During my life I have never given personal names to my cars or my extensive collection of motorcycles, generally referring to them by their manufacturer's name (the SAAB, the Enfield). However, this current small Honda bike, which could well be the last I own, just seems to be crying out to be christened "Elsie" (see number plate)
November sees me tucking up my motorcycles for bed until early March, when the frosts and snow have disappeared, also the salt strewn roads - anathema to chrome and general finish. (I continue to ride during this period, but in the comparative warmth of my plastic bodied (thus corrosion free) scooter.
So this down time can be used for service and maintenance. Elsie is in very good condition, but her tyres needed refreshing and with a motorcycle this means removing the wheels. I used to change my own tyres, but prefer, these days, to take the wheels to a local tyre factor. Whilst the wheels were out it was a good opportunity to inspect the chain and rear and front sprockets for wear. Elsie has trotted along now for 20,000 miles (made in 1992) and she wears her original set. They seemed in good nick, but I had bought in replacements in case, so it was a chance to put the drive into original condition.
Next job was to fit a top box. Since 1974 I had used such, attaching it to each new bike, but when I sold my last Royal Enfield it went with it. The Craven company has been revived and a replica is now available. Standard boxes come in black or white but for an extra thirty quid they will attempt to match your bike if you send them a paint sample. A girl likes to be colour co-ordinated so this I did for Elsie.
The difficulty was that she is becoming a "classic", in very original condition and only has a vestigal rear rack, which I wanted to preserve, so thought was needed.
Luckily I had in the odds and ends box a larger rear rack without any fittings, but how to fit this using Elsie's existing rack was an interesting problem. First I needed to locate it so that measurements could be taken. So a hole was drilled through it and the existing rack and a bolt put through
Having worked out measurements I then constructed the brackets
Since I wanted to interfere a little as possible with the original rack these were located by a "sandwich" method using large robust washers and bolts
Finally I augmented the small locating bolt I had first fitted with a couple of stainless steel hose clips tightened well down.
Job done!
Fiddling around with motorcycles is almost as much fun as riding them!
