XT500H MIKE'S PAGE
I'm pretty much a dog lover and for many years my time has been spent with my two dogs Tia and Grover. But it's been a bad year for us and our extended dog family, and after a decade of great times we ended up loosing not only Tia, but also Grover in the space of a few months.
Owning dogs is sometimes not an easy thing. On one hand they offer you years of companionship, love and good fun as well as inspiring you to do things like climb mountains, explore trails, take trips to the lake and even chase gophers. They become part of your family, your best friends, and always ready to make you smile. However their shorter lifespan almost always means someday you will have to face loosing them. Although that occasion is sad and hard to bare it's in exchange for thousands of great days and many years of fun and pleasure.
And making sure they have a full and healthy and happy life is an accomplishment worth celebrating
If you like dogs as much as we do, you could have a look at this page for the story of Tia and Grover.
And if you'd like to see our NEW DOG 'PATTY' have a look HERE.
XT500H
I still love my 30 year old XT500H. The XT500 was introduced to the North American market in 1976 and continued to be sold until the introduction of the XT550 in 1982. The bike continued to be sold in the European and Japanese markets until the mid 90's, but my 1981 XT500H represents the last model marketed in North America.
It's advantages: There are no impossible to fix electronics or computers....it is an entirely roller bearing engine including camshafts....easy to adjust valve gear....and generally easy maintainance, along with absolute bullet-proof reliability. And it's small enough for an old guy whose legs seem to be getting shorter......
When I first bought this bike in 1993 it was a wreck.....but it was cheap and it ran well. Over the years I've put it into good enough condition to qualify for "Collector" plates as a vintage machine.
Around 1998 I decided I should have something more "modern" but after owning several newer machines I returned to the XT and it's simple and straight forward design.
On the left is my 1994 Suzuki DR650...a huge, powerful and heavy bike too big for me and my trail-bike habits. On the right my 1996 Suzuki DR350s...a very nice bike. I don't know why I sold it....must have needed something else even more. After a few years with these bikes I began to realize that nothing gave me more pleasure than the old XT500.
The XT500 has taken me to many mountain tops and interesting places and nothing beats the confidence of knowing I understand it completely, and I can fix it easily. Especially important if you like to ride alone.
It's often said that the XT500 is a difficult machine to start....and this is true if you are used to small 2 stroke kick-start motorcycles, or a modern electric start bike, but with a little technique the XT500 is a reliable and sure starter and if you want to know the secrets to starting a big-bore 4 stroke single....
click HERE.
The Triumph Dragster
In our family there was always a big interest in motorcycles and early in the 60's my brother bought a very nice Triumph Thunderbird, which was the first motorcycle I can recall, in our family. But it sure wasn't the last. In those days you either had a Harley Davidson, or a British bike and Japanese motorcycles were still very rare.
Here's an old shot of my brother and his friend washing the Triumphs one cold spring. The picture is dated 1963.
A few years later I helped my brothers build a Triumph dragster using a rigid frame triumph chassis and a highly modified Triumph 650 engine. It was bored out, with Johnson Motors cams, big pistons, lightened valve gear and very rare 2" Amal GP carburetors.
The construction took place in the family garage, and the testing on the front street to the delight of the neighbours.
The result was a hard to ride, terrifying, ear-splitting machine. The picture on the right shows my brother (right) with some other drag racers at Deer Park Raceways near Spokane in 1968. All the bikes ran Avon drag slicks. I can't remember the speeds, but I can remember it was 120 degrees F.
Motorcycles must have made a big impression on all of our family because all three brothers are still very active riders.
Machining stuff in my little shop:
In my High-School years is was common to be taught "Industrial Arts" especially if your "apptitude testing" had determined that you should do something with your hands rather than your brains....as was the case with me.
In those days the shop courses offered exposure to real machining equipment including lathes and drill presses. After my initial session running a real South-Bend lathe, I was hooked and the possiblities seemed endless. A lathe was very appealing to a teenager who loved to build machines and repair broken items and I promised myself I'd have a lathe one day.
I've never lost that interest and a small workshop is a key element in my life.
Here's a page on a project for dividing a workpiece on a milling machine the easy way.
And here's another page on a tailstock die-holder for my 7x10 mini-lathe:
Ham Radio
Yup, I'm still fooling with that too. Recently a ham friend gave me a broken portable radio....It was a Sony ICF SW7600G (I don't know why the name is so long).....I've never thought much about small portable radios, to my mind a proper radio has to be big and heavy. But I fixed it up, and then was amazed at it's performance.
Using just the little whip I could hear ham signals and other radio stations around the world. This little radio was like having a high performance HF receiver in your pocket.
Not only was it sensitive and stable, it had provision to receive Morse Code, and Single-Side Band amateur signals as well as synchronized AM reception.
This receiver was sophisticated enough to receive ham digital signals called PSK31 when plugged into my ancient dell laptop, and I've spent many good hours monitoring ham signals from all around the world....All this..... not in my ham shack, or with tons of equipment.....but just the tiny Sony and it's whip antenna, a mono patch cord and my old laptop on the dining-room table....and a FREE program called
DIGIPAN....... http://www.digipan.net/
Pretty cool, and for an old tube type guy like me, very amazing.
That's about it for now.....Have a nice SPRING.