The Road

The Road

Saturday, November 6, 2021

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.