Out In The Garage

 So,I've been busy these last couple weeks .I've focused on this sweet little 250 cc Yamaha two stroke that I built years ago.I made it nice but never really completed it.Just parked it and forgot about it. Four or five years ago I brought it home from my storage garage and went thru the motor.Fixed all the small issues that needed attention then it sat in my shop.One day I was doing something with a friends bike and it got knocked over into another bike and the battery side cover got damaged.Took it out of my shop and stuck it in the shed with some other project bikes where it sat until another friend showed interest in buying it.This is what it looked like four or five years ago after I went thru the motor

See,she's a nice motorcycle that I just got sidetracked with.Things always came up and this project got put aside .What I discovered when I let it sit was two stroke oil leaking.At this point I realized I needed to really go thru the motor and sort it all out. This was the point where I decided to take the bike all apart and really make it nice.So,I pulled the motor,replaced the 2 stroke oil injector pump and decided to go thru the rest of the motor.Gave it new pistons ,rings , pin bearings, crank seals ,took the clutch all apart and checked everything for wear and so on.

You see in the one photo all the oil that was leaking past the check valves in the injector pump and filling the crank case .This was the cause of the two stroke oil leak problem. I replaced the oil pump and set it all up to factory settings ,the basic problem was now fixed. Then before I could put gas in the tank after the whole bike was sorted the accident in the shop that damaged the side cover happened.She got parked and put aside again but closer to being finished.

So not it's 2021 and my friend who saw the bike years ago and fell in love with it tells me he wants to buy it.This motivated me to finally finish this motorcycle.I needed to have the paint matched. I went to the body shop supply house and brought a sample part so they could scan it and get a perfect match to the paint I shot this bike with 25 years earlier ! They did it and now I had the material I needed to finish this job.Here is the replacement side cover all painted 

I shot this with my HVLP turbine system .I really like doing this kind of painting work. After seeing I had some left over paint I took a good look at the other paint work and decided to repaint the headlight bucket and the headlight ears(mounts) I decided to keep the old ones as they are and paint other parts in case there is a problem .So I dug out the parts from inventory I have and did all the needed body work.Got them in primer the other day and today I shot them in white.The orange goes over the white just as I shot the original job so it all ends up the same color .The under coats can affect the final color so I wasn't going to take any chances and skip a step.So,today they are white and hopefully tomorrow they will be orange

I few more steps and I'm ready to fire up this bike after 25 years of letting it languish in my garages never seeing the light of day except for those brief times she was out in my work space.I'm psyched,can't wait to fire her up and run her up the street.

The First Frost

 So,I got up this morning to see we had a hard frost out in the farm field behind my house. Looks like winter is on it's way . Been out riding lots and also working in the garage preping a bike for a pending sale.This one is hard for me to let go of but I finally have come to terms with that.I built it as a replica of the bike I bought way back in 1972 after I returned from some travels that I began a year earlier by selling off my 1965 YDS3 .I still have this bike ! It has been thru so many changes and finally a restoration in the early 90's when it was made like new with all factory paint work and chrome.It turned from a beater that I used to chain to the fence at the beach to a show bike overnight . Thing is it is now green not orange.I was able to find new body work for it at various dealerships in different parts of the country and restore it to it's former glory. The bike went from this :

To this :

So after I finished restoring the bike I crossed the country on as a 20 year old  I decided to build a replica of my original DS6C in orange. This was in the mid 90's.I built it ,never even tried to start it ,just rolled it down the street to a garage I was renting and stored it. I didn't even look at it until 2013 when I brought it home and went thru the whole bike. Then it sat again .One day I was helping a friend do some work on an old Yamaha motor and he saw it and fell in love. Now here we are years later in 2021 and he's wanting to buy it so I'm at it again.I just finished sorting out the whole motorcycle and am ready to fire it up for the very first time .I'm Finally getting down to building bikes to sell off to fund the down payment on a house out in Arizona where I can hide from winter and first frosts ! Here it is this morning :

I took this as I was lighting the kerosene heater to warm up my shop so I can work.  The frost was kinda nice so I took a couple pictures of the farm 

And while walking around looking at all the frosted corn stalks I took this photo of the shed I started building this time last year for my neighbor Donna.It was a fun project that ran thru the winter into the spring. Finally got it painted over the summer after she finally was able to choose a color she liked. This is it today all finished and in use: 

 and this is it last November around Thanksgiving :

It was lots of fun building this shed.I'm enjoying being somewhat retired .I'll never stop working ,that is a mistake that way too many people make . You gotta keep active is what I keep telling myself . So here I am doing the things I love to do keeping active.The next project bike is going to be a purple and white 1970 Yamaha R5 350 cc 2 stroke twin. They are bringing good money these days .I have two years until my wife can retire so I have two years to build bikes and sell off the excess or take it into the scrap yard.It's finally time to get down to business and head west ,or north depending what the housing market does. So now it's time to head out to the garage and continue with this project.With any luck it won't have any leaks when I put fuel in the tank and it will fire up.I went thru the ignition yesterday,she has spark in

both cylinders so she should run. I'm also hoping to get a ride in today on one of my bikes. It's a beautiful day here in New York today and warming up into the mid 50'sF by this afternoon . So now it's time to get to work so I can ride later on.

Missing The Woods

 Been back here in Long Island for three weeks now and like the title of this post says,I'm missing the woods. Lately I'm starting to think that my plan to move to Arizona is never going to materialize .I always had it in my mind that I could head north to my camp as plan B  and as time goes on I'm starting to think of this as a very real possibility.Been looking at houses up in St Lawrence county on the internet.I'd rather go west where I can ride my motorcycles year round in relative comfort but the housing out where I want to head just keeps on getting more and more out of reach financially .Sometimes I think I could use my camp as a shop where I can build motorcycles and sell parts from .I could get a house 20 or 30 miles away in any direction and have a pretty good life.The real problem with this plan is the weather up north .It rains too much when it's warm enough to ride and for six months it is a frozen forest with four feet of snow or more on everything . Well,I have two years to really commit to one plan or the other. The fires and drought out west made me somewhat worried about moving to southern Arizona but it seems there is something everywhere that is a concern . I have a strong suspicion that motorcycling year round will win this battle in my mind but for now it rages on . This is my camp 

It's such a beautiful place . I've owned it 44 years now ! 

Arizona is calling , I've been working hard towards saving the money needed for a down payment on a house there and getting some motorcycles prepped for sale to lighten my load.It's a hard thing to choose but something that must be done . The wet green of the Adirondacks or the stark beauty of the desert 

Well,who knows what the next two years will bring .I may go broke or hit lotto , get organized , get some bikes and parts sold , maybe even see the price of houses drop rather that increasing like they have for the past two years. Everyday I look.I get those emails from Zillow . The one thing that is certain is that I don't want to stay here in the insanity of the New York Metropolitan Area . I'm back 3 friggin weeks and I'm already climbing the walls and missing the woods.

Late September In The Adirondacks

I always head up to my camp in late September .I love this time of year up north in the woods.Autumn comes early in the North Country and it is truly a sight to behold. After fooling around with the 1976 Dodge Aspen I finally had a car I could do the trip in.It was a long haul fixing up this car.It fought me every step of the way but in the end I got it all finished and roadworthy so off I went.The trip up went well ,No real problems to report but the voltage regulator wasn't putting out enough to run the car with everything going  .Just before dawn it started to show signs that it was letting me down.The radio quit and the lights were starting to dim.It came back to life for 15 or so minutes and once it got light out and I could turn off the lights it was all good so I just continued on my way. Made it up fine and all was just as I left it at my camp back in July when I made my last visit.The next morning I put in my spare voltage regulator and headed into Potsdam to buy a new one. Got that but never used it.The spare was working fine so it's still in the car a month later.I had my Kayak with me.Had all these plans to go into the back country but it was cold . Not really kayaking weather without a wetsuit so I never got into the water. I did have a great twelve days hiking around in all these great places and hanging out at my little piece of paradise in the mountains. Had the wood stove going most days.It got down into the upper 30'sF at night so I needed heat.I was sure glad I cut all this wood the year before.

  

 

The woods were really beautiful .I hiked on St Lawrence County trails that pretty much cover the whole county.Here are some photos of the trail off the Lake Ozonia Road .

                                                     

The next hike I took was along the west branch of the St Regis River over in Parisville off Sylvan Falls Road. This hike was more interesting with some good hills and a section along the river. Both these places were deserted which made it even better for me .No such thing as crowds up in this part of the Adirondacks .The High Peaks Areas are over run with city people  and the problems they bring with them like traffic and garbage. It has gotten so bad the state has closed off some areas and there have been articles in Adrondack Life about how the quality of the water and the trails themselves has gone down because of this huge influx of covid 19 refugees from the urban areas. Well,thankfully I'm in the forgotten part of the park where there are few tourist attractions and lots of wild open spaces.Best thing I ever did in my entire life was to buy this little place out in the middle of nowhere.I was so lucky to meet Howard  and Barbra,the previous owners on my first day of my hich hiking trip to Alaska way back in 1971.Yeah,that's how I got this place,hiching to Alaska .Well,that was 50 years ago.I bought the place in 1977 and have never regretted it for one second.It's changed over the years some,become more civilized and up to date but the area still has this charm that is almost impossible to find in most other places.The North Country of New York is a pretty special place. So back to the second good hike .I set out to go kayaking  but again it was just too raw out to be on the water with no wetsuit. Really enjoyed this place.It was rocky and hilly terrain and I was somewhat worried about my leg that is still giving me shit from the fall I took back in late December but I did ok and it actually helped doing all this hiking. Here are some photos from this hike

Every day I got out and about.I pretty much just wander around in the car looking for cool places to check out and hit the food coop at the end of the day to get fresh food. It's nice being retired up at my camp. Life is simple . Usually start the generator up in the afternoon to run the pump so I can shower with stream water.It's ice cold of course but very refreshing. While I'm showering and doing my dishes I am also charging my 12volt car battery that I run my stereo with .I can have the radio  and my MP3 player hooked up so I can get news and weather plus listen to all my favorite music at night while laying in bed.It's very comfortable buy basic in my little off the grid cabin , Kerosene lamps and lanterns , 12v car stereo with small but decent house speakers , Colman gas lanterns for when I need bright light , and , lots of LED flash lights. Sometimes the mice wake me up but they have really dropped off in numbers in the past 2 years.There must be some animal that is taking them .I do hear a pack of coyotes out in the woods that I hear carrying on late at night howling and doing their thing. They keep the mice in check I'm sure. The third hike was a bit more civilized.I hiked the trail in Potsdam on both sides of the Raquette River on both Clarkson University campus and Potsdam State  campus on the other side of the river.It was a really nice few hours on my next to the last day at my camp for 2021.Here are some photos from this hike

On my way back to my camp I stopped at the short trail to Allen Falls and walked back to the falls.This is on the west branch of the St Regis river near Parishville NY 

After leaving the falls I saw something I wanted to photograph while driving.I pulled over to turn around when all these cows came over to say hello 

After hanging out with these friendly cows I finally did turn around and went back and took this photo. These last two photos pretty much capture St Lawrence County New York  and the North Country in general . 

It sure was a good 12 days up at my camp !

  

 

 

Summertimes Come & Gone

 

 Had all these grand plans to take three months and just be retired. Things didn't work out that way and now it's mid September.Work dragged on into late August. So many delays . I got my one motorcycle trip up to my camp in July that only gave me four days at my camp.It was nice and I enjoyed it but it wasn't enough.Now I'm nursing a back injury that I got just sitting the wrong way while fixing the power window in the drivers side door of my wife's 2002 Honda.Couldn't even straighten up to walk the other morning but it has steadily gotten better in the past two days . This whole mess forced me to cancel my planned bike trip up to my camp .The new plan is to go up in the 1976 Dodge Aspen with the kayak on the roof and spend two weeks paddling around in the Adirondacks while the leaves are changing. Should be nice.I just need to do the front brake pads on the car . Planning on leaving next Monday morning so I have time yet to let my back get better before I attack the brake job.Had a new exhaust system put in the car back in early August and fixed the rear suspension after that so the car is ready for a road trip.

 

 Should be nice being up in the woods alone for two weeks.Bringing my paints and a canvas so on rainy days I have something to do. I have plenty of  dry fire wood cut & stacked so with some good luck things will be good for a few weeks.Not much else going on . Got out kayaking a couple times at Centerport Beach and have all six of my registered bikes up ,running,and inspected  so I have been riding some. Well,not much more to report but if I actually get to go on this trip there will be a good post about Autumn in the Adirondacks and kayaking up & down her beautiful rivers into the wilderness areas that I love so much.