Don't Call It A Comeback

Well, well. Here we are again. It's only beeeeen...over a year. Hopefully I'm back with more frequency. The blog has gotten a makeover (thanks to my fiancé Steph and her non-colorblind eyes).

Along with that facelift, I'll be expanding to a broader range of topics. The focus will still be mopeds, but I'll delve into my other interests, too. Comics, video games, D&D, and the occasional fresh box of cereal will be discussed. I'm also cooking up a few ideas that I haven't seen in the mopediant blogosphere before. I'm a trailblazer, bitches! Well, we'll see.

Anyway. Mopeds. Yes.

I'm embarking on my first Hobbit build (that's what all the hip kids ride, right?).

One of my greatest downfalls has always been the impulse buy. I've worked on it. Really I have, but sometimes a "deal" still gets the best of me. Case in point: late summer, this year, I'm innocently working in my garage when I get a call from Vic from Portland. He's in town and is unloading moped stuff. He heard that I had some inkling of building a Hobbit, and he had a parts bike with him. $75 takes it home. I hemmed and hawed, saying I didn't need another bike in my garage. He insisted on coming over anyway. I'm strong, but when a moped shows up at my door, and I'm told to take it and Paypal later, I take it and Paypal later.

Responsible Jon later sold me his trike frame http://mopedhq.blogspot.com/2010/08/rip-hobbit-trike.html, and now I'm going to spend a rainy, possibly snowy winter building another bike.

This
















plus this















plus maybe some of this















and a whole lot of this















should, fingers-crossed, become a street-scourge of Seattle by the spring. Hopefully it'll lap a race track or two before the end of next summer, too.

Specs are simple; 70cc DR kit, Motomatic pipe, 21mm PHBG, race crank, some sort of CDI set up, and other bits along the way. I should have the bottom end built this coming weekend. I'll snap a photo or two of the process.

It's interesting how five years ago in Seattle, no one wanted Hobbits (or Hondas in general). They've always been plentiful, but if it wasn't a Puch, Sachs, or Minarelli, no one wanted it. Oh, how times have changed. The level of tuning knowledge has grown substantially, and people are willing to wrench on anything.

brb. In a week or so.