normal person

normal person, a track on the new arcade fire album, been listening to this all week in the shed, after work, i'm cleaning the bonneville, i find it's the best way to get to know about a new bike, i can concentrate on the small parts and shady areas as i work my way methodically around the machine, i take in the details subconsciously, making mental notes, 'that's ugly' 'that's heavy' that's redundant' 'that can go' 'that can stay' i carefully remove the big rubber 'triumph' knee-pads from the tank and polish it back to something like, better already, after my initial impression of the bike i just wanted to chop the shit out of it, the 'inckley, as a standard bike is heavy, cluttered and just too 'busy' with considered thoughts? i'm going to step back, i'm thinking more street-sleeper, more the bike triumph would have built if they were not constrained by legislation, a machine free from emission control, noise limits and petty european and stateside 'law' am i going soft? yeah i suppose i am when i think of a lot of the no-compromise bikes i've built, from jap-four pot a.m.a superbike racers, trick katanas, bmw cafe racers, honda 500 single chops, the 'salt-fighter' four-speed sporty rigid framed chop, the sporty flat-tracker, the suzuki savage 650 cut-down, the honda 'fat-track' 750 sohc, the rd 250 and 400 two-strokes, the little mz 250 race bike, [so, so gorgeous], the bmw 650 boxer race bike and all my mistakes that i've brushed under the carpet, ahem, yeah, i've gone soft then, so, kill me, the triumph excites me, it's a blank canvas, it's going to get a lot of subtle touches, my ideas for rearset's are already in the can, all the aftermarket ones look clumsy and just too big, i dig out a pair of harley flatrack bars from my stash and offer them up, they are not a lot different from the oem bars, except they are stainless underneath the black, flaking powdercoating finish and they just look so right compared with the standard bars, the rise and pullback is ever so slightly different but just so right in my jaundiced old eye, so, with some subtle machining i can make component parts that look like they are 'factory' items, cleaning and fettling the bike reveals a whole load of other areas that need attention, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, smoke and mirrors i guess, stuff that won't cost a load of hard-earned, just some machining, making stuff and attention to detail, oh yeah, 'normal person'? what sort of 'normal person' takes pictures of their new bike wearing a devil mask? [i put it on to wind up the dog's asleep on 'their' chair in the shed by the way] like they say, the devil is in the detail's.........