Motocross?
Me?
I was kicked off the playground for being uncoordinated in hop scotch. I was always first out in dodge ball. I was the last one picked for sides in baseball or football. I was told I was too clumsy to play with others when I was a kid, even by my best friend. I never rode a motorcycle before. And now, you want me to ride motocross?
Calvin had bought one of the first Honda CR250M motocross bikes, a full-on race machine built for competition. It was Honda’s first look into becoming a competitor in racing and this fool had bought a brand new bike from Honda, stripped it down, cut the frame into two pieces, and mailed it to himself in Germany. Is he a fool? Now he wants me to learn to ride on his bike. Calvin said that if I break it I had to fix it. As if I didn’t already have enough pressure.
I saw it but it was hard for me to believe. Calvin was from LA, a different part of California but he was still from my home state. When you are in the military, anybody from your home state is instantly a friend. But he seemed weird. He was about my height, 5’ 11”, or so he seemed in my eyes. He was probably only 5’ 9” or so but he was thin. I’ll bet Calvin only weighed 110 lbs. Calvin rode a bicycle to and from work because, as he says: “It’s got two wheels!” A little close to my heart or at least it will soon be.
It was hard for me to believe that anybody would take a brand new anything and cut it up into pieces and mail it to himself. But, he is a welder and he knows what he is doing, I think. Calvin showed me the pins he had someone in the machine shop make him. They were just a length of cold rolled steel machined into pins that fit inside the cut tubes of his frame. His idea was to drop the pins in place and weld the frame up around the pins. I went with him that cold Saturday morning, to the welding shop, and I watched him set up the welder. His plan was to reconnect the frame with a type of welding called TIG welding (Tungsten Inert Gas).
For those of you who don’t know, TIG welding is one of the hardest types to perform. It consists of having an electrode made of Tungsten that is surrounded by a shroud that provides an inert gas atmosphere. TIG welding is a lot like the old style of welding using an acetylene torch and select metal rod, the torch makes puddles in the metal and you drip the joining molten metal into the puddle by holding the welding rod over the hot torch. But in TIG welding, a form of arc welding, the welder uses rod made from some alloy, stainless steel, or aluminum and the heat is controlled by a foot pedal. Oh hell, that must take a lot of coordination.
Calvin said he was going to weld 4130. Today, that cold Saturday morning, I am going to learn about alloy steel too. 4130 steel tubing is lighter than aluminum of the same strength and it is much stronger for the same size. That means Honda did their homework when they designed that racing bike. That also means Calvin must be a pretty good welder, he definitely had the confidence. So I put on a spare welding helmet and I watched over Calvin’s shoulder as he meticulously dropped little molten balls of alloy steel into his work to rejoin two sections of frame. Frame that I thought would never be the same. Little did I know, those welds were stronger than the rest of the frame.
In retrospect, I was concerned as we rode that little devil of a motorcycle all around that motocross course just off base. Calvin would inspect his welds every once in a while until he was satisfied that they were good. But they held up under some great stresses as we pulled endless wheelies. We made jumps, not over busses, but we did jump across small obstacles like mud ditches, wood debris and whatever. Steven, Calvin and I all had a great time on that Honda 250, I learned to do stunts and I just had a great time on the weekend with my two friends.
But I am getting ahead of myself; I was still sitting on a time bomb, ticking away. The fuse was set to go off the minute the parts arrived to rebuild my Honda twin.
Me?
I was kicked off the playground for being uncoordinated in hop scotch. I was always first out in dodge ball. I was the last one picked for sides in baseball or football. I was told I was too clumsy to play with others when I was a kid, even by my best friend. I never rode a motorcycle before. And now, you want me to ride motocross?
Calvin had bought one of the first Honda CR250M motocross bikes, a full-on race machine built for competition. It was Honda’s first look into becoming a competitor in racing and this fool had bought a brand new bike from Honda, stripped it down, cut the frame into two pieces, and mailed it to himself in Germany. Is he a fool? Now he wants me to learn to ride on his bike. Calvin said that if I break it I had to fix it. As if I didn’t already have enough pressure.
I saw it but it was hard for me to believe. Calvin was from LA, a different part of California but he was still from my home state. When you are in the military, anybody from your home state is instantly a friend. But he seemed weird. He was about my height, 5’ 11”, or so he seemed in my eyes. He was probably only 5’ 9” or so but he was thin. I’ll bet Calvin only weighed 110 lbs. Calvin rode a bicycle to and from work because, as he says: “It’s got two wheels!” A little close to my heart or at least it will soon be.
It was hard for me to believe that anybody would take a brand new anything and cut it up into pieces and mail it to himself. But, he is a welder and he knows what he is doing, I think. Calvin showed me the pins he had someone in the machine shop make him. They were just a length of cold rolled steel machined into pins that fit inside the cut tubes of his frame. His idea was to drop the pins in place and weld the frame up around the pins. I went with him that cold Saturday morning, to the welding shop, and I watched him set up the welder. His plan was to reconnect the frame with a type of welding called TIG welding (Tungsten Inert Gas).
For those of you who don’t know, TIG welding is one of the hardest types to perform. It consists of having an electrode made of Tungsten that is surrounded by a shroud that provides an inert gas atmosphere. TIG welding is a lot like the old style of welding using an acetylene torch and select metal rod, the torch makes puddles in the metal and you drip the joining molten metal into the puddle by holding the welding rod over the hot torch. But in TIG welding, a form of arc welding, the welder uses rod made from some alloy, stainless steel, or aluminum and the heat is controlled by a foot pedal. Oh hell, that must take a lot of coordination.
Calvin said he was going to weld 4130. Today, that cold Saturday morning, I am going to learn about alloy steel too. 4130 steel tubing is lighter than aluminum of the same strength and it is much stronger for the same size. That means Honda did their homework when they designed that racing bike. That also means Calvin must be a pretty good welder, he definitely had the confidence. So I put on a spare welding helmet and I watched over Calvin’s shoulder as he meticulously dropped little molten balls of alloy steel into his work to rejoin two sections of frame. Frame that I thought would never be the same. Little did I know, those welds were stronger than the rest of the frame.
In retrospect, I was concerned as we rode that little devil of a motorcycle all around that motocross course just off base. Calvin would inspect his welds every once in a while until he was satisfied that they were good. But they held up under some great stresses as we pulled endless wheelies. We made jumps, not over busses, but we did jump across small obstacles like mud ditches, wood debris and whatever. Steven, Calvin and I all had a great time on that Honda 250, I learned to do stunts and I just had a great time on the weekend with my two friends.
But I am getting ahead of myself; I was still sitting on a time bomb, ticking away. The fuse was set to go off the minute the parts arrived to rebuild my Honda twin.
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