Bike history part 3: free failed Kawasaki KV-75
Now and then I get a hankering for a project vehicle. Maybe it's remembering all the time, effort, and love I dumped into worthless old cars in my youth...cars that looked like crap to everyone in the world, but were the embodiment of all things good to my eyes.
Anyway, now and then I've had the good fortune to stumble on a free project, specifically, two motorcycles since I moved to Colorado. The first was a Kawasaki KV-75/MT-1 minibike:
It was parked in front of a neighbor's house with a "free" sign on it. It seemed to be in pretty good shape, except for rust in the tank, a missing cylinder head, a missing wrist pin bearing, and being covered with red overspray.
My wife *hated* it. She said that it was *so* lame that she could barely stand to look at it. It also turns out that parts for KV-75s aren't exactly easy to come by. I ended up giving it to my little brother, who brought it down to Albuquerque and couldn't get it running either. However, we did find a wrist pin bearing that works on it, and we managed to break a piston ring. It's currently sitting in my mother's garage.
Since I got my latest XS-400, my kids have gotten obsessed with motorcycles. We have a one-car, attached garage where we somehow manage to fit my Yamaha, my wife's Vespa, and our minivan. The door to our garage has panes of glass. Every morning my two-year-old runs out, peers through the glass into the garage and says, "Good Morning motorcycles!", and every night before bed, he looks into the garage and says "Nigh Nigh Motorcycles!". So I thought it might be a good idea to take the KV-75 and get it going for the little guys when they get bigger - especially since it has just been taking up space in my mother's garage since my brother went to Spain two years ago.
So, after some scrounging on EBay I found a piston ring from a burly chainsaw that should work on the minibike, and a cylinder head from a Honda moped that will work after I hog out the mounting holes a little bit. So I ordered them.
Note that in typical "guy" fashion I ordered the parts without thinking about my wife's feelings. It's not that I intended to make her crazy...it's just that I somehow neglected to consider her feelings on the matter when I got all caught up in how exciting it would be to get the KV-75 going.
Well, it turns out that the thought of our kids riding the KV-75 is even more revolting to my wife than the thought of the KV-75 itself (which is saying a lot). And the whole situation made her start to feel like her riding her Vespa, and me riding my XS-400 might be setting bad, wreckless examples for our kids.
Then this got me thinking...am I setting a bad example? Am I being wreckless and foolish by riding my motorcycle and encouraging my wife to learn to ride her Vespa? Should we just drive cars instead? Will people even drive cars when my kids are old enough to drive and gasoline is $10/gallon? I ride my bicycle in traffic a lot...why is there a perception that riding a motorcyle in a full-face helmet, leather jacket, and boots in traffic at 35 MPH is more dangerous than riding my road bike in shorts a T-shirt and a silly foam hat in traffic at 25 MPH? Why do accident rate statistics support this perception? If gasoline prices continue to soar, isn't it likely that more people, including my kids will end up driving little motorcycles to get places that are too far to ride a bicycle?
So I'm not sure what I'll do. I'm not going to stop riding my awesome motorcyle right now. WRT the minibike, maybe I'll just take the new parts down to Albuquerque and try to get it running for my brother when he's in town for a couple of months this summer. Maybe my wife will come around and agree that it's not a bad idea to give a ten-year-old the ugliest, tiniest off-road motorcycle ever made. Who knows. We'll see.
Anyway, now and then I've had the good fortune to stumble on a free project, specifically, two motorcycles since I moved to Colorado. The first was a Kawasaki KV-75/MT-1 minibike:
It was parked in front of a neighbor's house with a "free" sign on it. It seemed to be in pretty good shape, except for rust in the tank, a missing cylinder head, a missing wrist pin bearing, and being covered with red overspray.
My wife *hated* it. She said that it was *so* lame that she could barely stand to look at it. It also turns out that parts for KV-75s aren't exactly easy to come by. I ended up giving it to my little brother, who brought it down to Albuquerque and couldn't get it running either. However, we did find a wrist pin bearing that works on it, and we managed to break a piston ring. It's currently sitting in my mother's garage.
Since I got my latest XS-400, my kids have gotten obsessed with motorcycles. We have a one-car, attached garage where we somehow manage to fit my Yamaha, my wife's Vespa, and our minivan. The door to our garage has panes of glass. Every morning my two-year-old runs out, peers through the glass into the garage and says, "Good Morning motorcycles!", and every night before bed, he looks into the garage and says "Nigh Nigh Motorcycles!". So I thought it might be a good idea to take the KV-75 and get it going for the little guys when they get bigger - especially since it has just been taking up space in my mother's garage since my brother went to Spain two years ago.
So, after some scrounging on EBay I found a piston ring from a burly chainsaw that should work on the minibike, and a cylinder head from a Honda moped that will work after I hog out the mounting holes a little bit. So I ordered them.
Note that in typical "guy" fashion I ordered the parts without thinking about my wife's feelings. It's not that I intended to make her crazy...it's just that I somehow neglected to consider her feelings on the matter when I got all caught up in how exciting it would be to get the KV-75 going.
Well, it turns out that the thought of our kids riding the KV-75 is even more revolting to my wife than the thought of the KV-75 itself (which is saying a lot). And the whole situation made her start to feel like her riding her Vespa, and me riding my XS-400 might be setting bad, wreckless examples for our kids.
Then this got me thinking...am I setting a bad example? Am I being wreckless and foolish by riding my motorcycle and encouraging my wife to learn to ride her Vespa? Should we just drive cars instead? Will people even drive cars when my kids are old enough to drive and gasoline is $10/gallon? I ride my bicycle in traffic a lot...why is there a perception that riding a motorcyle in a full-face helmet, leather jacket, and boots in traffic at 35 MPH is more dangerous than riding my road bike in shorts a T-shirt and a silly foam hat in traffic at 25 MPH? Why do accident rate statistics support this perception? If gasoline prices continue to soar, isn't it likely that more people, including my kids will end up driving little motorcycles to get places that are too far to ride a bicycle?
So I'm not sure what I'll do. I'm not going to stop riding my awesome motorcyle right now. WRT the minibike, maybe I'll just take the new parts down to Albuquerque and try to get it running for my brother when he's in town for a couple of months this summer. Maybe my wife will come around and agree that it's not a bad idea to give a ten-year-old the ugliest, tiniest off-road motorcycle ever made. Who knows. We'll see.
posted by veloandy at 12:56 PM
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