Winter Dreams: Sports Bikes and Dragons

Snow is flying outside.  It's supposed to be -20°C by the end of the week with more snow on the way.  Working on the bike in the garage only gets me so far.  Time for some quality daydreaming...

Goal:  Find a quick bike, ride the Dragon, bring it home to race in the spring.

Looking around online I found a wounded Kawasaki ZX-6R for sale in Clinton, Tennessee for about $3400US.  It happens to be off the interstate right on the way to Knoxville (the city nearest the Smokey Mountains where the Tail of the Dragon is).  I'm a sucker for a wounded motorcycle.  The store selling it says it needs tires and they sell 'em, so I'd arrange them to do it and a tune up and then pick the bike up ready to ride.

Fixing the fairing is a little trickier, but Performance Bikes UK had an article on cheap Chinese replacement fairings which would be perfect for a bike that's going to be all about track days and quick rides.

The only issue is whether or not I could get the bike road legal for a few days while I was down there in order to ride The Dragon.

A long drive to Clinton and a night in a hotel followed by a morning sorting out the bike and loading it into the van before driving down to Pigeon Forge for a few days riding the Smokey Mountains.

The slog back north into the frozen darkness would be a lot easier to take if I had a few days on two wheels before I had to do it.






Of course, if I'm getting a sports bike I can loose my mind on some sports bike kit.  If I'm on a quick Kawasaki I'd opt for gear that'd do me on track days as well...


Nothing like a little fantasy shopping to make the snow fly by.

Some colour matched gear to go with the new fairings and I'd be ready for race school in the spring.

Carbon fibre bits are also available for this ZX-6R, but if it's going to be a track bike they seem like a silly expense.

Naked Connie: 3d modelling customized motorcycle bodywork

I've re-3d-scanned the stripped down ZG1000 Kawasaki Concours in order to better work out what the rear lights will look like.  You can wheel in and out and manipulate that model below with a mouse.  The scanner did a bunch of software updates which led to a much higher resolution 3d image.

Meshmixed ZG1k Fury
by timking17
on Sketchfab

I modelled it with the stock seat on with an eye to taking the pillion seat off and building a very minimal back end.  With some careful cutting I'll be able to use the seat dimensions to figure out how best to render the rear light assembly.  I've been doing 2-d drawings but they don't deal with the 3d complexities of the real thing.  I'm hoping this solves that.

Using the 3d scanner with cardboard body panel templates gives you a pretty good idea of how it will look when it's done.

As far as electronic parts go, I think it's time to get the lights sorted out.  At the moment I'm looking at some integrated LED head and tail lights to minimize stalks sticking out of the bodywork.

A single brake and indicator unit from Amazon.

Integrated LED headlamp from Amazon.

Naked ZG1000 Custom Inspiration

Some Andy Warhol-esque ZG1K shapes to get a feel for what the bike will look like:


I'm still thinking purple with asymmetrical gold racing stripes, but that might change again.


Cardboard cutouts of the side panels I need have gone to the metal shop.   I'm going to prototype some 3d models on the printer at work and see what various shapes look like before doing the final cuts in metal for the rear section.


While that's going on I've got to get the front cowling figured out, which is what led to the video...

Fury Project: final drive & body panels

With the snow finally falling I've had time to start into the naked Concours project.  The first thing that needed addressing was the final drive unit which was leaking from the inner seal.  When the Clymers manual says you can do it but it's a big pain in the ass, it's best to have a practised hand do the work.  I took the unit off (easily done as it's held on the drive shaft by four bolts) and loosened all the fasteners on the inner plate.  

Two Wheel Motorsport, my local Kawasaki dealership, said they could do the work and estimated two hours of shop time and a twelve dollar seal.  I dropped off the unit and got a call back four days later saying it was done.  It was a nice surprise to find that the work took less than an hour and my $250 estimate was suddenly a $120 bill.  You hear a lot of negative talk about dealerships but Two Wheel did this job professionally and quickly, and then didn't overcharge when they easily could have.

I cleaned out the shaft drive end and re-greased everything.  Reinstalling the unit was easy and straightforward.  With the grease holding the spring in place I was able to simply slot the drive unit onto the shaft splines and re-torque the four nuts.  Everything went together smoothly and the drive feels tight and positive.

Since this was the only mechanical issue with the Concours I was able to begin thinking about the customization side of things.  With over 100lbs of plastic and metal removed from the bike I needed to start thinking about how to minimally dress this naked machine in order to cover up the plumbing and electrics.  Having a metal shop at work means handy access to fabrication tools.  Our shop teacher is also a Concours owner and is eager to help with panel building.  He suggested I do cardboard cutouts of the pieces I need and then we can begin the process of creating metal body work.

Body work craft day in the garage.

Doing the cutouts is tricky even in cardboard.  The left side cover goes over some electronics including the fuse panel and needs to bulge outward in order to contain all of that.  The right side is more straightforward but still needs cutouts for the rear brake wiring and rear suspension adjuster.  I'm curious to see how close the metal cutouts come to the cardboard templates.

The shop at school has a plasma cutter and we should be getting a laser engraver shortly.  With such advanced tools I'm already thinking about engraving panels.  Collecting together a bunch of line drawings of iconic images and sayings in a variety of languages would be an interesting way to dress up the minimal panels on this bike.  If the laser engraver can work on compound shapes I might drop the gas tank in there and engrave Kawasaki down the spine of it where the gold stripe will go rather than looking for badges or decals.

I enjoy the mechanical work but now that the Concours is working to spec I can focus on the arts and crafts side of customization.  Next up is trying to figure out how a minimal front panel that contains the headlight and covers up the electrical and plumbing at the front will look.

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.

My local Triumph dealer and stealing a late November ride

The end of fall is happening abruptly

I keep thinking I'm at the end of the riding season but opportunities are continually arising.  After a fairly miserable trip to the doctor I found myself free on an unseasonably warm late November day.  My usual M.O. is to head into the country and find twisty roads.  Less people+twisty roads = happiness!  This time I did the opposite.  I was curious where my local Triumph dealer was now that I own one.  It turns out it's 136kms away, so not exactly local.  Getting there involved a blast down the highway, something else I don't frequent.  In fact, I don't think I've been on a major highway since the Lobo Loco Rally in August.  I live in the country and avoid population centres and the highways that connect them.  People are tedious.  People in traffic are doubly so.

The Tiger almost ended up here last March
until I made a desperate plea to the previous
owner on the eve of him trading it in.  It
finally showed up at the dealership it was
almost sold to for a quick visit.

Inglis Cycle is located in the east end of London, Ontario.  I hadn't been around there since attending the air show in the late 1980s; it's much more developed now.  After a blast down the 401 at warp speeds I worked my way through an awful lot of traffic lights before finding the dealership behind an abandoned factory.  With their parking lot cut up and the neighborhood looking like a demilitarized zone I cautiously went inside.

I was met by one of the Inglis brothers and he gave me a quick, low pressure introduction.  Walking into a dealer you sometimes get the sense that they're only interested in you if you've got money to spend that day.  Inglis Cycle was welcoming and relaxed.  I felt like I could wander around and look at the bikes on display without any tension, so I did but I was only really there for one particular brand, the one I can't find at home...

The Street Triple is a pretty thing, but I still think I'd go Z1000 if I were to get a naked bike.

I really like Triumph.  I consider them an example of what Britain is capable of when it doesn't get all bound up in socialist nonsense or historical classism.  Freed from all that cultural weight the new Triumph is a competitive global manufacturer.

After a wander around the Triumphs on display I came back to the Triumph Tiger Explorer which is a nice piece of kit.  As an all purpose machine it'll do everything from swallowing highway miles to light off road work.  I've thrown my leg over enough bikes to be aware of how silly I look on typically sized machines; the big Tiger fits.

The Street Triple is a lovely looking thing but too small.  Were I to do the naked bike thing it'd be on the more substantial Kawasaki Z1000.  The other classically styled Triumphs are also things of beauty but I don't think I'd fit on any of them.

I wrapped up the visit with a trip to the accessories department where they had your typical assortment of dealer-type motorcycle gear and a sad lack of the lovely gear Triumph sells online.  I ended up picking up an Inglis Cycle Triumph t-shirt, but it was a pretty low rent printed t-shirt compared to the bling on Triumph Canada.  It's a shame as I was ready to drop a bit of coin on a nice bit of Triumph wear.

I headed north through heavy lunch-time traffic out of London getting stopped twice by people wanting to know what kind of bike I was riding (it says Triumph Tiger on it).  Score another one for the increasingly unique old Tiger 955i with its Lucifer Orange paint and stripes.

Once clear of the flotsam I was able to burn down some country roads in June-like temperatures, though all the trees were bare.  I'd seen a comely sign for St Mary's when we were riding back from the Lake Huron navigation so that was my lunch destination.

 I'd looked up Little Red's Pub the day before (highest rated place to eat in town) and was aiming there for lunch.  As luck would have it there was a parking spot right out front and a front window table waiting for me.  I had a lovely fish and chip lunch (hand made fries, a good bit of halibut) and a good stretch before getting back on the Tiger for the long ride home.

St Mary's is as pretty as its sign.

Since that day the temperature has plunged (below freezing as a high every day) and it has snowed multiple times.  This time the end really has come.  The batteries are out of the bikes and down in the warm basement on trickle charge.  This time of year with its increasing gloom and lousy weather makes that first ride of the spring feel so very far away.

Riding on ice is hard

It dawned a cool, foggy morning on Thursday.  If it's hard to take a photo of it I get particularly interested in trying to do it, and foggy, early morning weather is particularly difficult to photograph.  

I hustled out of the house to find the moist air particularly cold.  When I got to the end of the street I turned right instead of left, thinking that riding down the dirt back roads to work would yield some exceptional photo ops, it did:

Frost on the grass and the ice forming on my visor suggested that this was more than just fog.  After the photo stop I proceeded up the road very cautiously having to constantly wipe the icy condensation off my visor.  Unfortunately, no one else had decided to take the back way that morning and the fog was slowly condensing onto the road as well.  I approached the stop sign to a paved cross road very cautiously but the moment I applied the brakes both wheels locked up.  

If you've ever locked up both wheels on a motorcycle you know how quickly things can go pear shaped.  The Tiger started to skittle and my heart rate went through the roof.  Reflexively, I got off the front brake immediately and was able to keep the bike upright (barely).  Since the rear brake was the only thing stopping me at all I had to keep my foot in it.  The back wheel was locking up pretty much every time I touched the pedal, but I kept at it.  I hadn't been going that quickly but when your coefficient of drag is zero you aren't shaving off much speed.

By this point the white line is coming up quick.  I'm auto-locking the rear brake but I'm not going to stop in time.  I get back on the front brake and it grips this time and I stop right on the line.  A woman thumping down the road at 20 over the limit (in thick ice fog) suddenly bursts out of the white to my left and leans on the horn as she flies by inches in front of my front wheel.  It's nice to know that my hands are what saved me and not her considerate driving.

Once on well used pavement it was pretty stable.  I got myself the rest of the way into work without any problems other than having to constantly wipe the ice forming off my visor.  Sometimes being a photographer is a dangerous business.  At least I've got quick reflexes and don't panic when things literally go sideways.