Dreamtime Begins

You tend to see a lot more Photoshop post
production during Dreamtime.

The end of riding season means it's the beginning of Dreamtime.  I shift from what I'm doing on a motorcycle to what I wish I were doing but can't.  Things get fictional and funky.  Instead of generating footage and photography I'm looking over what I got from the past season and wondering about what I'd like to do in the next one.  If I lived further south I'd keep stealing rides when I could get them.  If  I lived somewhere where feet of snow don't regularly happen I'd brave the 'winter' (what we'd call fall).

I also find I have time to fettle instead of ride so the Concours ZG1000 Fury project will finally start moving at a steady pace.  My goal is to have both bikes on the road in the spring.

It's difficult not to wish for riding season to return but there is value in this change of season, I just need to change my mind.

The Bike Hole is Completeth!

The bike hole is done!  From an unfinished, uninsulated garage, I now have a bike hole that'll warm up to room temperature with a small space heater.  Not only is it warm, but it's also organized!

After removing the mouse nest from the toolbox and getting rid of three garbage bags of nonsense, the garage is now a workable space.  Thanks to a tsunami in Japan the upstairs is a workable storage space (instead of a week in Japan I spent days putting flooring into the attic).

Motorbike prints from Norfolk!

Between prints and some well done motorcycle 4x6 photos, I've managed to make a motorbike maker space without a single poster and some inspirational images for a long, cold Canadian winter.  With all the mess organized and stored in the attic there would be room for a couple of bikes in there comfortably.

The current list of things to do:

• take the fairings off the Ninja and refinish the frame
• find an old project bike that I can break down as a learning exercise
• find a good introduction to motorcycle mechanics' text

Bike Hole

No room for a car, but a bike...

A long Canadian winter approaches.  Rather than look longingly out into an unusable, uninsulated garage full of junk I'm getting my home reno on and finishing it.

It's supposed to be a single car garage, but with the vent system intrusions and everything else in there I couldn't even fit a Mazda2 into it.  It's turned into more of a shed than a garage.

Since getting the Ninja I've been working on it in the garage.  It was fine over the summer, but with frost on the ground the floor is nasty cold and the wind seems to push the cold through the unfinished walls.

Unfinished, cold and messy...

Step one was to figure out how to finish it.  Rather than dry walling it like the house side of it is, I'm going with wood panels so I can mount shelves where I want them rather than only where studs are available.

It cost under $300 for the paneling, insulation, paint and hardware to do it, not bad for what will be a warm garage at the end.  I'm also going to look at some rubber garage flooring for parts of it, so that will push it over $300, but still a bargain considering I'll get a huge work space out of it.

Saturday afternoon, halfway there...

This past weekend with lows in the -4c at night, I started on it, stripping the shelving off the walls and removing the home made bench at the back.  With all of the stuff under a tarp on the driveway (in the rain), I insulated and hung the board.  

By the end of Sunday I had the three unfinished walls insulated and the board up.  The only slow down was not looking up as I moved down the wall putting up the board.  As I went up the ladder I drilled my head into the garage door hardware hanging from the ceilling.  Head wounds bleed a lot, especially when you get a jagged cut from a rough metal hanger.

I took Monday off (head hurting), and went back at it again Tuesday after work, putting on an unfinished can of primer.  I'll finish the priming this week and paint it next weekend.  Last night when I was doing the priming a single, small space heater made it comfortable in there, it was below zero outside.

The end result will be warm and finished with better lighting and twice the workbench area, more shelving and better organization, so the gardening equipment doesn't take over again.  I'm still thinking about what to put on the walls...