Well I woke up this morning (which is a great start for just about any blues song ever written) and I couldn't stand up straight. I could touch my toes fine, just couldn't straighten up. Fcuk it, I took a couple of Tramadol and made a breakfast of potato (from my own garden) pancake, egg, bacon and baked beans. A delicious, and quite musical meal.
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Now the work end of year function was scheduled for 12.30 and I'd planned to give my poor neglected Harley Sportster a wash and ride it into the city for the function, but that went by the wayside and I sent my apologies. I need to get some more steroid injections into my spine, the last lot worked great for 6 months, and it's only started to piss me off again since September, but as I'm a chicken, and the injections hurt like hell, I've been using Covid-19 as an excuse to stay away from the medical centre, but I better do it soon, as my 92 year old mum gets around quicker than I do.
By around 1pm though, I'd taken yet still more Tramadol plus Panadol Osteo and an anti-inflammatory, and I was feeling much better. OK, no-one was at work, it was sunny (but not warm) so I thought I might ride the K0 to the gas station and fill it up with 98 RON fuel. The ride over was unevenful, so on the way back decided to detour the ten miles to Ace Motorcycles and see if Jeff would do a roadworthy inspection for me?
Jeff always greets me like his long lost little brother, and he was sitting in his office yacking to Harvey, his old mate. Harvey was a cop for many years, before he was pensioned off when he contracted Leukemia. Harv is a sociopath, who doesn't like people at all, but enjoys gold detecting around some ancient Chinese vertical mineshafts in Central Victoria. I asked Jeff once why Harv was always going gold detecting, and Jeff told me that Harv was actually visiting some baddies that he'd dropped down those mineshafts back in the day, which made perfect sense to me. Luckily for me, Harvey told me that he liked me, but if he ever invites me to go gold detecting with him, I think I'll pass..........
Jeff did the roadworthy inspection, and the old red beast flew through with flying colours. As it was still early afternoon and sunny, I thought I'd knock up a few miles on the old K0, so headed off towards the "Western Ring Road" onto the Hume Freeway, and @ 70 MPH, the bike was just having a ball. Seriously, those CB77 pistons with new rings must really be as good as the old drag racer who sold them to me all those years ago said they were, this engine is really peppy, and loves to rev! I turned off the freeway at Wallan, and rode the back roads to Romsey, a little town in the middle of nowhere. I stopped to take a pic beside some Christmas decorations, but my fingers were so numb from the cold that my iPhone's camera's heat sensitive buttons didn't want to work. I did get one pic though.
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 1 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I took off again, on to Lancefield, then turned right to ride to Kilmore, the intent being to do a big square basically. I stopped again a few miles down the road to take some better pics.
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 3 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 6 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I jumped back on, and took off for home. The bike was in it's element, the Delkevic pipe sounds louder than the one on the F2, and the engine really feels angry, it just loves to rev, but I didn't take it much over 5K RPM's, being it's first ride and all.
I had a close encounter with a stupid bidtch at a gas station on the way home. I'd done a little over 100 miles so thought it a good idea to fill up in anticipation of my next ride. I pulled up to a pump, switched the bike off, put it on it's centre stand and pulled out the pump to start filling the tank. A ladies voice came over the PA, saying something about the pump? I'm a bit deaf, the VA bought me some hearing aids last year, but they annoy me so I rarely use them, so I took the bike off the stand, and rolled it over to another pump, went thru the same ritual, only to partially hear the lady say something about the pump again?
Fcuk this, I walked over to the shop and asked the lady what she'd said, and she said, "I asked you to take your helmet off." Now, to put this in perspective, she was wearing a mask, customers were coming and going with masks on, but because I was wearing an open face helmet that allows the security cameras to easily identify me, I had to take my helmet off, when folks wearing masks that covered the greater portion of their faces, were allowed to buy fuel, without restriction? That was just dumb. Anyway, she was very apologetic, said that was the rules, blah blah blah, but I wasn't convinced. Stupid is, what stupid does.
By now traffic was building, as with no new covid cases in the last 30-odd days, life here in Melbourne is returning to normal. I scooted in and around the traffic on the old beast, and while pulled up beside a car at a set of lights, a guy around my age rolled down his window and said "Beautiful bike mate, I had one just like it" which made me feel pretty good. I arrived home and had to take a couple of pics of it with the F2 as I realised that I now have the first model CB750, as well as the last.
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 9 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 9a by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
As you can see, I like Stinko tyres and Delkevic pipes, both excellent, but underrated products. I ended up doing 111 miles today, so I can go over the the "20 rides in 2020" thread, and put another notch in my lipstick case, (with apologies to Pat Benetar) I think this is #17 or 18? So a day of firsts, my first ride on this bike, my first fillup, and my first trouble free first ride after a ground up resto.
K0 Thursday 10 Dec 2020 9b by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Ooher, and when I got home I was a little nonplussed. You see, my daily routine for the last two months, pretty much every day has been: Work until knockoff time, (or on the weekends, I'd get straight into it, or maybe after a ride on the F2) so without any real work needed on the K0 now, I looked at the bitsa and decided that tomorrow with be "Heart Transplant" day, so as soon as I can knock off work I'll head out to the garage and see how long it'll take to pull one engine out, and install the other. I bought another jug of Penrite semi-synthetic bike oil yesterday, and I have a new oil filter for it, so hopefully I'll be riding the old Bitsa by Sunday. It'll be nice to have 3 very different CB750's to ride. The first, the last, and one sort of in between.........
