Mega-Updates: My Week Off

So last week was my first paid vacation ever. I spent the week in

CT at my father's house. I took over his garage for the week to

finish up some moped projects. I brought my trusty Hobbit up

from Brooklyn run free on the country back roads.

I mounted up a blue seat to make it a better 2-seater ride for me and

my gf. Also, thanks to Terry Dean for the Yellow Sebac shocks. I left

them jacked up to suit the weight of riding doubles. This project is

nick-named the Swed-Ped or Swedish Moped. I have more blue parts

to mount including pedals, pedals arms, and BMX bars. Right now it

looks kinda dumb with just a blue seat, but comfort trumps looks in

this case.

Thanks to Dan from The Metal Ponies for hooking me up with this

Magnum frame (and sweet MP patch). She's pretty rusty but cleaned

up nice with a 4.5" radial sandpaper disk.

I also hacked off about 1.5 lbs of extraneous mounts

and metal tubing. I couldn't do this to my original Magnum

frame because it was in such nice condition. I also drilled

holes to run all the wiring through the frame.

This frame is now with my mags, swing arm, and tank at Orphanage

Mopeds awaiting powder coating.

The Thule rack on my Cherokee make a nice drying rack for the Derbi

swingarm and kick stand that I painted up.

Here's the Derbi partially together. 60cc MetraKit with 15.15 SHA Carb

performance reeds, 15mm intake, and Metra exhaust. I got it to start

up a few times for several minutes. Sounded like a throaty chainsaw

when it was running. Best sounding moped ever! It's having spark

issues from either a bad coil or old points. I can't source either so I

think I might go with an HPI CDI on this project. It deserves it. Also

upgrading to a 19mm intake and a 19mm PHBG race carb in the

near future.

I also took a motorcycle riding course at Tunxis College in

Farmington, CT. My brother and I both passed the driving and

the written tests and managed to swing through the DMV before

closing early for the holiday weekend to get our motorcycle licenses.

Best class I've ever taken! I rode a Yamaha R200 all week. Fun!