03 February 2010

It's Alive!

(This post was meant to be posted a long time ago -- July 21st, 2008!! -- but somehow never got posted, so I am putting it up now. Since this post, I have replaced the rear tire, and finally got the carburetor working properly. It took pretty much till mid-summer of last year to get all of that done! Now, all I need to do is ride it more...)

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I am a happy puppy. Why? This photo explains it:



We are the Champions, by Queen

My four year long odyssey to reclaim a bike from its sad state as a giant dust catcher finally came to an end yesterday. I rode the bike for the first time, and it feels so good, and feels like such an accomplishment.

The bike was a friend's that he had stored in my cousin's garage and basement for years. He only put 5,000 miles on it. and then it sat there for about a decade, unused. One day my cousin and his friends decided to start it to see if it would work. Over cranking the starting motor on a bike that had been sitting so long resulted in the starting motor's gears to break off inside the engine. So the bike went back into storage for a few more years, until I decided to take it on as a project.

I started the project as a way to get my paws dirty. I have always enjoyed working with stuff like this but never had the real opportunity to do so. So with the help of my other cousin, I took the bike completely apart, opened up the engine, replaced the parts, cleaned the bike up, got the frame powder coated, and fixed the carburetor (which took a surprisingly long time).

So I finally got to take ride on my bike, and in someways I think it will be a lot sweeter than buying it "off the rack" as it were. If nothing else, I learned a heckuva lot. The bike still has a lot of problems that need resolution (the rear tire needs to be replaced and the carburetor needs a lot more tuning), and I am sure that will still take more time.

Nonetheless, this is still quite a milestone with which I am very pleased.

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A music video for this post:



Queen, We Are The Champions

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