Denver

Im at destination one, 7 days into the trip. Though only a week deep I've definitely learned a few things, heated gear is going to be a must. I rolled into Denver wearing every layer I had brought, between this and periodic shots of whiskey, things were bearable. Before leaving Golden I put a call in to my cousin at Big Twin Motorcycles. Done, heated vest, be there Monday, Thanks Kevin.

I made some stops around Denver just killing time and taking photos before dropping my stuff off at Laurens. The plan was to pick her up at nine from the airport. Two hours later i'm too drunk to drive. Upon meeting Laurens roommate she asks two questions "do you like hip hop?", "do you like Wu Tang?". That's a yes and yes, I can tell we're going to get along. Drinks continue then off to the university for Lady Wu Tang. I'm so disappointed to have not taken any pictures, it was amazing.

Anyway i'm gonna continue walking around Denver, cheers

Absolutely Golden

So I rolled out of Steamboat Springs this morning. My days always end up starting late, wasted time makes afternoon riding quite pleasurable. Todays rainstorm however was not. Rain at high elevation mountain passes is fucking cold. A quick stop for shots of fire water and i'm back on the road.

Colorado is fully in fall. Riding through the canyons today full of all the beautiful fall colors, was bliss. The steady hum of the horizontally apposed boxer engine between my legs reminds me of a bush plane gliding above the tree line. The steady pur as you roll on the throttle and hold tight through the frost heave plagued roads of Colorado is unlike any other feeling.

Tomorrow I roll into Denver for who knows what fun adventures. It will be the first familiar face I've seen since Sunday and I can't wait to catch up and share stories. I've met plenty of new faces along the way from the "caravan" of auzzies to the town drunk who no one would give any time, each one a different unique experience.

Now, to find a camp site. I feel like throwing it down on the camp cooking tonight. Cheers to whoever reads this...

Solo

So yesterday I parted ways with my brother. He was nice enough to join along on the first few days of the journey. Sunday afternoon we finished off the remainder of the Old Grand-dad whiskey on the side of the road and said goodbye. I'm not gonna lie, I miss the company.

Spent the day riding through the flaming gorge. I took a dirt turn off to an amazing overlook and stopped for a picture. An older guy on a newer Gs pulled up next to me ( guess I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the view). We talked about or trips thus far and about cycling, it was nice. He was from long island and had been on the road twelve days. It was kind of humorous the age gap of rider and machine.

The rider and I split up but ended up seeing each other a few more times. I clocked a few more miles and stopped to drink a beer and read for a while. Fear and Loathing seems to be a rather appropriate book and a few minutes is now an hour. I'm taking today easy. Time to find a liquor store and a place to camp.
Cheers

Road trip beginnings.

Day three on the road and life couldn't be better. A steady intake of shots of whiskey and cliff bars is a travelers diet. The visor of my helmet is a colorful collage of insects who gave their life to my journey.

Each stop has brought another airhead lover out of the woods. When you travel on a vintage bike it invites questions, and looks. People are interested to hear your adventure.

Right now a shower sounds nice...

Recent additions

So I swear I plan on finishing this thing soon. The old carbs were not up to snuff and now the bike has been fitted with Mikuni VM34 carbs sourced off a Polaris snowmobile. I rejetted the carbs completely to work with the H1 all the way down to the float assembly. The heavy brass slides make these things just snap shut. Lastly the cylinders would not except rubber mount flanges that were required for these carbs. Aluminum plate was cut, filed, drilled, welded, cut and sandblasted to get a good port match between the 34mm carbs and the stock intake ports. I also had to remove part of a fin off each cylinder to clear the rubber flanges fully.

More to come soon, Dustens bike is pretty much done we really need to get some pictures up here to show that thing. There is some really trick shit going on making it like no other RD I've ever seen.

Bottoms Up.

A little progress to show, I figured an update was in order. Finding time to write wasn't an issue. Hell, I've got all the time in the world. A recent snowboard accident has left me with a semi blown up knee and on crutches. Temporary workshop residence has been taken up in my living room on my coffee table, where I managed to get the bottom end together.

My buddy Alex running down the last of the hardware. Alex has been a huge help through all my projects. From lending tools to providing helpful mechanic insight he's been there, the dude knows his stuff..

Looking forward to summer

Better than Christmas

Well tax season came and went, we must have been good kids because the tax fairy left us with some pretty nice new (well new to us) equipment.

I have been wanting to purchase a lathe for quite some time but it has never worked out, a few weeks ago I was about to drive down to Southern Utah to pick up a lathe but things kept falling through and hope seemed to be diminishing. Luckily a few days later one popped up on ebay that peaked my interest, a 56" Sheldon lathe with an 11" swing. Sheldon's are a heavier bench lathe, with our model made sometime between the 30's and 50's, these were built to be used on aircraft carriers and battle ships during WWII(pretty neat that something over 60 years old can be used to this day, quality outlasts time). I purchased it from Hart's Hot Rods in Ventura, CA who were very helpful and great to deal with!

 HVC Cycle had a great deal on the MZB electronic ignition for the RD, so I swooped it up, no more points for me.

 We did a bit of a re-organization of our shop. Badly needing a better welding table we made one out of 2 pieces of .25" steel plate that we had, welding the center to make it very large and very useful.

 Our slip roller was begging for a stand, so we scrapped one together, much improved.

 Still need to clean the rust and grime off the welding table.

 Our new work desk, with 2 motors hungry for their fresh cranks.

 New pistons for the RD, these are oversized to 65.25, as my bores had some err... scratches.

 Tail section on the RD, weve been using silicon bronze filler which produces nice fat welds with a great yellow tint.

 Silicon bronze is not quite as strong as ER70 or stainless filler but should handle vibration well, and it looks pretty sweet.

 The lathe has already had lots of use and it will continue for the foreseeable future...

 And with a call from the local laser cutter my pipe pieces are ready, talk about excitement!
These are Vanguard Pattern Pipes, Nate designed these for an RD350 and they can be seen at http://vanguardcycles.wordpress.com/. He shows the process and how tedious these are to make, he has been extremely helpful with all my questions and a pleasure to do business with. If you are looking for pipe plans for a RD350/400 and want some of the best performing, and in my opinion best looking pipes out there... There ya go.
*Also I want to point out that the original plans call for stainless sheet and tubing, I decided at this point to make them out of mild steel, not necessarily for cost, but the skill required when welding thin stainless is very high. I do believe we can do it but for our learning curve, and the risk in ruining them I think the mild steel will work just fine, for now..*

 I started rolling the first bends in the header. Pre-bending the pieces is key to a good roll and fit up.

 I started one at a time but since the first 7 pieces are identical I decided to work smarter not harder...

After the first 7 there are 15 that have a slight taper, that's 22 pieces per pipe and I haven't even started on the cones...

 After rolling in the slip roller they need to be trued and tack welded, we came up with a bar just for the job, using some scrap steel and 1" copper pipe it should keep sugaring down and dissipate the heat faster.

Attention to details.

 Lots of tedious work, but the payoff and experience will be worth it...

 Shop dog/entertainment Kia.

 Skye needed to make his exhaust flange bolts fit a little better, thankfully we have a lathe to accomplish the task.

 The files call for a 18" long diffuser cone, but after experimenting with rolling something that large we decided to have the laser cutter cut it in two, it made a slight spiral effect which I think looks kind of neat and stands out, but most importantly it made rolling way easier.

 I'm pretty sure Skye's hands will never fully recover from the burns, but he seems to almost enjoy the pain. A labor of love I suppose...

 I can tell you that the hardest part of these pipes so far is the small baffle cone, it has a 1.125" small end, and being that our slip roller has 2" rolls the math doesn't quite work. But where math failed hard work prevailed(I want to emphasize HARD work, it took 3 people and a couple hours of the brass hammer to accomplish the cone).

 Skye has really come a long way from the first day he bought the tig, his hard work and knowledge with a torch is proving to be one of the best assets we have.

 Hard to believe this box of metal will become the silencers...

 A little present from racetech.

 The flanges have been my favorite part of building these pipes, lots of machining and tight tolerances required. I started with a piece of 4" x 6" x .250" cold rolled steel, cut on the band saw to give it a rough shape then used our belt sander to perfect the shape.

Later I'll show how we bored the hole through the plate and finished the flanges.

Stay tuned for more updates, they should be rolling in very quickly now.
As always keep the rubber side down.
Dusten.