Bonnie Black Right
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.
For those of you who asked, here’s an update on the old Honda CL-350.
As for the Bonnie, you can keep tabs on my relationship with the new bike by watching my “bonnieblack” tag on Flickr.
Archive for the 'Motorcycles' CategoryPage 3 of 6
As of this Thursday, I will be the very proud owner of one gorgeous 2006 Triumph Bonneville Black.
This is, with the exception of some crazy chopper I’ll never have, my dream bike. I mean, if it’s good enough for Steve McQueen, right?
I can’t wait to ride it (first around the neighborhood, then to the coffee shop, then to work, and so on…). I also look forward to tricking it out with some of these sweetass accessories from Triumph’s new sixty8 line.
Mad props to Erik for convincing Matthew at Foothills BMW/Triumph (with whom I could talk for days!) to shave a few dollars off the deal (I suck at negotiating…) and for being general moral support. And for getting me started on riding bikes in the first place!
Last night, Erik and I changed the front tire. Went on easy-peasy.
In the mean while, we’ve taken to calling the bike “Rocket Man” because the Elton John song keeps coming on Erik’s radio while we work on it. Erik is convinced the gas tank need sa pin-up girl on it. Of course we find all of this hilariously ironic, since the CL is A) no rocket and B) not a pin-up worthy chopper.
Good stuff if you ask me. Like a guy on a Vespa with a Hell’s Angels jacket.
——
Side Note: Happy Veterans’ Day. Always keep the men and women of the armed service in your heart.
Yesterday evening, instead of handing out candy to children, I went over to Erik’s so we could try to change the rear tire. I had ordered some riduculously cheap (but reportedly perfectly acceptable, quality-wise) Chinese tires, which arrived early last week. Between then and now we’ve had far more pressing things to do after work and over the weekend, so this is our firt time to give it a shot.
I’d be lying if I said we weren’t a little worried. We had replaced the tube in the old front tire back when we first got started, and it was an unholy mess. Worst part about the whole ordeal was the slow leak went ended up with.
So this time we were working with fresh rubber instead of 30-year-old crusty tires. We had also been tipped to use some soapy water or something to lube the bead a bit and help it get over the rim. That worked like a treat, let me tell you!
So now we’ve got a new patch of rubber on the rear. The front is next.
No, not ours… We’re far too busy wrenching and consuming beers (”Thirsty work, that motorcycle.”) to keep a running diary of the things we’ve done.
But luckily someone in Minnesota managed to do just that when he rebuilt a 1972 Honda CL350 K4 (that’s one year newer than ours).
It’s a fun read. I love that they named theirs “Pup-Pup” — It’s a fitting name.
Last week ended with some work related news that I won’t discuss here. Let’s just say that things are in flux and the future seems murky at the moment. But then, certainty equals boredom, right? 
Saturday was a good day. In the afternoon I headed over to Erik’s to “poke a Honda” (say it out loud for the full effect) — the CL350 was transferred back to Erik’s garage when we went to Los Angeles so that he could continue to poke while I was off gallivanting in the land of swimming pools and movie stars, this explains why there have been no recent photos, as I consistently forget to take my camera when I go over there. We twiddled about for a while: getting the foot pegs fully mounted; test fitting the replacement side covers; wrestling with, cursing at, and ultimately drilling out a broken-off left-hand mirror bolt (looks like we might need to tap that now… fun.).
After that, we took out Erik’s Honda XL250 (probably one of the world’s most forgiving bikes) and found a big construction site with lots of flat, soft dirt. He let me bang around there for a couple hours, I’d guess. I was very comfortable on the bike even though I had my “first dump”: I was riding around a ring that went over a dirt spine just to get the feel of how the bike can handle verticality, etc. when I finally decided I was done I thought I’d be super cool and drive onto the spine rather than over it. Needless to say it didn’t work very well and I ended up grabbing the front brake instead of the clutch and just plopped right over. The ground was soft and I (mostly) got my leg out of the way — no damage was done.
Sunday was spent working around the house: I mowed the lawn, cooked some chicken pesto cavatappi, downloaded some Veronica Mars torrents (Note to The Wife: This means you can watch VM on the computer! — VM is “the new Buffy” according to my darling spouse, and yes, I enjoy it, too.), and generally farted around. Good times.
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