Back in July a new bike was added to my collection.
Seen up front is the new acquisition. A 2012 Felt MP.
I have been wanting an MP for years now. I learned about them after buying the matte sand Electra Rockabilly seen in the picture above. The rockabilly has been a really fun bike but I couldn't get that MP out of my head. Well finally this year my wife surprised me with the MP for my 37th birthday.
I can never leave anything stock and as a taller rider I wanted to resolve a few comfort issues with the Felt. I started modifying the bike in my mind before I even picked it up from the LBS. I have a photo book of WWII military motorcycles and much of the inspiration for my mods will come from that book.
I have now had the bike for a little over a month and I have already made some subtle changes. I have some more major plans down the road. I thought I would go ahead and outline some of the initial mods. I know Crash might be interested because he has one of these bikes on layaway.
First thing that I wanted to do was get a little more height in the handle bars. The low bars look really cool but, for me, the stooped forward position takes all the fun out of riding. The trick would be getting more height in the bars without altering the character of the bike too much. I researched replacement bars a little bit but none looked very good. While digging around on Amazon dot com I found a 2" stem riser and it was pretty cheap so I though "what the hey I'll give it a try".
The stem riser was really a miracle cure as far as comfort goes. It looked a little goofy so I decided to get a cylinder bag that would fill in the space between the fork and the bars. It is an Electra Cylinder Bag in Vintage Brown. I made a custom "MP" badge to hide the embossed Electra logo.
I then decided I wanted some bags to stash stuff so I visited my local surplus store (LSS) :mrgreen: and picked up a NATO medic bag for the rear and a small bag that fits on top of the front rack.
I then got in contact with Chad at Slowriders about a custom seat post. He worked with me to get the angle just right. Before the new seat post arrived I snapped this glamor shot of the bike next to my mini NATO jerry cans:
The seatpost arrived and tested it with the stock saddle.
As many people who have owned these bikes will verify, the stock saddle looks cool but is pretty uncomfortable. The trick would be finding a new saddle that would be comfortable but have the right look. I am a big fan of the Electra XL comfort saddles, and they do make a Vintage Brown XL saddle. The trouble is that I wanted to keep the black hairpin springs and the Electra saddle has chrome springs. Well both the Felt and Electra saddles are made by Velo. It turns out that bolt pattern for the spring frames on both saddles are really similar, close enough to do a direct swap. So the last pics I have for now, are of the Electra Saddle with the black Felt hairpin springs installed on the Slowriders seatpost.
As you can see I painted the seatpost to match the frame. I had to do a little bit of bodywork on the post before paint because there were some small dings in the metal where Chad had forged the angle. The color is "USAF Green" it is a lacquer based paint in a spray can from Tamiya's aircraft model paint line (part number AS-13). The Tamiya paint is actually a really high quality lacquer. It is then protected with Krylon clear matte acrylic spray. Finding a paint match was one of my top priorities because I have a long list of possible add ons for this project like a rifle scabbard, ammo boxes, blackout lights, a horn, etc. and I may want to paint many of those components to match the bike. Note that the new seatpost matches the angle of the rear luggage rack struts.
I am really happy with the new saddle. I find it to not only look better, because the wider shape looks more like the old motorcycle saddles, but it is approximately 1000% more comfortable according to my extensive testing.
Well that's it so far. I have more parts waiting in the wings like rims, and hubs and such so there should be more to follow in the future.
Regards,
Seen up front is the new acquisition. A 2012 Felt MP.
I have been wanting an MP for years now. I learned about them after buying the matte sand Electra Rockabilly seen in the picture above. The rockabilly has been a really fun bike but I couldn't get that MP out of my head. Well finally this year my wife surprised me with the MP for my 37th birthday.
I can never leave anything stock and as a taller rider I wanted to resolve a few comfort issues with the Felt. I started modifying the bike in my mind before I even picked it up from the LBS. I have a photo book of WWII military motorcycles and much of the inspiration for my mods will come from that book.
I have now had the bike for a little over a month and I have already made some subtle changes. I have some more major plans down the road. I thought I would go ahead and outline some of the initial mods. I know Crash might be interested because he has one of these bikes on layaway.
First thing that I wanted to do was get a little more height in the handle bars. The low bars look really cool but, for me, the stooped forward position takes all the fun out of riding. The trick would be getting more height in the bars without altering the character of the bike too much. I researched replacement bars a little bit but none looked very good. While digging around on Amazon dot com I found a 2" stem riser and it was pretty cheap so I though "what the hey I'll give it a try".
The stem riser was really a miracle cure as far as comfort goes. It looked a little goofy so I decided to get a cylinder bag that would fill in the space between the fork and the bars. It is an Electra Cylinder Bag in Vintage Brown. I made a custom "MP" badge to hide the embossed Electra logo.
I then decided I wanted some bags to stash stuff so I visited my local surplus store (LSS) :mrgreen: and picked up a NATO medic bag for the rear and a small bag that fits on top of the front rack.
I then got in contact with Chad at Slowriders about a custom seat post. He worked with me to get the angle just right. Before the new seat post arrived I snapped this glamor shot of the bike next to my mini NATO jerry cans:
The seatpost arrived and tested it with the stock saddle.
As many people who have owned these bikes will verify, the stock saddle looks cool but is pretty uncomfortable. The trick would be finding a new saddle that would be comfortable but have the right look. I am a big fan of the Electra XL comfort saddles, and they do make a Vintage Brown XL saddle. The trouble is that I wanted to keep the black hairpin springs and the Electra saddle has chrome springs. Well both the Felt and Electra saddles are made by Velo. It turns out that bolt pattern for the spring frames on both saddles are really similar, close enough to do a direct swap. So the last pics I have for now, are of the Electra Saddle with the black Felt hairpin springs installed on the Slowriders seatpost.
As you can see I painted the seatpost to match the frame. I had to do a little bit of bodywork on the post before paint because there were some small dings in the metal where Chad had forged the angle. The color is "USAF Green" it is a lacquer based paint in a spray can from Tamiya's aircraft model paint line (part number AS-13). The Tamiya paint is actually a really high quality lacquer. It is then protected with Krylon clear matte acrylic spray. Finding a paint match was one of my top priorities because I have a long list of possible add ons for this project like a rifle scabbard, ammo boxes, blackout lights, a horn, etc. and I may want to paint many of those components to match the bike. Note that the new seatpost matches the angle of the rear luggage rack struts.
I am really happy with the new saddle. I find it to not only look better, because the wider shape looks more like the old motorcycle saddles, but it is approximately 1000% more comfortable according to my extensive testing.
Well that's it so far. I have more parts waiting in the wings like rims, and hubs and such so there should be more to follow in the future.
Regards,
