Elvis on the Move - Motorcycle Adventure Travel

The last couple of months has been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. I remember getting my frame back from powder coating and being in absolute awe. I also remember being stood up twice and thinking I wasn't going to get my bike coated at all. My emotional state over the last couple of weeks have so diametrically opposed that I don't remember what it feels like to be just "OK". I can now understand how junkies can get hooked on drugs. Going from a completely seized engine to riding through the mountains at 140km/h is way too much to have happen in 3 days. It's like going from freezing cold to scorching hot. I think I've broken something. So let's take some time to talk about my test run and engine break in. The manual says to drive your bike for 500 miles with as little load as possible. So I figure a ride with a 225lb man through a mountain pass would be ideal. The easy part was the ride from Tsawwassen to Hope . I was so nervous. The first thing...

The dream lives on for another day. I torqued everything up last night and here's the result: She's running again and she sounds a lot better than she did last time. There are a few things I noticed that I didn't care for. There seems to be fuel leaking from my carburetors and there's a high pitched squeaky sound coming from that area as well. Hopefully I can get the gremlins out of the machine tonight. The plan being to reassemble everything and take her for a small test drive. Tomorrow I want to take her for a real ride. Maybe out to Hope or Merrit, depending on how she feels underneath me. I only have a few more days before she goes on the plane so I better do some tests before. The last thing I would want to have happen is to break down in Bratislava! I still need to mount the saddle bags and front headlight but I think it's more important to actually get things running properly before I do that. I realize now the mistakes I've made throughout this process a...

Well we have a new front runner for MVP on this project. After reading my blog I got a call from an old friend Lee whom I haven't seen in years. He could feel the desperation in my writing so he had to call me up and offer his help. The help was very needed. I've basically come to the conclusion that if she doesn't start tonight I'm scratching the tour. I'll get on a plane to Frankfurt and take the train instead. How boring that will be. So last night we put the cylinders and head back on. It's amazing how much faster things happen with two sets of hands. What took me two hours by myself was finished in 15 minutes. Unfortunately, we couldn't 'button it up' because I didn't have a torque wrench. I'm getting one for tonight and I will torque everything down and give it another go. I think I may add some Loc-Tite to the equation. I can't afford to have anything come undone. So please pray for me tonight. Make offerings to any pagan gods you ...

Play the above video to see what I did last night and then read below: So she started! Yay! I was worried. Boy does she run loud. sounds like the exhaust manifold isn't sealed. I'll have to take care of that right away. I ran her for a good 20 minutes before the engine seized. Boo! I'm serious, the engine seized. I popped open the valve cover and I was missing one of my cam chain sprockets! She absolutely exploded. I had to pull off the head and the cylinders and then I spent the next 4 hours fishing metal out of my engine. Could anything else go wrong? Don't answer that. I'm going to try and do another rebuild. I almost got the cylinders back on last night but I found I was short an arm. If anyone wants to come over and help I could use it. Gaskets be damned I'm going to reuse what I have and get her buttoned up. If she's not running by tomorrow I'm calling it quits. My psyche can't take the stress this project has tolled out on me. I'm an absol...

There's an old saying. Actually, it's not that old of a saying. Like not old testament old or even new testament old. More like Dianetics old (ref. if you are unaware of Dianetics google: operation clambake). One version of the saying goes like this: "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade." The version I prefer is a little more optimistic: "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Then, find someone who had life hand them potatoes and make vodka. Then make lemon drop martinis" The moral of that saying? I'm drunk how would I know what the moral of the saying is. Needless to say I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to pretend like this never happened and I planned to fly the bike over myself anyways. I have learned a lot about air freight over the last couple of days. I know more about dangerous goods, IATA, and transporting items by air than most of the idiots at the freight forwarding companies. Right now I'm getting quote after quote for $1...

So I've been hit with some extremely bad news. The guy who was going to ship my bike for me can't do it anymore. So my $300 shipping bill looks like it's going to jump to $1700. After all this hard work I've done there is a good chance that I'm not going to be able to take my trip. I'm so effin depressed I could cry. All the time, sweat, and money for nothing. I'll never know what it feels like to be broken down in Bratislava. I'll never know what unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell tastes like out of a wooden keg. I won't get to surprise the entire village of Jadrtovac as I cruise into town on my Canada bike with 24 liters of Karlovacko Pivo (beer) strapped to the back seat. This is a cruel joke. If this were an 80's movie we would have a bad guy challenging me to a race and everyone would come over and help finish the bike, and someone would be a rat and tell the bad guy what we were doing, and then we would show up at the race and they would try to ...

Happy Canada Day everybody. And happy Independence Day to all of my American cousins. So it's crunch time now. The bike is coming together and the cosmetic work is practically done. Take a look at the paint scheme. The reassembly is coming together pretty good. I'm still a little worried about the electrical and the wiring harness. Oh... and a little thing called rebuilding an engine. You can't forget that. The rolling frame is put together and I just need to reattach the front forks and wheels to get it done. I have been making countless trips across the border to pick up little odds and ends that I have been buying on the Internet. And before you ask I am not declaring any of my purchases to the border guards. How do I get away with this? Well I always have a bag full of cheese, butter, eggs, and milk. Let me tell you, I went across the border 4 times last week so if you lactose intolerant do no come to my house under any circumstances. I was very excited last night. I or...