something cranky this way comes...

Irony

2005-01-24T13:34:00.000-08:00

Irony is very popular these days, and it has been for a little while now. Most people don't know the history of it so i thought I would record it for posterity.

Irony was invented before color, when the world existed in black and white. This was a period of time when the world was a safer place and not even smoking was bad for you. WWII was over, the Germans had been defeated, and the French were still socially acceptable because soap had yet to be invented. Television existed however, and there was a smoking guy named Rod Serling who had a tv show called The Twilight Zone. Rod would stand there smoking his cigarette, and with furrowed brow would say something ironic, which would then be played-out by actors in a vignette about 30 minutes long, including commercial breaks.

The public ate this stuff up. Irony became popular, which made the uderground sci-fi show a big hit, which is ironic for an underground sci-fi show. Life now imitated art, or in this case irony. Serling, not too sure what to do, realized that this suddenly gave the world color. No longer did things exist merely in black and white (and all the shades of grey in between) , but now things went non-linear, into the world of color! This was so shocking to everyone, and was to prove such a shock to Rod Serling that it would ultimately prove fatel to him.

Now that color had been invented by irony, the Twilight Zone was shot in color. This would be for only three episodes, however. Since Irony invented color, Black Lung could now be seen in lung x-rays (It was black or grey on a pinkish-red background). Color also directly invented or inspired pink-eye, gangreen, the Blues, paisley, and oranges, among other things. So Rod Serling, (who invented Irony, which invented color, which created a forum for Black Lung...) was killed by lung cancer. If he had kept his irony to himself, the cigarettes would've never become dangerous.

The only way to avoid the dangers invented by color is by being colorblind.

Just as the man who invented the electric chair committed suicide by his own invention, Rod Serling fell victim to his own invention. As James Earl Jones would say, "Oh, the irony!!"

Al, the great lover of Anglobikes, has his say.

2004-12-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

something cranky this way comes...

I posted my piece on the wonderful afternoon spent with Al, and how smugly aware I am of the great superiority of Italian machinery over all others, especially machines from a boggy little island off the coast of Euorope Proper. I reveled in my vast wisdom, and was content to just be all wise and stuff until the following peice showed up in my inbox at gmail.

Al, it would seem, has decided to refresh my memory on certain events that have transpired between myself and a certain Moto Guzzi LeMans. I have to admit, his account is factual, except when I rebuilt it the second time, in my kitchen I started at 10 pm and figured I would pull an all-nighter since I have bad insomnia. It's true: People of genius don't sleep well. Even though Al has a very valid point, please remember, it IS a Moto Guzzi, and it IS blood red in the way only Italians can paint something. Those, in my mind, excuse all transgressions commited by the bike in question.

Oh, and about the Ducati sidestand...it IS true that once got off the bike and uh, um, forgot to put the sidestand down.

From here on out, I give you Al:

Yes, it’s true that I have English motorcycles, and
yes, I’ve crashed my Daytona. Twice. Guilty as
charged. However, Jared left a few important
details out of his story:

First, Jared’s last real sportbike suffered fairing
damage on two separate occasions. The difference
between my accidents and his were that my bike was
actually MOVING when the accidents happened. If you
don’t want this to happen to you, scroll down to
“Ducati Kickstand Operating Instructions”.

Second, the event described in Jared’s account of this
past Sunday is the only time my beloved Norton has
left me high and dry, unable to get home, making it
dead even with with his Moto-Guzzi. The difference
here is that while both bikes suffered drivetrain
failures, mine is a primary chain that I’ve managed to
source for $75.00 and will spend a leisurely two or
three hours installing. Jared’s Guzzi, on the other
hand, suffered a failed universal joint (leave it to
the Italians to build unreliability in to a virtually
maintenance-free drivetrain) that EXPLODED inside of
its housing, peeling away several millimeters of
metal. This is what’s known as “Italian Machine Work”.
Coupled with the fact that you can’t remove anything
but the mirrors from a Moto-Guzzi without dropping the
engine, and you’ve got a long weekend of wacky fun in
the garage repairing the problem.

Jared also conveniently left out the tale of the
Moto-Guzzi clutch cable perch. On this bike, the
engine end of the clutch cable was held in place by an
ear cast onto the side of the transmission housing.
Unfortunately, these castings were made by Italian
factory workers, or as they’re more commonly known,
“Drunken Socialists”. Closely examined, these castings
are so porous that they resemble aluminum styrofoam
(Hey! What do I-a-care? My job, she’s-a-guarantee
for-a-life!).

So, of course, this stupid part breaks off, and what
does that mean? Everyone, in unison - drop the engine!
Then remove and totally disassemble the tranny, catch
a ride with a friend who has an English bike and a
pickup, and take the offending part to guy who can
heliarc the broken bit back on. Two weeks later, get
another ride back to the welder, pick up the part, and
begin reassembly. At this point, if you’re Jared, it’s
four in the afternoon, and you have comitted to be
somewhere far away THE NEXT DAY. So then you’re
looking at working on this two-wheeled curse until
three in the morning (there isn’t the time or space to
deal with this issue here).

So there you are, struggling through insanely specific
torque settings, and heat-shrink fits, and all the
other hooey that goes with one of these projects, and
finally, in the wee hours of the morning, you sit
victorious astride your masterpiece. Then, what
happens when you pull in the clutch? SNAP! The cable
perch breaks off again! In your sleepless delerium
your motorcycle’s voice speaks to you: “It
don’t-a-matta how hard-a-you work on-a-me, I’m
still-a-gonna be a piece of-a-shit.” It’s no accident
that the assorted bits of Jared’s former Guzzi are
making other people miserable now.

To this day, motorcycle magazines regularly run
articles extolling the virtues of Commandos. Granted,
there’s the usual grumbling about Lucas and the like,
but on the whole, the chatter is generally positive.
Conversely, I’ve only ever seen a LeMans like Jared’s
in a magazine once. It was a used bike buyer’s guide,
and it had a big, red, banner over it that said “Don’t
buy this one”.

Ever wonder why the classic Italian film was called
“The BICYCLE Thief”? It’s because every Italian knows
that if you want to have any hope at all of reaching
the nearest brothel, you don’t dare swipe an Italian
motorcycle. Italian bicycles, by the way, are
important to the history of engineering. They’re hard
proof that Italians built vehicles with fewer than
50,000 parts.

I love my Norton. If I ever get rid of it, it’ll be to
get one that’s even older. If you like Italian bikes,
fine for you, but to my eye, they don’t look as good,
and they feel like sawhorses when you sit on them. And
if your dream in life is to own a machine made by an
Axis power, get a Yamaha or a BMW.

DUCATI KICKSTAND OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Locate the kickstand. It looks like a little stick
coming out of the side of the motorcycle. If you can’t
find it, have someone of Anglo-Saxon heritage point it
out to you.

2. Standing on the SAME SIDE with the kickstand,
support the motorcycle firmly by the handlebars, and
push the kickstand DOWN and FORWARD with your toe.
This means standing briefly on one foot, but you can
do it. We believe in you.

3. Lean the motorcycle TOWARD you. Leaning it the
other way could cause fairing damage (ask Jared).

4. When the motorcycle stops leaning, it is safe to
let go of the handlebars. IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO LET
GO OF THE HANDLEBARS BEFORE THIS POINT. Doing so could
cause fairing damage (ask Jared).

5. You have successfully operated a Ducati kickstand.
Celebrate by taking an Italian shower.

DUCATI KICKSTAND TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE

Problem: Motorcycle falls over

Causes: Stand is not down, or motorcycle was leaned
the wrong way.

Solution: Have your girlfriend help you pick it up and
try again.

NOTICE: If, after studying this guide and applying its
principles, you are still unable to operate your
Ducati kickstand, sell the bike on eBay, and buy the
Honda that Al told you to get in the first place.

__________________________________

Norton collecting on Dec 5, 2004

2004-12-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

something cranky this way comes...

I got a call from a friend of mine around 12:30 today. This friend, whom I will call Al (because that's his real name) has three serious issues: a 1973 Norton Commando, a 1971 Triumph Tiger, and a 1997 Triumph Daytona. The Daytona wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for the fact that it has a lot of expensive bodywork that Al insists on machining off by throwing the thing down the road every few months. I recommended discus throwing to him once, but he said that the little discs don't spark as nicely when they land...

Anyway, Al calls me saying he needs a favor, followed by some embarassed laughter. Knowing that the Norton is the only bike running and in less than 27 pieces, I figured he broke down somewhere and needed me to come get him. Sure enough, that was the story. He needed me to go to his house, get the keys to his truck, go to his garage, get a ramp, and go up 23 until I saw him and affliction number one.

Al owns a truck. Another friend who has an old Brit bike has a truck as well. ALL old britbike owners have a truck.

There is a reason for this.

One can ride an old Britbike for about a year on a single tank of gas. You might be impressed by this, but there is more to the story - the bikes rarely run for long enough to burn much gas. Hence the truck, which gets awful milage, costs a bundle to insure, and gets stolen. No one steals old Britbikes.

There is a reason for that.

A full tank of gas at $2 a gallon, will cost about $8. The cost of getting through a tank of gas on one of these beautiful feats of (non)engineering ranges anywhere from $250 to $3,217 in a given year.

After having this bike off the road for a couple of years at least (for longer than I have known him, anyway), after refurbishing the head twice and having it on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off the engine, he got it running a couple of weeks ago. Al is unlucky, by the way. Most Britbikes get a tank a year, but his tank leaks from every possible fissure on one of the petcocks. No need to call the EPA however, because the gas drips directly onto the hot engine, thereby evaporating immediately and leaving no puddles on the ground for the rat-tailed squirrels to drink, get poisoned by, and die.

Due to this, Al had run out of gas this morning, but filled the tank up after having pushed the bike to a gas station.
Rule Number One: A full tank on a Britbike means that you WILL have to take that tank off the bike to fix something.
Al lasted for about 10 miles before the Notrun, er, Norton, broke.

Al talks about the unreliabilty of Italian bikes, but I have only been stranded by the roadside once by one, and although this was in the middle of Nodamnwhere, Va, it still counts as only once ; )

Needless to say, anyone who owns an old Norton and Triumph (the difference between the two? According to Al, Nortons are as misconfigured as the old Triumphs, but x 1.5) obviously believes in living life the hard way, and the lock to his garage is no exception. I NEED to get into his garage in order to get the ramp to get the Notrun (er, Norton) into the back of his extremely reliable Japanese truck. His wife tries. I try. She tries again. I try again. We call Al, who is still waiting by the side of the road with a cell phone that is almost dead due to a lack of charging (much like a Britbike with a Lucas electrical system). Al says we have to jiggle the key, much like we had been doing for the previous 15 minutes. We try some more, but it ain't happenin.'

Screw it, I get the ramp from Manayunk Triumph (where it's only used to load new bikes onto trucks for the most part - the New Triumphs work!) and finally I'm off to get Al.

There he is, standing next to this beautiful Norton 750 Commando with upswept reverse-megaphone mufflers, drop bars, and drum brakes that, from my experience, serve only to fool state motorcycle inspectors into thinking that this thing might actually stop if the rider pulls in the lever on the right and stomps on the pedal on the left. In reality, this will never, ever happen in a million, billion years. Ever.

To stop a Norton, find a tree or a car and aim for it. Works every time. In my experience, cars are softer to hit because the sheet metal bends a fair bit to help absorb the impact. I demolished a Toyota Corolla or Camry or Whatever with a BMW R100/7 once, and the bike and I were fine afterwards. Old BMW's have awful brakes too. But not as bad as the Norton.

In reality, since Nortons rarely run, they don't need to stop. Unless you and Al have just loaded it into the back of the truck, which is on a slight incline (oh, about 1%) and you are holding the pretty (useless) aluminum brake lever and he is strapping the bike down, which Al has down to a science. Yep, I'm squeezing the gracefully shaped brake lever with all my might and the damn thing is trying to roll back out of the truck, down the ramp, and into traffic, where it could possibly damage some perfectly functional car...

The bike is strapped in, the loading ramp goes in with it, and we're heading back to Philly. Al recounts what happened:
"Well, it had been making a strange noise for a little while, which I didn't think much of...

WAIT - before you think to criticize him on ignoring the noise, let me interject here by saying that ALL old Britbikes make strange noises. That, along with oil everywhere, is how one knows that they are in fact working. The noises sometimes stay, sometimes go away, or are sometimes replaced altogether by other noises, which are often accompanied by blue smoke and/or explosions.

Al again:
..and there WERE times when the kickstart pedal would lock up when I stood on it, but I figured, well, it's British, so whatever. Then as I was coming up the road here, it started making a horrible racket, so I pulled over and looked in the primary chain cover, where I saw the chain slapping around, and then it went BANK!!! ClackClackClack!!! and I realized the primary chain had went."

Nortons had a seperate engine and transmission, much like the Harley big twins. I don't know why Harley does it that way, but I figured Norton probably wanted to to seperate one disaster from another, just so that when one complety blew up, youy at least had the consolation that the other worked. This is how Norton kept stringing owners along with false hopes until the firm went bust in 1978.

Al again:
"The good side to this is that when I thought the bottom-end of the engine was toast, I bought all the special tools needed to remove the Primary sprockets from the engine and gearbox."

Cost of tools: A small mint
Cost of primary chain: $110
Cost of running a Norton through one tank of gas (not including the leak): $32,472, not including the cost of the bike itself.

Moral of the story: Be good to your friends who ride Hondas or Ducatis - they will be the ones who can come get you!