What a beautiful bike! I ran across this on a Triumph Bobber website I hadn’t come across before. In my humble opinion, this is one of the most elegant, and beautiful Triumph Bobbers I’ve seen. Good job guys!

Here’s a link to the Falcon Motorcycles gallery for The Kestrel:

http://www.falconmotorcycles.com/gallery/2-The%20Kestrel%20.html#0

I ride my bike to work nearly every weekday. I say this with the confidence that comes from learning to live with a single car and a motorcycle to share between my wife and myself. The car is hers, she can have it. My Buell is mine, and she can ride on the back whenever she wants to.

Since we moved to Dallas, TX back in April of 2010, I’ve only had the bike to commute on, so when it rains, or ices (contrary to what Texans say, it does not snow, it rains ice that sort of, but not completely resembles snow), I either work from home, borrow the car (which she rarely allows… yeah, so I’m whipped), or her and the boy will drop me at work, and pick me up in the evening.

That said, we’ve reviewed the number of days I’ve not ridden, and we’re quite certain it’s less than 20 days in the past year and a half. To say it again, in roughly 380 possible days of riding (figuring in vacations, etc.) I’ve ridden 360 of them. To me, that says a ton about how good the weather is down here! It also says that anyone who really wants to ride can’t use weather as an excuse down here… there’s only been one day when I really got soaked, and I simply planned ahead for it.

Having ridden nearly every day for the past year and a half, I’ve seen the good side of it (haven’t spent more than $11/week on gas!) and the bad (is it bad when your legs burn because you’re riding 15 miles at 26 degrees, with just jeans on?). The only things that I now think are mandatory for doing this, are:

1. a jacket for the summer… a mesh jacket that has plenty of vents
2. a winter jacket that has a liner, and is windproof (and hopefully waterproof as well).
3. a wind-proof neck gaiter, or a full-head balaclava
4. wind-proof riding pants (for the winter), or maybe chaps, but I think your nether-regions would still get cold
5. some really warm gloves
6. warm boots, or light boots, and warm socks
7. a backpack/messenger bag/saddle bags/tank bag for your lunch/computer/tools/books/etc.
8. the wherewithal to withstand 110 degree heat while stopped on the pavement in traffic for five minutes at a shot, and dealing with sub-freezing weather at 80 mph on the tollway in the winter!

A few more items that I suspect would make the riding much more pleasant:

1. a big windshield – this is one near-requirement for my next motorcycle!
2. a full fairing – see above; I’m not a big fairing guy, but if that’s up your alley, I think that would be even better than just a windshield!
3. saddlebags – I have a messenger bag for my laptop, and a big expandable tank bag for once in a while when needed… I think saddlebags would be great though, they are more likely to be weather proof, and can store more crap gear.

And there you have it… my list of what I’ve found to be essential to make riding everyday possible, and even enjoyable.

What would you add to the list? Any specific gear suggestions?

I’ve dropped the ball on updating this site, and after Brian Turner’s guest post, I figured I’d best stop slacking, and start writing. Problem is I have writers block!

So, tell me: what is the thing you want to know?

Do you want to know how to build a Triumph Bobber on a budget, or a howto article on shortening forks? Do you want more information on putting a Volare front clip in an F-100?

What’s the question that brought you to Henry’s Rod Shop to begin with? What haven’t you gotten an answer to, that I might be able to help with?

Email me: bcarlson@henrysrodshop.com or post a comment… I’m happy to help!

-Ben

Well, I’ve been missing my triumph lately… and now Ed went and made some changes to the bike. I don’t necessarily like them all, but it’s still cool having had a hand in building a very nice bike! Here’s the before, that I really liked:

And here’s the changes… I like the front brake, I think it’s the one I gave him when he bought it, but I don’t care for the front forks… The old ones I shortened looked better on it.

During the time I was rebuilding the motor, and assembling/modifying the frame, I also purchased a Harley-Davidson Sportster gas tank, which I intended to modify and use as my gas tank.

I also found a really cool, funky ‘coffin’ style tank at a swap meet, that I couldn’t pass up, but I sold it with the bike (kicking myself!!).

I continued on the motor, putting the head back in place, after doing a basic valve job.

I also worked on putting the transmission back together.

Buttoning things up…

I also bought some Kawasaki ZX-11 inverted forks, thinking they would be sweet, but when I got them, they were bent… so much for ebay parts. Worst part was the seller wouldn’t take them back. I ended up selling them again on eBay as damaged, and made my money back, but just barely. They sure are cool looking though… I would have loved to use them!

About this time, I had the frame sand blasted at LNE blasting in Harris, MN… on a side note, Curt Peltier, the guy who bought my parent’s house in Harris back in 1996 or 1997 acquired LNE blasting in December of 2005. He’s a really good guy, and I’m sure I’ll use him to do a bunch of my blasting in the future!

Back to the triumph, here is a shot of the frame, and misc parts after blasting.

I assembled it (with a Honda rear wheel I had laying around), and rolled it into the daylight (or twilight as it were)…

Wow I just found a cute photo of Michelle and Jessie! It must have been Halloween… maybe 2003?

I tried the Sportster tank on for size, and realized it looked really… well, bad.

So I decided if Jessie (James) can build a tank from scratch, so can I! I started by making a cardboard template for the top and side, and taping them on, to see what I thought. Looks good.

I borrowed a powerhammer from Richard Kleinschmidt (shopdog powerhammers)about this time… didn’t have a good place for it, so it sat pretty close to the floor… oh well. It worked so good! I wish I knew how to use it better, and had more time to play with it. My wooden buck is in the foreground.

I got the buck covered in bondo, and pulled a ‘flexible shape pattern’ from it.

About this time, Richard also had a get together at his shop in Minneapolis, where I got to play with some big boy metalshaping toys… pullmax, e-wheels galore, planishing hammers, more shopdogs, and some other brand power hammers. I also got to play with TIG welding for the first time. Oxygen Service Company borrowed a Miller 180SD for us to play with, and I spent about 12 hours over three days doing just that.

And then my Jeep was broken into, and my digital camera stolen.

Well, here is some history on the Triumph 650 project I’ve post some pictures of. It all started by purchasing an incomplete, non-running engine on ebay back in 2002. It was delivered the day before Chad and Jenny’s wedding, so I didn’t have any time to play with it for several days, which drove me nuts!

I started tearing it down, and found that it was a rusty, dirty, sludgy mess.

If you’re building a Triumph engine, then the cam gear puller pictured is an absolute must! I ordered up some brand new pistons, and cylinders, and all of the bushings and bearings for the engine and transmission.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is to keep things organized. Not that I always heed my own advice, but this time I did… Mom, are you proud? Haha!

I tried my hand at polishing the aluminum intake… it worked… sort of. I don’t think I’ll try doing that again, unless I have to. It took a really long time, made quite the mess, and wasn’t really much fun. Also, it didn’t work so well…

I bought a frame and little mustang gas tank on ebay, from a guy in Florida… the frame was cool, but it was gobbed up with bondo. The front end is a CBR600 setup, which I adapted to work with the triumph frame.

Man, what an ugly beast! When I first put this together, I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into… I got the engine cases back from the bead blaster, and spent about a week cleaning them in soap and water, with a gun cleaning kit… it’s amazing how much junk gets in the oil passages!

I also bought a rim, and spokes at work, and a sportster hub at a swap meet. The spoke wrench was a freebie that a vendor sent to us to see if we wanted to sell… I believe we didn’t… and the reason is because it didn’t work so well…

I did a mockup of the bike with an 18″ Honda read wheel and the partially clean engine to see what it would feel/look like. Look at the gap between the top of the fork sliders and the bottom of the triple tree in the next photos. I shortened the forks about 3″ to keep the stance with the new 21″ front wheel. I was feeling pretty good about the bike at this point.

Oh my lord was there gunk behind this plug in the crank! If you’re ever rebuilding one of these, be CERTAIN to pull this plug. Ish.

I bought some lopey-er cams off ebay, here are the new and old ones.

You can never keep your build area clean enough! The red is not blood, but red loctite.

Another must have when building one of these, is an engine stand like this one. I bought it for about $45 plus shipping. It made assembly so much easier!

This is why I bought new cylinders… the old ones were really rusty, crusty, and pitted in the bores. I would have had to sleeve them, and the cost was almost as much as new ones.

Installing the new pistons, cylinders, and pushrod tubes. It’s really handy to have two ring compressors when doing this type of engine…

Now this, this is a mean looking bike. Despite Pete’s best efforts to make it look cheesy. Haha!

…to be continued…