Cobra installation

No, no, not that kind of cobra…

cobra pipes on my 2008 Yamaha v-star 1100.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime lately; so I decided it was time for a little reward. Yep you guessed it a set of cobra pipes. The pipe was dropped off a couple of days ago at my front door, isn’t the internet great… Ok, on with the story.

I talked to my buddy Dave and he agreed to meet me at the compound Saturday morning at 10:00am to do the installation. Neither one of us had ever done this before, so it was kind of like the blind leading the blind. Ha-ha.

Here are a few photos I took of the process…truth is, it was a very easy job…it took us two or three hours…

First…stock pipes

Second…removed 4 bolts to lower the foot rest and the break master cylinder.

Third….loosen two clamps remove a couple of bolts to remove the rear mufflers. 4 more bolts and the front pipes were off also.

Fourth…place the new pipes on, and then next the heat shields…on a funny note the hardest thing to do was placing a single screw in the end of the pipe to hold the tip in…Murphy law tell us there is always one. Ha-ha.

Fifth…DONE, take a look…great looking pipes…

I tried to shoot a short video on my new Flip camcorder….hope it works…check it out…I’ll do better on the next recording. Still learning

We did a quick ride to the Mexican restaurant to get something to eat…the pipes sound outstanding…its like riding a whole new bike…bike runs great…you may notice it sounds a little rough in the video, that only because the bike was cold, I had a little to much choke on….I’ll do another video later so you can hear the final product.
Till then
Big Al

Planes, trains and MOTORCYCLE???

Running kind of behind in my blogging, so I’ll make the next few posts short and sweet, until I catch up.

Ok here I go; truth is there are no planes in this story but there are trains and motorcycles. It all started a few weeks ago when a co-worker buddy of mine David bought a Harley police bike; see my last post.
http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2010/01/harley-davison-and-yamaha-man-take-on.html

Then he talked another co-worker, also named David into getting one. Well a deal was made and David was now a proud owner of a cop bike. There were only two problems, except for the one hour lesson I gave David on my bike, see link.

http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2009/11/day-ten-flirting-with-disaster.html

He had never ridden a bike before. Problem two, the bike was at Chunky River Harley Davison, around 90 miles away.

The first problem was easy to over come, both the David’s took a three day motorcycle training class, both passed with flying colors.

The second problem proved to be a little more of a challenge…let me explain. Well David # 1 and I wanted to ride our bikes up to the dealership and ride back with David # 2…now your starting to see the problem, two bikes and three guys….

humm what to do what to do. Yep I’ll admit it, for a brief second I thought about riding two guys one bike (not much I won't do for my friends but even I have my limits. Ha-ha) then this video came to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721w4uS3jD0

So it was decided David # 2 would take a train, while David #1 and I would ride our bikes to meet him at the dealership.

David # 1 and I arrived just minutes ahead of David # 2. As we pulled into the parking lot we found to our surprise the dealership was having a cook out for its customers.

There were Harleys and Harley riders everywhere, yep you guessed it I was riding the only Yamaha there…ha-ha.

Then I saw it…David’s # 2 new bikes was parked right next to the grill all shined up and ready to go, surrounded by many bikers. Here is the funny part; David # 2 was going to have to ride his new bike right through the crowd of bikers…don’t forget he had only ridden a bike around 3 times in his life…pressure, pressure.

Well the good salesmen at the Harley shop, helped him out and moved the bike to the side of the building. Well he managed to get the bike in gear and made a smooth take off. Well smooth until he reached the back parking lot and had to enter a major traffic hwy.

As we were pulling up all I see is David # 2 letting the bike get away from him and dropped it on its side. He was having trouble getting the bike back up so I jumped off mine to give him a hand. After being rattled by all that, he still had to pull the bike into the hwy to get the bike home…well what seemed like a couple hours wait until he pulled out into traffic (I sure it seemed longer to David # 2. Ha-ha) once he got a brief lull in traffic he made his move (reminded me of the game frogger)

…Dam good job, no troubles the rest of the way home.

The rest of the trip went pretty much uneventful…nice ride with good friends. What more could you ask for…

Till next time
Big Al

Shirley, David # 2, you didn’t think I would not tell everyone that you dumped your bike the first 2 minutes of your ride. Ha-ha…look at it this way at least you got that over with already. Ha-ha. (Only funny because there was no damage to the bike or David # 2.)

Oh yea we got to do something about your names….David # 1 & 2 just is not going to work…

Harley Davison and the Yamaha man take on Wiggins, Mississippi

Saturday, January 23, 2010…9:30am

Time to get this Wiggins trip started…after a few text messages that went something like this… (me)”we still on for the Wiggins trip…weather looks great 60’s and 70’s”…”(David) yep meet me at my house around 10:00am.” (Me) “OK”…GUY TALK…YOU GIRLS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND. Ha-HA

I gassed the mighty Yamaha up and off to David’s house I went. As I pulled into his driveway, I got my first look at his new Harley…well new to David anyway…let me explain…just the day before David found himself at Chunky River Harley Davidson in Meridian.

http://chunkyriverharley-davidson.com/

Signing his life away on a 2008 police addition FLHTP electric glide, I think it has somewhere around 7800 miles on it. I hate to admit this but I forgot to take any close up photos of the bike so I'll pull some off chunky river’s web site…as they have two more they want to sell.

David greeted me at the door and I got the short tour around the house as his wife Dana and his daughter Amy chased a neighbor’s crazy dog

around the back yard while David and I stayed safely out of harms way on the back deck watching the action from above. (As it should be) you know the old saying “women and children first” that was my point, let them go first and see if the dog is a threat.

After a quick look over of the bike, Amy brought out David’s helmet. Hmmm, what can I say about this helmet? I have to be honest, it looked like something from star wars to me. The first time I saw a photo of it was on Facebook on Friday and I made a comment about it. It looked like something Luke would wear while fighting the death star in the Star Wars movie…

Well little Amy took this to heart and decided to decorate her daddy’s helmet. Out came the blue painter tape and in only a few short hours…the very much new and approved motorcycle helmet.

GREAT JOB AMY!!! Only one problem…as I was looking for a star wars helmet photo on the web…I found out that blue strips were already being placed on white helmets…

hope there is no patents pending…ha-ha.

Ok now we were on the road, we made a quick stop across the road at the high school parking lot so David could do a little stop and go practice before the trip.

Practice went great. I snapped a few photos, then down Hwy. 42 we went until we reached Hwy 29 were we took a right. Hwy 29 is a great motorcycle road,

very few cars and gentle curves, this is where David showed me the power of his new COP bike as he passed me and took the lead. We soon crossed Hwy 98 where we pulled in to gas up the Harley.

Then once again we were on our way down 29, me in the lead, as I wanted to stop off at a hiking trail I hiked a long time ago. We took a break, snapped a few photos

and soon were on our way again…only this time with a twist…I was on the Harley and David was on the Yamaha. Wow, what a ride…I have got to get a bigger bike, the extra horsepower, the weight, and the sixth gear…oh do I dream about a sixth gear (My bike is a five speed). A few minutes later we pulled into downtown Wiggins, first stop… Wards...

time for a burger and fries. As we were getting off the bike I was asked the question how do I like the bike…Hmmm his bike being a retired COP bike the first thing that ran through my mind was the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yil9wlfa0yo

Great bike…and yes it will become the next bluesmobile. Ha-ha.
Stay tuned for part two.
Big Al

Summer time is coming…I can feel it.

Yea...yea I know its January…but motorcycle riding with no gloves and jacket is in the air. Ok I guess I’m just getting a little over excited

over the 69 degree day I had today, to ride to work in. It beats the heck out of the 21 degree day I road in a week or so ago.

One of my co-works David just bought a bike; he is picking it up Friday. I don’t know much about it other than it is a used Harley cop bike, sounds like he got a great deal…time to ride!!! I guess we will be known as “Harley-Davidson and the Yamaha Man” and yea I stole the name from the movie “Harley-Davidson and the Marlboro Man”

so sue me. Ha-ha.

We’re in the planning stage for our first ride…looks like a trip to Wiggins Mississippi, we’ll be riding hwy 29 there and hwy 49 back…loop ride. Should be a good first trip to break in Dave’s new bike or should I say the bike may break in David…

its been around 20 years since he has been on one…its just a little over a hundred mile loop, he should do fine and yes I’ll be reporting on it soon.

More later
Big Al

January 17, 1964

Morning everyone…today’s my birthday…today’s my birthday…yea!!!!!!! Well I always want to get someone like Marilyn Monroe

to sing happy birthday to me…so I thought here is my chance…but alas, Weird Al Yankovic

was the best I could do on such short notice (hence the song playing in the background)…maybe I’ll plan better next year. Ha-ha.
Have a great day everyone
Big Al

I FINELY MET MY MATCH

Let met start off by saying sorry for being gone for so long…not really sure where I’ve been…I guess I just have not been in a blogging mood…well I’m BACK!!! Can’t wait to catch up on my friends blogs…trust me I will.

Ok back to the title…it been about a week and a half since I road my motorcycle due to the cold and rain…well yesterday I checked the weather channel online…28 degrees with a ten percent chance of rain. Time to RIDE!!! For you guys and gals that follow my blog , you know I ride almost every day unless it's more than a thirty percent chance of rain (that’s my cut off) even then I may take my truck to work in the morning and come home at lunch and bring back my bike.

I cranked the bike and drove to work…Wow!!! I was amazed at how much I love riding that bike…its like crack…I’m telling you…well for me anyway. Ha-ha. I was wearing my AT&T uniform as always…jackets great, but the thin dress pants give my legs little protection from the cold, but the ride went off without a hitch…made it to work, was a little cold but feeling good. THEN THERE WAS THIS MORNING!!! Looked online again…Hmm (I cut and pasted the note below from the weather channel)

But what it does not show in the note above was it is getting up in to the fifties by lunch…I guess this clouded my judgment…

Well my friends…let me tell you if you live in the south and are use to weather in the nineties…21 degrees is COLD…Very COLD!!!

Not to mention I’m doing sixty miles and hour down the highway in khaki pants…here is how it went, around the half way point…I lost my legs…they were gone…not sure where they went…but I assure you…THEY WERE GONE!!! Next came my hands (even wearing thick Tour Master gloves) they started stinging…who am I kidding…THEY WERE GONE TOO!!! Oh yea I forgot to mention my 5 dollar sunglasses that I wear…would freeze over with a sheet of ice as I stopped at lights from my breath sneaking out from the face mask I was wearing. NO vision, no hands and no legs…wow that made for a fun ride to work.

Well I made it, jumped off the bike, ran into the office and drank about 50 cups of hot coffee

(ok I’m lying a bit…it was more like 25 cups of coffee) then came the…lets call it the office humor…I think everyone in the entire building came around to my desk, to tell me…

Are you stupid or something?

Are you Crazy? …

well you get the point…ha-ha.

Well the moral to this story…Add 21 degrees and under to my list of when NOT to ride…and for you Na sayer’s out there…you know who you are…you’ll just have to be jealous as I ride off into the sunset after work in fifty degree weather this afternoon, well worth the punishment of the morning ride…Ahhh what a ride.
Big Al