5/25/2011

Happy 40th Birthday

This October my 1972 Honda CB500 motorcycle will be 40 years old. It is 4-cylinder and 50 horse power that gets around 45-55 miles per gallon. I've had it for 11 years. When i first got it, it had 12,062 miles. Today it's at 21,595 miles.
Here's what it looked like when i first got it in 1999. It had a big old seat and tall mirrors. Other than the exhaust it was pretty much original. 1972 Honda CB500 motorcycle, 4 cylinder,
Since then i've learned a lot from working on it. Usually the process is: something breaks, i try to fix it, i make it worse, i try fixing it several more times before i realize what i'm doing wrong then fix it properly.
honda motorcycle tear down, frame, cb500
This is probably the furthest i've had it taken apart. Over the years i've replaced a few things:
brakes, tires, oil filter, screws and bolts, chain and sprockets hand grips, jets for the carburetors (I had them apart and took 6 tries to get them back together before i realized i had the overflow needle upside down) throttle cable which broke in Arizona and lots more. remove parts, honda cb500, motorcycle
I wrapped the exhaust. This is my idea of form and function working perfectly. The exhaust works better because it stays cooler and i think it looks better too.
wrap exhaust, motorcycle exhaust wrap, heat
I made a new seat. It's thinner then the old one and a little bit harder, but it's easier to ride and the center of gravity is lower which helps. make foam and leather seat for motorcycle, diy, seat pan
Mackinaw Bridge
motorcycle at mackinaw bridge, michigan bike trip, ride
The 45th parallel near Traverse City. This was on the same trip to Mackinaw. I rode around the outer edge of Michigan, about 900 miles in 4 days.
45th parallel, traverse city, michigan, bike trip
The biggest thing i've ever done is my 2,600 mile, 13 day ride from Arizona to Michigan.
Continental Divide somewhere in New Mexico.
Continental Divide, New Mexico, Motorcycle trip, bike ride
Camping on Thanksgiving by Foss Lake Oklahoma at sunset.
camping at Foss Lake, Oklahoma, campground, lake, motorcycle
Just outside of Phoenix Arizona.
motorcycle ride, phoenix, arizona, mountains, cross country
Riding through the Petrified Forest. Petrified Forest, motorcycle ride, road, national park, trip
I don't remember where this was. Maybe Texas?
Cross country motorcycle ride, honda CB500, 1972
This is a picture of every state border i crossed on my ride from Arizona. The only 2 i missed were Arizona and Ohio. The Ohio border is on a bridge, over a river, in 4 lanes of traffic, i didn't stop. For that entire trip the only thing that went wrong with the bike was the throttle cable breaking as we unloaded it from the truck. It's quite amazing that a 40 year old motorcycle rode 2,600 miles (most of that at 7,000rpm) without any problems. And still today it's running great.
Cross country motorcycle trip, USA, State Border Sign, texas, tennessee, michigan, oklahoma, kentucky

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