Odd Combo

Nathan, Zac, Shawna and I went on a short trip last week.

Shakey shake troubles pay no mind.

Red is tighter than blue any day.

Sittin' pretty.

Steamed Prawns With Beer

This is a very easy dish to cook; all you need to do is drink half of your beer and use the other half of the bottle to soak the prawns for about three to five minutes. But the amount of beer depends on how many prawns you are going to cook as the prawns must be just covered by beer.

Anyway, after three to five minutes soaking, put the pan on the heat and start cooking. Cooking time depends on the amount but normally, as a guide, for half a kilogram of prawns, it takes about 15 minutes. The prawns should come to the boil and then simmer for the remaining time on a lower heat.

Afterwards, you should have nice firm sweet prawn with a fainst hint of the beer. Dip in a simple paste of salt, pepper, lime amd chili.
Again, this recipe is from my good friend - Ly, who owns the very popular 86 Seafood Restaurant in Tran Phu St in Nha Trang.

SS50 rear sets sneak preview

Yesterday I did a lot of work on my new rear sets for the SS50, they're almost done now. Here is a picture of one of the brackets that will hold the CB72 footpegs.

The splined surface that the pegs will mount to is actually a BMW /6 passenger peg mount. After this ofcourse came some modelling with the grinder, rounding the edges and so on. the brackets have since been primed, painted and mounted. A pair of old CB72 pegs have been bent back into shape, blasted and painted. Might have them zinc plated some day, but for now I want to ride. Rebuilt the brakecable to fit these pegs, made a bracket for the brakelightswitch and built a custom shifter-rod. Shifter pedal will need a replacement some day as it was totaly mangled, but for now I can get into gear. Today I hope to finish everything and take it for a testride.

Testride

For a long time I have been wondering what to do with my SS50 motorcycle, I planned on putting a long racetank on it, with a short bum-stop seat, but I wondered what that would ride like in combination with my rearsets and clip-on bars. Thus I quickly made some brackets to fit a cheap seat to my SS50, looks odd with the big space between the seat and tank, but it was just for testing. The tank that should go on there would fill the gap.

however, this rode like sh!t, I'm constantly resting on my arms..... My plans needed to be changed, so I tried some things when back in the workshop; normal handlebars...don't like the look, but then I would get a rideable bike. Normal footrests, too high, too far forward, but almost rideable. Conclusion: To build my bike with long tank and short seat, I need footpegs somewhere around the swingarm pivot. So I started building, to be continued.

Amalfi Coast - Pompeii

It's hard to believe that it's 18 months since I was in Italy. Time flies but the memories last. After a couple of days in Bari after our trip from Greece, we journeyed across to Naples and then a little further south to Salerno, where we based ourselves for a few days to explore the Amalfi coast and Pompeii. We hired a car to do our exploring, even though this seemed like a mistake when we realised that the Italians seem to park a lot by touch rather than sight!

Anyway, we set off and stopped at a small town not far from Salerno for our standard Italian breakfast of espresso and pastry for breakfast. My shopping habit started at that first stop! I bought some tea towels and magnets for souvenirs and we headed further along the Amalfi Coast. Even though the road was quite narrow and scary in parts, we had to stop quite a few times to admire the spectacular scenery and take photos. We reached Positano, a gorgeous town built into the mountains falling into the sea. Before we walked down to the beach, we had our picnic lunch in a little park on the side of the road; a lunch bought from the deli in Salerno consisting of cheeses, tuna, olives, some lovely salami and a couple of plump tomatoes. We ate like this a lot in Italy and Greece.

Finally, we walked down the 850 steps to the beach, which even though it was nearing the end of the season, was full of activity. We saw some artists selling their paintings of scenes of the local area, a few now framed on my walls in Hanoi. The restaurants were doing good business too as it was such a beautiful day - we popped into one for a local beer and the complimentary dish of green olives.

We also saw Italian guys playing beach tennis which I think I should import to the beach in my home town - Nha Trang. After a relaxing hour or two, we had to climb up those 850 steps! As the day was getting on, we decided that it was too late to continue along the coast to Sorrento, which was a pity because I remember that place from the famous song 'Back to Sorrento'. On the way back to Salerno, we stopped in at Amalfi township for dinner and to take some photos of one of the most beautiful, old Duomos, the Cathedral of St. Andrew. In that early evening light with all the bells ringing, I really had to pinch myself to make sure it was me in Italy at such an incredible place. We walked up and down the old cobbled streets for a wander; to try and buy the locally produced limoncello and some lemon soap as well. That lemon soap was so nice and I've just this last week finished the final bar. Anyhow, we had dinner in a small restaurant that served some very nice pasta and seafood dishes.

The next day we drove inland to see the famous ruins at Pompeii, spending a good few hours there. In general, we thought the Italians don't seem to maintain their archeological sites as well as the Greeks but Pompeii is such an incredible place because of the size of it and the reminder of the power of nature. While it is not quite as large, this place reminded me of Knossos, Iraklio in Crete - another ruin we visited on our trip to Greece in 2008.

After quite a tiring day walking around the ruins, we returned to Salerno and went to bed...but not before I had another ice cream at the ice cream shop next to the hotel, which I reckon serves the best ice cream in town. Absolutely loved it!!!!

Next destination on that trip was Rome
To be continued

First day outside

The Beemer is almost ready now.
My dad fitted the fairing with custom mounts for the headlight, clocks, winkers and so on.


Winkers look a bit odd, but that is the way they used to do it, and I wanted to keep the typically BMW alloy blinkers.

Deep oilpan, made for old /5 or /6 centerstand, no reproduction, the real old thing.

Tomorrow: fluids, fork oil, engine oil, gearbox oil, driveshaft oil, connect the battery, mount the sidecovers, check tyre pressure.
And then it will be time for a testride.
Hope the weather will be okay.

Marion County swap 2012

Mostly harley shmarley.

Had some gems for all though.

Switches, signs, tools, an old guy with stories of hopping trains and stealing fire extinguishers.

Bert and his boys, Grant, Gunnar, Ben, and the normal indy see-everywhere's.

Even saw Ichiro who got a nice deal on a springer set up.

Z and I went and I dropped and grabbed my Insight from the glass repair shop.

Can't miss it......

Saw this on the way out.

69 305 Honda Dream.

Rusted in all the wrong places.

After market front junk and hard saddlebags.

Says he rides it all the time (with a license plate from 1979...right....)

Could be yours today for 2500.

Truing stand please.

I would like to true some rims please.

No cheap crap though.

Contact me.

Break in for why?

   Ghettotax man:    

    Good morning, sir.  

    Your window is shattered.

  Hutch with the save on the door taping while I was at work  

   
 Ghettotax man continues:

    But don't worry, I didn't steal anything.

    It was just for kicks.

Me:    

          Okay, okay....i understand.  

          We should be all settled up right?  

          My ghetto taxes are all paid up for a while right?

Ghettotax man:

    Yes, yes they are.  

    Between this and your catalytic converter from your Toyota last month, 

    you should be all paid up for   a few years........