Re: So-Cal 'Los Angeles' MB ride this Saturday 11/10/12
I would just like to report that I had a super fun time at this event last Saturday. I met up with the group at the Federal Building and met some really cool new people I have never seen before. It was great to see so many people turn out and so many iterations of the motorized bike.
Unfortunately, as we were leaving the meet-up spot to head on over to Venice, I hit a fairly big dip coming out of the parking lot at speed and my home-made leaf spring fork bottomed out on my fender sending me up in the air and wrestling my handlebars, bull-dog style to the ground in an effort to not completely get launched over the handlebars. I was not hurt, but my bike suffered a little damage.
CCC and his son waited for me, and asked if I was ok. I told them to ride ahead, because I had some work to do on the bike to get it rideable. I tightened down some bolts on my forks to make the spring travel less. I re-adjusted my front wheel so it wouldn't rub on the fender, and I got going. Not much later, my rear belt twisted on itself and I had to adjust my jackshaft to re-align the rear belt. I finally got it going pretty good and made it to Santa Monica, but then my engine kept backfiring and my throttle started sticking because I lost one bolt on my exhaust flange, causing my throttle cable to catch on the exhaust. I got this worked out and finally made it to Venice.
However, everyone was already gone. I got there around 1pm, only an hour or so late, but I guess people didn't hang out too long. I had lunch and a couple of beers at the pier and headed out around 3:00pm.
Anyway, I didn't get to ride with the pack, but I was very proud that I was able to service my bike on the side of the road multiple times and finally make it home around 4:00.
Thanks Norm for sponsoring these rides. I hope to sponsor one myself possibly with Turkman in the near future where we start near Griffith Park and ride downtown or somewhere on this side of town.
Ride Safe,
Gilbert
