Elvis on the Move - Motorcycle Adventure Travel

Well the day had to come sooner than later. I have a lot of work that needs to get done and I'm quickly running out of hours to do it with. I know I said my goodbye's to my bike already but I decided to take her out for another ride for 'one last time'. The big swap meet was in town so my buddy Benjamin rode out and we hooked up later in the afternoon. It was raining pretty hard but I thought what the heck! I didn't dress well for the rain, blue jeans and a windbreaker. I wasn't going very far so I figured I could tough it out. I really do need to invest in proper motorcycle apparel. It would make life a lot more comfortable. I met up with Benjamin and his friend at McDonald's and I accompanied them for a piece down the highway. It's been awhile since I've ridden in a pack and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I bid them farewell and doubled back stopping at a couple of places on the way home. Of course I had to push start the beast everytime so I looked quit...

Most of my posts are about me and what I have been doing. While they are typically bike related sometimes they are more of a rant to keep me out of the clock tower with the bottle of Southern Comfort and the high powered Italian assault rifle. This posting is about someone else: I am a regular over at another forum dedicated to the bikes I ride. Although there is a wealth of information over there, like any forum, the problem is anyone can have an opinion and 7 times out of 10 its wrong. There are a few people I trust there and even fewer with good taste when it comes to rebuilding their rides. I have seen some nice rebuilds and some crappy ones but never one that deserved to be praised publicly, until now. I go through pretty much every motorcycle website that has anything to do with Yamaha Maxims and Secas. Recently, I checked out a build page titled "83 SECA 650 Cafe Project". When I clicked on the link the first picture I saw was this: the before shot Looks a lot like my ...

So this is it. My last ride on the beast before I tear her down completely and she's unrecognizable. I'm kinda sad at this moment, she has treated me well over the years and with the exception of one crash (when a dump truck traveling towards me threw a stone and hit me square in the chest ripping me off my bike) she has never stranded me anywhere. Yeah, I may have had to push start her a few times, screw with the carburetors, or jiggle the electrical around, but I have never had to do any real repairs to her. By far the best $400 I have ever spent on a bike. As sad as it may be the emotion that is stronger is fear. What if I can't put her back together? I've never torn down a bike. I have never done a ground up overhaul of a motorbike. I can fix all sorts of industrial equipment, but I've never really had to work on something so small before. I'm more qualified to work on the Space Shuttle than I am on a 650cc Japanese engine. I'm not too worried though. In...

Alright! I should probably start this blog out with an apology to some of my more avid readers. I have spent the last couple of days reworking the layout of the page and trying to procure some outside content to post on my pages. As well, I’m going to stop truncating the RSS feeds and give the whole story instead of just the first paragraph teasers. I’ve been kinda greedy about trying to get more people to visit the actual site when what I should be doing is just writing for the enjoyment of it. The advertising dollars had me scheming. It’s really not enough money to even worry about it. Anyways… Sorry! Now for today’s post. It has come to my attention that some people reading this blog would like to join me for the ride through Europe. Namely Jimmy and Rob (aka Hoover… yes like the vacuum cleaner, and no I don’t know how he got the nickname but when you think about it… it is kinda creepy). So I began the research process and have come up with a pretty good price. Many of the rental ag...

Today I had to go pick up my bike. I left it at my daughter's grand-parents place the other day because I needed a car to pick her up. I see the sun shining outside and I figure it doesn't get much better than this, considering it was a white-out snow storm yesterday evening. How does that even happen? And what happened to "Global Warming"? I didn't spend all those years burning wood, driving a gas guzzling Cadillac, making sure the house was well lit (and the basement too) to have to deal with a snow storm in April. Like what do I have to do? Start lobbying for the return of muscle cars and dirtier industrial smoke stacks? I digress. It's sunny out today lets be happy. I am happy. That is, until I go outside and feel the cold bite of 3 degrees and a wind that blows right through you. It's colder than my wife after I've told her she can't have something. And like both situations you can't really dress right for either. Doesn't matter though...

I start this story out the same as the last. It's 5am and do you know where your children are? Actually it's quarter to five and I have been awakened in the worst way. My day begins with a squeeky voiced, "meeko...meeko daddy" followed by a hammer fist to the nose and, "MEEKO DADDY!" For those of you who don't speak two year old Croatian I will translate. Meeko is two year old talk for Mleko, which is Croatian for Milk. Last night I put my daughter in bed with me because she wanted to sleep with her daddy and this is the way I'm repaid for my kindness. So I go to the kitchen to make a bottle. Of course first I have to clean a bottle. Warm it up and hand serve it to the Princess of the Universe. Well no sense in going back to sleep. I go through my morning routine; toilet, brush teeth, shave, shower, hair and clothes. Done. Now what? I have time to kill. Hey! There's my motorcycle handbook. I guess I could have a read through it and go take my lea...

PART 2 As I said in my previous post, I decided to change plans half way through the day. I figured if I left around 11:30am I could get to the Motor Vehicle Branch around 11:45am and wait in line. I could be in and out under an hour. Yeah right! I get to the Motor Vehicle Branch where I see four other bikers waiting impatiently. I line up in the line where you find out where to line up, and after waiting in that line, I'm directed to the line where I need to line up only to wait in line so I can put my name down for the next Motorcycle Skills Test (another line up). I have decided on a new career path - Government work. My god it must be nice to have no responsibility to please your customers. So far as I can tell, the only thinking these people have to do is what to wear (though it looked like their judgment there was questionable), and what to eat. Because at 12 noon they all decided to take lunch and leave the trainee to fend for herself, which was probably a good thing. I woul...

Its 5am in the morning... do you know where your kids are? Its on days like today when I need to remind my mother that her son is a fool. It's freezing cold, kinda damp, and windy. Who in their right mind would ride a bike to work when they have a perfectly good car to drive with heated leather seats, cruise control (so I can sleep longer), cup holders for my coffee, and satellite radio. Instead I've got on long johns and a scarf. No coffee on the way to work. And did I mention its 5am? I don't normally wake up until 6. I should clarify, I get out of bed around 6am. I don't wake up until 10:30'ish. You're probably asking yourself, "what makes this morning different?" What am I saying? You're probably asking yourself, "does this story have a point?". Good news! it does! The point of the story is that today I'm going to take my motorcycle skills test so I can ride my bike legally. That is legally between dusk and dawn and with no passen...

So my plan of a Saturday ride went down the tubes. Instead I spent the day with my wife and daughter, enjoying the 21° Celsius (70 F for my American readers) at the Steveston Quay (pronounced “key”) watching the fishing boats and having fish n’ chips and ice cream… what a great way to kill a beautiful afternoon! I had my maiden voyage pushed off until Sunday. No biggie! The weather wasn’t quite as nice but there were pockets of sunshine. I began the day with an oil change. This was a Drastic mistake! The folks at Canadian Tire thought it would be cool if they put their two stroke oil in the same column as their 4 stroke oil for bikes with a wet clutch. So as I went to put in the last bit of oil I noticed the color of my oil was BLUE! I’m not sure what would happen if I were to run my bike on a mixture of regular oil and 2 stroke oil, but I’m really not ready to find out. So now what? I have to drain this oil out and go purchase the expensive stuff (double the price) from Lordco. Am I e...

So it's coming down to the wire and I have yet to do my parking lot test. The weather has not been helpful at all. Not that I'm a fair weather rider. I just don't want to have to drive to work and be soggy all day. Also I don't think they will let me take the test on a bike with no insurance. I've been a very naughty boy test driving my bike all over town without tags on it. I don't even know what the fines would be for that. It's $198 for a speeding ticket, could you imagine what it is for driving a motorcycle without insurance... or a driver's license... and drunk. I'm sure it would be steep. Definitely enough for a couple of tickets to a Policeman's Ball. Oh I forgot... policeman don't have balls! Well I had a tough time of getting my bike legal again. You would think with modern technology and databases they would be able to just punch in a few keys and they could find the registration for my bike. It's just not that simple. It took a...

Eureka!! I have figured out why my bike has been the two wheeled version of the Exxon Valdez. It wasn't that something needed tightening or that I needed to replace a few seals. The reason I was oiling the asphalt was because it seems I had about a gallon and a half (6 liters) of oil in my bike. In case you're wondering, my bike needs 2-1/2 liters. Oil was coming up from the wet clutch to the air filter housing. I pulled out the air filter and it was blanked off with oil. My carburetors must be very well lubricated! So, I add in the proper amount of oil and start her up without an air filter. After a couple of test runs up and down my hill I can feel the extra pep. Amazing what a little air can do to a combustion chamber. So I took it for a long drive and got the bike up to full operating temperature. When I parked I still wasn't confident enough to park on my fresh black top so I pulled all the way in to the carport. Typically after 5 minutes I would have a huge puddle of ...

So today is the day. After a long beautiful week of sunshine and sickness I’ve decided to go get insurance for my bike today. Now it rains. Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?Ah, what the hell? A little water never killed anyone. Here’s what the weekend in Vancouver is supposed to look like: 10°C | 6°C Friday 9°C | 5°C Saturday 10°C | 5°C Sunday It’s not looking so good. On a plus note, I just checked my driver’s license and I have 20 days until my learners permit runs out. Yeah… you heard right. “Learner’s permit”. It seems that if you are out of the country for 5 years and you hadn’t been renewing your license they make you do your driving tests over. Needless to say it was enjoyable having to take my driving test over again at the age of 31. Not only was it was hard keeping both hands on the wheel, it was damn near impossible not to reach under my car seat for the icy cold beer I could feel rolling around. So now I have to schedule a day to be sober and go drive my bike around a b...