Rob’s project bike…

I received an interesting email from my good buddy Rob a couple of nights ago.  Rob is an interesting guy…I rode with him on the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride described in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM, and then again on one of the Baja trips.

Here’s Rob’s note to me, along with some very interesting photos…

Hi Joe,

Hope your living life to the fullest. I really enjoy you and Gresh’s ExhaustNotes and keeping up with you.

Anyways its very cold up here and to kill time I’ve been looking at Ball and Cap pistols and wondered if you had any experience shooting, loading, etc. with them?  Any further plans on an east coast RX3 trip or Alaska?

If your ever up here in the Pacific Northwest area , give me a shout.  Maybe I can meet up with you somewhere.

Not sure this year where all my bikes will take me. My favorite rally in Hells Canyon is done and over with and she’s looking for another venue place to host it.  I may try and get to the beater bike rally in Hood River. I’m working on a Kawasaki KZ440 that I took the motor out of and put in a Harbor Freight 212cc lawn mower motor in it with a cheap torque converter so its an centrifugal clutch auto like a big mini bike. If I can get it to go fast enough (45-55mph) I may try and ride down to rally from Walla Walla.

Hope all is well with you and yours Joe. 

Take care,

Rob

Rob, your project bike is fascinating.  Please keep us posted on how it progresses.  The centrifugal clutch concept on a full-figured motorcycle is interesting.   Mustang (i.e., the original California-manufactured Mustang of the 1950s) offered a centrifugal clutch bike in the 1950s they named after their original offering (the Colt), and the one I saw owned by Al Simmons and later Steve Seidner was a real beauty.

Mustang’s intent was not to offer a bike with an “automatic” transmission; what they were really after was a value-engineered version of the Mustang.  It had the standard Mustang 322cc flathead engine, but a centrifugal clutch replaced the Berman transmission and the bike had Earles-type forks instead of the Mustang’s telescopic forks.   The factory workers didn’t like it and there was some talk of efforts to sabotage the ones leaving the plant.  The one I saw was beautiful.  It flopped in the market, which was unfortunate.   When I worked at CSC, we’d routinely get calls from folks asking if we had any bikes that had an automatic transmission.  The answer, of course, was no.  But I think this sort of thing could work on a small displacement bike for folks who don’t know how to (or don’t want to) shift.  I know you do and I know you are doing this just to have fun.  But I think you are on to something here.

To answer your other questions….I have zero experience with black powder guns, other than to watch my good buddy Paul build custom black powder rifles and play with them.  I once bought a Uberti .44 Model 1858 sixgun and it looked to be very well built, but a friend of mine wanted one and I sold it to him without ever having fired it.

I don’t have any east coast RX3 or other plans at this time.  I’m too busy planning for the next Baja trip, I guess.

The beater rally you mention sounds pretty cool, and I love the Hood River area of the Columbia River Gorge.  That sounds like it might be fun!