The Machine As Narrative

Eighteen months ago I found a 1994 Kawasaki ZG1000 sitting in a field.  It was in pretty rough shape, unused with grass growing up through it.  I was immediately drawn to it, though I was worried about transitioning from my relatively modern, fuel injected, first bike (an '07 Ninja) to this twenty year old, carbureted machine that clearly needed TLC to be roadworthy.  

One of the reasons I got into motorcycling was to re-spark my dormant love of mechanics, which had been prompted by Matt Crawford's brilliant little book, Shopclass As Soulcraft.  I briefly battled with worries about my abilities and working on motorcycles (of which I had no previous experience).  When you get a car repair wrong you tend to roll to a stop surrounded by a big cage.  If you get a bike part wrong it can throw you down the road.  I'd been away from mechanics so long that I was afraid I'd lost the touch.

Once I got my hands moving again they quickly remembered what they once knew.  My ability to repair machines hadn't been unused, it had simply been focused elsewhere, on IT.  Those years of rebuilding cars and working in the industry quickly came back to me.

The Concours was stripped down, old gauges were fixed, oil lines repaired and it sailed through safety.  The old dog immediately rewarded me with a ride up to Blue Mountain though a snow storm, and a ride around Georgian Bay.  The only mechanical failure as the bike began to rack up miles was Canadian Tire's fault.

By the end of the summer the old Kawasaki had ridden down the back straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and clocked up over thirty thousand miles on the odometer.

This winter I've been deeper into the bike than ever before.  Besides maintenance items like spark plugs, I also had a close look at the tires, and elected to retire the mis-matched, old tires.  With the tires off and the wheels naked, I looked into industrial coating options.  Fireball Performance Coatings is only about half an hour away in Erin.  After meeting with the owner Mark, I went with a candy coated gold that'll gel nicely with the red/gold trim look the bike is developing.  The rims are done and are currently at Two Wheel Motorsport getting Michelined up.  Future bike projects are definitely going to make use of Fireball's coatings.

This week things start to go back together in a big way.  With the tires and rims back I'll be popping in the new bearings, putting the balancing beads in (first time trying them), and installing the wheels back on the bike.  With the wheels (and disk brake rotors) back on I'll be able to finally finish the rear brake lines and reinstall the rebuilt calipers.  It's a lot of bits and pieces that need to come back together, fortunately I've been taking photos as I go (a good way to keep track of what goes where).  Between that and the Clymer shop manual, everything should come back together nicely.

A big part of taking things apart is cleaning them up, even if parts don't get replaced.  I've been into many dark places that haven't seen anyone since 1994.

The clean and shiny drive disk in the rear hub - it's what the shaft drive feeds into.

A cleaned up shaft drive housing on the back of the bike.

The rear suspension is cleaned up, but it needs a good greasing.

Owning an older motorcycle can be frustrating, but it's also very rewarding.  The operation of the machine is only one part of your relationship with it.  By laying hands on the mechanicals you become familiar with your motorbike in a new way.  That mechanical relationship integrates with the riding relationship, creating something richer.

It might be nice to have a newer machine that always works, but even if I could afford that, I don't know that I'd sell off the Concours.  It's nice to have a machine I'm this intimate with.

As I finished writing this Triumph emailed me with a link to the new Street Twin configurator.  That'd be a lovely machine to start another story with...

Plugs, Calipers and Frozen Feet

The spark plug (bottom right) is easy to get to once
you remove the distributor caps mounted to the frame.

Yesterday began with a spark plug change on the Concours.  There are two (for lack of a better term) distributor caps (CoG got me sorted, they're coils!) in the shape of cylinders attached to the frame under the fuel tank.  Removing these makes for a fairly straightforward spark plug swap.  Someone had been in here before as one of the distributors wasn't properly attached to the frame (the rear bolt was seized).  With the unit removed it was relatively easy to free everything up in the vice.

I used to be pretty good at gapping plugs by eye, but I hadn't done it in a while.  I got better as I worked through the plugs and the last one only needed a minor adjustment.  The plugs all came out without issue and the new ones went in by hand and then got torqued to spec (14Nm).

The two middle plugs are tucked in behind the radiator and don't collect much road cruft.  The two on the outside
have a tougher life.   Other than being filthy, the plugs didn't show any internal issues.

With the plugs sorted and the under tank electrics cleaned and seated properly, I turned my attention to the rear brake caliper.  I've got a replacement metal brake line, so the old rusty rubber one is going in the spares bin.  The caliper came apart quite easily.  The rear brake on the Concours has always been excellent, but was starting to whine as the pads got thin.  With nothing seized and the main bits just needing a good cleaning, I think this will go back together nicely with new pads and brake lines.  I'd meant to order a caliper rebuild kit from Canada's Motorcycle, but my order got mixed up with a bearing puller I didn't need.  At least now I can tell you how good their return process is.

follow-up:  I requested a return on January 24th and got a shipping label in a reply email a day latter (which I thought was good).  I sent it off that day.  I just got a confirmation email today (Feb 3 - 10 days later) saying it will be another 3-6 days before I see a refund... and I'm charged seven bucks for returning it.  Compared to motorcycle-superstore.com's over the top customer service (immediate, free returns, what can we do to prevent this happening in the future?), I'm left thinking twice about shopping on canadasmotorcycle.ca.


While I'm waiting on the rear caliper rebuild kit I can do the fronts, which is what I'm aiming to get done today.  It's officially frickin cold outside (-20°C overnight, -12°C now), and even with the thick rubber mats I've got down in the garage and the heater going, I still ended up with foot cramps from the cold at the end of three hours in there yesterday.  Winter in Canada can get pretty tedious.  This is one of those days.  If someone called and said they could fly me somewhere warm to ride a bike next weekend, I'd be in heaven.

The two cylindrical distributor caps (COILS! bottom middle &
top right with the spark plug wires coming out of them)
are held down by two bolts.  Once removed from the
frame spark plug access is straight forward.

A longer view of the spark plug.

Naked Concours

The Concours is a naked thing at the moment.  I'm under the fuel tank for the first time since I bought it.  I'm going after the spark plugs, but neither of my imperial spark plug removers would fit.  Kawasaki uses an 18mm metric socket.  Fortunately, Canadian Tire had that very thing in stock.

With the plugs changed it'll be time to start putting it back together.  I'm cleaning electrical terminals and torquing bolts to spec as I go.


The wheels are off, stripped and cleaned and ready for reconditioning at Fireball Coatings.  I'm hoping to get them over there this week.

What twenty year old Concours rims look like after you've had a go at them with SOS pads for an hour.

 
They're off to Fireball for a two stage gold/candy coat finish.  They look better than they have in years already, I can't imagine what they'll look like when I get 'em back!

The stripped bike is letting me get to pretty much everything.  I found the two cut-off gas tank ventilation pipes, which will get properly re-attached again.

Last but not least will be calliper rebuilds and braided metal lines for the rear brake and clutch (which have been waiting until some down time to install - I was loath to do it while I could be out riding).

It will all go back together on new tires and renewed rims ready for the season to begin as soon as the rain washes all the salt and other winter crap off the road.

If I lived somewhere more temperate I'd need two bikes so that I could rotate one out of operation for this kind of work.  Canada obliges by making it miserable outside for four months of the year.

Snow's A Fallin'

It's accumulating outside.  While that's happening, I'm in the garage busy stripping the Concours down to its underskirts.

Once that's done I'll give it a final cleanup before getting into the brakes and bearings.  While the wheels are off I'm going to look into getting them refinished.  Fireball Performance in Erin does wheels, so I'll see if I can drop off the rims while they're off the bike.  I'm curious to see just how magical a transformation that can be, and what it costs.

The partially stripped Concours.  It made me wonder what a stipped Connie would look like... pretty fantastic as it happens:

Strange that I've been through the Yamaha's carbs in detail, but never the Connies...

With her skirts off, the Concours still looks good for a 21 year old motorbike that spent too much time outside.  A drop of
coolant on the back of the block has me in full suspicion mode - I'm hoping it's a bit of overflow splash, but mechanic's
skepticism tells me it'll be a leaking water jacked and a lot of gasket work - the coolant reservoir isn't low...

Stolen November Days

I'm stealing a lot of extra scenes in a November that doesn't usually encourage riding up here in the frozen north...

The end is nigh

Last year the bike was hibernating by the end of October.  This year we're getting a run of warm weather that has me still out on two wheels more than halfway through November.  We're supposed to get snow accumulation this weekend, which means sand and salt on the roads.  When that happens I'll hang up my helmet.  I'd end up spending as much time cleaning the bike as I did riding it once the salt goes down.

First ride on a newly safetied and
roadworthy Concours last March

This season started in mid-March once the roads were dry and the salt and sand cleaned off by a couple of rains.  The snow as still thick on the shoulders though.  This late finish to the year means only about four months of down time before I can get out there again.

Today I'm down to Guelph for periodontal work.  I figured I'd be stuck in a car, but it's a dozen degrees and partially sunny out there!  One last ride then!



In the meantime, we've been commuting on two wheels every change we get...

The Ride To Indy

DAY 1

We are bouncing over some astonishingly bad interstate in Northern Michigan on our way to Flint.  Retread carcasses litter the side of the road, the only thing missing are clouds of flies above the rubber corpses.

The Super10, Concours and three riders ready for an adventure.

We crossed the border (my first border crossing on a bike!) in Sarnia at lunch time on a Wednesday.  It amounted to less than five minutes of waiting in line and thirty seconds with the US border guard, who looked like he was working out when he got off shift so he could join us.
"So, where are you guys headed?"
"To Indianapolis for the MotoGP!"
After running our passports he asks, "you guys excited?"
"It's Indy!"
"Have a great time guys."
... and then we were off onto the broken interstates of Michigan.  I'll never complain about Ontario roads again.

To and from Indianapolis

Just when we think the roads can't get worse, the interstate drops down to one lane each way because they are beginning to pull it apart and resurface.  It doesn't matter though, we were in America, heading to Indy!

My ten year old son, Max, is on the back of our loaded '94 Kawasaki Concours which is chewing up the miles with ease.  That bike is the best eight hundred bucks I've ever spent.  We're making the trip with my friend and colleague Jeff, who is a motorcycle-Jedi.  He's been riding for decades, has owned dozens of bikes, and has ridden all over North America.  If you're going on your first long trip, he's the guy you want with you.

We pull in for our first gas stop just outside of Flint and fill up for fourteen bucks (93¢ Canadian for 93 octane super unleaded).  The Connie is getting 48 miles per gallon.  Back on the road we turn south on 23 to miss Detroit and head toward Ann Arbor.  Twenty-three looked like a county road on the map, but in real life it's a multi-lane, limited access highway.  We are making epic time as we ride past a mountain of garbage covered in sea gulls and military convoys of Humvees.  We get to Ann Arbor, where we'd originally planned to stop for the day, at 2pm.

Concordia U's
beautiful trees

Sitting on the beautiful lawn at Concordia University we look further down the map, reconsidering where we might stop.  It only takes a us a few minutes to get around Ann Arbor and onto 12, which will take as all the way across southern Michigan to Interstate 69.

Best Philly steak ever!

We stop for a late lunch and stumble across Smoke BBQ and the best Philly steak sandwich I've ever had.  Topped up and ready to roll, we head out on 12 and are treated to a crop duster doing hammerhead turns and giving us a wave as he flies past us next to the road.  We're in the mid-west now!

Out of population we find ourselves on winding roads through the Irish Hills.  We thought the ride to Indy would be flat and straight but these are some nice riding roads.  We emerge from the woods to an astonishing sight, the Michigan International Speedway is right on the side of the road!  A security guard tells us you can sign in at the main office and they'll let you have a look around.  This place is enormous, a real cathedral of speed deep in the Irish Hills.  We spend half an hour wandering around a tiny corner of the massive complex.  That we stumbled across it and were happily invited in to have a look around has us all grinning like fools.  It's a good sign of things to come.

It's like that dream you have of being at
work and suddenly realizing you're naked

Back on the road time is ticking past 6pm and Max is getting tired on the back.  We've been on the road since 8am, but we've pushed way further down the map than we intended to.  We finally reach Coldwater on I69 and stop at a Comfort Inn with a warm pool and soft beds.

Every biker we see is riding around in shorts, flip flops and no helmet, and it's giving us culture shock.  We go to the end of the street to get take out and try naked biking, but it gives us both the willies.  Riding around without a helmet just seems crazy.

DAY 2

After a good breakfast at the hotel we're bombing south on Interstate 69 and quickly find the Indiana border.  Before Fort Wayne we strike off west into the country on Six and quickly discover that unless a town is on a truck route it has dried up and blown away.  The scale of the fields of corn beggar belief and stretch to the horizon, but there are no people.  Roads are closed and we find ourselves on gravel stretches looking for ways south.  The Concours has no trouble with this, but Jeff's Super Ténéré looks the part as he takes off down narrow dirt roads.

We try stopping in several towns but they are all derelict; beautiful nineteenth century buildings with boards on the windows and no-one in sight.  Corporate farms run remotely from headquarters thousands of miles away don't need local people.

Main View restaurant in North Manchester, IN: great
service, great food!

We finally stagger into North Manchester mid-afternoon.  This is a university town and it's still vibrant.  A local directs us to Main View restaurant and we sit down for another excellent, non-conglomerate lunch.

Zigzagging south and west we soon find ourselves on bigger roads feeding in to Indianapolis.  We get into town at the beginning of rush hour, but this isn't Toronto.  Everything is moving even though the road is still patchy from recent rain (it missed us), and there is construction everywhere.  Other than having to cut into a line to get on the ring road (made easy by Jeff dicing traffic like a pro), we have an easy time navigating and we're feet up at the Hampton Inn by 4:30pm.

A short walk away is Chef Mike's Charcoal Grill which has the best grilled fish and steak imaginable, and a healthy list of craft beers; America isn't all Bud Light and hamburgers.  It was so good we went back again the next night.

DAY 3

It's been pretty good so far, but it's about to get spectacular.  We're off to the Indy Speedway (15 minutes away) early the next morning.  We pull into line and are told to ride around to the back and park in lot 10.  After working our way around the city-sized Indy complex we start looking for parking and keep getting waved through gates by security.  We go down a ramp under ground and surface only to be directed onto the back straight of the Indy oval.

Ever ridden on the Indy oval on your bike?  I have!

Jeff and I are both thinking we've been accidentally put in with the VIPs and are expecting to be caught at any second and kicked out, but I make the most of it and give it the beans.

Nothing sounds better than the sound of your own engine howling off the retaining wall of a straight at Indianapolis!  We're directed to park and stand there in awe.  A guy gives us a kick stand puck saying he doesn't want us punching holes in his race track.  Damn skippy.  We walk over to another guy scanning tickets, expecting to get kicked out.  He scans our general admission tickets (twenty bucks each - kids under 12 are free) and tells us to have a great time.

Did that just happen?  Yes, yes it did!

We walk through the infield, which is a golf course, and discover a circus of motorcycle going on inside.  The Moto3 bikes haven't even started practice yet but all the manufacturers have set up pavilions and there is an Indy kids play area that has Max hopping up and down.  Our general admission, twenty buck tickets give us access to the entire complex, from the front straight stands to hundreds of viewing areas around the infield.  The only place we couldn't go was the paddock area.

We wander around in a daze.  One moment we're watching Moto3s buzz down the straight, amazed that their little 250cc single cylinders can take them over 160 mph before they hit the big corner at the end.  The big, 1000cc MotoGP bikes come out next.  Where the Moto3 bikes sound like (big) angry bees, the MotoGP bikes sound like 140 decibel tearing silk (the Hondas) or the most frantic, staccato v-twin imaginable (the Ducatis).   Lastly the Moto2 bikes come out, their 650cc twins sound fantastic to my ringing ears with a turbine like howl.

Lunch is an Indy dog and some fries, sitting in the near-empty stands in the shade.  The place isn't empty, there are people everywhere, but Indy is so huge that it swallows the crowds with ease.  We spend the afternoon watching the bikes bend through the esses, standing on the grassy knoll on the edge of the golf course.

You can get within fifty feet of the bikes pretty much anywhere on the track and unobstructed views are easy to come by; photography is easy at Indy.  We head back out to the bikes at about 3:30pm as the practice sessions are winding down.  We've been here since 8:30am and we're sun-baked, overwhelmed and ready for a rest.  On the back straight are hundreds and hundreds of bikes, as far as the eye can see.  We slowly motor past row after row of every imaginable motorcycle before ducking out through the underpass.  We're back at the hotel in minutes.  Jeff and I end up passing out for an hour before having another great meal at Chef Mike's.  We're not done yet with Indy motorcycle culture though.

Motorcycles on Meridian shows the breadth of motorcycle
culture in America - it isn't all Harleys and leather.

Motorcycles on Meridian is a satellite event to MotoGP that brings in thousands of riders.  We saddled up and rode into town about 8pm and were stunned to see so many bikes.  From guys who look like pilots riding on Goldwings to lost souls who look like they are just back from rehab, to lean sportsbike riders and everything in between, I was once again reminded that American motorcycling isn't mono-cultural.  Sure, the Motor Company pirate was well represented, but so was every other kind of motorcyclist.

We did a slow pass through the middle of the chaos and then went for a walk.  It was hot, humid and all the hotter for all the revving and showboating.  I've never cottoned on to the look-at-me loud pipes and chrome thing that many bikers get excited about, and some of the stretched drag-strip like bikes looked virtually unrideable, but it takes all kinds.  After a brief tour through the circus of LED lit v-twins and custom madness we had a cold drink and slipped out south to the highway.  Tomorrow was the beginning of the long ride home.

DAY 4

The ride down had highlighted the agony that is the Concours' stock seat.  We stopped at Cycle Gear on the way out of town the next morning for a solution.  They had gel seat pads on sale for forty bucks so I gave one a whirl.  Max got himself a nice helmet with a tinted screen for sunny, highway riding.  The service was great (as it generally was throughout our trip) and we practically tripped over the location on our way out of Indianapolis.  The prices were also astonishing, especially when you aren't paying 13% tax on everything, basically half what we would have paid for the same thing in Canada with less tax.  Helmets seem to be especially cheap in a place where they aren't a requirement.

We made quick work of I69 north to Fort Wayne and were on the 24 heading toward Ohio before mid-day.  Jeff wanted to try and make it home that day so we parted ways in Toledo.  He took the I75 north to Detroit and was home by 7pm.  Max and I headed north on 23 to Ann Arbor thinking to spend the night there before finishing on Sunday, but Ann Arbor was booked solid with a pipe-fitters convention (?) and the rooms left were over three hundred bucks a night.  We pushed on and then got lost in the suburbs of Detroit (which are still surprisingly well kept) before finally stumbling into the Wyndham Garden hotel by the airport.


Like so much else in Detroit, the Wyndam Garden has the look of something that must have been super chic in sixties (it has an indoor forest!).  It's the kind of place James Bond might have stayed when he was Sean Connery, but now it's run down and tired.  People who went to Rome after the Empire fell must have seen something similar.  I left Max in the room and ducked out for take out.  Every store I went to had bullet proof glass and turnstiles between the customer and the clerk.

Day 5

The next morning we hit the road early.  Max wanted to try the tunnel but we got there only to be told motorcycles weren't allowed in.  A sign would have been nice, but at least we got to see downtown Detroit on a quiet Sunday morning.  My magic power kicked in at the Canadian border.  Everyone else crossed in about ten minutes, but we waited twice that because we got the guard who wanted to chat with everyone.  Soon enough we were bombing down the 401 toward home making excellent time.  A couple of stops at ONroutes (which felt like time travel after a night in Detroit) later we were in Kitchener and winding our way down familiar country roads.  We were home by 2pm.

The Concours was faultless, returning mid-fifties miles per gallon on the highway and high forties everywhere else.  It started at the touch of a button every time and showed me it could do the ton with two people in gear and all their luggage.  The gel seat eased the pain but got incredibly hot, leaving me with heat rash and a scowl.  A seat solution will happen before the next long ride, but there is little else I could do to make this wonderful machine any better.

The Concours has ridden on hallowed
ground.  She wears it with pride.

If you don't like crowds, the Indy GP is the one to go to.  Indianapolis is enormous and easily swallows crowds of even one hundred and thirty two thousand.  There is talk of cancelling the Indy round next year, but if it's on I'm going to attend all three days.  I think we can get within striking distance in one day, ride straight to the track on Friday, hotel in Indy Friday and Saturday and begin heading back after the race on Sunday, finishing the trip on Monday.  After doing it once I know I can do it even better next time.

After bombing down the Indy back straight once, I want to do it again!  It only costs forty bucks to do a lap of the MotoGP circuit!  That'll be on the short list for next year along with a paddock pass so I can get Sam Lowes autograph.

If you love bikes and live anywhere north-east in North America, you should give the IndyGP weekend in August a go, I promise you won't be disappointed.  The long ride through the mid-west is anything but boring and the hospitality is second to none.  And when you get there you get to ride on the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway and experience the MotoGP circus in full swing, it really is unforgettable.


NOTE:  The Indy MotoGP is no more - glad we went when we did!  I'm going to have to get more committed to riding to a MotoGP race if I want to do it again!

Living On The Concours

It doesn't happen often, I'm usually the one taking the photos.
A student of mine saw me riding in to school from her school bus.

I've been riding the Concours for over a month now.  It came to me with a broken speedo reading 25073 miles.  Today it's 25784 on it - 711 miles so far.  With some commuting and longer trips in the mix I'm starting to get a good sense of what the bike is capable of.

My most recent refill took me 175 miles and took just over 20 litres to refill (pardon my half imperial/half metric measurements).  It looks like I'm getting about 41mpg out of it, which is quite a surprise considering how often I push the RPMs up (it just sounds so good doing it).  I've been told you can get up near 50mpg if you don't wring its neck, which should be doable if I'm on a longer road trip, especially if I'm covering miles at speed on the highway, which I never normally do.

The only time I pushed too hard was winding on the throttle when entering a main road a couple of weeks ago.  Being so torquey, the Connie broke loose on the back wheel when I rolled on the thottle.  I caught it in time but it was exciting!  Hooking up the bike and keeping it upright was surprisingly easy, this Kawasaki is remarkably responsive for how big it is.  Easing off the throttle and letting the tire reconnect was enough to get me straightened out and launched up the road right quick.  Other than that one bit of excitement the Concours has been an easy bike to live with.  It handles two up duty well, swallows the horrible roads around here with much better suspension than the Ninja had, and the engine has only gotten sweeter as I've started using it regularly.

With the Connie sorted I've been working on the rider too.  I started working on my weight in February when I was shocked to learn I was over two hundred and sixty pounds.  Most recently I was down to 248lbs, which is a 14lb drop, which isn't bad considering I'm exercising regularly and have put on some muscle as well.  I'm aiming for under 240, but I'm going to keep up the exercise and eating choices and just see where it lands me.  The goal is still to eventually head off to racing school and not look like a tool in one piece leathers.