Design through failing forward
We sometimes ride to the river, and then there are pictures:
Other times we just ride around, cause we live in New York.
Sometimes we ride up to the GW Bridge and then we see stuff and take pictures…blurry pictures!
Mission 23 decided to take KIDS and make it a moped rally…minus people getting HIV…cause that is no good…for reals!
But the PEDS rally was a great sucess and we all had a blast.
Enjoy
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/13753042 w=500&h=281]
Wanting to get out of the city and ride somewhere fun we went to Gettysburg, PA for a ride. Great weather, cannons, and my wife Leah even came.
Much fun was had by all!
Oh and the boy scout and diorama are not property of Mission 23…for reals…
Bomb Prom 2010 brought to you by TBS. With special guests from Denmark the Teufelskerle 50 cc. Awesome guys, TBS was a great host and everything from super yummy vegetarian sausage gravy and biscuits (omg! so good!) to super fun rides for all level of riders.
Here are the few pics I remembered to take:
I’m trying to finally get caught up on all the pictures that I’ve taken from events in past years. I have a bad habit of keeping things in my head and failing to remember to get them down here. Forgive me, my brain is addled and I mostly avoid interacting with computers as it is part of my daily life…but I digress…here are the pics from the Bourbon Bandits 2010 Whiskey Business III…
Ask around a great time was had by all…and it was my first rally with Mission 23…oh the memories 🙂
I’ll try to get everything else up as well…if you haven’t been to a Bandits rally you are missing out on what mopeds are all about…they are wonderful host and really some of the best folks I know!
My hobbit project is slowly moving forward. I’ve got the Malossi race gears installed, a new wheel built, the engine the way I want it and in the subframe and things are looking good.
Granted I just realized I put the tire on backward. Ugh. So I’ll have to fix that later.
Today I was making some room for the bigger carb.
Hobbits are really well thought out (thank you Mr. Honda) but the stock air-box is not my friend or a PHBG’s friend either. So it’s grinder time!
I wanted to keep the back of the box to minimize tire spray but close up the sub frame as much as possible. This is what I ended up with.
Looks pretty good and lots of room to wiggle the carb out for jetting.
Now put it all together…
Next up…Top Tank!
I was just getting good at regularly posting and then life happened. Hopefully you guys/gals/marmots/etc… aren’t counting on something exciting from me all the time.
I have been wrenching like mad though!
First up is my friend Eric’s Peugeot 103. He picked it up a while ago as he road the Green Machine and decided that a variator was in his future. He got a solid frame but the engine was never happy. We tried different coils, checking for air leaks, new points and this moped was a no go.
I had some parts from previous build that I wanted to sell and Eric wanted fast so I built him fast with an emphasis on reliable…now that I’m writing this the moped is going to explode, sorry Eric.
I had an already built 70cc Gila engine that just needed new seals. So new ones were pressed in, added a used Multivar (I <;3 them), a Leo Vince Pipe, a 19 PHBG, and boom.
Everything should work right! Wrong? I was again foiled by an ignition that didn’t want to play…stupid unfriendly ignition!
Enter the Motobecane CDI!
This CDI is inexpensive, easy to setup, and makes a great big spark!
Now we have a winner!
So that put Eric back on the road and with a little carb tweaking he is a happy camper.
Now my buddy Larry went and sold off all his mopedy-goodness in the process of acquiring some racing motorcycles…the guy has a thing for fast.
Then he had an “I miss my silly mopeds” moment and we got to talking. I had a nice 103 frame that I was planning on making go as stupidly fast as possible, skinny tires and all.
So it became time to make another zippy 103! I started with making the 3rd eye transfer and cleaning up the stock cases.
Then it was the usual:
70cc Gila kit
2 Pedal Polini reed block
19 PHBG
Moby CDI and Trail Tech Regulator
Malossi Multivar
Polini Spring and Launch Lever
The twist was a Ninja G3 pipe. These are great all around pipes with a really wide rpm range. Really any pipe works with what is listed above its just a matter of picking a pipe to match your ride style and terrain. My favorite is the Doppler as its got crazy top end and hits really hard but the low end is smooth. The Ninja G3 has better low end but winds out close to the Doppler top. Then if you are doing a ton o city riding the Leo Vince circuit has crazy low end and good kids but keeps you from winding out to far. (that was why it’s on Eric’s build, he rides to work most days).
So after some tweaking of the pipe mounting bracket and the M-bars from my MB5 (I’ll write about that’s eventually too no worries) this is where we were…
Add the electrics and tada! Red ripper number 2.
I was sorry to see her go but I knew Larry loved it so that was good and anyway I have too many mopeds 😛
Well as fate would have it Red came back. Larry had other projects he needed to fund (like a crazy general build that maybe I can sneak a few pika of) after getting the silly moped bug back in his blood so I bought Red back.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “you just said a few sentences ago that you had too many mopeds!?”. And you would be totally correct. So I sold the very TSM I was going to build for this blog…no yelling, let me explain!
I still love TSMs but my legs are short and sitting on a TSM makes me stand on my tip toes in a most undignified way. So I sold it to my friend Lindsay who is having me build it for her. See, I will be blogging about it and building it but it won’t be mine. I should of named this blog Lindsay’s TSM. If only I had a crystal ball.
Well that is all for now and I’ll be posting Red’s rebuild in a later post…let’s just say its a big engine and a clutch pulley and more silliness!
With the Green 103SP running great it’s on to writing about my other winter project, The Hobbit! I haven’t come up with a good name for it yet but I’ll come up with something. I’m sticking with the yellow and black look but Bumblebee seems so overdone these days…hmmm…moving on…
So I got this moped from my buddy Ben and he already had some nice parts on it; Parma Kit and Weekends Pipe. The moped looked stock otherwise but ran great just like a stock hobbit should. Of course I want something I can really blow up so I started cutting!
I’m not a fan of the stock seat, so off it came and I mounted up an old Peugeot seat nice and low. I had a Tomos Streetmate front-end that fit right on, the shocks from Old Blue and found some cheap clip-ons on eBay. I slapped it all together to see how the riding position felt and I like it!
Insert project delay (wedding, honeymoon, work insanity, etc…)
I then scored a ton of Hobbit booty!
I’m pretty sure I can build something from all of this!
I wanted to rebuild the rear wheel as the stock rim was pretty rusty and now narrower than the Tomos front wheel. I found the width I wanted on Treats and disassembled 2 rear wheels to find the best (rust free) spokes I could. With a little polishing and some photos of the old wheels lacing I built this.
I don’t have a truing stand but 2 Allen keys and the hobbit subframe work pretty well!
All done and tire mounted.
Next up some engine clean up in the living room…only attempt this when your wife is out of town!
Bring on the engine tweaks:
1. Malossi 21 intake with Dellorto PHBG 21
2. Boyenson dual reeds
3. Removal of the starter clutch
4. Doppler springs
5. TJT with the lightest weights
6. Replaced all the stupid Phillips screw with Allen screws.
Everything goes together really easily. The hardest part was the clutch springs but the using snap ring pliers trick works great. I need to find the video that explains it but you’ll get the idea.
Then put it all together.
Next up is making this guy a top tank and wiring up the HPI!
Between work, my 10 million other hobbies fly fishing, paintball, rock stardom, backpacking, etc… and moped parts blowing up see NYC Streets vs French Pipes I seem to always have some past moped project to write about. With this post I might actually be caught up to the present completely!
My dad once said that his favorite hobbies were the ones he shared with my mom…mushy I know, but if you’re going to spend forever with someone you might as well spend time together doing fun stuff! So I’ve been trying to get Leah (my wife as of Sept 17…now it’s in a blog so I can’t forget the anniversary) to ride almost as soon as I got my first moped. On a trip to the fabled HandyBikes in Columbus, OH, I found a near perfect Tomos Silver Bullet sans engine. I picked it up planning to build it for Leah. To my delight she said she wanted to build it herself! Then we moved to NYC and the moped sat disassembled in a closet for a couple years…mopeds aren’t quite the priority for her that they are to me but this past year she got things underway…
and soon learned that putting tires on sucks!
but she got the rolling chassis together in an afternoon with minimal help from me…one of the many reasons I married her…that and she asked me!
This past summer she rebuilt the engine from the ground up. She only has to put up on a pipe and wire it up. She hasn’t built it quickly but she knows everything about that moped. In the interim she’s been riding The Tomonstr but my mopeds are a bit over the top and the riding position doesn’t really suit her.
That got me thinking that I’d build her something and my friend Johnny had the perfect bike. A nice clean Moby 50V. It took a little while of working on him to get it but he eventually relented to my groveling. He hooked me up with a 70cc Parma kit and a 15/15 SHA! So I cleaned up all the chrome, kitted the engine, and tuned it up (still a little rich for break in). The moped runs great and the orange is Leah’s favorite color win/win! On to the goodies.
She had mentioned that the collapsing saddle baskets on bicycles were cool so I ordered a set of Wald 582 Folding Baskets with basket liners. I think these look great, are built really well, and they were easy to mount up. All in all I think the moped turned out great!
I was going to make this a Christmas gift but I couldn’t stand to wait so it became a Birthday present! Leah thought I was going to show her something I bought for myself. After I finally convinced her that the Moby was for her I was pretty sure she liked it.
and considering she wanted to go for a ride ASAP…
I’d say I’m positive she liked it. I have a ninja pipe sitting on the shelf for when she’s ready!
I’ll keep you posted for when her Bullet is finished as I’m sure it’s going to be a mover too!