Not too shabby, actually… I’m kind of amazed at what a bunch of rattle-cans are able to do!
I decided to yank the whole saddlebag mount/micro-sissy-bar/big-huge-clunky rear turn signals and replace the latter with some chrome torpedoes. I used some bolts and cap nuts to fill in the holes that were left over and ditched the windscreen – it was pretty beat up and I never thought it looked so hot.
I was pretty happy with this, but was also debating swapping handlebars for something a little flatter. I knew I didn’t want to go full clip-ons for a couple reasons, but the main one being that the riding position would have been atrocious.
On that note – another one of the reasons I picked the Savage is there is a company out of LA called “RYCA” that made a bolt-on kit to convert this bike into a cafe’ racer, and I was pretty keen on that idea, ’cause they looked kinda groovy:
(BTW, RYCA is pioneering some super-cool AR technology for pre-visualizing custom builds. I kinda love it!)
I wasn’t ready to make that next leap just yet, so I just spent time getting out and about on it, until I started to notice an awful lot of rattling coming from the headlight. Turns out the mounting bracket had cracked and was barely holding the bucket. I’d always kind of wanted a bigger headlight anyways, I felt like the stock one looked kinda meh. So the research began. One of the biggest headaches about the Savage is that sooo much of it is kind-of proprietary, or at least not as much after-market stuff is made for it compared to the four hundred thousand metric tons of stuff for the Honda cafe builder. Le sigh. After a ton of digging I finally found a new mount/bucket combo that could work with a little finessing. I also took the opportunity to add drag bars, which required the addition of handlebar risers to keep the brake/clutch levers from dinging the tank.
Not too long after getting this all in order, I noticed that the clear coat on the tank was looking a little weird right at the fuel cap. The bike always leaked a little there if you filled it all the way – in fact there was a discolored streak on the old red tank from that very problem. I had taken apart the filler cap and added a thicker gasket to try and sort the issue, which I thought had worked.
Apparently I was mistaken, and over the next couple days the ‘looked a little weird’ turned into this:
I’ve never tried to fix a paint job, so I had pretty much nothing to go on here other than use a razor blade to cut the bubble out, and then try a few different approaches to respraying the area. It worked well enough in the end. Close inspection would reveal lack of brilliance in the process on my end, but it sufficed.
I took the opportunity to add a couple Suzuki logo badges to give it a groovy vibe, and for the briefest of moments all was really good!
My buddy Mark Szabo and I took my first long ride on the newly rehabbed beastie. South from Lunken Airport on the East Side of Cincy, out across the river into Kentucky, east past my alma mater Northern Kentucky University, then east-er out KY Rt. 10 (which is a BONKERS cool ride) to Maysville, then back across to Ohio and west along Rt. 52 to home. I’d never done a ride like that before and it was exhilarating. Mark is one of the coolest cats I know, plays bass in the band he and I started – “Oh So Luminous“. I’ve known him for years, and we have bonded heavy over music and motorbikes.
Little micro-anecdote about Zimmer – when I was 11 years old in 1974 my grandfather drove us out past the plant when they were building that cooling tower for the new oil-fired plant. Beckjord had been coal-fired since inception in 1952.
Of course – if everything stayed fine now, well… that would be too easy, right?