The Parts Bike

One day I was standing in my garage and thinking “I have enough parts to make a bike”.

I had the slim line Norton featherbed frame with the forks and the Triumph 650cc motor from my dirt tracker and several sets of wheels. So I ordered a gas and oil tank as well as seat and engine mounting plates from Unity in England. This was going to be a nice Triton, not a show quality piece, but nice all the same.

When I received the tank, I was a little disappointed in the quality; as the silver in the gel coat had sagged and it needed to be repainted. I asked my friend Terry to “Just put some paint on it. Nothing fantastic. Just put some color on it to cover up the sags”. He said he just got some new paint he wanted to try and was black OK? It was fine with me.  So a couple of weeks later he says it looks too plain, can we get some decals? So I got some gold stripes and a couple of Triton decals.

When he brings me the bodywork, it’s gorgeous! Now the rest of the bike looks like a junk-yard special. This presented a new dilemma because it just didn’t look right, therefore I had to tear it all apart, powder coat the frame, unlace the wheels, do the hubs, and new shouldered aluminum rims. This was turning into a real project and this thing was going to be a beauty.

Now here comes the bad news. My wife (of 40 years this year) brings a cup of coffee out to the garage one day and asked what I was going to do with this bike – sell it or keep it.  Besides, she knows the garage is full. I told her I was going to sell it and then the discussion about what I was going to do with the money comes up. In a moment of weakness I said “And I suppose you want the money?” Big Mistake, as she informs me she wants a minivan.  So there went good motorcycle money, for a not so cool set of wheels.

The story gets even worse because when I got it all done and took it for a ride, the thing was a fantastic café racer! It was very strong with the race motor and the Norton frame handled great. Not a modern sport bike, but a great ‘60s era ride. At least the new owner was smiling.

The Parts Bike, before it was shipped to it's new owner!

Years later my wife brought out another cup of coffee to the garage, so that will be another story.

How bad can it get??

Almost anytime you go riding it is a good day. Granted some days are better than others but riding is always better than working. It can be iffy sometimes. I remember trail riding with my brother in law in Washington’s Cascade Mountains in this area call Goat’s Peak, a heavily forested area with what seemed like straight up and straight down single track. There were numerous smooth rocks and tree roots on the trail. It was slick because it was misting, but then it started to freeze, and then snow. We almost had to carry our bikes out of there. I kept saying to him as we helped each other up the mountain “Tell me we are having fun. Because it doesn’t seem like it.”

That, however, was nothing compared to my good riding buddy Terry’s experience. Terry is an outstanding rider and if I can keep him in sight I am very happy. A bunch of the guys were going to go riding in Eastern Oregon and even though I got the invite, I had to decline as I had to make a trip to California on business. The core of this group is a bunch of professionals in their 50’s. David Edwards (former editor of Cycle World Magazine) called Peter Wiley the ‘world’s fastest dentist’. David was in attendance as well as Wendell Phillips (Lockhart Phillips) and several others. Everyone met up in The Dalles, Oregon after flying or trailering in that day (to save the tires). 

Terry gets up the next morning, puts on his leathers and walks out to his bike; but it is not there. Someone has stolen the bike and trailer. This is not your average Honda RC51 either. It had Olhins forks and shock. It also had a Yoshimura full titanium exhaust and made 128 hp at the rear wheel. Everyone is sick about the situation but decides to go on anyway. Peter offers him his RC51 back in Seattle if he wants to go get it. So Terry drives the 4+ hours back to Seattle to get the bike and agrees to meet everyone in John Day, Oregon (which is almost 7 hours from Seattle).

By now I am sure you’ve determined that Terry is a little hard core. It is about 9 in the evening and he is on a narrow two lane country road ‘cruising along’ as he says, not going too fast (we figure he is going about 80 mph) when out of the woods steps a deer. He hit the deer hard enough to split it into two separate pieces. The majority of the impact was with his chest….9 broken ribs, bruised heart and collapsed lung. Suddenly he is laying, in pain, in the middle of the road, damaged, borrowed RC51 on its side and deer guts everywhere. After a little while a lady and her daughter come along and scoop him up and take him to the local fire station and eventually the hospital. As he says “I laid in that hospital bed for a week thinking about a RC51 I had to fix and wondering if I would ever see mine or my trailer again.”

Honda RC51, similar to the one that was Stolen!

By some luck, the trailer was fished out of the Columbia River some months later, but the bike was never recovered. We all recognize this is a dangerous sport and talent cannot overcome circumstances sometimes; but like Terry, we all do it because we love it. Fully recovered years later, Terry is still just as fast as ever.