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A little of our snow melted
Mar. 9th, 2015 09:45 amIt was sunny with temperatures in the 40s here yesterday. Some of our snow has melted. We took the Ural to breakfast, and it was so nice we went on to Meijers, and took the long way home. It was the first test of the new brooklands-type sidecar windshield. It's tiny but it worked well, and it has a fun steam-punky look. We were supposed to come home and work on taxes, but instead we went back out. Steve rode his daughter's bike back to her house and I followed on the Ural to bring him back. I was glad of my Aerostich when we encountered enormous puddles and an oncoming car gave me a shower. I'd have been soaked to the skin but the 'stich kept it out. But dayum that suit is stiff. Until it breaks in, it's going to be a project getting in and out of it.
His daughter's bike spent the winter here getting worked on. Last fall it developed a problem where it would often stall on downshift. This turns out to be a common complaint for CBR250Rs. Seems to be a fuel mapping issue. We installed an aftermarket gadget to adjust the fuel mapping, called a Juice Box. We turned up the fuel in the low range and this seems to have solved the problem. Yesterday was the longest test ride yet and it worked well. So it went back to her. While we had it apart for the Juice Box we had also installed a Flash2Pass transmitter, and yesterday we installed the receiver in her garage. Maybe this will be a garage door opener she can't lose.
Saturday we went to Don Taylor's auction. Don is a local motorcycle hoarder who is in hospice. After 50 years of buying this stuff and stacking it up in his pole barn, he flipped the switch from "buy" to "sell" and it all went on the block. It was quite a pile. They had two of the large barns at the fairground. About 50 bikes / partial bikes. About half of them, the description included something like "Ran when parked in 1983" and I don't think a single one of them could have been ridden home by the buyer. Don bit off more than he could ever chew. The walls were covered with posters and signs and memorabilia. There were hundreds of boxes of misc parts. Shelves of motorcycle wheels with rotting tires, about a hundred mufflers from who knows what machines, etc etc etc. Also, about a hundred gallons of marbles, including some that were worth thousands of dollars; he was a hardcore marble collector. The most valuable car was a sparkling antique Bentley but there were eight or ten other cars too, including a 1949 short school bus, a 1980s Jaguar convertible with electrical problems, and a 1960s Daimler saloon with a good body, shredded interior, and a rebuilt engine that had no oil pressure.
There were hundreds of people there and they came prepared to spend. There was a truck in the parking lot that was already full of MV Augustas and Ducatis with NY plates (not from this auction), like someone was just wandering the country buying valuable machines. The Vincent went for $45K. The Indian Four went for $55K even though it was completely disassembled all the way down to the pistons. A bunch of lesser bikes went for three, five, ten thousand bucks. The posters and memorabilia were going off for a couple hundred bucks per item, and some of the old signs went for a couple thousand each. A box of motorcycle mirrors went for $1400; it seems that more than one bidder had spotted a bunch of NOS Lucas electrical bits and pieces in the bottom of the box. The crowd was interested in motorcycles and had brought plenty of money. Cars were less interesting to them. The Bentley only brought $23K, the short bus went for $4500. We didn't buy anything but it was quite a show.
His daughter's bike spent the winter here getting worked on. Last fall it developed a problem where it would often stall on downshift. This turns out to be a common complaint for CBR250Rs. Seems to be a fuel mapping issue. We installed an aftermarket gadget to adjust the fuel mapping, called a Juice Box. We turned up the fuel in the low range and this seems to have solved the problem. Yesterday was the longest test ride yet and it worked well. So it went back to her. While we had it apart for the Juice Box we had also installed a Flash2Pass transmitter, and yesterday we installed the receiver in her garage. Maybe this will be a garage door opener she can't lose.
Saturday we went to Don Taylor's auction. Don is a local motorcycle hoarder who is in hospice. After 50 years of buying this stuff and stacking it up in his pole barn, he flipped the switch from "buy" to "sell" and it all went on the block. It was quite a pile. They had two of the large barns at the fairground. About 50 bikes / partial bikes. About half of them, the description included something like "Ran when parked in 1983" and I don't think a single one of them could have been ridden home by the buyer. Don bit off more than he could ever chew. The walls were covered with posters and signs and memorabilia. There were hundreds of boxes of misc parts. Shelves of motorcycle wheels with rotting tires, about a hundred mufflers from who knows what machines, etc etc etc. Also, about a hundred gallons of marbles, including some that were worth thousands of dollars; he was a hardcore marble collector. The most valuable car was a sparkling antique Bentley but there were eight or ten other cars too, including a 1949 short school bus, a 1980s Jaguar convertible with electrical problems, and a 1960s Daimler saloon with a good body, shredded interior, and a rebuilt engine that had no oil pressure.
There were hundreds of people there and they came prepared to spend. There was a truck in the parking lot that was already full of MV Augustas and Ducatis with NY plates (not from this auction), like someone was just wandering the country buying valuable machines. The Vincent went for $45K. The Indian Four went for $55K even though it was completely disassembled all the way down to the pistons. A bunch of lesser bikes went for three, five, ten thousand bucks. The posters and memorabilia were going off for a couple hundred bucks per item, and some of the old signs went for a couple thousand each. A box of motorcycle mirrors went for $1400; it seems that more than one bidder had spotted a bunch of NOS Lucas electrical bits and pieces in the bottom of the box. The crowd was interested in motorcycles and had brought plenty of money. Cars were less interesting to them. The Bentley only brought $23K, the short bus went for $4500. We didn't buy anything but it was quite a show.
