two-strokes, so simple, only three moving parts, crank, rod and piston but a total black art, two strokes can hurt you big time, like sitting on a hand grenade but, when they are running right, yeah baby........

nnnoise + smell = violence x 2.

bbbrrrrrinnngahhhh, brinnggghaaaaah, brinnggggaaaaaaahhhhh, briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnghaaaaa, bbbbbbbbbrrrriiiiiinggggggaaaaaahhhha, brinnnnnnnnnnggghhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,

got the frame on the workmate and gave it a good gunking to get rid of nine years worth of grease, out with the trusty hacksaw and first to bite the dust are the rear frame rails, they were already shortened back to fit the seat unit but i never got around to finishing them off properly, chopped off the rail back to the top shock mounting and then hit it with the grinder and flap wheel to finish it off, still needs some work with some wet and dry, next to go was the silencer mounting on the bottom frame rail, don't need it because of the high level supertrapps so might as well lose some weight here too, what really struck me as i was working on the frame was the quality of the welds compared to earlier sporties, loads of weld splatter, nowhere as good as the earlier models i've worked on, weight is a major concern if you are going for performance and standard sporties weigh a ton, anywhere you can lose weight you should, the component parts need lightening as much as possible, no wonder the triumph's ran rings round the overweight harleys back in the day, i'm on a mission to see how much i can get off this thing.....

i have a vision in my old swede about how the sporty project will look and one thing for sure is that i'm not running the 1 inch bars and shit lego switch gear that the motor factory fit to their bikes, i have a set of aluminium 'renthal' bars, [bolt on brace chucked in bin, it's not a fucking bandit], this lets me have my pick of japper seven-eighth's clutch perch's and front brake master cylinder's from the local breaker's, i love bike breakers almost as much as scrapyards, rooting about amongst the damaged, cast off detritus of once loved motorcycles, the breaker i use is a treasure chest of parts, crammed three floor's high and a yard full of bikes in various states of decay, i get a real buzz searching through the wreckers, crashed, burnt out, stolen recovered and neglected machinery, i try and take in all the details of trick parts when i occasionally visit dealers showrooms but get distracted by the shiny newness of the bikes, breakers are different, the bikes are raw and rough, exposed to the elements and parts ready to be picked from them like a magpie after shiny things, today i was a magpie, searching amongst the dead leaves and the dirty ground, i scored a yamaha thundercat clutch perch and lever and a kawasaki master cylinder with lever and reservoir for twenty quid a throw, ripped off the reservoir and chucked it in my parts stash, get a brembo mini reservoir off rob at racing lines for a fiver, break out the nitromors and wire brush and a couple of hours work and i should have a nice set of controls.

'get your freak on, get your freak on, get your freak on, how low', [missy elliot]

friday night, in the shed, oh dear, rust never sleep's, frame is rougher than i thought, reckon i can rescue the swingarm spindle with some careful dressing with wet and dry, torque nut's are a bastard to remove from yokes, [get a sharp centre punch and tap while turning a t40 bit, don't try and just turn them out on your own, you will round them off and then you're in the shit], get a mate to help], shed look's like a bomb's hit it and i smell of gunk. i love friday's.

another couple of hours work and the bike is down to it's component part's, almost nine years of abuse, riding through winter and numerous rally's soon becomes apparent, only a couple of difficult things to disassemble and the engine is standing on the bench ready for a good clean, the aluminium swarf was a bit of a worry at first until i realised that it was generated from the racer project , offcut's flying off the the miller and sticking in the grime.

it's that time of year again, clock's gone back, bonfire night gone and christmas on the horizon, time to get cracking in the shed then, what a strange year, ducati's gone, sr500's gone, the mz racer's done and we actually got it out on the track, that's it then, the sportster is hanging around at the back of the shed looking like a fat kid on sportsday, two hours later and it's down to this......

jessica is a very naughty girl, i've just discovered that she's hacked my blog so there was only one thing to do, i tied her behind the sportster and dragged her around frank's muddy field for twenty minutes, not so photogenic now are you princess!