I'm A Sucker For A Well Done H2 or RD

I have seen this bike at Vintage Motorcycle Days for Three years now. I guess I should say drooled. She is one hell of a beauty. I have owned two H2's, one bone stock and the other I hot rodded. Not nearly to the level of this one here, but for the early eighties she was pretty hot.The photo above is from the 2010 Vmd.

She is about the best laid out H2 I've had the pleasure of ogling. And she get around too, Joe C snapped a shot of her at this years Moto GP at Indy. I love how he has the chambers on the right side. I find nothing wrong with the two one setup, but in this configuration it gives the bike that extra visual pop.

I believe this particular H2 to be the product of Johnny's Vintage Motorcycle Company of Wadsworth Ohio. If you need parts for your vintage Kawasaki project, Johnny's is the place to start your search from what I hear. You can have a bike restored by them. Purchase a fine example from their showroom floor or choose from the massive stock of Kawasaki parts they have on hand.

Besides this jaw dropping H2, there was a very tasty RD250 in cafe' guise the got the hair on the back of my neck standing up as well.While I'm not usually a big fan of bikes festooned with chrome, it looks good on this bike.

This little 250 is a sparkling example of what one can do with these bikes. I love the color and attention to detail of this bike. I love all things RD and this bike has me scanning craigslist for a barn find. But I have to get my XS500E back on the road before I can inhale the sweet smell of Castrol R in my garage again. I have pretty much finished all the big stuff and am concentrating on the bits and pieces now. I'm am going to try ind get the paint on her before it gets too cold. I'm mot the far away. I digress, I will leave Y'all with a couple more shots of this two stroke diamond.

Three Fat Guys, a Body Builder and a German Walk Into a Racetrack

Well walking into is kind of a stretch. It was more like, drove a massive Silverado dually towing a dual axel enclosed trailer that housed a golf cart. I want to ride down every year but am voted down by the swap meet majority in our group. I go mostly for the motorcycles and a bit of racing, they go to buy metric tons of motorcycle parts, hence the moving van sized transport. Now including Big Toe's jacked up golf cart, easier to tote all that swap meet booty back to the waiting cargo hauler and make fifty passes through the swap meet. It also carted our asses to places we had not been to around the track in the past.

Curly and Big Toe

The weather was in stark contrast to the lake of fire that was last years Vintage Motorcycle Days. I thought we would be in for a repeat of last years blazing inferno, especially with all the drought and triple digit temps most of the country has been suffering this year. Much to all of our delight, the weather was about picture perfect, mid eighties, low dew point and partly cloudy. But this post isn’t about the weather.

The 2012 Vintage Motorcycle Days event was kind of a blur this year. The golf cart mentioned earlier made getting around a breeze. It also made missing a thing or two like a ship passing in the night. I think I missed as many bikes as I saw. But one bike I didn’t pass by turned out to be a wicked CB750 produced buy the talented boys over at Café Fabrications. Much like the chopper boom a decade ago, café bikes have made a huge resurgence. I really don’t need to tell you that, if you’re into bikes this is something that is readily apparent to you. Out of all the builders I have seen over the last few years, Café Fabrications hit one out of the park with their well thought out and ultra trick CB750. The hair stood up on my arms the moment I saw this bike. It looks great from every angle. And I have seen countless custom CB café bikes over the years and none come close to this one in my opinion.

They took a beater ‘78 CB and polished it into a jewel. They have a beginning to end pictorial of the transformation on the Bespoke section of their website. They are whipping up trick parts that you, yes you, can buy and bolt onto your project. Of course the whole reason they created this stunning CB is to have a functioning tool to showcase their top shelf products. Swing arms, velocity stacks, exhaust flanges and engine covers are just a few of the tasty tidbits they are offering up for your consideration.

The highlight of this years event for me was getting to meet Surly after a bunch of years of reading his stuff and collaborating on a multi author blog for around a year. We have developed a blogging kinship over the years and it was great to meet him face to face. Although we didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking, about a half hour or so, he turned out to be every bit of the nice guy I knew him to be despite his moniker. Along with his Uncle John, we were supposed to go for a ride up the Western coast of Michigan last August. Unfortunately for me, I had to pass at the last minute because of a large project at work. This is a trip I am always going to regret missing because John is no longer with us.  The good part of last years trip is, Surly and John still went and Surly got to make a great memory with his Uncle that he will carry with him the rest of his life. Like John used to say, life is too short, don’t let it pass you by. I have a sneaking suspicion that Surly and I will meet again and go for more than a few rides