There's a saying," a journey of a thousand steps begins with the first step or a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step." I don't know some bullshit like that but anyway this is a blog to help me stay on track with my current bike build by showing pics and talking about it. Also talking about the mental process or lack there of, that someone goes through when they decide to build anything. My thoughts about life and where it takes you, is it the journey or the destination type shit.
I thought I would start off by telling a little about myself and my back ground. I'm 35, married with two kids and have very little mechanical knowledge about anything but I loved Lego's as a kid. When I was in second grade my dad bought me a Honda XR-80 dirt bike and I would ride that thing everyday no matter what the weather was like, I LOVED it and I love motorcycles with a passion. Not all bikes just cool ones that kick ass. My grandfather rode an Indian, my dad and uncles rode Harley's some, no one was a die hard one percent er, just casual riders. My second bike was a crotch rocket that I had when I was 20 for about 3 months and then it got sold, I lost my license, went away to college enough said. I always wanted a Harley but always had issues with the stock bike look and looking like everyone else. I assumed at some point I would get a Harley and try to change it but that never seemed like fun. Like everyone else I saw Motorcycle Madness with Jesse James and my eyes were ripped open to the world of custom bikes. I was hooked I wanted to build a bike now, not buy one, but build from the ground up. Oh yeah I had no tools or clue and no idea how to build a bike I just had ambition ( i don't know if that word is spelled correctly, this will happen a lot) and I didn't know what I didn't know. So I did what any person wanting to learn something new would do, I watched TV and learned how to build a bike from Orange County Choppers. No shit I did. But before that I had to convince the wife of my new plan and "hobby." This was going to be a very task difficult because she had lost someone she cared very deeply for in a motorcycle accident a few years earlier and was completely against motorcycles. So the joke was that I could build one with no engine and she would push my around the back yard. Ok great it was a start she was caving in to my idea and I could work with that. So I started shopping for frames and parts and what not, then started putting them together in my garage and it looked like a bike. Then sometime later I think she shit herself, after 18 months, 4 hurricanes and lots of swearing and bloody knuckles, there it was a complete bike and it ran...eventually.
During that build I learned a lot about myself and my work ethic and dedication to a project and anything I love. Anything you absolutely love you can do, when there is passion behind anything it gets done. If you have a question, you will find an answer, you will seek the knowledge you need when you are determined. No matter how long it takes, if you love it you will do it, if you like it you make excuses and it will suffer. Fact is fact look at anything you have tried and succeeded at. Did you love it or just like it. Shit I've liked a lot of things in my life but everything I love I have and hold on to, people, objects and other shit, you get the point. So I rode that bike to my sisters about 8 miles away and parked it in her garage. That was the scariest and most amazing ride of my life, I was afraid I might die but I loved knowing that I built that bike and moved me not only phyiscally but emoitionally too, as wierd as that may sound it did. Side note here, I like to surf well try to surf, Im not good but I do it. The moment you catch a wave is like no other, everything comes together and at that moment it time there is bliss. Nothing goes through your head, your mind is clear. you're in the moment. Your spirit, your being is connected to that moment and your pulse is pumping life through your veins. There is an over welming sensation of calmness that over comes your being and nothing else matters. That feeling of being in the moment is what I lack, I am always thinking about the past, people, mistakes, loss or the future, worries about everyday life. But when you are in the moment what ever that is, you are truly alive. That 8 mile ride did that for me and it lasted longer than riding a wave. Hooked for life I am.
Shortly after we moved and I sold it, never rode it again after that day. I miss that bike and would like to have it back maybe I'll find it and get it back, maybe. I also said I put 12 miles on that bike, well there were test drives that didn't go so well and parts fell off... that's for later and more about the selling of my bike later... for another day. At that point I thought the bike fever was over and I was done but nope, I started another, this one was for a different reason, it was for coping and clearing my head.
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