Elvis on the Move - Motorcycle Adventure Travel

I just got off the phone with Ryan from Surf Tech in Port Moody and we’re on! Tomorrow morning at 9am it’s the beginning of the end for the cosmetics on this bike. If all goes well the ceramics on the exhaust and the powder coating on the frame will get done and I’ll be reassembling by Sunday. Not likely but it would be nice. Yesterday I fabricated a couple of brackets to put the new seat on and then I just kind of guessed at where they should be welded to my frame. Until I try to put the gas tank on I won’t know if I got it right or not. That’s just the way I roll though. Take a lot of time and effort to do things twice; the wrong way and then the right way. It’s really the only way to learn as far as I’m concerned. And besides, anything worth doing is worth doing twice. Take a look at a couple of pictures of me in the shop. So my list of things to do is getting shorter, yet it’s still a long list. Here’s what I have left to do: Buy the new LED tail light and signal lights. M...

So how bad do you think I feel? I went over to Surf Tech Coatings on Saturday to get my exhaust coated and the guy wasn’t there. The whole shop was locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and looked more abandoned than the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes. What nerve?!? I mean, I even bought beer and cash to bribe the guy to give me a lower price. I drive all the way there and nothing… nada… nil. I’m so pissed off that I have to drink a beer immediately and then chase it down with another beer right after. That made me feel a bit better so I had to celebrate my mood change with another beer. I vow to take my business elsewhere and I call my buddy Jimmy up. Good News!!! He’s having a barbecue down at his dealership. What a stroke of luck? Barbecue tastes really good with beer. I stop in; have a couple burgers, drink a beer, and leave. Quick and dirty just like me. Since I’m not getting any real work done I go by the local Princess Auto. They have a paint gun on sale for $15. How can I ...

I checked my email this morning and I'm finding that I'm irritating my readership again. My intention was to publish a blog a day, but I’ve been terribly remiss. So here I am again finding myself apologizing for not being on top of things here. Sorry. Now leave me alone and read the blog damn you. I’ve been asked how the bike is coming… actually; I’ve been asked if the bike is done. The answer is, it’s not coming together very quickly. I’ve been busy. I’ve still managed to get some stuff done, but I need some uninterrupted time to get right down to it. I have stripped the bike and removed the paint from all the pieces. What I need to do now is put all the frame pieces together the way I want and then take it all apart again for painting. Then I will put it all back together and add an engine. Here’s a picture of what she looks like right now. I’ve changes the tank and seat and now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the rear fender. Since I can’t really get much done...

Alright, alright... I know. I haven't penned a new post for quite some time and I'm truly sorry. I have been very thoughtless to my loyal following, but I have been busy. Last week I had to go to Edmonton for the Canadian mining show. I know what you're thinking, "Wow! How did he get so lucky?". Yeah... I'm charmed. You know the working in the mining industry is pretty close to being a rock star. Girls, drugs, booze. It's just party, party, party. Yeah right. All week I just wanted to be working on my motorbike but that damn thing called work got in the way again. It wasn't a bad trip by any stretch of the imagination, but Edmonton is definitely not for me. Too dry and dusty and my hotel as in the middle of the ghetto. The trade show was quite social and I did make a few friends. Here are some pictures: My new Chieftain. I've been made an honorary tribesmen. Where is the Congo anyways? The best part of the trip was going to the Potash mine in Saska...

So I stripped the bike down completely! My pipes were rusted to ruin, at least so I thought . I took them to the shop and stuck them in the Shot Blaster. Now look at them! Unbelievable. And i didn't have to lift a finger. Life is good!

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...