Everything all at once

So the last couple weeks have been a real mess. Not much time for moped fun, mostly moped work. I've done quite a few custom heads, and finally shipped out some one-off parts that I've been designing to see how well they work and if it is something worth putting into production, but other than that things have been super boring.

Its been probably more than a month since i was able to update this last, finals for fall quarter killed me pretty bad, then it was two weeks of working and driving all over the midwest to hang with bandits for tanks'd'giving


This guy is great... there are very few things that i would drive 16 hours to attend for 12 hours, but campfires and garage bullshitting with the bandits is always worth it. The narrow window between finals week and thanksgiving break allowed me to attend this one with a clear conscious knowing i hadn't violated my 'no rallies during school' policy that has so far kept me from getting any moped-related F's. woo-hoo!

The next weekend saw me back up in the frozen northland, visiting the family in Eau Claire. Its always good to be 'home' especially when you come from such a warm familiar hallmark-esque town such as the Eau C.
Plus 2.50 mixed drinks and $9 pitchers dont hurt. The Joynt and GI are two of my favorite bars in the world, miss them lots.

I finally got serious about ironing out the bugs in the puegeot, the cold weather has aggrivated the wierdnesses and keeping it outside really hasn't been very good for it. I finally pulled the coil out last weekend and cut off the windings, so now i'm committed to re-winding it. I got the drill-mount jig ready to go and found some 24ga magnet wire. Trying to learn something about fluxes and potentials and all that crazy physics (why is it i've had years of these classes and cant do anything practical with them!) right now to have a better idea of how much to wrap. The 'more is more' school of thought has occurred to me, but i really need this thing to get me to and from work so i want to get it right the first time. Walking/biking/bumming rides from the GF is getting old quick.
I've also been thinking a lot lately about needles and atomizers and bing carbs designed for piston port engines. I've modded the needles a little bit to make up for porting stock cylinders, but i've never ran a bing on a reed motor. It could be some of the wierdness i'm experiencing is related to all that atomizer/needle business being all wrong. I gotta get the coil fixed to be able to tell though.

Also, the stupid pipe which has been cracked and poorly spot welded onto the nut itself for 3 months now... gotta seal that up. machined a little adapter thing that will weld to the old pipe and give it a nice new machined (100x stronger) lip to securely bolt into. That might take care of some problems.

Thats about it for me. oh yea cranks are official. thanks a million to everyone who voted for us, hopefully we wont embarass y'all by acting like a bunch of nerds. oh wait we ride mopeds, why is that cool again? also, does anybody besides a handful of members on the coasts who are in MA for strictly social reasons, really care whether or not mopeds are cool? I'm happy with the members forum joking about us being the 'kids at the magic table' of moped army. I think moped army should be about the kids at the magic table. I wasn't really one of them because i have no patience for card games but i've been to my share of drug fueled LAN parties and we were having hella more fun in high school than the 'drunk-in-a-backseat-trying-to-feel-up-a-passed-out-cheerleader' set.

And while i'm ranting:
Also, Four... anyone who is bitching should blame the lawyers and politicians who give them power to sue over stupid things like underage people drinking way too much and shooting themselves in the head. Thats what killed four, not the governments or alcohol control boards, the company was afraid to sell the product because of a lawsuit and fear of more lawsuits. The same thing that happened to Sparks (RIP).
Any time you cheer lawyers 'sticking it' to big awful corporations, remember those corporations are in place because they are making a product people want. Lawn darts, hot coffee, blackouts in cans (or bottles as they have been traditionally served). Irresponsible, opportunist and unethical Lawyers screw the pooch for all of us.

Ach... i'm too hostile to be typing tonight, back to the grind.

Batavus go-fast parts are in testing, look for some cool stuff soon.