Retrograde Mechanica: August 2013

Thursday, 29 August 2013

G80 Love - wanted

After an early G80 - gotta be rigid, doesn't have to be the competition model (It's gonna be changed to alloy barrel anyway)

If you or anyone you know has one - get in touch and let me try to prise it outta their hands.....

Since my baby left me.......

She's sold - gone to her new home!

Little sad - she'll be missed

Triton Thursday

Just the once......

Jacks got his Triton all up and running and looking pretty, this bike sounds lovely!

Terry's new ride!

Gonna be fuggin' awesome when it's built - this is how he picked it up, and knowing Terry it's gonna be a darn sight prettier soon!

Original Triumph Girder rigid running a 500 JAP engine on Dope and a huge GP Carb.

Love it!

Tuesday, 20 August 2013

More Triumph Sleds

Obsession grows and grows......

Monday, 19 August 2013

Nickel 500 Possibly for Sale

If the right person with the offer comes along I'll part with my beloved........desert sled fever has truly kicked in!!

Spec is:

Fully rebuilt T100c Engine (Reground Crank, All Bearings, New Clutch and Rebuilt Gearbox, all vapor blasted, powdered or Nickel'd)

Hand Milled Timing cover showing Nickel Clutch

Fully rebuilt Forks (New stanchions, bushes, de-lugged fork bottoms, MCM shrouds, de-seamed yokes, new fork seals and holders - all coppered, polished and nickel'd)

Fully rebuilt wheels - reconditioned hubs, stainless spokes, stainless rims, avon front Firestone rear

Factory Metal Works hard tail - all mounts and sissy bar made by barons

Semi de-seamed and restored fuel tank

Pill style Nickel Oil Tank

Maund Speed licence plate holder

After Hours Choppers Tail Light

HD Parts Seat

Hippy Killer Pegs and Grips

Every Nut, Bolt Washer Nickel plated

Electronic ignition

Brand new Amal mono-block Carb

Cloth wired or hidden in frame

New Battery

10 Months MOT

Excellent Condition with only a few very minor chips to paint in tank - but I can get this redone if required for cost

Registered as a 350 - just needs engine updating on V5

Markus - 07854116505 or 07584449425 or retrogrademechanica@gmail.com

Metisse

Awesome afternoon at the Metisse factory discussing my potential one off frame and bodywork........and fuel my desert sled infatuation even more! Huge thanks to Gerry and Harry for being fantastic hosts, answering all my questions and generally being as nice as pie.

Brackley Festival of Motorcycling 1

Great day was had.......how can it not be with vintage sprinting up the high street, wall of death, vintage motocross demo's and the like.....

"Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of a "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself"

"That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind — number three tappet is right on too. One more to go. This had better be it — .I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this...that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes...pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts...all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind! — Ghosts"