Here's an invitation to visitors to Voting thread to go to the nominating thread to see more of all 3 nominees. We got carried away and posted there first.
Here's a cut and paste of the story of the beginnng of Phaedrus:
Don't know for sure are we supposed t posst our story here or in the Voting Thread? Anyway, I'll put it here, cut and paste later if necessary. (See my build thread:
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=36459.0 )
Phaedrus was the alter ego of Robert Pirsig in the book Zen and the Art of Mtorcycle Maintenance, ca 1974. By 1980 I had adopted it as my AE. Me being the skinny milktoast walking lack of personality. Phaedrus being the tough powerful go anywhere do anything fight me if you dare, machine. The first Phaedrus started life as a tangerine flake K2. I bot it in 1974. By then it had an 836, RC Pipe and a windjammer. The engine was built by a shop in Tucson where I lived, had worked, and learned the bulk of what I think I know about these things. It had 32000 miles on it. I put at least another 30 (without the Jammer, not "cool"). I moved back to Indy, did a little roadracing (very little) and by 1980 had put it back on the road. A partial restomod as it were. The Yosh head off the roadracer, RB Pipe, 888cc PowRoll kit (900 to those who like to round), Borrani rims, various chassis mods, and most importantly, a luggage rack. Days after it was finished, I was off for 3 weeks, 6000 miles to visit the gang in Tucson and beyond. In October 1982, I took a girl on a blind date to the Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville IN on it. We were out for 12 hours. 2.5 years later we were married and still are.
On the high plains of NM, complete with state of the art radar detector (attached to right side forkear)
Tens of thousands of miles later it was retired for owner induced oil leaks. But during that wonderful time I formulated the theme for the next iteration. All parts that can come off the frame will be chromed or polished. The engine will be another 888, but much more nicely done. The frame will be what a road racer might want, gusseting, sized motormounts, smaller diamerter, wider wheels, no shortcuts. ut fully streetable, 2 up, with gear for an overnight, or longer. And a really garish paintjob, to top it all off. At the VJMC show, a spectator summed it up for me. "It looks like a 20 year old kid in the 1970s, had too much money and a big imagination." I couldn't believe what I heard, we'd succeeded!
But getting there was a long haul. From 1995 to 2008, I gave it only brief spurts of time. I had my HawkGT, and later the mighty FJR to ride, and Phaedrus was ignored. Then BRuce came up to me out of the blue and suggetsted, we should get together once a week for 3 hours or so and work on Phaedrus.. (He remembered P1 in its glory days.) I agreed and so it began.
Frame gusseting and powder coating:
(Gotta give up for now. But props go to MRieck for bailing me out of some engine woes. If I don't write anything else, here's something for Mike)
Poll