First day of Spring...

A lot of detritus floating around....( Spot the duck... )

This post started a week or more ago... with an attempt to load a video...which failed. Just wanted to abandon the whole idea and delete the post...which left the idea that there was a post...posted, when there wasn't...so here we are again. So, near as I can figure the video taken on my "Temporary" phone...is  in a format unknown to blogger...

Here's a picture of the Sacramento river climbing up it's banks....under that water is a path leading to a rocky beach...well, there was...now it is under water... at least the ducks are happy.

Coming up, this weekend..the Clubman's Show at the Santa Clara fairgrounds...as well as European and Japanese bikes in another building at the same fairgrounds...so, if you come back there may be some decent pics of bikes...( probably no videos...).

Winter's back...

With a vengeance it seems....a pic from work the other day, between storms. The good thing is that we desperately need the water in California, and a lot of this is moving past and falling as snow in the Sierras.

It's made for some nice Sunsets in the neighborhood, when the sun is shining. Oak Park, my part of Sacramento. Once upon a time this was farm land...so it goes.

Been spending a lot of time at E Bay...buying 450 Honda parts, Sportster stuff, and lots of Honda SL 100 stuff...to be continued....

Running like a sewing machine...

...because, it is a sewing machine...haven't done much motorcycle related other than buying parts at a swap meet and from E-bay. This is bike related as it's a heavy duty Singer machine of my mothers that will be sewing up seat covers for some of my projects.

Had to do a clutch repair...the original cork plate had gotten old and brittle and the glue holding it to the metal disc had perished as well. I cut a new cork disc from cork gasket material purchased at an auto parts store. The hardest part of the job was dropping the fairly heavy electric motor loose from it's mountings. After consulting with the Busch brothers of Busch and Busch Hand Crafted, (on Instagram ) as to the best glue to use...decided to go with the old tried and tested "Barge" cement. Lance and Danny Busch are out of Reno Nevada...you can check their blog link out here at this blog and or look them up on Instagram. They are multi talented guys that have tried their hand at many things....and build cars and bikes...and also do  alloy welding and casting, as well as leather work and machining and a bunch of other cool stuff.  I'll post a screen shot of an iron head Sportster they built. 

The new cork glued in place...

My Mum testing out the new clutch surface....success!!

A screen shot from the Busch Brothers Instagram...

NorCal swap meet...

Some quick shots from the swapmeet yesterday...

A crusty little Harley Davidson 125

An old J.C. Higgins bicycle

Modern version of a Whizzer

Two views of a very old Harley Davidson Sidecar

In the parking lot...a Knucklehead in a modified flathead frame.

A long bike...

A 124 cubic inch custom Trike

Rear view of the trike...

A Denco Kawasaki 750 with Cobra stickers...90plus BHP

Visitor parking..

My haul for the day..a bag with stainless steel exhaust valves for 650 Triumph, center stand for a unit Triumph, air cleaners for Triumph...and a pair of do it yourself stainless megaphone cones from Low-Brow....not a bad little haul...

Went out to the local swap meet with a few friends...Denis Senior and Junior, and Michael. Denis Sr. found a rare S and S racing carb for his Shovelhead project. Denis Jr. found some early K model fork parts and some off road Ceriani fork parts he needed for a project. Mike got a good ride out on his XR 1200. Ran into a bunch of old friends....nice mellow Sunday outing.

I ran into Tom, the fellow who sold me a Triumph Cub a few years back. seems he has sold on most of his stuff, he feels he is still capable of going fast, but as he puts it he's married to a "speed bump" ...(sleeping policeman). She says he can ride trials still...so now he's out looking for parts to build a pre-65 trials Cub. I'm going to build the same thing from the cub he sold me. He'll probably be beating me at that game soon.

Next up... next month, is the Clubmans show and swap at the Santa Clara fairgrounds...San Jose way.

loud and obnoxious...

Life is at times,....too much...too funny...too annoying...less than amusing...mind blowing...and sometimes enlightening...

I wanted to post a video of this bike with it's incredible sounding pipes, but alas....it's not to be...so a static pic instead...this time...

sometimes the coffee shops and other public places are filled with boorish types with not much to say, and loud and obnoxious voices, to fill the air, with what a friend and myself always referred to as "cafeteria hubbub" in our early attempts at attending colleges...

This XR 1200 that belongs to a friend....is loud but not obnoxious...to me...Vance and Hines pipes...sounds like a big flattrack bike....

Did get around to adding "Broken Motorcycle" check the blog link thingy...my friend Denis' site...he has some interesting videos and pics... and a calendar of "Californish" events.

Tomorrow is the local NorCal swap meet at a drive in theater in nearby Rancho Cordova..will probably post some pics from that...so, check out his site...there will be some changes coming.

Montrose-Bad Motor Scooter

hit the button Pete, and see if this posted....

Electric youth and the future Conan...

Sitting around a Mickey D's after work, having finished an 8 hour work day due to a holiday that fell on Monday (Martin Luther King)...my regular weekday off- when I work four tens.... an extra 2 hours to kill before I head home...cuppa joe to try and stay awake, till I hit the hay. Friday, and heading to my mother's to do some repairs, and maybe escape the rain predicted for Sacramento this weekend. Not sure where this post is headed, or if it will ever get posted...do that sometimes...

Suddenly got quiet in here, the after school kids are hoofing it home during a lull in the weather...won't miss the seemingly pointless conversations (to my old ears at least...sorry, feeling a bit curmudgeonly lately)...the kids all have cel-phones, and use them well...as one kid heads out the door, another yells out, "I'll send you the address later..." Non-Luddites they are"...

School computer....1968-70 ish....

When I was in High School I somehow ended up in a math class that was far more advanced then I was able to handle...I think someone got my transcripts mixed up with someone else... Mr. Peterson would work for weeks preparing a fairly simple math problem to enter into the schools computer....which looked something like this pic I found on the web....like clockwork....it would crash....and Peterson would say...."Oh well...maybe next week",  as far as I know he was never able to get that thing to complete a program. By the time I started college...computers were even larger, and run by punched out cards...that mothers and grandmothers fashioned lovely gold spray painted wreaths....and after a brief fling as an engineering student....

Fast forward a few years....I'm on a $200.00 notebook computer that would have blown minds in the 60's, and most kids these  days... would consider it a toy...I imagine....My father passed away in '95...he had a third hand IBM PC....I believe it was...the one before the 286's... it had some basic programs on it that he used to type up things he needed for the sailing class he was teaching at the Naval Post Graduate school in Monterey. How did a career Air Force photographer end up teaching a sailing class...some might ask...? Well...it's Eddie Albert's fault...yeah that Eddie Albert...the one who starred with Eva Gabor in the TV show "Green Acres".

Eddie before "Green Acres"

My father joined the Sea Scouts in the Long Beach area. The local Sea Scouts had Eddie Albert's yacht at their disposal when he wasn't using it. The troop would sail down to Mexico and back. (couldn't find a picture of his yacht...but did find this smaller craft with him at sea...)

But darling....so, you're really German?

Tender moment from Green Acres...

Random shot of a Honda 350 powered High Heel...a bike Ms. Gabor might approve of...

As it turns out Mr. Albert is a very interesting individual...worth a Wikipedia read. He was 'black listed' in Hollywood, and after heroic service in the US Navy during World War Two...he was able to resume a career in Hollywood.

Link to Wikipedia article-------------->https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Albert

How many people do you know can say that they worked as a clown and high wire artist traveling through Mexico, while simultaneously working for Army Intelligence ?

We will be back with our regular programming...

Cleaning shop, and cleaning blog...

With the new year in, comes my resolutions...time to spend more time with and riding bikes...and time to shake out the old blog and do some cleaning here. Will start with the blog links here. I'm going to add some, and delete some. Been noticing that Facebook and Instagram have been sucking the life out of some blogs...which I see as a sad thing...I have accounts at those places too, but am going to keep blogging. I suppose it's the ease with which those places are for "ínstantly" posting whatever....but I still enjoy checking out the blogs....where it seems I see more interesting and thoughtful writings than at those other spots...so, be that as it may one of the first I'm adding is "Brokenmotorcycle.com" . I met Denis at a gas station a few years back when he was gassing up an old green Suzuki 50.

I snapped this pic of him...

We got into a quick conversation about bikes...he was talking about Moto Meeto, a local group of guys that meet up a few times a month...I thought he was referring to the Moto Melee, a once a year Northern California ride...that I have tried and failed to participate in a few times. Next time I saw him was when he drove by on an old BSA...so I followed him to where he was living at the time, and got to have another quick bike discussion. Since then I see him and his pops, another motorcycle loving individual, and several others we all know on a semi regular basis at one of the local Starbucks caffeine stations. Great group of guys...wide variety of motorcycle interests. Denis runs a car shop and earns a living with that. His bike shop is for him and his bikes, and is pretty impressive. Check out his site, and his Instagram (brokenmotorcycle) for a look at some local California motorcycle stuff.

If this is what I think it is, it's a short video of Denis on his three speed Trail Bronc BSA Bantam D-18.

BSA Trailbronc D-18

Tank detail...a rare stateside model...I've only seen two...and just happen to know both owners.

Sooooo...consider this a WARNING! WARNING!  Inactive blogs are at risk of deletion!!! Well, at least from my link thingy over there...                                                                                             

Hmmmmm not sure what happened there...not even sure if I could duplicate it again.... 

Most of you are safe...might have to contact a few of you first....I'm not that mean...Good day!