Winter Maintenance: Triumph Tiger 955i Engine Guard Install and plasma cutting!

How cold has the polar vortex been?  So f#*%ing cold!  Our garage is attached to the house and we're in and out of it quite often, so it benefits from a lot of residual heat.  Even with this insulated garage with heating pipes in the attic and a lot of sympathetic heat from the attached house, the Tiger was a solid block of ice (pic on right shows it thawing) when I went in to attach mine Hepco & Becker motorschutzbügel (engine guard) in schwarz (black).  I ended up giving up on the -36°C degree Saturday and went back when it was only -17°on Sunday.


I've been looking for ways to protect the Tiger as I aim for more off-tarmac activities with it, and an engine guard seemed like a good idea.  Finding such an engine guard for a European (at least until Brexit) bike that's sixteen years out of date isn't easy, but I came across the German manufacturer Hepco & Becker and then followed links to their American distributor, Motomachines, who happened to have just what I needed in stock and have no problems shipping to Canada.  They're also really quick to respond if you have any questions and give you quick, friendly, concise communication, I'll use them again.

It was about a week to get here through US and Canadian federal mail services and cost me another thirty bucks at the door in border fees, so all in I was at about $350US to get the thing into my hands.  It arrived well packaged and in new condition.  There was some surface rust on the threads into the pipes, but it cleaned up easily with WD40. 
  

Some German engineering for my British Bike, except Triumph was founded by a German immigrant, so it's kinda German already!  Bet that makes Brexiteers angry.

After not being able to feel my hands anymore despite propane heaters blaring away in the corner on Saturday, I finished the job on Sunday.  Holding the nuts on the back while securing the bolts is a bit fussy (these guards attach right to the engine frame mounts), and swearing increased trying to do it on a frozen bike, but I eventually got them sorted.

The guards are very sturdy and the welds on them are a thing of beauty.  They're low profile things that should protect the tank in case of a spill.  The finish on them is excellent and looks to be very long wearing.  With a couple of places to kick my feet up onto, they might help me stretch out my legs on a long ride too.  I'm tempted to throw some fold up highway pegs on them, but this aggravates the adventure bike image police.

I'm still some weeks (months, who am I kidding, though if I can't be optimistic in February I start to go bonkers) away from having a chance to ride with them, but they look good on the bike, got here pretty quickly and with a lot of quick and clear communication from Motomachines.  If you're looking for an engine guard for an older Tiger (or anything else, they have a big selection), I'd suggest heading over to their site and then get in touch with them on email, you'll hear back quickly from responsive customer service.

In completely different news, thanks to all of this lousy weather we've had a number of no-bus days at school which gave me a chance to ask our metal shop teacher to exercise his plasma cutter on my behalf.  I gave him a vector image of the Concours tail piece I wanted cut and the machine ripped through the aluminum I got for the job in about five seconds, cutting a perfect outline of the cardboard piece I'd wrapped around the tail section before unfolding.  This strange shape lines up with the frame bolts on back end of the bike and covers all the wiring and ugly bits in the most minimal way possible.  I'm going to form it over a wood buck and then paint it to match the tank.  That should take care of the back end of the Concours ZG1K custom project.

Now I need to get the carbs balanced and tuned and it should be good to go, which I intend to do as soon as the roads are clear... in, like, ten years.

West Coast Siren Call

I came up with the idea of setting up motorcycles down south in rental storage units to access over the winter a while back.  This is just the sort of thing I'd do if I had that kind of disposable money laying around.

To set up San Francisco bike storage I'd need to get an Ontario bike down there and parked up in the storage facility.  The idea is to have a ready to go bike that I can fly to with minimal luggage.  I'd eventually be able to fly in to San Francisco with only a carry on bag, take a cab to the storage unit and be on two wheels in one of the best motorcycling locations in the world within a few hours of flying out of the snowbelt.  For the setup I'd take known, works-for-me gear for the ride and then hang it up in the storage unit along with the bike.  Flights back at the moment are one stop, seven hours and about $700 Canadian.

The weather is already closing in here.  We've had dustings of snow multiple times.  This would be one of my last chances to make the ride out west before the white wall of winter descends on us.  In trying to make good time to SanFran, I'd also aim to get a motorcycling bucket list item done:  an Iron Butt thousand miles in twenty-four hours:

Day 1:  Elora to Hampton Inn Portage IL.  Just under 500 miles over the border and to the edge of Chicago.  Make sure everything is ready for the big push on Day 2 (the Iron Butt 1000 miles in 24 hours).  Make sure everything is good to go on the bike, get in early, eat and rest up for an early departure.

Day 2:  Portage IL to Denver, CO.  Be on the road by 5am for the big push west.  Cross Chicago before rush hour picks up and then thump across the plains.  1027 miles in 24 hours.  Get in to Denver overnight and then 2 days at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Denver Stapleton.

Day 3:  Rest day in Denver.

Day 4:  Denver to Grand Junction.  Into the Rockies, 333 miles to the Hampton Inn Grand Junction.  A lower mileage day means this should be as much about enjoying the mountains as it is about making time.

Day 5:  Grand Junction to Ely.  429 mountain miles to Ely and the Ramada by Wyndam Ely passing through 3 national parks, so it should be a pretty ride.

Day 6:  Ely NV to San Francisco.  554 mile day to wrap up the trip.  Get into San Francisco late, park up the bike and put everything into hibernation mode.  Load up a carry-on bag with the essentials and take a cab to the airport.  Retrace the four thousand plus miles back in five hours.

I should be able to take the bike out, park it up and be back home within a week, then I'll have a bike on-call on the West Coast.

For this trip I need something that can cover big miles effectively but is still a useful tool on twisty roads.  The big Triumph Tiger 1200XRx is a long distance capable bike that fits a big guy like me.  It's also easy to maintain (shaft drive, fuel injection) and comes with many long distance handy abilities like long suspension to soak up bad roads and luggage for the long trip.

A big Tiger in this format costs just over $24k Canadian.  It's a pretty thing, I saw the new ones in the flesh at the Triumph Tiger ATLAK meet up last summer.  Many magazines describe the bike as very large, but I didn't find it overwhelmingly so.  In fact, I was surprised at how svelte it was for a 1200cc adventure bike.

But there are some things about the big Tiger that I'm not a fan of.  I've never gotten excited about the big aluminum panniers thing on adventure bikes, or any bike for that matter.  I like the colour matched lucifer orange ones on my old Tiger.  I think the aluminum ones look half assed and unfinished, and I get to pay hundreds more for the privilege of having them because others think they're a fashion item.

The other issue is a recent BIKE Magazine review in which their Tiger developed a number of electrical issues.  Whatever is waiting for me on the West Coast would need to work when I opened that storage unit roller door.  The Tiger is also a reasonably sensible choice, but it'd be nice to have something a bit more come-hither waiting for me in San-Fran.

For surprisingly similar money there is something that I'd describe as more of a dream bike:  the Kawasaki H2 supercharged demon bike in sport touring form.  The H2 SX is an efficient, powerful, supercharger-chirping-as-it-breaks-the-sound-barrier thing of beauty.  It weighs about as much as the big Tiger but produces prodigiously more power and looks like a Japanese super model.

On top of that it has beautifully designed and colour matched panniers that practically disappear into the stunning looks of the bike, rather than looking like tacked on, low-rent metal boxes.

Having the SX sitting in a storage unit in San Francisco would be a constant West Coast siren call.  If I wanted to go far, it could handle it, if I wanted to canyon carve in and around San-Fran, it'd do that to.

As much as I love adventure bikes for how well they fit me, I think I'd have the Kawasaki super model waiting for me on the west coast.  It'd be a blast to ride on the trip out there and would fit in with Californian bike culture much better.

Installing LED lighting on the ZG1K Rat Bike

The mighty ZG1K modified Concours is just about done.  I've been plumbing the depths of the wiring loom working out how to integrate LED headlights and indicators into a 1994 electrical harness based on much less efficient bulbs.  Jumping into the future like that freaked out the existing flasher relay that manages how quickly they blink.  

If you're running big, old, inefficient bulbs, you get a nice steady indicator and hazard flash because those bulbs are heavy loads on the circuit.  The LEDs barely use anything at all by comparison, so suddenly the indicator relay is flashing so quickly it looks like a strobe light.

There are various ways to address this, but I think the easiest is to get an adjustable flasher relay (ten bucks on Amazon).  It plugs directly into the harness and can be adjusted for an indicator as quick or slow as you like.

I've still got to wire up the horn and headlights, but the bike is close to finished wiring wise.  I hope to be out later in the week checking off the other details and making sure everything is ready to go.  It has always been a quick bike, but now it's a ninety pound lighter quick bike.  I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do when it's finally road ready.

The ZG1K started out as a café racer conversion, but the muscular feel of the big-4 Kawasaki engine and the heavy duty frame made it look like more of a drag racer than a café racer.  Once I'd stripped it down I went with what I had.  If it had been a light weight single or twin engined machine then the café racer angle would have worked.  Had that been the case I would have gone with a finished, painted look, but once I started down the muscle bike route I started thinking it'd look better as a Mad Max themed post apocalypse rat bike.  Seeing Fury Road was how it got renamed the ZG1K Fury.

Mad Max: Fury Road isn't short on motorcycle inspiration.  The art direction in that film is amazing.

The paint on the bike wasn't too bad (it was rattle can but nicely finished and badged), but I ended up taking a sander to the tank one day and liked the result with the Kawasaki decal half sanded off; it felt much more radioactive that way.

With the old style round headlight but running LEDS and the stainless steel, drilled mounts I made for it, the bike looks old fashioned and rough but with weirdly futuristic details.  The rear lights look like they come out of Battlestar Galactica, but then the rest of the body panels (only where they are needed to cover up plumbing or electronics) are finished in some cut aluminum from the heat-shield that fell off my Mazda a couple of years ago.  Once committed to the rough look, I went looking for ways to stay consistent to it.  Ironically, the least ratty thing about the bike are the refinished and painted rims I had done before these whole thing started with a carb failure.  They never went on the original bike while it was on the road and they are by far the most perfect feature on this one that aims for imperfection.

Technical and aesthetic ideas for the custom bike were collected on a Pinterest board:



Once I've got everything together it'll be a review of all the main systems to make sure everything it tight and works well.  I'll bleed the brakes, make sure the engine is tight and dependable and then see how often I can get out on the thing.

Dangerously Close to Hipster Cool

The Concours customization continues slowly.  The (too short) Canadian riding season is staggering to a close, so I'm out on the Tiger whenever possible (3°C this morning).  Soon enough the snow will fall, the roads will become salty nightmares and I'll have lots of mechanical time on my hands.  Today it's a cold front coming through with high winds and torrential rain that has me in the garage instead of out on the road.

The front light is now prepared to go into the wiring loom, as is the rear one.  Both front and rear are LED units so I'm having to make a few changes to get them happily connected to the twenty three year old loom.  I'm going to mount the rear lights higher up under a rear cover that'll also wrap up the back of the seat.

I've got basic framework in place - I'll eventually paint it all flat black so it fades into the background, but for now I'm just leaving it metal coloured.  I was originally going to get the body panels done in thin metal so it looks Mad Max-ish, but that doesn't look likely to happen any time soon.  I was watching Out of Nothing the other night and they said they'd taught themselves fibreglass body panel building, so I intend to do the same.  I'll work out the panels in bucks and then make fibre glass finished product; it'll be a good project.

I'd originally tried a smaller coolant tank in the back, but it couldn't handle the needs of the bike, so I've relocated the stock one under the back seat.  With panels in place it'll be all but invisible.

As much as possible I'm hoping to keep the bike looking mechanical and simple, but with some carefully sized fibreglass I should also be able to keep the ugly bits out of sight.

Up next is wiring in the lights and finishing the back end.  After that it's just making fibreglass.  Two side panels for the back and the rear cowling for sure.  The stock front fender is way too heavy looking, so I'll be looking at options for that.  I might do something strange to frame the radiator - that top rad hose is a natty looking thing.

The only mechanical part I'm looking for is a very basic instrument gauge.  I've been collecting ideas on Pinterest, so eventually I'll come across the ideal piece and grab it.

I heard once that Axl Rose bought a new Harley and had it customized so it looked old by adding patina to it.  Only a rich person would do something so asinine.  The Concours has had a long, hard life; it comes by its patina honestly.  What I love about the bike is that it's mechanically very sound (now).  Rebuilt carb, rear hub, bearings, brakes - it's new in all the right places, but you couldn't tell from looking at it.

It's getting to the point where this thing is starting to look dangerously hipster cool; I might have to grow a beard.

Mechanical Satisfaction

The Concours carburetors weren't snapping back when I released the throttle. Everything worked, but they wouldn't close on their own as they should. I removed the carbs, reset the butterflies so they all closed properly and replaced a bent spring. With everything lubed up and working freely, I reinstalled the carbs and ran the throttle cables over and along the top of the frame rather than around the side, trying to have the throttle cables address the carbs as perpendicularly as possible.  With the cables properly tightened, the carbs snap shut when the throttle is released, as they should.

My to-do list on the Concours is down to a rebuild of the master break cylinder.  The part isn't expensive.  I'd purchased a set and did it on the Yamaha XS1100 I had before, so the Concours should be pretty straightforward.

I also have to sort out a rear light and body panels for the back end.  I'd asked if they could be done at school in the metal shop, but asking for work to get done there seems to result in it disappearing down a hole.  I'd rather do the work myself anyway.  The plan is to form the panels for the back end and find a rear brake light with indicators built in and wire it in to the back end.

The last job is going to be reworking the radiator reservoir to somewhere around the battery box.  With that done, in theory, the Connie will be ready to begin test riding the kinks out.

Follow-up:  rear brake lights were found on ebay - let's hope they arrive this time.

If they do then ebay is a more dependable shipper than the Amazon Marketplace, which seems pretty bizarre, but there you are.

Winter Stable Dreams

It's snowing so thick you can't see the road.  I'm at the end of a semester and in full day-dreaming mode.  If I were out bike shopping this week, this is what I'd be aiming to bring back:

The naked:  I'm still smitten with the Kawasaki Z1000.  An orange one, with a tail tidy to get rid of the only ugly part of this stunning machine (the ugly plastic plate hanger off the back).  Some aero crash protectors and I'd be ready to track day with it as well.

The sporty road bike: the jewel-like Honda VFR800 still plucks a heart string.  It's the descendant of one of my first motorbike crushes and would make for a mighty entertaining, sport focused road bike that could still swallow miles if needed.  It looks spectacular in white, but it also needs a tail tidy!





The all terrain bike is a tricky piece of work.  The temptation is just to go all in on a big adventure bike, but the main purpose for one of those is as a road riding mile-muncher.  My off road able bike needs to work on the road and keep up with traffic (something my current 250cc Kawasaki isn't great at), but its focus should be off tarmac (unlike a big, heavy adventure bike).



A light-weight scrambler would be a the preferred choice aesthetically.  Building out my own custom from an existing, off-road focused bike would offer both the scrambler vibe while using light-weight, off-road ready tech.

The Suzuki DR-Z400S makes for a great base.  At 144 kilos (317lbs) it's almost half the weight of BMW's big queen of adventure bikes, and made by a manufacturer that makes bikes with one quarter the number of manufacturing mistakes.  I don't feel reckless in the decision.

Is a Scrambler DR-Z400S possible?  I wouldn't be the first to try.  The DR-Z400SM is a street version of the off-roader, so Suzuki has already done a less off-road focused version.  It's an adaptable bike.

Too bad no one makes a sub 500cc off road focused, light weight Scrambler (instead they market stylish new ones or sell recycled history).  Anything north of 200kgs (441lbs) might be surprisingly capable off road, but it'll still be a misery to pickup and all that weight means you're going to be breaking suspension all the time.

Suzuki already has the platform on which to build a perfect modern scrambler.  C'mon, you're almost there!

Some people want a $30k bike that can do one thing, I'd happily spend that money on a Kawasaki, Honda and Suzuki that can do just about everything.

Brand Loyalty & Bilingualism

Brand loyalty seems to affect motorcyclists more than most.  Even when they don't work, motorcycle riders are partial to their rides in a way that owners of other modes of transport aren't.  With that in mind I just completely ignored my Kawasaki only motorcycle history to this point and just picked up a bike for my son: a Yamaha PW80.  I guess we're now officially bilingual.

It needs a cleanup and some TLC, but the bike is straight and solid.  Once I've got it sorted we'll be practising circles on the dead end road out front of our place.

They were asking $800, but rather than start there I asked what they were asking.  Since the Mom had put it up for sale and she wasn't talking to me, it was suddenly $700.  I suggested $600, they went with $675.  For a seldom used, nicely stored 2004 Yamaha PW80, I think I came out ahead.  I could sell it tomorrow for a couple of hundred more than I got it.

I'm still looking for something off-road for me to head out on with Max.  If I had a mint to throw at it I'd go pick up a late model DRZ-400 or a KLX-250, but I don't.  I'm hoping for a an older enduro bike, but sub 500cc; they don't come up often.  This is going to be a primarily off-road machine, so lugging a 600+cc 'adventure' bike on the trails isn't a thrilling prospect.  A big enough for me but light off-road machine is the goal.

I'm going to take Max out to the Junior Red Riders course early this summer, then I'm going to make as many trips to Bobcageon as I can manage to get us some time on two wheels together.

Getting into the PW80 was an easy prospect.  The seat pops off with a couple of nuts under the fender and the tank with a couple of bolts.  I'm not sure if two stroke oil can go off so I left it as is, but I emptied the gas tank and put in new gas (the former owner guessed the gas was at least a couple of years old).

I got it started and running smoothly and took it for a run around the circle we live on.  It took off like a scalded rabbit!  I could barely hang on.  The only issue is a broken exhaust.  I'm hoping our metal shop genius at school can sort it out tomorrow.  With a tight exhaust we'll be off to the trails!

Brand loyalty did play a part in this.  Another bike we went to go see was a Baja 90cc dirt bike.  It looked pretty cobbled together and the fact that it was a Chinese bike gave me the willies.  I might not be a Kawasaki or nothing guy, but I know better than to buy a dodgy, Chinese knockoff.

2015 North American International Motorcycle Show

This was my son and I's second go around at the big, messy NAIMS.  It feels more like a jumble sale than a bike show, but we have a good time storming around the International Centre in Mississauga.

This show's best attribute is its timing.  Just as everyone is getting snowed in and a bit stir crazy along comes this ludicrously large motorbike extravaganza to satisfy all appetites.

We did it backwards this year, wandering around the clubs and smaller vendor hall before pushing through the big halls and finally getting to see the custom bikes (we missed Hall 5 last year).

It was nice to talk face to face with a fellow CoGer (they had a stand).  It makes me want to get out to one of their local meetings.  That they don't dress like pirates (which seems to be a thing with many of the other clubs) ingratiates them to me even more.

Ironically, both times we've purchased things at this show we've done it from Two Wheel Motorsports, our local dealer.  One of the instructors from my motorcycle licensing course works there and he always remembers me, which is some good customer service.  This time around I stumbled upon an armoured jacket that happened to have my initials on it.  $100 for a $270 retail jacket?  Nice.  My son also got some iron man coloured leather gloves ($50 retail, twenty bucks at the show) that he was very happy with.

NAIMS is definitely good for shopping, though many of the larger retailers there didn't seem to be offering prices much different than on their webpages.  It's also pretty much the same gear over and over again.  If you're looking for something a bit off the beaten path (like ROOF helmets?) then you're outa luck.

The custom show in Hall 5 out back was full on bizarre.  Some beautiful paint on some plain ridiculous bikes, Hall 5 is where the pirates with disposable income go!

We enjoyed the show, but once again, grumpy old men selling Victory Motorcycles growled at my son when he tried to sit on one... it's always a good idea to bring a bike to a show and not expect anyone to sit on it.  Once again, Kawasaki and Harley were the only two manufactures that showed up and provided bikes you're expected to sit on.

The Toronto Motorcycle Show comes along in February down at the CNE.  That's the one you want to aim at if you want to actually sit on bikes.  We'll be there ready to sit on everything!

Connie's Home

It's a very Kawasaki garage!

The Concours is home.  After a long bath (engine cleaner and a deep rinse) she fired right up.  I like this bike, even when it's covered in cobwebs and has been sitting outside for a year unridden it's still got fight in it.  The engine has gobs of torque and pulls hard.  The controls are stiff, but the gear changes are very smooth.  Shaft drive seems like magic.

So far she seems to be as advertised: good mechanicals but a mess aesthetically.  Over the next few days I'll be breaking her down and seeing what needs doing.  Hopefully there won't be any surprises.

It's a two bike garage now...

The Connie cleans up nicely