Derbi—The Red Power

[toratora]

Your the inspiration for me to keep pushing on my bike right now. I too want to be able to ride right now!

Hey D,

Thanks for the props.

Maybe if we all work together we can inspire enough folks to make GPR Camp a reality.

[toratora]

Did a little bit of running around today. Made it home just before it started pouring! Woohoo!

[toratora]

Had a chance to do a bit more work on the forks for Louis's bike. Because I didn't have help I had to come up with a new way to remove the inner seal. Using the Motion Pro rim saver, and laying the tube on the table I could get enough force, and still not mess up the tube.

Of note the spring in the for that you see on the table is in upside down. That was corrected before it all went back together. I still need to properly torque the inner top bolt, and then add fluid. But once that's accomplished the forks can go back on the bike.

[toratora]

I had to move the car today so that meant I should go on an adventure. I needed to get a punch that wouldn't break when torquing down the top inner bolt with the forks. I went over to Daly City ToolMart, and Catherine hooked me up with a nice punch and another 6mm allen socket.

[toratora]

This one faired slightly better in that it didn't break, but it still couldn't hold the proper torque (17Nm) for the inner top bolt.

[toratora]

Not at all, but the sun did come out late in the afternoon, so I had to go for a ride.

[toratora]

I was thinking about doing some wrenching today, but it's just not fun to wrench in the rain—so I had to go for a ride. Got to visit Scoot, and the D-Store. They've got the new boots in, and do the black and red ones look great!

[toratora]

It's New Year's Eve which means that it's time to make Toshikoshi Soba. To do that I had to make a trip to the asian market. But to go there via an auto would be insane. There's just too many people out there in cages, and parking would be a nightmare. Thankfully I have a classic GPR at the ready.

It's truly amazing how much stuff you can stick into the faux tank on the GPR. But potato chips are huge, so I had to come up with a solution to carry those as well. I quickly realized that the previously thought to be absolutely useless black things glommed on to the front of the bike had purpose!

良いお年を

[toratora]

It was suppose to rain today. I figured it would be a good chance to do a few things I've been wanting to get to for some time. You may have noticed in many of the photos of the Silver bike that the right hand mirror is much lower than the left mirror. This isn't some weird ass technique that I've developed! The bike had spent a significant amount of time laying on its right side. This bent the mirror support, and the plastic. A ten mm socket will remove the nut fastening the mirror. There's also a #3 Philips screw holding on the blinkers. This is all that supports the front cowl. So I removed the mirrors, and loosened up the blinker screws. This allowed me to gain access to the mirror mount. I then bent the right side back. Although it may need to be bent back a bit more. The plastics are still misshapen from being in the sun under pressure. Greg tells me that if I apply some heat the plastic should return to its original shape.

I also noticed that the shifter was bent in a bit so I brought it back into alignment, and lowered it one notch to making shifting a bit easier. Then I got out the e9 Motul polish, and did a quick once over to get some wax on the bike before the rains. The report predicts rain all week. I was able to get many of the marks out of the windscreen. Hopefully the large black mark will eventually come out too.

[toratora]

Okay, not really.

Some time ago I was having a really difficult time getting my then current GPR running. It was just way too cold. I was told all sorts of crazy things by people that didn't know what they were talking about, and really felt like I was chasing my tail. On of the tail chasing events was oil. I discovered that Castro made special Snow Mobile oil for running in cold environments—kind o like where all snow mobiles run. No one in the Bay Area would order the stuff so I had to go direct, and I had to order a case of it. I never did end up using it! Why? Things warmed up and my problems were solved.

But I still have all this oil, and it's really cold now so why not try it? In to the Silver bike it goes! It's high quality stuff, meets all the certifications required by Derbi for injector engines. I really don't expect it to make any difference, but I have this oil so I might as well use it. Of course just as I was pouring it into the bike it started raining again. If I didn't have so much to do I would suit up and go for a ride.