You know, if you are what some people call a "maker", not having a project open is at the same time the most liberating and also the most frustrating time. A thinking mind NEEDS something to ponder or it starts to over rev. On one hand you`re free from the confines of any given project, but on the other you`re constantly trying to find the slightest excuse to start some side project, no matter how irrelevant, so this little thing came at the exact right place and time. I`ve been thinking about it for some time but this was... well is, it`s not finished yet, the best possible time to get stuff done since I can`t start the "el cafe" project yet for reasons stated before.

I`ve promised to make a crash cage for my friend`s bike as well since she also has a 955i Daytona, some of you might know her as Missy so will be using that henceforth. I pretty much got everything needed already apart from the two pieces of the big pipe for the main crossbar and some lengths of the smaller pipe, which I got from one metal company a few days back. A funny thing happened while getting them, I was fetching cargo at work from the metal shop and casually happened to ask the forklift driver loading my truck if they could sell me some pipe. He replied sure what do I need. I said some 50mm "black" steel pipe with around 2,5mm wall, he said no such thing exist since the closest standard pipe diameter is 48,2mm outer dia. I told him that I bought some pipe from another local company about a year ago and have a recollection of it being 50mm but since it`s not a standard size it must have been the one mentioned. He asked me if it was for a motorbike crash cage, which totally caught me off guard, I said yea but how can you possibly know?
-Cause I used to work there and I was the one that made the bends for you! Small world eh?

So I got my bits the next day and today got to do some work. I had to remove my own cage to be able to use the frame as a jig to make the new one, luckily it`s not that big of a job since my bike is naked.

Man it`s gonna be wide! but it has to be since it`s going on a fully faired bike. Which in turn causes some additional challenges since I`ve never had fairings on my bike and therefore am lacking most of the mounting points as well so I had to partly study all the pictures I could find and partly guess where the fairings go. Luckily I got some help from a user in one bike forum who took pictures of his bike for me for reference.

So Missy if you`re reading this, surprise I`m going full monty on this one instead of just the rails we spoke of  :D

One derusted one to go. I don`t know what the tool with the rotating blade is called in english, a some sort of a deburrer, but I totally love it! Something I`ve meant to buy for years but never got around to until lately when I`ve been starting to work more with metal.

A lesson lies here. Measure twice cut once, and NEVER trust anyone else`s measurements no matter how much they swear they made them the same length!

And another here. It`s neat to own every single drill extension rod and all that stuff but if you really need them like once or twice a year and can mcgyver your way around the times does it really pay to invest money and storage space to them just for the joy of owning them? Cause let`s face it when you need it you don`t remember you already got one and go buy another, done that a few times...

Gotta shave off some of the corners to be able to weld around since those square ones for some reason are like 1,5 times as thick as the thickest round washers so went for them on my own cage as well.

Little welding and grinding later the main crossbar is ready to be test fitted to the bike. Still needs further cleaning but not relevant right now.

Hmm, ran into a bit of a snag, the standard T55 T-key which I`ve used to get my cage on and off is too short...

...luckily an 8mm allen socket will hold the bolt down enough to be tightened for test fitting.

...so according to the pictures the fairing goes from here to there through that one ear I still got so if I put the pipe there it shouldn`t hit the plastics... 60 degrees flat says the gauge.

Even if I say so myself not a bad seam for someone who has had zero hours and zero minutes of welding training and has welded very little overall. That one bead got away a little in the center but I thing it`ll hold nicely. Gotta love that automatic welding rig, worth every penny of the eye watering 1600 EUR I paid for it.

Same for the other side. Looks sooo wide without the fairings but since the fixing point is so high up it has to be that way.

Perfect alignment on the first try, this is going too smoothly... I`ve done the same amount of progress in two hours what I did in a whole day with the first one, but to my defence this time round I have a vision of what to do, the last time I was kinda winging it on the go.

Designing the joining flanges. All the measurements seem to be in beercans :D

Out of curiosity I dropped the bike on it`s side to see how it falls with the crash bungs and the angle could not be better. The lower bar bends the tinyest amount from the tip but since it`s cut to length it shouldn`t be touching the gound anymore, the rearsets are safe as well as the exhaust, and the bike lifts up with minimal effort. Shite, I may have to redo my cage as well!

As a last pic for today that is more or less how the cage will look like once finished.

Welcome to the asylum! Grab a beer from the shop side fridge and find yourself a nice spot to sit.

So, having kept several overlapping build blogs about the Triumph written from slightly different points of view depending on the target audience I got somewhat frustrated about it and decided it`s probly better just to do it once, do it right and do it from my own perspective. There most probably will be other projects as well as random thoughts of my life around motobikes, motorbiking, ride reports and life in general to whatever extent I see fit at any given time, but the main goal of this blog is to document as closely as possible my upcoming project of trying to convert a late seventies/early eighties motorbike to be electric driven. That spesific era for juristical reasons to what I will delve deeper into in future posts. I have named the project, at least until/if I can come up with a better name for it, the "El Cafe" for obvious reasons. The main project however will probably have to wait for some time until I can get pretty much anything done to it for the simple reason that I currently do not have a motorbike to start with, and to my amazement neither seems anyone else. I spesificly want a Honda CB because I studied the frames of different motorbikes from that said era and the CB frame seems to best suit my intentions, there just currently isn`t any for sale for any kind of even somewhat reasonable price. So my first project will probably be to change the timing belt of my old winter banger Renault Clio and try to convert that into cold hard cash and keep prowling for a suitable specimen. I`m in no hurry with this as I currently own a perfectly working motorbike so I don`t really care if I have to wait for an extended perioid of time, at least I have more time to study the subject so for once I would actually know beforehand what am I getting myself into.

So why an electric motorbike? They don`t generate much power, the range is terrible, parts extremely expensive and many say that they lack "balls" so to speak. I beg to differ. Of course you cannot get very far with one of those on one charge, but if it`s a commuter bike why should you be able to go further that to work and possibly back, if you`re planning to take a detour on your way home just plug it into the heater pole in the parking lot for the day and when you get from work you got full batteries. Yes they do have the distinctive lack of not making any engine sounds but let`s be honest the purr of a seventies 350 twin doesn`t exactly rock your world either eh? I find the thought intriguing to have a motorbike that will get going completely silently and when you`re riding all you`re hearing is the chain, the slight whizz of the engine and your tires. Oh, and EVERYTHING AROUND YOU which in an urban environment is not a bad thing at all. If I can pull off the design lurking in my head the bike WILL get noticed even without sound, or better yet because of it. The design will be something between neo-retro, fifties googie style in the style of "The Jetsons" topped of with a hint of cafe racer. I will post some preliminary design renderings once I can get something drawn well enough to be publishable. So stay tuned, honestly I don`t know can you subscribe to this somehow or not, but I will promise daily updates will NOT be coming :D In fact there probly will be quite long gaps between since I don`t have a frame to work on yet but I`ll keep one ear to the wind!