Round and round

So, here we go again. I think. Time will tell this weekend, but it seems for every 2 or 3 positive steps we get a negative 1. And so this progress of getting 1 step ahead at a time is taking forever, and taking it's toll. And I hate paying tolls.

Last night all eager and chest thumping as I stroll down to the garage... got some kicking tunes playing and taking a last swig of the Mich Ultra (I know I know, yuck), I roll out the floor jack once again and get the place prepared for the nights surgery. Got the front wheel removed and the fork tubes removed and the old clip-ons removed... lots of removals going on. And while I had everything removed I figured it would be a good thing to go ahead and paint the top and bottom triple clamp a nice shade of rattle-can semi black, like the rest of the build.

Because it there's two things I've learned, it's that one, things look better with a fresh coat of satin black, and two, while the paint is drying it gives me an opportunity to go get another beverage from the house. So it's a win win really.

After the paint has dried (no, not really- I don't have the patience for that crap), I start to reinstall the forks tubes and the new clip-ons and the front wheel. Yes! Back to the same place I was 2 weeks ago! Progress! Anyway, new parts usually equals the right parts so I suppose it is indeed progress, so I'll take it.

I'm having some disagreements with the front end and alignment issues now. It's creeped in once before and not something I noticed when the bike was 'old', so I'm still not sure if something went back together differently than came apart and that's the culprit, or something more serious or terminal. I would absolutely love to do a Yamaha R6 front end conversion on this thing and that would definitely fix the problem, but I can't even remotely look at the price tag for that kind of talk right now. It's a little bit like buying an Audi S4 because the Mercury Cougar is too large to wash effectively. And I've never heard of someone doing that sort of silliness before...

I've gotten some advice on a few things to try to straighten the alignment and maybe they will work, maybe not. It's always something I can tackle later, so I'm likely just going to press onward with things. I'm getting anxious to ride again and so even if it's not perfect it can be mostly so.

And sometimes, if it's close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades, it's close enough for me.

For now.