CX500 rAt Attack stage 2 begins ...

Yay, at last I've rid the ratte of the Hateful Honda Custom seat. I scored off ebay for around $50 a "Bar Enterprises" Cobra model designed to suite Harley Sportsters and then had to fend off some fierce bidding (actually, I just swooped down der spatz like at the last minute to clean up) for the Harley Sissy bar to compliment it. Not so cheap at about $135 but considering the bidding that was happening I reckon myself to be a winner AND a grinner this time around.

I had to hose clip to the top of the frame a stainless steel rod (borrowed out of a boat trailer roller) in order to hold down the seat at the tank end, and I simply drilled through the mud-guard at the rear to use the existing holes in the seat along with the bolts from the original oh-so-gay Honda seat to hold down the other end.

All temporary measures. I'll weld on proper brackets when I pull the mudguard off and replace with a wheel hugging version late in "stage 2" or early "stage 3".

I decided to junk the Honda pillion grab rail (LSCP is happy enough holding on to either me or just below the back rest) and instead mount the indicators into the perfectly matched stem holes in the Harley sissy bar. For now, I've also raised the positioning of the default stop-light cluster on the mudguard to bring things more into line.

To aid in the ongoing uglification I've bunged a mini cargo net thingy over the tank ... got a spare one coming so that will probably be stored in streched out form over the same location. Heh.

What else ? Added some Triumph Cub gaitors to the front

forks to cover over more annoying shinyness. Lots of fun with a wheelie mega hydrolic car jack, lumps of wood under the centre stand, and light tapping on a cut off broomstick to push the forks down through the triples in order to get them on. Left the front wheel on the forks and just let the brake calibers hang and disconnected the speedo cable from the gauge end. Learned that what can be tapped out easily enough ain't so easy to push back in when gravity is going the other way and a heavy round thing is on the bottom. Heh++

Actually, it wasn't so hard to get the forks back in the triples again. Once they were lined up and well sprayed in suitable lubricant it was simply a case of holding the front wheel with one hand whilst letting pressure out of the jack under the engine with the other. A little pushing of the wheel back towards the radiator saw the forks easily glide back in. Then it was a simple matter of tightening up one side at the right spot then letting down the jack and applying pressure to the other side to get the top of fork line-up exactly the same as it was before the operation to hide shiny metal behind dull rubber.

Next ? Observe the small-arms ammo box, the brand new Harley chopper custom guard, and the pod air-filters an image ago. Yup, that means that the stock air-box is going bye-byes along with the standard mudguard and side covers and instead the battery and half the electrics are going to live in the ammo box which will be where the airbox used to be. While that area is all opened up I'll take the tank off and weld in some new seat brackets and a bracket to the swing arm in order to mount the new guard that will remain a constant distance from the wheel and swing up and down with it. By then I'll be ready for some lower shocks, so I guess I'll see what I can trade at the local 2 wheel wreckers from what I've junked ...

Oh, and why remove the tank again ? Coz I don't like welding and angle-grinding around petrol containers. Safety First Folks (yup, those are armoured and double lined chamos I'm modelling under that beaten up old Belstaf jacket, leather cut-offs, and nice unshiny new helmet), and until next time ...

regarDS

Biker Boy Rides Again ...

What with diesel prices going extremely North lately making things somewhat expensive to keep my tRusty 4x4 on the road, I've decided to revisit my days of youth and do The Biker thing again.

Result is pictured. Scored myself my third Honda CX500 and this time I got myself the "custom" design. The last one I had was the "sports" but I got rid of that at least 8 years ago.

See the picture within a picture ? That was me at around 20 years old when I had the a CM250 Custom, which my current CX500 Custom is a Big Brother (Heh) to.

Yup, still just as good looking, still just as much a kid ... just not so much the virgin anymore. Oh, and not so much hair these days either.

Here is what it looked like when I was bidding for it on ebay and won it for pleasingly reasonable price, and below that is a pic of one idea I have for it.

I'm planning to get very busy with some matt black spray paint on it in the next day or so and I have also been very busy visiting the excellent http://www.ratbike.org/ site getting ideas on how I can properly show my contempt for brand names and shiny over-priced sporty things and the kind of people who worship them. Heh.

Logos and brands are coming off post-haste and as much chrome as possible is either going to be gone or covered under beautiful ugly matt black.

I'll keep the blog posted re: my progress and the transformation of a somewhat ugly bike into a truly ugly bike that I shall be proud to ride and park among the high priced vehicles it is likely to encounter on a regular basis in a month or so.

Remember folks, "chrome won't get you home".

Rat bikes are the new black.

Matt Black.

regarDS