Good Ol’ Boys…
I felt like writing something this morning, but… Ain’t that the way of it? When it’s inconvenient like while actually riding, for example, I can think of all sorts of stuff, but when I want to and can, well… here I sit with nothing on my mind… I suppose I could mention my friend Jerry’s penchant for fabrication with a creative flair… Heck, he’s as near as I can tell to being a sure-fire ‘MacGyver’ as anyone I know. He definitely has a ‘mechanical mind’, but who am I to judge such things, as I definitely do not.
We wound-up here at his place because we needed a rear tire replacement and he was willing to accommodate us… Not because of wear, as there were still a few thousand miles of wear left in that old hunk of rubber. However, there had been a puncture sometime back, and the plug had begun to leak air lately… and it was getting worse.
By the time we arrived here, air was having to be added each morning before departure. Not the end of the world by any means, but a for-certain annoyance. This aging relic from another epoch is finding it increasingly challenging to crawl around and hook-up the ‘Geek’ air pump feature… and doing that daily tends to get old in a hurry! Funny, a lot more things nowadays are becoming more of a bother than they used to be… and that, too, seems to be getting worse…
Anyway, my first thought had been to wander down to the usual place for such remedies down amongst the Magnolias and Cypress trees in Louisiana… Dennis invited us to come on down, but… there was this one caveat… It had been raining and was predicted to continue for the rest of the week! He even texted a picture of his yard… I decided to seek other options… and Jerry not only was agreeable to help us out, but there was no rain in his forecast for a while!
Picture of Troutdude’s yard as Mother Nature successfully conspired to keep our girl and her wimpy partner away from bayou country…
Not a problem, really, when we’re free to roam just about anywhere any ol’ time… north central Tennessee instead of southeastern Louisiana… just another little detail… It is a marvel to go either place, though, as the stuff both of those fellows have in their ‘facilities’, and especially the ingenuity evident everywhere to a novice like this non-techy guy, is mind-boggling!
Common traits among guys like those include… Growing up with no exposure to ‘affluenza’, working around machinery and tools from an early age (typically beginning during pre-teen years), and most of all a genuine interest in all such things. They made many of their own toys as kids, and they worked on bikes, cars, or other devices to get them running and to keep them useful, because new stuff wasn’t available to them. No ‘throw-away’ mentality at all with any of those mechanical wonder-boys!!!
Like the improvised ‘Digi-sync’ device, for instance, that Jerry has concocted in his garage… Amazing… He be syncing carbs the down-home, good ol’ boy way…
He also has a ‘bike lift’ made from a few pieces of lumber he had lying around and a box of leftover screws… plus a few other incidental items he scrounged or purchased to complete the vision… He uses jacks and jack-stands plus a homemade wooden lift adapter in a certain sequence that then enables him to easily disassemble and remove the ‘lift’ in stages and pieces leaving the bike entirely upon four jack stands at just the right height, thereby having most needed work performed while seated in an office chair he scoots around on. He can also actually get under a bike using a ‘creeper’… Hindsight being what it is, I now wish I’d taken pictures of the entire process to better illustrate the genius involved…
The stand/lift/wonder to this observer…
Jerry isn’t just a creative mechanical improvisor either, he’s also a very thoughtful and generous host! Yep, imagine my glee when I arrived and was informed a surprise awaited me tucked away in the microwave 'vault' for security from the cat… a couple of pounds of bacon, thick-cut and cooked to near perfection! Ya know, most of the time it sure is nice to be me… sometimes especially so!
Jerry has had his hands on our girl before, so he is quite aware of her pedigree and legacy, therefore… It came as no surprise that this undertaking would involve much more than merely jacking up the bike and replacing a tire. He noticed a little ‘buckle’ in the front fender only noticeable at certain angles and light conditions, but… serious enough to have caused damage to the threads in one of the four bolt holes that serve in securing the fender to the forks… a lasting souvenir from our encounter with that deer a couple of years ago in Wyoming…
He pretty much worked that little wrinkle out and repaired the hole threads so a new bolt could be reinstalled… nice job! He also noticed the starboard side shock absorber bushing was toast… but he couldn’t find one for a replacement… He ended up fashioning one out of rubber from a torsion bar he had lying around, and that seems to be holding up well for now… I did not notice if a paperclip or bobby-pin was ever used at any time… I will replace that ‘mod’ when an opportunity arises… One or two other piddly little things, and then…
It was time for the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated test ride! A wonderful experience, as you can well imagine, and we even got to visit with some other old and dear friends while we were at it. About two hundred miles of special Tennessee backroads through some hills and mountains, small towns, and farmland… miles of smiles all the way! Yep, most of the time it sure is great to be me… especially so sometimes… and this was definitely one of those special times!!!
DDT
