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Speedfrog

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Posts posted by Speedfrog

    Show your very first bike - Nostalgia...

    in Special place for banter and conversation

    Posted

    Ok, my "proper" first real motorcycle... 16 years and a few days old, A1 license in my pocket, I now can legally ride a bike up to 125cc on the street. Between the money I had been squirelling away from Christmas, birthdays, a few odd jobs and the proceeds from selling ice cream on the beach for a couple of summers, I was able to buy a brand spanking new Yamaha DTMX 125.
    It'll be 2 years and a full license until I can "legally" ride any motorcycle on the street with no restrictions, but those 2 years were filled with countless adventures and proved highly formative as a young rider, on the street as on the dirt. I loved every minutes of it.

    1977 Yamaha 125 DTMX copy.jpg

    • Like 6

    Spring is sprung

    in Technical Topics

    Posted

    When you wrench on your own bike - or any other such endeavor for that matter - trying to get all the information that you can will help you tremendously to achieve proper results, but remember, information is not knowledge, you need to build your own...

    • Like 3

    Show your very first bike - Nostalgia...

    in Special place for banter and conversation

    Posted

    nos·tal·gia| näˈstaljə, nəˈstaljə | noun

    A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

    14 years old, I was finally getting a real taste of freedom when I graduated from a bicycle and was legally allowed to ride a "Cyclomoteur" on the street... without a license.

    I literally lived on the darn thing and loved it, from taking me to school in the morning to meeting with my friends afterwards at the café and going on adventures on the week-ends. And when summer came, we'd load them up and go on multi-days camping trips in the backcountry... lots of fun memories. 

    The Italians had Vespas, we had Motobécane, Velosolex and Peugeot. The Peugeot 103 was ubiquitous in the streets of France in the 70's and would become the most sold moped in the world. It was the most popular model back then and has retained a cult following to this day.

    103-orange.jpg

    The Peugeot 103 celebrated its 50 years anniversary in 2021. Here is an article in honor of the event - Sorry but it's in French.

    https://www.mobylette-mag.fr/4890-peugeot-103-le-cyclomoteur-le-plus-vendu-dans-le-monde.html

    • Like 7

    V11 LeMans fuel tank removal...?

    in Technical Topics

    Posted

    That makes 2 for Design Engineering, Inc.

    They seem to have some good products. Two of them look like they would be appropriate for the replacement of the heat shield under the fuel tank.

    Reflect-A-Cool:  https://www.designengineering.com/reflect-a-cool-24-x-24/

    Heat Screen:  https://www.designengineering.com/heat-screen-36-x-20/

    They both have high-temp self-adhesive backing, come in different sizes, but "Heat Screen" seems a bit thicker and made with higher quality materials.

    A little pricey of course when compared to anything one might find on Aliexpress and such but this is a task that you would not want to undertake too often and effectiveness and durability should be high priority me-think. And even though, brand name and price alone does not guarantee product quality, the lack of information - and incomprehensibility thereof sometimes - associated with products out of Aliexpress make me a tad leery of buying there. On the other hand, these DEI products have good descriptions and even SDS sheets.

    I shall take a trip to Autozone and see what I can get my hands on...

     

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 1

    Pete Roper V11 slosh trays now available!

    in 24/7 V11

    Posted

    Well, I have one already installed on my ‘04 V11 CS, it came to me that way. I don’t know if it’s an original Moto Moda or one of the Rusty Star Picket Project one but I will put my name down for one if only to get the next batch underway and just for the sake of availability. Besides, you never know when a another V11 might follow you home...

    Thanks Eric!

    • Like 2

    Ducati DesertX Fantic Motor Caballero

    in Special place for banter and conversation

    Posted

    This article by Marco Panella describes the mood of kids growing up during that period just as I remember it.
     
    Caballero! The name is enough
    03-kxmD--900x675@IlSole24Ore-Web.jpg

     

    Between 1968 and 1971 everything happens: the battle of Valle Giulia, the student protest, the moon landing, the Cagliari championship dragged by Gigi Riva, the Azzurri defeat against Brazil in the final of the World Cup in Mexico City, the hot autumn, Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni's High Appreciation , Raffaella Carrà's Tuca Tuca , Easy Rider showing us the other side of America, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart competing for the Formula 1 titles, Giacomo Agostini who wins everything possible in the world championship and the austerity that sends Italians on bicycles. But for a fourteen year old, in those years something happens that will change his dreams and desires.

    In 1968 the Brianza-based Mario Agrati and the Dutch Henry Keppel Hesselink leave Garelli, the family business of the former and of which the latter was the director for sales abroad, and founded a company with an imaginative and psychedelic name that is all a promise: Fantic Motor .

    A promise that will be kept.

    Well the following year, at the Milan Cycle and Motorcycle Show, Fantic Motor presents the Caballero, a 50cc off-road motorcycle, but which for all of us kids of the seventies was simply the motocross bike. Try to imagine a 50cc you can ride without a license and that not only looked like it was a grown-up bike, with its telescopic forks, the high fender, the unmistakable sound, the tires that looked like the carrarmato Perugina put on the road and that name, Caballero, which echoed the gringos, suerte, vamos, sangre y muerte that we read on Tex and that deluded us that we could speak Spanish.

    Try to imagine it and put it in the Italy of the early seventies and its leaden climate, but at the same time so erratic as to make you believe everything is possible.

    The fact is that behind the Caballero an entire generation goes crazy, guarantees it an uninterrupted production until 1981 and gives it an aura of legend that time has not tarnished in the least.
    Perhaps this is why even today each of us, when it happens to come across one of the current versions of the Caballero put on the market by a renewed Fantic Motor , looks at the little boy who drives and smiles.

    Marco Panella

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 1

    Ducati DesertX Fantic Motor Caballero

    in Special place for banter and conversation

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, LowRyter said:

    Any of our European folks know about this one?

    All I know about this one is from an article I read about Cabellero making a come back as a brand.

    When I was a kid, Caballero made small displacement bikes (50cc) in scrambler type that we all lusted after. They were Italian, sexy, rare and out of reach for most of us.

    Along with “Fantic Motor” they filled many a dream of my adolescent years...

    • Like 3
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