece
4. Triumph chrome rear brake reservoir cover–chromosexual approved SOLD
5. Stock dash–again, good for color-coordinating with your tank or just blacking it out SOLD
6. Optronics fog lights–cheap, lots of light SOLD
7. Triumph chrome front brake reservoir cover  with British flag sticker–also chromosexual approved SOLD
8. George Foreman Grill (stock sprocket cover)–good for hacking up and customizing
9. Aftermarket horn–meh
10. Triumph chrome control levers–again, chromosexual approved SOLD
11. Phantom Pad–weird, but if that’s your thing, okay–WON’T FIT A TRIUMPH
12. Thunderbird Sport front rim, 17×3.5″, with spokes–good for you fat front tire fans, 1″ shorter than stock, 1″ wider than stock–laces right on to the stock America hub SOLD
13. Triumph tachometer–could be fried, need someone to test it for me and only pay me if it works (which means my bike is still screwed up) SOLD
14. Triumph rear fender luggage rack–still chromosexual approved SOLD
15. Someone’s interested in my effed out Belt Drive kit SOLD

More to come. That’s good enough to get started.

I’ve been meaning to sell some stuff. I’m not ready to list everything but I do have a thing or two with which to kick this pig.

Now that I have some Specialty Spares slashcuts, I’m going to dump the D&Ds I have. Nothing against D&Ds, I just love the sound of Specialty Spares. I picked the D&Ds up off ebay a couple years ago and they’ve been sitting on a shelf in my garage since. They have some surface rust. My plan was to have them media-blasted and ceramic-coated black (keeping the heat shields chrome and the exhaust tips polished). Since I bought these with the plan to black them out, NewSpeedmaster started selling black D&Ds but they cost some bank. I got an estimate from Jet-Hot of $115 for the ceramic-coating. If I remember correctly Wolfe will do it for less. Even with shipping you’ll have Black D&Ds for less than half the cost of new pipes. Even less if you go low-tech with some BBQ paint like some have done.

I paid $75 plus shipping for these pipes and that’s all I want out of them. Here’s a picture from the original ebay ad. I’ll take some fresh shots of my own this weekend. The Specialty Spares were shipped from Iowa to Montana for less than $20 so I can’t imagine it costing much more than that for these (though they are longer). So let’s call it an even $100 shipped.

Next I’ll be listing a tall Triumph Sissybar with Luggage Rack and my HD Hard Bags. Gotta take some pictures first, though.

I read somewhere that list posts are popular on blogs. So here’s a list of forums. Heh. However, listing them here in not necessarily an endorsement. I spend 99% of my motorcycle forum surfing on BA.com, only occasionally checking in on some of the others.

Triumph Cruisers

• BonnevilleAmerica.com
  Triumph Bonneville America, America and Speedmaster (disclaimer: I’m a moderator)
• Thunderbird1600.com
  Dedicated to Triumph’s new watercooled 1600cc cruiser.
• R3Owners.net
  Triumph Rocket III – defectors from TRat? Or maybe from…
• R3Owners.com
  Triumph Rocket III
• New Bonneville Riders
  Also defectors from TRat?

Triumph General/Misc

• TriumphRAT.net
  All Triumph Models (some more than others); draconian moderation policy
• Triumphosophy
  A no holds barred offshoot of BonnevilleAmerica.com for those who can’t abide that site’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
• Triumph Torque
  “the reincarnation of T595net to reflect the progression of the Triumph brand beyond their flagship motorcycle model of 1997/1998″

Custom Building Resources

While most of the above forums focus primarily on modern Triumphs, I’d say these two focus on older models. Personally I just love custom bikes of all kinds.

• Chop Cult
• Chopper Builder’s Handbook Forum