1997 yz125. it’s in great shape for being almost 15 years old, and i got it from a guy locally on craigslist for $800. can’t beat that with a stick. it has a few extra goodies too. pro circuit platinum pipe, pro taper bars, motion pro throttle, twinair filter. this thing is a monster for a little bike. not too crazy on the low end, but once you get up into first gear..hold the hell on. 2nd and 3rd are non-optional wheelie time, 4th 5th and 6th are pretty close, seems appropriate for a MX bike. but it kicks hard for a 125, and the engine wants to build revs so fast once it’s on the pipe and the powervalve opens up. such a cool ride.

for guys that are into riding mx and dirt hardcore, this is a little bike. i can put my feet down flat..but i prefer that for now while i’m learning. speaking of learning, i took it out yesterday to the farm in the picture. my brother and his friends have jumps and a circuit set up. they  forgot to tell me that the last jump is a deceivingly steep kicker that requires a bit of practice and technique. well..having had neither of those things, i went in headfirst. literally. i flipped it over the front, slammed the ground headfirst, and spent the next 10 minutes getting really familiar with the patch of grass that i landed on. today i’m pretty much sore everywhere, but i didn’t break anything(except my helmet..oh well it was time for a new one anyway, and the rear fender, which can be easily replaced). I got back up after a little chill out time and hit the jumps again. it’ll all take some getting used to…

gettysburg ride was real fun. i especially had fun having a faster 65cc derbi than brian.

flattrack was a big success. look out for lots more coming soon.

here is my brother Dan jockeying the safari:

dalanna and i successfully conceived the very first real live human bean about 7 months ago, so that’s been keeping me pretty busy lately.

otherwise i still have a million 2 wheel things happening:

completely reinvented gold safari, dirt track style, V1LKS big boy
derbi still ripping as always
building monster rd350 engine, 250 stays for the winter.
rd200 acquired for sometimethisyear rebuild for wife bike
disassembled, painted, rebuilt suspension and am re-assembling dt250
bought a 97 yz125
MAYBE building a dt400 flattracker on my it250 frame

i’m going to miss the pittsburgh rally this year, it was always my favorite. enter sentiment.

better pictures and more details later, i’ve got mopeds to work on.

watch out

hobbit is 98% done. IT RUNS. STRONG!! i had a really weak spark because of a bad coil, so i just decided to bite the bullet and buy the HPI and it’s golden. took it for a run up and down the street and it’s FAST. i’m happy to have the satisfaction after such a long build.

dad had a great idea for adjusting the rear suspension. it was a little too low with the motor mount set back so far, so we made brackets with adjustable height settings for the rear shocks.

moved the rear end up about an inch. perfect.

by tomorrow i’ll have my rear wheel completely rebuilt, laced, and trued, and all i need is a new belt and i’m in blast city.

i need to finish the seat.

in the meantime i’ve been keeping the faith, but translating it into something a liiiitle bit bigger. my new summer love:

1975 RD250. 2 strokes to the wind

moped madness tomorrow at rob k’s ride.

this happened at wb3 at some point. sunday afternoon i couldn’t start it due to almost no compression. i haven’t torn it down until today, and wasn’t very surprised to find (ANOTHER) broken top ring and the bottom ring stuck in the ring land. these rings were fresh, installed roughly 200 miles ago along with honing the cylinder and sanding hot spots on the piston. piston to cylinder tolerances were acceptable after honing so i chose to re ring instead of boring to 48mm. here are my summarized hypotheses:

1. after honing the cylinder,  there’s too much clearance in piston to cylinder wall, giving the rings too much room to move around, any maybe get either caught on something it wouldn’t normally, or slap around against the wall, causing it to break

2. honing took the ridge out of the top of the cylinder ALMOST entirely but there was still a barely barely barely noticeable bit there. more of a difference in coloration than anything, i couldn’t even feel it with a fingernail. if it was enough to effect it the ring could have broken from hitting the ridge.

3. running synthetic oil caused the rings to stick in the ring land and the top ring stuck somewhere along the bottom, causing the top to push out too far, catch on a port, and break.

4. cast rings are just too weak for the amount of abuse they’re taking

any ideas?

cleaned and regreased all bearing and contact points with the gooey red good stuff

while i was doing other things, the tank was tossin back some evaporust. she’s clean as a whistle now.

the hobbit athena stud holes are way bigger than m6.

have you ever seen torque ratings for m6 vs m7 before? it’s a no brainer. 7.8 vs 12.75 foot pounds. that’s almost double.and i have the m7 studz so they’re goin on.

of course everything else will require some modification as well..

drill and tap the case

drill the head

i’m using this hobbit head, decked and modified by graham motzing, until i can get a source for welding cast aluminum so i can get my derbi flat reed head setup properly for the hobbit. but he did great work. see:

so all in all, lots got done, and LOTS more still to do, but it was a good day.

this still gives me a boner and i’ve been looking at it all day:

that’s all you get for now. thanks for tuning in to this weeks episode, i’m your host haldehumanyouneed, see you next time

finally. i waited 3 weeks and it seemed like FOREVER. tomorrow begins the assembly

in the meantime..bought a 50v for 200 bucks down the street. i’ll finally have a nice looking stock (even better..variated) moped that i’m going to leave relatively untouched. new tires, a 15.15sha, and some mild porting is about all i’m gonna do and i’m stoked on that.

it ran with about 5 mins of lovin, but the tank is a terrible, terrible mess of rust, so for the past 3 days i’ve been soaking it overnight in a vinegar/citric acid solution that’s doing a pretty great job of cleaning it out in a manner safe for the environment and safe for the existing good metal in the tank. by tomorrow it should be rust free and clean as a whistle. here’s a few shots of hosin it down today

at some point in it’s life an owner installed a small pulley on the face of the variator with a notch in it for a knotted rope. i tried it with about 6 feet of rope and it fires right up. AWESOME! and he was smart enough to leave the center open to remove the variator nut and/or grease it.

down at the cycle shop i noticed this box sittin on the shelf. yamaHAHA.

more hobbit news coming soon

new innards

made a few 5 cent woodruff keys

complete

in hobbit news, everything should be back from the powdercoater this week. as soon as i have it all back i’ll be putting it all together and ready to fire up. hopefully. bummed that i’m gonna miss round one of MAML. go team schwiener!

got a machined head from graham:

i met a lot of excellent people

went face to face with “quatto” of “the internet”

blasted hard late at night trying to find nacho bar and got caught by sambo. acr rides fast

lost it all on a few hard rounds of cee lo

put in about a hundred orders of double ribs, double sauce, celery on the side

received more text messages in one day than i ever thought possible. thanks maggie.

got soaking wet in pursuit of a burrito.

oh and the metal poonies pooned out.

DIDN’T TAKE ANY PICTURES cause there’s gonna be a billion on the internet any minute now anyway.