Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT A trip back from the edge.

[xtremek]

The last day at Milan was kind of bittersweet. My **** was thankful that the end of riding was near (still had to ride from there to home). I so wanted to continue to run, and enjoy the company of these cool people.

This is Aiden Bailey. A very modest young man who's father Tom Bailey owns the Sick Week franchise
PS, he won the event
This gent is a Michigander. His S-dime was wicked. At Northern his friends told him to just mat it and leave it matted. It smoked the tires well past the 1/8 mile.

Kicker was part of Sick Ward, a travelling car show that went with us, but didn't run down the tracks.

This is the race director for the entire event. 1st day he came up to us (the 4 bikers) and said how excited he was to have us here, that he'd been trying forever to get bikes involved in this and as the first bikes to be involved in a Sick Week event, we needed to set a good example. Then he pointed to my bike and said, "Especially that hooligan". Just because my bike is a wheelie monster.

This young gent was so adult at the merch trailer it made me take notice. He also sang the National Anthem at every stop. Did a really good job.

These two folks drove the hot dog/Ice cream truck along the entire route and at every track. they're from Brisbane Aus.


This fine gent blew his car up on the tech and tune day. They let him run his tow pig down the track every day. He had the hardest time trying to give away 50 gal. of E85 he didn't want to drag back home.

Matt here worked the lanes, directing traffic. More than once I saw him handle frustrated racers wanting to get down the strip working to get the time they wanted. Look for him next year at your local NHRA event as a tech inspector

This is Matt's dad Sean. Sean and I had many e-mails/calls about motorcycle safety equipment. It was awesome to put a face with the name.

 

[xtremek]

Had a good time chatting with these gents about their experience with their Mustang.

This young gent is proof that TRUE hot rodders still exist. He stuffed a Godzill motor into a rusted out 90's T-bird. Talk about wicked cool.

This young gent helped me out with the exhaust repairs I did on the Buell. I think he placed in the top of his class

If your into Drag and Drives you may not know this guy, but you know his car. It's a Crown Vic with at least a 2" lift and 31" off-raod tires ALL THE WAY AROUND. AND he runs like low 8's in the quarter. And again, a very modest gent.

This lady raced her car. Her husband (in the pic) races, and their son races. She welcomed me when I stopped at the hotel in Ignace.

This is Kelvin and Cindy. They and their friend John are from Oklahoma/Kansas (can't remember which is which). Super nice couple.

 

[jon72vega]

Thanks for the pictures & sharing the details.

 

[Finallygotit]

Thanks for the pictures & sharing the details.

 

[zanyad]

Great writeup, thanks for sharing! Especially good of you to recognize the staff!

 

[xtremek]

So the end of that week. I think I mentioned that 2 of the bikes were liter+ Jap bikes, a built Harley Sportster, and me. We were surprisingly (NOT!) put into 2 classes Liter bikes and V-twins. Bet you can't guess who won the V-twin class.

 

[xtremek]

So what do you do when you don’t do anything to your place after 2 weeks of vac/drag-n-drive? Yardwork of course. I’m working on getting a yard for the ducks finished, that way I only have to rent an skid steer/trencher/auger for fence posts/carport poles/electrical runs/… once.


Pay attention to that tree on the left side of the back of the duck house.

 

[xtremek]

There's a shadow of a tree in the left corner of the pic against the duck haus. Keep track of that.

 

[xtremek]

In the middle of the yard work I had to replace the water outlet on the Sonic. The Dorman replacement part had a miniscule leak, so I replaced that with the ZZP aluminum part.

 

[Prospecter]

Your place is looking good! If you wanted to, you could put a 3ph post hole digger on the back of your tractor, and avoid the rental of the skid steer. I bought an inexpensive version and it paid for itself quickly. They also show up used periodically on CL/MP. Pretty simple units well within your skill set. If you go that route, keep a pipe wrench handy. Augers get stuck and you need the pipe wrench with a cheater bar to back them out.

 

[xtremek]

Your place is looking good! If you wanted to, you could put a 3ph post hole digger on the back of your tractor, and avoid the rental of the skid steer. I bought an inexpensive version and it paid for itself quickly. They also show up used periodically on CL/MP. Pretty simple units well within your skill set. If you go that route, keep a pipe wrench handy. Augers get stuck and you need the pipe wrench with a cheater bar to back them out.

There are several reasons I'm renting a skidsteer. I need to dig 5 trenches, 2 of them at least 4' deep for water to run the duck haus, to the green house, and to the garden. I need to remove 2 large stumps, and level out the back yard of my late BiL's place. Finally, but more importantly, a couple of the holes I need to dig will have very large rocks in them. I didn't foresee putting up a pole barn when I expanded my parking spaces. The skidsteer and all the attachments is $2k for a week. It would be nice if I could bust everything out in 2 days, but......

 

[Prospecter]

There are several reasons I'm renting a skidsteer. I need to dig 5 trenches, 2 of them at least 4' deep for water to run the duck haus, to the green house, and to the garden. I need to remove 2 large stumps, and level out the back yard of my late BiL's place. Finally, but more importantly, a couple of the holes I need to dig will have very large rocks in them. I didn't foresee putting up a pole barn when I expanded my parking spaces. The skidsteer and all the attachments is $2k for a week. It would be nice if I could bust everything out in 2 days, but......

Wow. You definitely need the skid steer for all that! Besides, it'll be wicked fun!!!

 

[harley jim]

There's never an end to the dirtwork when you have land. I have an acre and Im always digging somewhere or burying something, I need to get a map and start marking everything so when Im gone the next guy will have a clue!

 

[xtremek]

There's never an end to the dirtwork when you have land. I have an acre and Im always digging somewhere or burying something, I need to get a map and start marking everything so when Im gone the next guy will have a clue!

It would beg better if I had a cohesive long range plan for the property, but SWMBO sometimes has different plans

 

[xtremek]

Just so you know that it wasn't someone else holding the SW Michigan Miles trophy you can find yours truly, Butthead Magoo, on the right side of the pic. The gent standing to the left of me is Ben Maxey, who won the Over Liter bike category.


If you want to read the wrap up article, this is the link.

https://www.sickthemagazine.com/new...40cffaf)&utm_medium=email&utm_source=omnisend

 

[jon72vega]

Congrats!

 

[xtremek]

Another job that needed to be done was to cut 14’ off this i-beam and deliver the remaining 26’ to Dad’s neighbor. Some shenanigans may have been involved. We loaded the 14' in the back of Dad's truck, much less blatant shenanigans were involved.

 

[xtremek]

Congrats!

Thanks Jon. I'd love to do Sick Smokies coming up next month, but I'm too busy. Next year I'm going to work on carving out more free time to do things like you do.

 

[xtremek]

You know the saying “every job is only one broken bolt away from a 3 hour ordeal”? I was on the way to the gym when the Buell picked up a nasty vibration. I found both bolts for the front motor mount snapped of in the cylinder head. As the pictures show, the right side came out pretty easy (just 2 attempts to get it out), the left side not so much.
While I had it apart, I decided to trim the excess airbox mount off the motor mount for a much cleaner look, now that I'm using an aftermarket air cleaner.

 

[xtremek]

This past weekend was Bikes on the Bricks (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). They close off the main drag in downtown Flint and the bikes invade. Saturday includes a police escorted hour long ride around Flint. The ride starts at the local Harley Dealer. Anyway, here are a few of the bikes I found interesting.

This isn't my bike (CycloneM2), but it is of the same era. It's Buell's sport touring bike (ST3). Change 2 pieces of body work and the handle bars, and you've got a Cyclone.

 

[xtremek]

 

[Bob Heine]

Kirk, I don't know how old I was when I saw the Tacoma Narrows bridge do its death dance but it didn't have a great impact on me. My bridge scare came in 1957 on our drive from Long Island to Alaska. We crossed the long Peace River suspension bridge near Taylor, British Columbia in late June and Dad wanted a couple of pictures of it. He pulled over on the north end of the bridge and climbed a hill to take the photos, which I stitched together to show our car and trailer as well as the bridge. It was built in 1943 during World War II and was the longest bridge on the Alaska Highway. No big deal when we re-crossed the bridge in late August but it was a rainy day so no stopping.

Less than two months after our second crossing, on Ocbober 16, 1957, the bridge collapsed when the huge concrete anchor 20 feet behind our trailer shifted on the clay shale under it.

The metal structure buckled and the smaller cables holding the deck to the suspension cables let go and the north span fell into the river.
Fortunately no one was on the bridge when it collapsed. There's a movie of the collapse:

Like trains, I'm not overly afraid of crossing a suspension bridge but I do get a little twinge in my groin when approaching them. I know for certain that I don't like crossing bridges I can see through when on foot or a bike. I do my best to look ahead, not down.

 

[Ford52PU]

Bob
That’s quite a job you did putting all that info together. I’ve seen that bridge collapse video before. Pretty scary.
Thanks for sharing

 

[Prospecter]

Haven't seen you around for a while. Hope everything is ok.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Haven't seen you around for a while. Hope everything is ok.

He posted in my thread recently, he's likely just busy. At least I hope that's the case.

 

[xtremek]

Thanks for checking in guys. Been busy, lazy, and just plain worn out. Lots done, lots of pics, just too tired to load them.

 

[harley jim]

We don't have time for that!

 

[Prospecter]

No worries. Just checking in.

 

[xtremek]

Bringing you up to date. I traded the Grunt and am putting a deck on it in trade for some help building the carport and paint booth. This is the deck/trailer he brought me. It’s actually going to work out ok. Before I put the deck on, I took the B&W gooseneck hitch off since it won’t work with the deck, and it was always beyond the capacity of the truck. He has a ¾ ton he’ll put it on.

 

[xtremek]

Back to the yard work, I rented the skid steer and dug +40 holes, +175 yards of trenches, and popped 2 stumps. Most of the trenching was so that we could run power to the Duck Haus, the She Shed, and upgrading the power to the shop.

 

[xtremek]

Westphalia Electric did the line running and installing the boxes. We also had the meter box replaced, and replaced the line from the transformer to the house. Sometime this winter I need to wire the lights and outlet in the Duck Haus and She Shed.

The shop got a new box that the BiL had in his storage unit (I miss the man)

The She Shed got the box out of the shop

The Duck Haus got a small box since all I plan to have out there is 3 lights and 2 outlets.

 

[xtremek]

The BiL left this Tahoe. It was an Arizona truck and is completely rust free. Needs a bunch of work. He started putting in a Rough Country 2” lift kit. It needs a bunch of other little stuff, plus a paint job. I’ll try very hard to see this thing never sees snow/salt.

 

[xtremek]

On yet another project, we started putting the “Target” back together. New front main seal, oil pressure sending sensor, AC condenser, intercooler, trans cooler, and radiator. We’re also replacing both fenders, bumpers, headlights, grill, and hood. We’re getting the painted parts from Partify. You give them the paint code and they send you painted parts ready to install. I’ll also replace both the rockers. It should help the car last a few more years. I don’t think the car’s worth it, but this is what Robin wants, so down that road I go.

 

[xtremek]

Another thing we just finished up is a header for my wife’s garden gate. The top of the gate poles are leaning in, so I’m hoping this will prop them back straight. Just have to install it now.

 

[xtremek]

On a fun note, I got confirmation on my EoI (Expression of Interest) for Sick Summer. There are over 2,000 EoIs as of right now. The window for entering opens this Saturday, so stay tuned for either the celebration or pity party this weekend.

 

[Prospecter]

Wow! You've been crazy busy! You got lots of use out of that skid steer. Some big wrenching projects on your list, too!

 

[harley jim]

Good luck on the EOL!

 

[jollygreengiant]

On a fun note, I got confirmation on my EoI (Expression of Interest) for Sick Summer. There are over 2,000 EoIs as of right now. The window for entering opens this Saturday, so stay tuned for either the celebration or pity party this weekend.

Alright, I guess I'll be the one to ask. What is Sick Summer?

Great to see some pics! Renting that skid steer sure let you get a lot of things done. Are you putting in a deck or something?

 

[xtremek]

Wow! You've been crazy busy! You got lots of use out of that skid steer. Some big wrenching projects on your list, too!

Not as crazy as it seems. Kind of feeling blah lately. Too much work, not enough fun.

Good luck on the EOL!

Thank you. I've got my fingers crossed

Alright, I guess I'll be the one to ask. What is Sick Summer?

Great to see some pics! Renting that skid steer sure let you get a lot of things done. Are you putting in a deck or something?

Sick Summer is part of the Sick Week franchise, which is a clone of Hot Rod Drag week. It's a Drag (race) and Drive event held in June. You drag race your vehicle in the morning/afternoon then you drive your vehicle to the next drag strip, drag race that strip the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat for 7-8 days. No trailering or towing your vehicle at anytime during the week.

We have to move the garden fence (half of the garden is on the neighbor's property). I'm also fencing in the ducks, adding a "porch" to the front of the Duck Haus, building a platform for the duck waterers and feeders, and running water to the platform/duck pond, and garden.

 

[xtremek]

Finally got one off the books. Stick a fork in this one. And it’s doing its job. The gates wouldn’t close properly before, now they’re swinging like they’re supposed to.