tour de hood

Well lucky for me I caught a break with the rain. Rained all morning while I was at work and when I got off at about 3, turned into beautiful day. So decided to get tire and throttle done and when I'm off I can reseal my tank while I'm putting buddys mountain bike back together. Pipe is a bit of adjustment. Mounted the braket to reat brake stay for support and the nut that connects the header pipe to the expansion chamber refuses to stay tight. Pipe gets stoopid hot so I'm not sure if locktite will work on it.

I'm not crazy about the twist grip throttle and will be looking to replace it soon with a metal version that I won't have to worry about ripping the cable out of. Its a no go on useing my factory grips too. I found that I don't have a screwdriver long enough to reach the phillips head screw inside the grip to take it off the plastic tube >.< Oh well will probably get new grips when get new hd throttle and change out the housing to something a little more sturdy.

Tire is as expected fits nice and looks skinny lol. I am missing my fat 2.125 inch tire but oh well - at least they match now lol.

Anyways ... Pictures \m/

A little off topic of my build but...
Saw a post from another member saying they were getting out of motorized bicycle riding to go to a more socially accepted hobby. Such a shame dudes catching so much negativity where he's at with this hobby. I guess I'm super lucky where I live as my bike generates a lot of positive attention. I have spent what I would call ridiculous money on my "bicycle" but in my mind it has all been worth it. I'm finally getting to a point where there will be nothing to do but ride my beast \m/ >.< \m/ I am really enjoying this hobby and all the frustration/happiness/blood/sweat/tears I have endured to get where I'm at now. I hope I never get to the point of wanting to just give up motorized bicycle riding.

So my wife decided to ride my bike while I was at work today.... This story doesn't have a super happy ending. I have encouraged her to ride my bike and wish she would take more of an interest in it. So she decides to go on her first ride when no one is around and not only that but being inexperienced she decided to go on a pretty lengthy ride for her first time out. She's not at all used to a bent springer front end and the in ability to turn sharp. Props to here as she almost made it home. About a block or two from the house a dog ran out in front of her and she panicked and wrecked. Lucky she wasn't going any faster than she was. She was also NOT wearing a helmet. She's scraped up pretty bad all on the left side of her body including her face. Bike isn't to terribly trashed out and is deff fixable although I have yet to look at the bike for close inspection. IM fairly unconcerned about my bike at this moment as we are sitting in the ER waiting to see how bad the damage really is. -THESE BIKES ARE NOT TOYS- and need to be treated with respect. In experienced riders need to take it easy or injuries will occur.

Thanks dave - she's gonna make it looooool. She's accually probably gonna be more mad tomorrow as only damage is severe case of road rash. No boken bones no brain injury. Stooooopid lucky in my mind as she didn't put my helmet on. I also have yet to see the damage to my bike and its dark now and hope to atleast leave the ER before 9 as I still have to work tomorrow and haven't been to get my kids yet (which are about an hour away) - gotta say I'm super mad but not that My bikes wrecked. More pissed I spent the day at ER over something sooooooooo stupid. Just glad wifes not hurt

Damage report is in on my ride....
Guess it doesn't count as a low rider any more. Forks are bent and unrideable so I swapped them out for the original factory forks till I can scrape together enough skrilla to order some new ones. Mirror is also trash but I'm not as upset about that because I hated the way it looked. I do have to say that I liked being able to see behind me but couldn't stand the way it stuck out. I may try out a bar end mirror and see how I like that. Ill be swapping out MY mountain bike drag bars tomorrow for the ones with the 5in rise that I had on my cranny.
Got my new hd throttle in from sick bike parts and I'm digging it. Still a little sloppy but nothing like the cheap plastic throttle that comes in the kit. Still waiting on grips to get in. Should be in sometime later this week. Bad news on new sprocked I ordered, bikeberry sent me e-mail telling me they don't have them in stock and I can either wait till they do or they will refund my money. Don't know what I'm going do just yet....

Sooooo.... It just keeps getting better and better. Piston ring blew out and motor siezed. So I put another topend on it and omg bike was so sluggish before and now the power is ridiculous. A friend in a car clocked me at 37Mph with My 40t sprocket wide open and completly wound out.
No fear about breaking in new topend as its a used topend and piston and jug were Matched set. Runs great and I can't wait for 36t sprocket to get here so I can see howfast I can cruise coMfortably.
New grips came today and look great and took all sloppiness out of my throttle. When I get fork fixed ill be posting more pictures \m/

Well I guess when it rains, it freakin pours. Engine blew rings 2 More times. I am out of jugs, pistons and rings. I think when it killed the first set I should have just swapped engines and saved myself some trouble. I had a spare engine I was saving for another project and I used that one to replace the dead one. This engine is from rose on ebay. I'm unsure of why I'm having such trouble from my engines. This will be the fourth engine I've had in less than a year. I think I Might be pushing it too hard...

Anyway I'm back on the street with new Motor and will be breaking it in super slow and hopefully getting new forks sometime in the near future.

New forks are in the mail \m/ should be about a week or so before they get in. Also started new project with a buddy on another cruiser that we will be doing a "lowrider" type build. Stalled out on another buddys mountain bike as friendship has been terminated with that guy. I hope that the other buddy building his bike will work out better. I'm stoked about the new build we doing. We went to bike shop and dredged up a "bare bones" cruiser frame with rear coaster brake wheel, springer seat, mini ape hanger bars, and front rim with no tire that was rusted to shhhhhhh. Took it homE for cheap and stripped it down to frame and cranks and gave it the black spraycan treatmEnt. MOcked up rolling bike with trashed front fork from my wreck, just to see how it will sit. I think it looks sweet so far. Got my buddy to sign up here on the forum so hopefully he will start a thread about it soon.

New forks are in and installed \m/ super stoked \m/ also picked up new stem. Got the bmx 4 bolt style to replace the single bolt cruiser stem that came factory. Been having a problem with my bars wiggling a bit and it was making me uncomfortable at speed. Since I've gotten all the new parts installed my bike is comming out amazing.
I've entered my bike in the texas showdown car/truck show in the specialty class. Show is june 1st - 2nd at sam houston raceway in houston TX. I'm hoping to at the very least place as ill probably be the only motorized bicycle entered in the show. That being said it isn't the motorized bicycle class its the specialty class which means ill be up against all kinds of custom motorized contraptions and it will be anyones game. I don't really have a game plan on any kind of display other than just my bike. Will probably have my helmet by the bike or something.
On another note - got my buddys cruiser done this evening. Was a bit of a pain to get her road worthy but we finally got it down just before it got dark. Didn't get to get much riding in but we plan on running the roads tomorrow afternoon. The weather should be amazing and we need to get those break in miles under our belts as both our engines are fresh. Special thanks to thatsdax for getting us our powerplants. Had to lose the nt carb that came in buddys kit. Wasn't huge deal as I had a spare rt carb I gave to my buddy. Nt carb had air leak and just would not let the engine run. After swapping the carbs out the bike fired up and would idle great. Along with the kit from dax my buddy got the pirate adapter and I had a spare 41t sprocket I gave him so he didn't have to deal with the rag joint set up. Still took us all day to get it going. Had to swap cranks out cause we intend to install bent springer fork on his bike and pedals scraped when we mocked it up with my trashed forks. Also installed new bearings in the bottom bracket and had to heat up one of the arms to clear the engine.
Been a super long day and tomorrow we will reap the rewards \m/ weathers gonna be super nice and we both off. Will be out in north houston riding most of the afternoon if anyone else in the area would like to join us \m/

Just got in from a great day of riding. Buddys bike is running great. Worked out a couple more bugs. Put a self tapping screw in each of his tank brackets to keep his tank from spinning side to side. Works great. Used nail polish instead of locktite to size up anything that looked like it could possibly vibrate loose. Gave my bike the same treatment.

Then we rode the crap out our bikes all afternoon. Put in a good 60 miles riding around in town. It definitely drew attention being there was 2 of us. Everywhere we went people wanted to know where to get one of these bikes. Was great amount of fun just spend the afternoon cruising around locally.

Had another adventure after my buddy rode out to his house. I went for a short ride up to the park around the corner from my house. Parking lot was full of cars and as I past by the last of them and was turning around to go back out of the parking lot, two cops were sitting behind one of the buildings watching the parking lot and spotted me. They were standing outside and motioned over to them. I didn't panic and rode happily over to them and killed the engine. They started to give me the third degree and when I confidently answered all their questions they backed off and we started to bs about my bike. I told them my bike was 49cc or 50cc engine and its top speed was 30mph. Is a total lie but they didn't have a clue that it was an 67cc. They even asked me if they were to build one would they be required to have a motorcycle license. Bwahahahahahaha it totally blew my mind that they didn't know what the law about these things was. And even more so that they thought I would. I mean I do but I didn't think I would know way more than they did. Then they took pictures and joked with me about pulling me over and I bounced.

All in all its been a great day \m/ >.< \m/

Spent the morning riding around town enjoying the fruits of my labor. Bike is running better than ever. Haven't had any major catastrophies in a week or two which for me is wonderfull. Stopped by the auto parts store and picked up some of that plastic electrical conduit to clean up the wiring and cables a little to prepare for the upcomming car show. Got that finished up and decided to tackle the auto choke issue I've been having with my rt carb since I've installed the new throttle.

I took the cable off the carb to inspect it as I have been dealing with my bike idleing super high and not being able to idle it down. At first I was thinking the cable end was hanging up and keeping the slide from going all the way down. Upon inspection I found this not to be the problem. The auto choke won't release either. No matter how hard cable is pulled auto choke refuses to let go. So while I was on the carb end I removed the choke spring and clipped the arm that releases it. I added a spacer where the spring used to be and reinstalled the choke so that I can manually open and close it without it sticking. I also painted the choke black to add a smidge of detail that no one but me will probably notice. Since the carb end of the cable looked good I moved to the throttle end, disassembling the throttle and removing the cable. I was suprised to see the end of the cable frayed so that was only 1 strand holding the end of the cable on. I contacted sick bike parts to see about buying a replacement cable and was suprised to hear that they are sending me a replacement no charge. Gotta love a company that not only answered my email but is also standing behind their products. And when I say answered my email I mean within an hour of me sending out the original email. I'm totally clueless about why the cable end frayed like it has as the throttle I have is supposed to keep that from happening. Jim at sbp says they have sold hundreds and haven had 1 do what mine has. He suggested I look to see if the throttle has any sharp edges where the cable connects to the throttle. To get me by I have used a cable for the "kit" throttle that I modified to work for me. After installing the new modified cable I made a little test run to see how my modified cable would work. Cable works great. Fixed the idle issue and idle is adjustable once again. When new cable gets here ill keep that one for a spare incase this happens again.

Spent the rest of the daylight wasting gas in the neighborhood. All in all be a productive day as far as my bike goes \m/ >.< \m/ I hope to get a little time durring the week after I get off work. Deffinately gonna be getting some miles in with my buddy this weekend. Won't be long before are engines are broken in.

So I have officially registered my el super beasto tour de hood motorized bicycle fo the Texas Showdown car/truck/motorcycle show on June 1st-2nd here in houston at sam houston raceway. Super stoked \m/ means I have a ton of work to do to make it "show ready."

Ordered new mirrors to replace the one I think is ugly and got a motorcycle bar bag to house a battery and switch for headlight setup. Also got a little paint to touch up a few spots. Then there's lots of chrome to shine up and clean up a little surface rust. Gonna be a chore.

Mirrors are great but had their share of challenges. I removed the old hang out mirror and chucked it in the "spare parts" box. Then removed the grips and dissasembled the endcaps. Next I took the biggest cylinder and used it as a template to cut out the rubber from the grip ends big enough for the mirrors to be inserted into my bar ends. An allen head screw tightens the clamp so mirror is secure. This is where I had an issue. The clamps were spinning inside the bars an not getting tight. I had to take some pliers with coarse teeth jaws and score the clamp and the expandable cylinders so they would grab and tightened. Problem solved. Mirrors are secure and I think they look great. Makes my bars look super wide but mirrors don't vibrate near as much as my other mirror did. Got the mirrors for $16 bucks on ebay shipped.

Next is the headlight. I bought the headlight originally to run off the white wire and has been a bust. Light totally killed the spark an bike wouldn't run. So I set it to the side till I could find another way. Then I found a motorcycle tool bar bag at walmart for $20. Its the perfect size for holding and hiding a battery and switch. So I broke out wire and heat shrink and wired a toggle switch from a 6v lantern battery to the headlight. Wiring is simple hot from the battery is direct to the light. Neg side of battery runs to the switch and then to the light. I am using alligator clips as battery clamps. Heat shrinked it all to keep it nice and clean looking. Withe the tool bag installed I marked switch placement and drilled a hole for the switch and another small hole in the bottom of the bag. I ran the wires to the through the hole in the bottom of the bag to the light and wired that end. Next I installed the switch through the other hole in the back of the bag. Last I installed the battery and hooked up the alligator clips and presto \m/ light works and looks great.

Ill be doing the touch up stuff over next few days as well as getting my rear wheel trued up. Ill be posting pictures of my progress later \m/

So I went by parts store to scope out lighting at my local parts store since they have a decent selection. I immediatly realized they would have nothing with 6v lighting and this would be a problem if I wanted to get parts locally. So I have decided to switch everything to 12v to make things simple for future upgrades. So I have purchased the smallest 12v battery. Its almost the same size as the 6v lantern battery I am currently using so I can still contain everything inside the tool bag on the front. Since voltage is changing I won't be able to use the headlight I'm using now either. Not a huge deal in my mind b/c while I like the look of my headlight, it is totally useless as a headlight. Ill be looking to get something bigger and brighter as well as add tail/brake and possibly turn signals.

Here's pictures of where I'm at currently

So its been forever since I've posted any updates lol -
First off texas showdown was amazing \m/ took second place and got beat out for first by a party bus lol. I wasn't even competition for that bus. Deff need more motorized bicycle entries to be able to compete in our own specific class. Still super stoked to have even placed at such a massive show. And I got a sweet plaque and a free t-shirt. Deff worth the 35bucks to enter plus was a blast just to be at the show. \m/ >.< \m/

Since the show I've noticed the bag holding the battery is failing. The crown from the springer front end is rubbing a hole in the backside of the bag. Not sure what imma do to fix it just yet.

Next is the kenda whitewall I got for the back wheel. Seems the tire is splitting where whitewall meets blackwall. A little dissapointed in how long this tire has lasted. Tread looks fine but dangerous to ride on it as it is. So lookin like imma be getting new tire again shortly

Will post more updates as I have them \m/