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Erie Mountain Bike Rides!

2011-12-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

View Erie Mountain Bike Rides in a larger map

Inspirational

2011-08-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Gravel Crew XS650...big side pictures evade me.

Bruno Designs XR650L Cafe

2011-08-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Bruno Designs did this Honda XR650L that is sweet.

Imagine all that torque in a very lightweight package, combine that with the reliability of one of Honda's most popular dual sport engines, and you've got a pretty nice cafe racer.

Cool LED running light:

In the raw:

2011-08-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

http://zelastchancegaragedu78.blogspot.com/

I wasn't able to find any large pictures, but I'll try to get ahold of the owner for some.

I do know the following:

10.5" Rear Shocks
3 Inches Front Drop
4.5" Bates headlight
External Oil Cooler Kit from Heiden Tuning
Bosch Pre-War Cigar Style Tail Light (they are out there for BMWs)
Seb talked about a DT360 tank, but I'm not sure which one is on the bike in the pictures.

lcgdu78@hotmail.fr

Holiday Customs

2011-07-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

I remember Jared from a year or so ago when I had the CB400F. He did one in a brat style, but has had lots of projects since then.

Heres what's up:

Also did a CB450T a few months ago:

Also does cool stuff like this:

Tuesday Repost

2011-07-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it:

From Bubblevisor

CB360T: Before and After

2011-07-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

My first bike was a 1975 Honda CB360T. I owned for a few months at best.

I just wanted to ride, and the vintage carbs and electronic completely baffled me.

I ended up selling it to Keith Seaman, who after riding it stock for a year or two, and starting himself into a chopper project that would have engine trouble, decided he wanted to get the CB360T a makeover.

My first bike, his Pusher Betty.

Before:

After:

Keith said he got the paint out because "wasn't offensive enough".

Well Keith, I think it did the trick.

An-Bu Custom Bike

2011-07-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.an-bu.jp/

While searching for some XS650 drag bikes like these:

Can't find much on this cool reverse port head.

I found An-Bu Customs and some of their dragster inspired XS650s:

Yamaha GX400 Special

Yamaha XS250 Special

4 Cylinder Drag Bikes

2011-07-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

These are cool.

Some dude from Brisbane:

Garage Company Customs

Random Google Find:

More from Garage Company Customs at "Return of the Cafe Racer" blog:

And from ChicoMoto Blog

New Bike

2011-07-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

I had been looking for an XS650 for years, but never found one in the condition I liked at the price I wanted. $500 was my maximum. Normally I don't talk about price because on previous bike I usually planned to sell them. This one I'd like to keep for awhile.

Previous owners had attached a Vetter fairing and done some interesting wiring mods. I hope to simplify and make reliable the wiring.

So far its back to stock, next up will be bars and a new seat. Then I'll ride it for the rest of the season and look for a job to fund the purchase of gauges, tires, lights, etc.

ketchup

2011-07-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

CB400F Re-wire and sold.

Going NUTS with wiring

2010-11-29T11:06:00.001-08:00

So this is where I'm at.

1) I know the bike runs. I had it running, riding (badly), and idling (badly), but it ran!
2) The carbs are now in good shape, but need synced probably. I benched synced them but who knows how close that is.
3) Electricals are all over the place, see below.

So lets start:

Wire nuts on the ignition/key cylinder and on the right side switch wiring (starter button).

The key cylinder uses different colored wiring, I'd like to redo the plug for OEM wiring.

Four wires into one wire nut...and only one wire out? PO didn't know how to hook up the three-way cut-off switch and the start button...

From brown to black...is this normal?

I have no idea where to start with any of this:

I could really use some ideas on what to do with the relays and junk at the back of the bike...they are just hanging loose in there. Some of them look old and questionable as well...

Two tanks, neither are worth writing home about...yet I'm writing home about them.

400 Miles to Erie

2010-11-29T10:59:00.001-08:00

So after nearly 500 miles, 5 stops, one blown tire, the Holsclaw managed to get my CB400F and about 400lbs of stuff from one side of PA to the other (Philly to Erie).

The girlfriend's T-Bird had no problems with the towing, although the suspension could have been better.

The trailer's flat tire was a result of rapid deterioration of the right side tire. I suspect an alignment issue, as the axle appears to have been repaired and the tire was at a fairly low air pressure, yet wore through the cords in the center of the tread.

Ripping into it...

2010-09-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

So when I first got the 400/4 it didn't idle, it didn't run past 3,000 RPM, and it didn't have any power when on the road...it barely did 20mph.

The previous owner (PO) had the biking running perfectly last summer, but over the winter of 2009/2010, decided he would upgrade the exhaust and go to pod filters on the carbs. This required a new set of jets, which are hard to come by. So the PO decided to drill out the jets. When he put the carbs back together, he used Permatex sealant on the float bowls, resulting in a gumming up of the idle jets, and who knows what kind of situation with the drilled out mains.

Here you can see the float bowl seals with the Permatex sealant on them...falling apart. Also a small nick in one of the floats:

The condition of the carbs after cleaning them out the first time:

The Number 4 Carb jet holder looks a bit corroded, but I think it'll be ok:

So now I'm waiting on new jets.

Project Intro 1977 CB400F

2010-08-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

See those wire nuts? Not good.

Bike needs all new jets, cables, headlight, signals, and some serious work on the wiring...among other things.

A New Beginning

2010-08-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

My first bike: Owned in 2009 for about 6 months. Regretfully sold it because I couldn't figure out an idle problem.

1975 Honda CB360T

My second bike: The bike I really learned how to ride on. Used it for daily transportation, but it didn't have enough power to work as a long-route trip bike. Sold it for more than I spent on it.

1999 Yamaha XT225

And now: My third bike, bought for cheap and with the intention that it would need work...and so far it has needed work. Engine is good, but wiring and carbs will be a challenge. No rush though. Don't want to regret this one.

1977 Honda CB400F

January 2008

2010-06-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

For you environmentalists...

Now you'll have to understand that what I am about to type is mostly generalized information, although it is merely a base for you to draw your own conclusions.

We hear so much in the media about global warming this, and global warming that, that you'd almost think the world was going to end in 10 years. Yep, those arctic ice caps are going to melt and we'll all be under water. It'll be a like a bad Costner flick. Before that happens though, we'll run out of fossil fuels and the world economies will spiral out of control, oh, and that's after WW3 occurs.

So QUICK, buy Toyota and Honda hybrids, convince everyone to boycott petroleum products, starting building boats that double as bomb shelter because we're going to be going for a wild ride!

Or not.

In reality, scientists predict that even if most of Antartica melted, the rest of the world would only see a 20-30ft difference in ocean levels. Ya, I know, that puts some of your favorite beach destinations under water, but hey, at least you're not riding around on a catamaran looking for land. Oceans rising are definitely not the end of the world. Even if you said that it would only take 50 years for this event to happen, it would be so gradual that it would likely only affect those who now own beach front property. For the rest of us? We're just that much closer to the beach.

So global warming isn't that big of a deal, at least as far as the human race is concerned. A couple million years ago, give or take, the world was probably much warmer than it is today, or even will be in 200 years. Volcanic eruptions happened so regularly, that they drastically changed the earth's environment for millions of years, until they slowed, making the last thousand years pretty nice for modern human's. Let's say that average temperatures rise a few more degrees, some weather patterns get thrown off, and suddenly, Canadians can grow corn a little bit longer. More ethanol eh? Besides, if the ocean is that much closer, I'm going to want warmer weather, aren't you?

So far, even on catastrophic levels, global warming doesn't seem like a big deal, but I didn't write a blog post this long to tell you to start driving SUV's. Plus, why would you with gas prices this high?

No, I wrote a blog post to start an idea in your head.

What if Al Gore, instead of waging a war on global warming, was waging a war on population growth and urban sprawl?

Even the liberals would think he was nuts!

Informal projections believe that by 2050, there will be a total world population of 9 billion people. Current population is above 6 billion, so it's safe to say that for every 2 people there are today, there will be another added to the mix in 42 years. Argh, and traffic sucks as it is! That's the real inconvenient truth.

That means, we will need to meet the food production needs for a whole lot more people over the next 50 years. That means we will need to find space for the extra bodies, and keep them from fighting with other bodies.

That means, it'll be even harder to find a spot on the beach, even if it is a few miles closer! Drat!

Thing is, population growth has been affecting food production, urban sprawl, pollution, violent crimes, cost of living, the fall of the dollar and mountain lion attacks. The more the human race expands the more problems it seems to have.

So while driving a hybrid car to work may seem like a way to slow pollution, the problem is that you have to drive to work in the first place.

While we may someday run out of fossil fuels, the real problem is that we have to use them to fuel our vehicles to go get our food and our food has to be shipped to us because its all produced so damn far away because our farmland is being replaced with developments which in turn pushes agriculture to other areas destroying natural habits which force dangerous animals closer to populations.

OH NOES!

What do we do?

Simple answer, we plan. We plan things better than we have over the last 100 years. Yes, there is tons of open space out there, but there is also much more open and unused space in our cities.

While yes, those ugly cookie cutter townhomes and apartments you see popping up everywhere may seem like suburban sprawl at its finest, it is actually that high density high efficiency housing that is future of housing growth.

Although the city might not seem like the best place to live, it offers many advantages to the country side. Your closer to work (most jobs in the U.S. are service or technology based), your closer to forms of entertainment, and closer to markets that more than likely have local produce that only travel a few miles to get there.

The reason Wal-Mart has grown is because people are willing to drive to the middle of no-where, or from no-where to the middle of some-where to get cheap stuff, but yet they won't buy from the produce stand right down the street.

The city isn't a bad place, it's just our society has in a sense "given up" on trying to solve the problem of high density populations.

Well I can tell you, those problems, no matter where you live, won't end anytime soon.

If we can expect to be living peacefully over the next 100 years (I could care less about after that because I'll be dead) we need to start moving towards our community ties.

Say hello to your neighbors, take a walk around town, go your local government meetings (planning/zoning commission meetings), volunteer, promote local small business, take birth control and where a condom.

The world ain't getting any bigger!

Copy and Paste

2010-06-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

The next few blogs will be copy and pasted from my age old MySpace. Before I started at Millersville, I was writing a fair amount, and I think in some of these posts its evident my mind was definitely working better than what it is today.

Prepare yourself, its not all pretty:

Say what?

In today's mainstream media, we hear about everything we shouldn't. They tell us more about things than we need to know, and not enough about the things that we really should know.

I was watching MSNBC tonight, and the hot female anchor lady was covering a story about domestic violence in some city and how some guy stole this other ladies truck with her baby in it etc etc and things didn't end well for the baby. It's a sad story, but what got me was the fact the look on the face of the anchor when she was reading the teleprompter and said:

"Apparently the baby was somehow attached to the outside of the vehicle and had been shot in the head."

At this point, this woman reading this information to most of the world thinks to herself "why the hell did I just say that a baby was shot in the head?" she probably thought "why does the world need to know this?" or "could someone have written that with a little more compassion?" She looked like she had just passed gas, or rather, that someone next to her had just passed gas. As if she was ashamed and embarrassed for such horrible things erupting from her mouth.

Ya, we all understand the world isn't filled with bunnies and butterflies, but you can at least spare us the gory details.

Nothing yet sir!

2009-06-26T22:43:00.001-07:00

I haven't got around to updating yet. Not like anyone is reading this anyhow.

How can I get more attention.

Facebook and MySpace links!

Gonna give this a whirl...

2009-05-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

Unlike Facebook, that really doesn't have a nice way of displaying blogs, and MySpace, which is dying and I'd really like to turn into more of my photo-specific site, BlogSpot offers clean and simple direct access to my mind.

Sure, you'll see a few pictures here and there, but I wanted to try someplace without all the added stuff of Facebook. Some where that I could give random people some idea of what it is I do. Since most of my online life is presented from behind a camera, I thought this might be a good way of showing my best shots and my deepest in workings...or just ramble.

But, if your interested:

http://www.myspace.com/hillsforthehead

or you can find me on Facebook by searching for Paul Heller...but I'll let you decide which one of the few thousand I am.