Just a teaser...of DirtQuake USA stuff....

The man in the British Policeman's hat above...is Anthony of Cobuilt...they build really nice motorcycles in England. You can follow them at cobuilt_anthony and cobuilt_geoff on Instagram. They also race flattrack in the UK in the DTRA series.


One of the reasons I haven't got around to posting more DQUSA pics, is my on-going turmoil... of the aftermath...of my smashed ex-Toyota...in other words, been burning up vacation days to get some wheels under me....at least the temps have dropped since I started this post last week...gonna top out at 87 degrees today...nice!  So, last week it was:

Sheeeeesh! It's 101 degrees in the shade at four in the afternoon here at the not ready to go back to work, works....it topped out at 103 a bit after this...and now at seven it's just a paltry 87 degrees. Been wanting to get the whole DirtQuakeUSA posts done...but the still not resolved issue of coming up with some transportation to work thing....keeps rearing it's ugly head...

To make things more interesting...in a moment of weakness I bought an old car...a !970 Karmann Ghia (see Dave...I spelled it right this time...)

They always look better at night....

First things first, a proper motorcycle oriented sticker to add to the collection of stickers it came with...

Since I started this post I've replaced the leaky "doughnuts" and other gaskets on the exhaust system, adjusted valves and timing, found some interesting "bodges" that would make John Muir of the "Complete Idiots guide to VW Maintenance" fame happy. He'd refer to fixes such as these as "Muldooning" it...in honor of a friend famous for coming up with fixes that would get you down the road till later...This Hershey's can fix  that the previous owner Jack came up with will stay....this is where the "fresh air" tube slips over...works quite well !

So, a few quick pics from DQUSA:

Here's "Casey", (I met him the night before as he and his friends came spilling out of the mosh pit of the Canadian band "Vicious Cycles")....I think he's cleaned some of the blood and mud off...for this portrait being taken by Michael Lichter...

Modern Triumph engine in a self-brewed nickel-plated,brazed (or bronze-welded) chromoly frame. He's currently building another one, you can follow him at Instagram as "Frankenstrange".

He used to race a Triumph Cub based speedway bike...with the transmission cut off. 

And yes, they raced "Choppers"...one even had a side car...Ladies and Gentlemen....I give you "Medievalean" !!

 Honda 750 Chopper with an Equalean sidecar mounted in a fixed positioning.

"Crewchief" aka my traveling companion Rick looks like he's not quite sure what to make of all of this...

You can imagine my relief to meet such a normal American couple.....

We'll be back with more pics from DQUSA....stay tuned....

Dirt Quake US 2014

Back in Sacramento..."Freeway Lagged"...still on a DirtQuake US high...decided to take off the rest of the week and catch up with life back home. So, a little blogpost....as I digest the events of the past week. To sum it up in a few word's ...it was a blast! Even though I didn't race my bike (more about that later).it was a good road trip. My partner in this adventure was Rick Willis, recently retired Plumber/welder in the school district maintenance department I'm still currently employed in. I dubbed him "crewchief" for the weekend.

Rick...in the blue shirt, with swiss army knife connected to a lanyard so as to always be handy....and another Rick. Rick Burchett, is a local racer we met at the local "four corners" food, gas and ammo stop.

We left Sacramento with a barely running Honda SL 100....that still had a laundry list of jobs to do... After telling us how to get to the race track....Castlerock....he drove down and fetched us back to his house where he kindly loaned us space, tools, a compressed air line. Here the two Ricks are setting up an on/off switch for the ignition

Between moments assisting us, he was taking his bike out on his front yard 'track' and testing out his gearing. Here he's just got off the phone with Sammy Halbert the GNC racer asking for advice on gearing for the track at Castlerock. He and Sammy's father are old friends. This is the bike he raced in Saturdays pro races.

Rick is looking for a grinding wheel to put on my battery operated grinder so as to shorten the new drive chain. The old one was as stiff as a stiff thing... and would have made a good club...

An out of sequence shot...but you can see how this bike had acquired a lovely patina sitting around in various back yards before I acquired it. It had last run in '92...

So the three of us got the hard as a rock Dunlop K70 removed to be replaced with a fresh trials tire. The front tire looked ok and even held air....so decided to leave it alone and not replace the tube. Since I had got it running, really didn't have a chance to ride it much . The tank still had some rust flakes in it, so added an in line fuel filter. The clutch would not disengage properly (the plates were stuck together)....so hoping it would loosen up with some use....proceeded to tear up some grass on our new friend's front yard....with his permission....he had already established a line with his real race bike. Tried bumping the front wheel against a tree and revving it up....it tried to climb the tree! Tried it again with the front brake locked up....it dug a trench in his yard....so after a few more laps around his 'track' which seemed to loosen up the rings....it was barely smoking now... the new oil probably helped too....we thanked our new friend and loaded up to go look for a motel, since camping wasn't supposed to start till Saturday at the track. 

Another bike Rick is getting together...

So ...next time...more on the adventures of two Californian's...looking for Castlerock Washington...

Dirt Quake US 2014.............

Also known as DQUSA.  If you go to instagram and type in the hashtag #dqusa , there are a lot of pics posted....some with further links to blogs and picture sharing sites. It's going to take me a bit of time to get this post organized...as we just got back to Sacramento a short while ago....but coming soon.