A Lengthy Insanity

[Ulu]

We went out for a ride today and I’ve bent my derailleur on the ‘goose a little bit. I hadn’t checked it in every gear position and it needs a couple more links on the chain.

Otherwise I patched it up and continued my ride and everything worked OK. I didn’t notice that the biopace chain ring was that much different but I did notice that it was different. I felt different while I was riding it.

Anyhow I spent a bit of time with NevrDull and polished up those front forks (taking off all of the stickers.) There’s a few small but unfortunate gouges in the chrome which I may end up concealing with a sticker.

I just love the smell of petroleum distillates in the morning.

Right now I’m trying to decide how ugly the sissy bar is going to be because it has to clear the disc brake. When I lower the frame it’s going to have to change anyway so it doesn’t need to be a thing of beauty at this point. It does have to be strong enough to hold my butt up off the bike.

You don’t wanna get your butt wiped by a 4 x 26 chaoyang knobbie.


Meanwhile: Weird scenes inside the gold mine…

 

[Ulu]

Well the bad news is that I spent too much time at the custom bicycle shop and my fish will have to wait another day unless I want to do a late evening water change.

I was planning late evening bike repairs because:

New 4 x 26 diamond fatty

OMG! Are those mini-eliminator bars hanging on the saddle?

Everything starts with a piece of paper and a pencil and some scissors.

I don’t have a press brake, so I elected to use a piece of material that was already punched and formed.

This was some part from a damaged wood lathe that I took apart.

Death defying and gratuitous one-handed angle grinder selfie!

A lefty and a righty.

After a bit of directional sanding.

First test fit after reaming the punched holes.

 

[Ulu]

I would’ve had that sissy bar finished right now but I spent too much time cleaning up my work shed so I could finish my sissy bar.

Now it looks more like this instead of a pile of wrenches on the shelf and wheels everywhere.

 

[Ulu]

Midnite Whitewalls R Us

I fussed with the cables a long time, extending them and making them work with the new ape hangers. I sealed up the extender joints with a couple layers of heat shrink tube.

l don’t know if I will keep the neck reversed. It depends on how she rides when I get the sissy bar on.

I keep thinking the same thing when I look at this bike. Lower and more rake!

 

[SwissGuy]

Midnite Whitewalls R Us
View attachment 194634

I fussed with the cables a long time, extending them and making them work with the new ape hangers. I sealed up the extender joints with a couple layers of heat shrink tube.

l don’t know if I will keep the neck reversed. It depends on how she rides when I get the sissy bar on.

I keep thinking the same thing when I look at this bike. Lower and more rake!

Those whitewalls look amazing on that bike!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

That bike looks amazing on that white wall!

Fixed it for you.

The Amateur Moderator
(Not a Moderator)

 

[Ulu]

I don’t know if I can get a 700c for the front with a real whitewall, but I do have one with a white stripe. The truth is I wanted a black wall but this tire was cheap and available.

 

[Ulu]

I should be out there welding on my sissy bar, but I woke up at 3 AM yesterday and I didn’t go to bed until about 1 AM today.

So instead I’m in the La-Z-Boy watching 2-stroke Stuffing on YouTube.

(He is building a blown 50cc two-stroke Bonneville motorcycle. From scratch. The last time he went it was rained out, but this year it will be a screamer.)

I hoisted that Mongoose up and down off the stand several times yesterday and I rode the Manhattan around several miles. I am way beyond sore. Even after lightning it about 10 pounds it’s still a heavyweight bike.

It’s time to drag my butt out of the chair and go riding. Then I will loosen up.

Meanwhile my fish are staring at me, making funny faces, and wondering why I don’t feed them?

 

[Ulu]

A nice new used wheel. Now I must swap the tires.

 

[Ulu]

I put the new used wheel on the Manhattan bike because it has a black hub, and I put the silver hub wheel from the Manhattan bike on the Mongoose.

But first I had to take the white wall tire off off the back of the Manhattan & put it on the front wheel of the Manhattan.

Then the new used tire went on the rear wheel of the Manhattan.

So I ended up changing three wheels and three tires to get what I wanted.

700c back on the front:

Waaahoo!

 

[Ulu]

More midnight shenanigans:

First, I hated the back-set bars and so I rotated the gooseneck 180 & also inverted it, which lowers the bars just slightly. It all worked out that I didn’t have to change the cables.

I bought these fog lights for a ridiculously low price, off the discount table at the NAPA store in Visalia California, 36 years ago.

The chrome was never good enough to put on a car or motorcycle that I owned because they didn’t polish off all the drawing die scratches before chroming. Also, when I tested them, the bulbs were burned out.

These are not hooked up to anything and the bulbs are still burned out. But they do shine, because they’ve never been out of the box for more than a few minutes in all these years.

Now I need to get the black paint off that gooseneck or buy a polished neck.

I have the Jesse James neck, but it is ugly as sin. Maybe if I sanded all the black paint off and put a shine on it and made some lightening holes and relieved it so it wouldn’t look so damn chunky.

 

[Sparky Sharky]

I should be out there welding on my sissy bar, but I woke up at 3 AM yesterday and I didn’t go to bed until about 1 AM today.

So instead I’m in the La-Z-Boy watching 2-stroke Stuffing on YouTube.

(He is building a blown 50cc two-stroke Bonneville motorcycle. From scratch. The last time he went it was rained out, but this year it will be a screamer.)

I hoisted that Mongoose up and down off the stand several times yesterday and I rode the Manhattan around several miles. I am way beyond sore. Even after lightning it about 10 pounds it’s still a heavyweight bike.

It’s time to drag my butt out of the chair and go riding. Then I will loosen up.

Meanwhile my fish are staring at me, making funny faces, and wondering why I don’t feed them?
View attachment 194678

What have you got there? Looks a bit Red Oscarish at a glance. I miss the monsters (Arawana and Fire Eel esp.) in the middle of my living room. Cheers!

 

[Ulu]

It occurs to me that those forks are completely hollow and about the right size to fill with D size flashlight batteries.

 

[Ulu]

What have you got there? Looks a bit Red Oscarish at a glance. I miss the monsters (Arawana and Fire Eel esp.) in the middle of my living room. Cheers!

Yes that’s Felix the Oscar.

He’s about 12 inches and he’s been with us almost 5 years. He is the largest of my fish but I might have a catfish that’s a little bit longer. Not nearly so massive though.

One of these days I will find the off-topic section & post some photos of my aquariums.

 

[Ulu]

BTW, If you look at my two photos above that show the Park bike vice, you’ll notice I took out the extension tube.

It doesn’t go up and down anymore ,but it doesn’t need to, and it was 6” too tall for me before. I also tossed the tool tray clamp and just attached it solidly with a fat stainless steel hose clamp.

The big quick release clamp from the tool tray wound up on my mongoose seat post.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I bought these fog lights for a ridiculously low price, off the discount table at the NAPA store in Visalia California, 36 years ago.

I love it when deals are so good that the buzz sticks with the item years later. It almost gives the same rush as when I first found it

 

[Ulu]

It does indeed sir.

I put in a good ride on the Manhattan and the new used wheel is nice and straight.

Still working on the sissy bar so I did not ride the mongoose.

Gratuitous and even more death-defying One handed pneumatic slitter wheel selfie!

 

[Ulu]

The ‘goose didn’t come down off the rack ‘til 00:45 PDT.

At 1AM I rode it down to the corner and back. Maybe 200 yards each way. I guess I really wanted to ride it.

I was preparing a more elaborate sissy bar when I found out that I was out of gas and could not weld. It was too late to go to the welding shop and so I fabricated up another sissy bar (that I didn’t have to weld) from the longest piece of 1/2” tube that I had left.

It was going very well and when I got to the last bends I kinked the tubing.

At that point I said screw it, I will just upholster the thing, and I hammer whipped it on the anvil until I had a shape that would work. I covered up my hammer marks with some black and white vinyl purse straps, which almost matched the seat.

This will not do for long. The seat is too far forward. It is also too small and doesn’t have much padding in it.

 

[Ulu]

OK, so how do I keep this clearly class one bike in class two now?

Well I am definitely gonna cut the stays and lower it. I will build a new seat from scratch.

And the sissy bar is still just a temporary deal.

Also…. Too extreme? It’s loud but it needs a lot of polish.

This thing is 18 inches long.

 

[Ulu]

Well I am caulking off here and I‘ve got to get up & go to the welding shop and get some gas before they close.

We had a nice long ride this morning and it gave me a good chance to evaluate the Mongoose bike and where it’s going: Longer, wider, lower. Just like a Pontiac.

My wife took some fuzzy photos of me riding. You can see the the seating position and leg stretch are far from ideal.

That just means it’s more exercise to ride but I’m going to definitely raise the seat and push it back.

Also I could go for a taller front wheel if I could find one, but the 700c is pretty tall.