Bandit Basement Shop Love

Thank you Santa for the new shop lights and for the new Shop Roomies who get me to clean up my space and make it more workable.
My new organized, well lit work bench.



My new fun loving basement shop mates. Lots of Bandit bike building love in 2010!

Photoshop mock up

Here's a very poor photoshop mock up of the direction I'm going for.


Subtract Rust, Add clip-ons.

Team Zissou!

It's cold as balls and time for new a winter project...

Christmas came early as at my door two large bike boxes arrived. Brad investigates...


I got the bike sent from the land of the cuperteens and in hopes that this rare bike wasn't in as rough shape as I feared...

I soon came to realize two things:
1. This is a really bizarre moped
2. It needs A LOT of work!

History Lesson: Vespa opened a factory in Spain that birthed the Vespino. It was widely popular throughout Spain but few were exported outside the country. This one came to California in a shipping container.





The case...huge transfers, case inducted that comes up from the bottom of the engine. I'll take better photos of of this engine mounts soon you can get a better idea.





Reed Cage...Rusty old, two petal...honestly it seems like a lot of material that restricts what could be a HUGE intake.









Frame: Sort of ugly, hollow tube frame that hides cables and wires, forks use sealed bearings and have a weird scooter type fairing (which is being ditched)








Wheels...Awesome! Sealed bearing 5 stars.











Rear Clutch...Big and thin. Here it is compared to the stock vespa size. Looking forward to what sort of power I can get out of that.


Other things...The bike came with performance variator and metrakit. More on those later. I was looking for a winter project and I got it.

Raiders of the lost Ark...Handy Bikes

There's a lot of updates coming shortly, but for now I'd like to tell you a story about the giant ass moped warehouse that everyone knows about but doesn't REALLY know about because if they did, they'd crap themselves. That's right, I'm talking about Handy Bikes. It looks like this:


Look familiar? That's because it's the warehouse from Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Seriously! I swear it looks JUST LIKE it...Except instead of state secrets and ancient religious artifacts, it's full of new old stock moped parts. Every nut, bolt, and rare part you've ever lost while working on your moped at night or in a low lit area can be re-discovered in this warehouse of mystery and intrigue. Shelves and shelves of forks, fairings, fenders, clutch parts, CEV electrical components, throttle assemblies, tanks, carburetors, engines, decals, pedals, and other parts, parts, parts!

While the the ark of the covenant could not be found here, the wheel room that's bigger than my apartment blew my face off.

Adventures in air leaks: Exploring 100cc's

A little while back my bike began running like total garbage. MAJOR air leaks. Since it has been steadily getting colder and colder, I sort of put the problem on the shelf. I wanted to open up the engine this winter anyway to see what sorts of improvements can be made. INSERT: lighting coil here.

Tonight I scratched the surface of a magical land. I thought I'd share my discoveries here.


Our journey begins with the Port of Simonini. This holy land is treacherous and is fill with many ports spanning the cylinder.


BEHOLD! The spectacle of ports!









Peer further into the inner cylinder with this port map as your guide






Next we cross the expanse separated from the Port of Simonini and head to Transfer Town. Scientists have many theories as to why the transfers of Transfer Town and the Ports of it's neighbor line up so perfectly. They explain this phenomenon as case matching pangea.




BEHOLD! The awe that is Transfer Town!


Next we head to Coil and Case Caverns! COMING SOON!

Simo dirt bike

1977 mopeds went to a huge conference in Europe and came back with some awesome photos. These in particular caught my eye...


In case you didn't notice, it's got the same simo engine that I have on it.

I know that these are already posted on their blog, but its just too cool not to post up here as well. I don't think I'd ever really go for the dirtbike style but I still think its pretty awesome.

Even More Simonini Ridiculousness

So somehow I now own not one simonini side intake...But two.


The kicker is that I have no project that involves this intake anywhere in sight...it gets added to the project pile with the 90cc simo and matching calibratta pipe...

Someday...