Breakdown

She looks pretty good naked

Progress moved quickly on the Rhino removal at first

I spent about two weeks working up at least 30 different designs, and I think I've settled on the very first one that I did.

I still really like this one though. The honeycomb might end up incorporated somehow into the final design

I found a ton of Bondo on the thing. In areas even that had no detectable damage

 Slather it on nice and thick!

Without all that junk, the panels are noticeably lighter

So pretty

 If it wasn't for the four dents in it, I'd be happy to leave it just like this

But alas

 First step to new perfection, complete

some of the panels are trying to kill me though

If the first panel had been half as hard to clean as this one is proving to be, I don't think I would have gone through with it. This one's fiberglass, and the Rhino, just loves it.

Getting out

After just about a decade, she's back on the road. Since she last ran she's seen at least six owners, two of them were me.

I took her down to Don Tarvin and Black River Cycles for a little test and tune

 it turned out to be a little less testing and tuning than we had hoped because we were having some software issues, but I know that she's running way too rich and I've got a jet kit on order. It's taking it's sweet time to get here though.

But that's not going to keep me off the road

here with The MotoGatos RD

Squid represent. The color scheme is in constant flux at the moment. It's starting to look like a Silence Television bike with its' random stickers and icons. I'm excited about that.

 So far, I've only run out of gas twice, and electricity once. Other than that, she's been brick house reliable. Time to dig into the charging circuit a bit.

Noob

There's a new addition to the family, and she's a young'n. A friend of mine (www.cafematty.com) is planning on spending a year or more on the road starting soon and is in the purge process. He asked me if I might know of anyone who might be interested in a 2000 R6 with a charging problem that fell into his lap about a year ago. I thought I just might know the perfect person for it.

The short list reads something like this: Regulator might be bad, rear tire will not hold air (for more than a few days) wheels have been chromed, lots of random missing hardware and clips, it's got some weird aftermarket kill switch mounted, spikes on the fairings and handle bars, and the whole thing has been Rhino lined. But I'll be fixing all of that, and it comes with a clear title.

American GIs in pacific theater in world war two used to refer to the roundels on Japanese aircraft as meatballs. I think this one will be called Meatball.

There's a lot of potential here. I'm leaning at the moment towards freshening it up, maybe mounting some hard bags, and riding it everywhere it can take me. I've also been playing with color schemes for it:

It's all up hill from here...