Ola Chicos - KTM time & big trail bikes

 Picked up off road riding in Houston after meeting my friend Gareth who had done the Romaniacs hard enduro.   Fell in love with enduro immediatly.   So bought a KTM 200 which I kept for one year, until I gave it to my son.

who personalized to his taste

And when my son got into it, it was time for me to move on to 300.  I really love that bike, the 2 stroke had everything.  I was a blast. 

And then, got a really good deal from local dealer who wanted to get rid on its 2018 model cause 2019 were already in the shop that I bought a brand new 250 

And when I moved to Dubai, I jumped on a great opportunity to purchase a CRF 450.  

And to take the bike into the desert, I bought myself my dream car.  

On the big trails, I have always love the Suzuki Djebel 650 - 1990.   Love the style, love the colour, so when I found one for sale on local craiglist, I jumped on the opportunities.   At that time, I lived on Norway, so I rode through the summer and let my neighboor drive it while I was away.   He forgot to service it and killed the engine few months later.  We took it apart at Christmas, sold the parts and went to the restaurant with the money.   I might buy another one some days.  

One other days, I came across another add for a cheap BMW F 650 and thought why not, especially when it was a bargain.  Drove it for a while.  Very smooth bike, never had any problem even if it had more than 100k mileage.  

Ola Chicos - Vespa time - VBB 150 - 1962

 The history of this Vespa started in Karari Pakistan 3 weeks after the bombing that cost the life of 15 french engineers.  While I was peacefully sitting next to my chauffeur Ali a nice little vespa drove up the line and stopped next to me.

I asked Ali if Vespa were common in Pakistan and if how much did they cost to which he answered there was a second hand street somewhere in Karachi and that for few hundreds of dollars you could get one.  What the heck, we decided to check it out in the evening.   Most of the bike street in Karachi are mostly chineses bikes but there are quite a few shop with Vespa and also small cubic triumph.   Safety is limited to great extend to sandal, short and tshirt.  Welding and painting is done out on the street and every western is a potential big spender.  We quickly found what I was looking for, a VBB 150cbm and left Ali to negotiate the price of the engine.  I also told Ali to have the scooter painted "paki style".   Ali called me next day to inform me that the Vespa and the painting would run me 150 usd.  Not bad.  

1 month later the Vespa was delivered to my house in Dubai with all the import papers.  I never bothered to register the bloody thing as I drove it around the neighboorhood and to go to the beach.   Two years later, I was transfered to Norway and took the vespa to the local export office to obtain the export certificate.  And there big problem !!!!!!  the chassis number did not match the import certificate.  Hence refusal to give me the export certificate.  I went back to the guy that cleared the scoot two years back and he told me they could not find the chassis so for small backshish he wrote a bogus number and the custom officer let him through.

That did not help me much.  So I left the sooter in Dubai and moved to Norway.  it stayed there for couple years, until I heard someone was moving back to France and shipping his personnal effect onto a 20 foot container.  I had the scoot dismantled got rid of the engine who was on his last leg anyway and sent the scoot as "bar decoration".   I collected the chassis few months later in Aix, and start mounting it.  I found a PX 200 engine on the net in Barcelona and had it delivered to my office in Spain and ship to France.  Tthe scoot was back on the road 4 years after its last ride. 

Ola Chicos - Donors bikes of mine

 As I am still moving old stuff from my website to my blog, I figures I would do a one shoot of some other bikes / projects that I have encountered through the years.  

Let's start with this one, an old lambretta LD 125 from 1957.   Got it from in the famous Monteux swap meet in Vaucluse.  My brother in law always wanted a scooter so when I called him to informed him I had found one, he did not hesitate and asked me to buy and restore it for him.

and so I started by taking it apart.   All parts was original but pretty worn down.   Best for you to watch the following video to see the various stage of the project : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ulsd3HQDEQ

Mechanically, I wasn't really sure how to make this engine work, and I didn't have much time either.  At that time I have bought 2 old motorcycles for 100 euro, but did not have time to work on them either and did not have space, so I had put them for sale on local craigslist.   When I guy called George, called me for the old Peugeot 176 from 1956 and we got talking I realised he was a scooter mechanics so I traded the Peugeot against him rebuilding the Lambretta engine.   Which he did.  

As for the Peugeot 176, this is how I gave it to him and how he restored it.  

Not bad.   

Moving on to another story.  When I build my wife Redneck Buell, I had bought a Cyclone M1 which I intended to use as donors bike, but few month later I found an Buell X12 which was more in line with my project.   So, I ended up selling my Buell to the 2nd in command of Wild Motorcycle Magazine.  He came home to pick it up, had some good Corsican meal, and took it back home near Draguignan.  Few months later he, with the help of Dual Mano workshop, they had completed transformed the bike.  

Last donors bike story of mine, is quite recent.   I lived in Houston at the time, and had found a very old Triumph TR6 from 1964, which I had started to modify.   

The idea was to build a cross bike.  For that I had bought and old chassis from a Yamaha 370, the ancestor of the XY, from the mid 70's and had chop the frame of the triumph to adapt rear swing arm and front end.   

You can read the whole project in old archives, to see how I did all that but as I was nearing the end of my project, I got transfer back to Europe and could no longer work on the bike, 

so I sold it to some english bloke that was living in Houston, and he retransformed the bike

Oh yeah, and one last one.   I had bought an Aprilia 650 Pegaso for a project and when I bought it the guy also had a Montesa 125.   When I left France for the US, I gave the Montesa to my neighbor Fabrice who wanted to rebuild it.   As he was surfing for parts, the original owner of the bike re-appear and ask him to trade his old and first bike against a brand  new one.   So now fabrice owns a trial bike

Ola Chicos - FXD 1996

 

This is my baby.... When I could finally afford to buy a bike in 1998, I set my eyes on a brand new sportster.   When I came out of the shop, the owner told me : "see you in few months, to get a bigger one".   What a wanker I thought, I was penny less having spend all my money on the bike and he wanted to upgrade to bigger cylinder already.....  Fast forward 6 months, I found the FXD without any modification apart from the paint and bought it after I sold my sportster.   She has been with me since 1998, for more than 20 years now.   She has taken me across the middle east, and5across Europe.  She has always been loyal, on one occasion the exhaust broke down 30 meters from my house after having ridden for 2500km.   

My first modification to the bike was to lower the back by putting 10,5" progressive suspension, change the seat and the handle bars.  It stayed like this for about one year, until I got to France.   

Then I changed the exhaust, the ignition to screaming eagle and the carb to S&S.  I widen the fork and add some 3deg incline to the triple tree, added a fatboy head light, and removed front fender.  

It stayed like this until I move to Norway and then the real work started.   

I wanted to widen the rear and move from standard 130 to 200.  Same for the front where I wanted to go fm 90 to 130.  To do this I needed a new rear fender which required cutting the struts so it could fit.   At the same time, I had no more support so I welded a steel plate to hold the fender.  It also require removal of the gear box to add a spacer to accommodate the 200.    Then when this was done, I change the lights, changed the handle bar, put ISR commands, change brakes, and did some cosmetic work by removing the tank console and welded a pop up gas cap.   I had a painter do the logo, but after driving for a while, there was leaks and had to take it apart and have it repainted.  Also, did some work on the exhaust by curving it 30 degrees up to give a more aggressive look.  Have a look at the video to see the changes. 

Then few years later, I powder coated the wheels and repainted the tanks and rear tyre.  

Last year, I had a another leak in the tank and the front lights needed an upgrade so order a tear drop from WW Cycle in Germany, change the rear suspension, and change the front light.   Still work to be done but that's why she is here...

Ola Chicos - Side story K750 and Vespa GTR 125

 

Dont' know why but have always liked sidecar.  The first time I almost bought one was in Dubai.  It was a Royal Enfield 500.  Our son was newly born and my wife started enquiring how we were gonna ride with a new kid on the block.   So, I found this nice little add for a Royal Enfield side coming directly from the factory in India.   It belong to an Emirates Airline pilot who had brought it back from one of his trip.   But as you can imagine all the commands and even the side was on the wrong side of the road.  So when I took it for a test ride with my wife (who had just delivered) I did not manage it pretty well and we hit the curb a few times.  That was it, the boss had said NO !!!

Few years later I saw one in Shanghai (Chang Jiang) which had been modified by a European and decided it was time to buy one.   I knew one guy in Shanghai who owned one and was relocating to Oslo.  So I made the deal to buy it from him when he reached Oslo.  But when he got to Oslo, he decided not to sell it anymore and kept it for himself.      

Strangely enough, few weeks later, I found an old Russian Military side that must have been rebuilt and hand painted one million time. I did not let that opportunity go by.  The K750 was the Russian Army version of the BMW (R35 model I think).   As the story goes, BMW has sold the right of the R35 to the Russian as they had already developed the R39 model, but second world war started and the Russian never paid BMW.   After the war, the Russian continued to build the side.   They had 2 factories, one in Russia which made side for civilian, call URAL, and one in Kiev which made same model but stronger for military use.  Since it was assembled in Kiev they called it K750. 

I drove for a few years, but spent more time working on the engine than on any other bikes.  It used to drive my wife crazy cause every time we made plan to go out with the side, there was always a mechanical issue.  The oil filter was made on fishing rods.   Funny enough, one day, I was travelling through Ukraine, I found a guy that was selling some K750 parts and brought them back to Norway with me.  But in spite of that, there was always some work to do on the engine.  

Luckily for me, my wife who was also into side, suggest the idea that we sell the K750 and buy another one instead.   And one day as I was shopping for a front fork for my vespa, I came about really nice Vespa GTR 125 side.  And there it was, I lost my K750 and my wife got her GTR 125.    

And that's how my daughter got to school in our small Southern French Coast Village.  

Ola Chicos - BWM R80 RT - 1986

I purchased this flattwin to build a scrambler well before it became in fashion.  The aim was as for most the bike I modified to do it on little budget and trying to keep as many stock piece as possible thru modification.   This bike was originally military bike put street legal by previous owner.  Not very much like by the general public for her look but the engine is probably one of the most reputable engine ever build. 

So I started with dismantling the body and trying out two identical East European tyres both mounted on 120.

Not bad, then I started with building the side number plate.  

Next step was the handle bar and headlight protection.  I put a motocross bar, and I mounted a grill protection on the original headlight.  It did require a bit of ingenuity but it worked.  

After that I worked on the back fender.  

I was not really satisfied so I extended it a bit.  

Then I build the exhaust pipes. 

For the front fender I cut it from an old XS 500 that was lying around my garage. 

 

Then I started working on the rim, which I grind, primed and then painted in black. 

All was going well but I still wasn't sure of the color.  So I bought a few spray can and painted the bike in various colour.  Blue looked to be the best.  

 So after cleaning the engine with some special product that make the engine looked like it had been grinded.  I started welding the exhaust all together.   Then the usual bad welding hide... 

Then I built the heat protection.  To do this I stole the ashtray fence from my work with I molded and welded some fixing pieces.   

I took out the indicator from the headlight (I will fix them on the handle bar) I move the headlight inward and install the ignition key on the side.  

After that I fabricated a piece to hide the hole made by the air filter, and made sure to leave a hole for the breather.  

Which I painted black and install a breather taken from a honda 70CC 

Considering I was happy with the light blue, I surfed the net to find the color coding.  The one from Porsche (Gulf) was the best one, so I went to my favorite shop to have it made. 

But before painting anything I had to fix some small dent and apply primer everywhere. 

 Then I had access to a painting cabin for 2 days so no mistake allowed. I started with the dark blue. 

.

then the orange. 

And painting in light blue before clear coating everything. 

 

Then I painted some other parts before getting some the fenders from clear coating and the tyres on the rim. Then I started mounting everything back together.  

And finally the final touch by changing the cylinder heads for a look more vintage

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