Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Counting down the days...

30 days from now I leave on a one-way ticket to Boston to start a cross country motorcycle ride from Boston back to California. This is something I have wanted to do since I was a kid. Racing down the streets of Mattapan in the summer heat, no shirt amongst a gang of kids to the local "icey" lady to pay 25 cents for a Styrofoam cup of frozen koolaide - 2 wheels were my first ticket to independence and freedom.

Let's start off by being very clear, for the naysayers "I'm not judging success by completion - simply by participation."

If I leave Boston in late September and break down shortly in Rhode Island - I'm totally fine with strapping the rig to a pallet bound for Cali on a train and hitchhike myself the remainder of the way. The real goal, if one could dare to be stated is to:
1. see a few places in the United States that I have somehow managed to avoid/miss (so I can in good conscience travel more abroad)
2. see some old faces and meet some new ones
3. actually take a vacation and do something entirely selfish for once ;)

But before that, first things first: Take care of some paperwork with the bike. See some faces I haven't seen as of late and stuff myself with as much of my mothers home cooked Haitian meals as humanly possible before I am reduced to sardines, avocados, nuts and berries.

Now of course this wouldn't be much of a motorcycle ride without a motorcycle. Its a 1971 Honda CB750 which came to me by the way of my buddy Chris. He and I have an ongoing banter about success and failure rates of our lil projects, professional life and ability to consume alcohol that any dysfunctional relationship among men who respect each other is quite common in New England. He caught the cafe racer bug from me while I was tinkering with an old Kawasaki I had chopped into a cafe/brat sort of thing. His vision for the Honda was the ever iconic Wrenchmonkees #11 Gorilla Punch. If you are unfamiliar, here's a pic:



Shortly after acquiring the bike he moved on to a Porsche project and my garage eagerly awaited. When he had it, the previous owner had the Tracy body kit on it pictured below:



He sold the kit on ebay, I think for the equivalent of one Porsche dealership oil change, which left me in need of a gas tank and rear fender. At the time I was living on my sailboat and I basically just got her ride-able and tooled around Boston with aspiration of doing a build, a used rear fender and a borrowed leaky gas tank. It looked like this:


Fast forward a year and half later and I've moved to California and been managing this build remotely with monthly visits to my friends at Madhouse Motors in Cambridge. If you want a detailed breakdown on the build with lots of pictures, log into and visit: http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=35922.0

Most of it is all there. There were certainly concessions along the way, but overall...my palms are itching!




Back in May I was in Boston for the test ride to make sure all systems were a GO. Check out the video above! After addressing a few punch list items and adding an oil cooler, I think now is as good as a time as any. Hoping for an Indian summer and beating the Autumn rains...but if not, so what. This is what she looks like complete and ready:



Both my parents turned 70 this year and I turned 40 this past June. I told my dad about this trip several months ago and the conversation kinda went like this:

me: Hey pop, I'm gonna ride that old bike from Boston to California when its done.
him: Huh?...Noooo. Why? Can't you ship it?
me: Yea, I know. But you know I've always wanted to to do this.
him: Have you told your mother yet?
me: Nope...
together: (laughter ensues)
him: (long pause...serious now) Can you send me pictures along the way of everywhere you stop?
me: I certainly can!

My conversation with my mother was much shorter... she affectionately refers to motorcycles as "car food", its what cars EAT. She basically gave me the Haitian mother "ugh" - which translates into disgust, not for my idea mind you, but more her acknowledgement of her inability to do or say anything to stop me. lol

I grew up around vehicles and my Dad always tinkering on em. He owned a few cabs in Boston when we were coming up. I clearly remember learning to do drum brakes and other routine maintenance tasks with my older brother on large body Plymouths when we were kids. My father looking over our shoulders, shirt off, dripping sweat onto my brothers sketches of the parts to help remember how it all went together and my Dad & his pal Raul muttering instructions through a mouth full of one of my mothers amazing dishes. In addition to that I've had my share of bloody knuckles and added to my mechanical repertoire, from old bikes like this, boats, to Datsun 240z's or anything else. Part of it is a love for mechanics and the other part is my Haitian inability to pay someone to do something I can do myself. Hopefully I won't have to wrench much on this trip - but it shall be what it will. My friend Joe got me a copy of Robert Pirsigs book, "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" for my birthday in June when he heard of my trip. A great read as well as its lesser known sequel based on a sailboat, "Lila - An Inquiry Into Morals" and you don't need to know or care anything about motorcycles or sailboats to appreciate either piece. Its more about this life, the rhetoric of man and our determination to aspire for more - and that's a gross understatement that I am greatly embarrassed to make about such a wonderful book. Just read it. That's all I can say here. It had little to do with my decision for this trek but it certainly was reaffirming. And so, the count down begins...

Oh yea, in answer to your question, the answer is YES you can buy me a beer and gas along the way. The below is my route... :)