View Larger Map

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.

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)

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.

No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name	No name
No name	No name	No name	No name

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 picked these up off Ebay for $75. They're supposed to be loud so I might experiment with the baffling to quiet them down a little. Currently the plan is to rechrome the heat shields (and possibly drill holes along them), polish the tips and Jet-Hot coat the megaphones black. The header pipes that these attach to will be wrapped in black tape.

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

One of the things that fell apart after Vietnam was Harley-Davidson’s business. All those war surplus bikes got used up. The new bikes were no longer cheap or particularly good. Only the outlaw mystique endured and when Harley came back to life in the 1980s it was because the company was selling the idea of the outlaw as much as it was selling motorcycles. Harleys became the Outlaw Machine because that is what Harley-Davidson wanted you to think.

If you couldn’t afford a motorcycle, the official outlaw company would sell you a tee-shirt. They cost more than just ordinary tee-shirts but that was only because they included a magic ingredient. The magic was, when you put them on you became an outlaw, too.

The simple fact is, Harley stopped being a motorcycle manufacturer long ago. For decades Harley has been a company that sells magic on credit.

(Full post)

Harsh, but not without some truth. A lot of truth, in fact. Harley is flailing around in a death spasm, trying all kinds of crazy stuff, like axing Buell, ditching Lehman Trikes and bringing trike production in-house, and frantically expanding into foreign markets. It all comes off as desperation. Just because I’m a huge fan of Triumph doesn’t mean I want to see Harley go away. No worries on Triumph, however, they’re the only motorcycle company that actually made more money last year, with a substantial increase in sales.

And two more…

• Triumph Thunderbird Sport front wheel laced with an 18″ Bonneville America rim and spokes (up from the stock 17″ TBS rim and spokes) with a 130/70-18 Avon Venom mounted up
• Two new EBC floating brake disks,  two new sets of EBC sintered brake pads, a right-side Speedmaster brake caliper, a braided stainless steel crossover brake line and  two billet Speedmaster fender clips for that line (Speedmaster front fender is already mounted on the bike).
• Spare Bonneville America rear fender, stripped and bobbed
• Spare Bonneville America gas tank, modifications began recently, with Harley filler bung and sight gauge kit
• NYC Choppers Monza style flip-up gas cap
  
• Chrome spun aluminum headlight with recessed billet ring, 5 3/4″
  
• Kuryakyn retro bullet turn signals, amber for front, red for rear–I want to use these brackets (or make my own) for the fronts
  
• Run-turn-stop module
• Retro drilled brake light (modified with LED bulb)
  
• DEI black exhaust wrap kit with stainless steel zip ties *
• Spare stock “George Foreman Grill” sprocket cover (obtained for modification) *
• Spare stock battery bracket (for modification) *
• Spare stock clutch cover (for powder-coating black)
• Spare stock stator cover (for powder-coating black)
• Kuryakyn voltmeter
• Stock Speedmaster drag bars
• Chrome pullback risers, 4″ up, 1.5″ back with dogbone one piece riser cap
• Stepped adaptor riser bolts
• A bunch of aluminum stock to build a new quick-release luggage rack (utilizing EasyBracket posts)
• Used D&D reverse cone mufflers (plan on ceramic coating black) *

(I’m pretty sure there’s more hiding out there in the garage, but I can’t recall off the top of my head.)

Needless to say I have A LOT of work to do. If all I do this year is get that damned Thunderbird Sport wheel mounted up I’ll be happy. I have to, though, as I’m overdue for a new front tire anyway. I really want to try out the D&D pipes and Speedmaster handlebars. If the new tank and tin get finished I’ll have to install the Kuryakyn turn signals and the retro drilled tail light, and fabricate a side-mount license plate bracket (or buy this nice piece from Low Brow Customs).

* indicates that I’m not sure if I’m going to go through with my original plans for this item or sell it and go a different direction.

Items For Sale

These items to fit in with my bobber plan and would rather sell them to offset some of the other items I want to purchase. Really, I don’t want to spend any “new money” on my bike, unless it’s for tires, gas or oil.

• Triumph Tall Sissybar with luggage rack
• Easybracket posts for use with factory Triumph sissybar
• Modified hard saddle bags from a 1983 Harley Davidson Sport Glide with EasyBracket hardware and extra latch
• Triumph Tacho kit
• Triumph rear fender rack
• Phantom pad (sell as soon as luggage rack(s) are done)
• Veypor performance computer (originally obtained to replace stock speedometer–may go back to the previous owner)

Unresolved Issues

• Indicator Lights: Since I’m shaving the dash I need to replace the warning lights from shaved dash. I don’t think I want to use the Veypor as my primary instrumentation, and I have my eye on a couple mini-gauges that have the indicator lights in the speedometer (available from many vendors like J&P Cycle).
• Getting rid of the Harley hard saddle bags means I need some sort of storage, if only for travel. I have the Corbin glove box for commuting. I’ll have my custom aluminum luggage rack for my dufflebag. For tools and rain gear and such, I have my eye on some Kuryakyn Gran Tour saddlebags.

Future Items/Tasks

• Steel braided control cables
• Internal handlebar wiring
• BCC custom low profile seat (local riding only), used
• Make new battery bracket out of extra stock bracket *
• Modify stock “George Foreman Grill” sprocket cover with new design *
• Design and fab new inserts for footboards, possibly powder-coat boards black
• Replace cheap fog lights with nicer (PIAA?), mounted either to my custom-fabbed light bar bracket or right under the lower yoke like before.