Kawasaki ER-6C, that's C as in Custom

[jdrocks]

ok, so that other thread was kind of worn out and with the winter season coming on, it was time to start thinking about something to build for the 2010 travel season. i was impressed with the overall performance of that last bike

http://www.kawasakiversys.com/forums...d.php?t=1580&p

and it got me 13,500 miles out and back despite some misadventures along the way. the old bike is gone and i had been looking for a replacement for months. this is what i finally found.


if the bike looks pretty new, that's because it has only 500 miles on it. just a little dust on it, not even broken in.

the dealers in the States sell this model bike like popcorn and it has to be the most crashed bike out there. many of the new bike owners don't seem to be able to ride it around the block without laying it down. this one had superficial scratches on the fairings and a few other dings, but was very rideable as is and came with a clear title. sold the parts i didn't want and my starting cost is under $2000 for what you see in the photo.

after kicking around some options on the suspension, i decided to keep my versys forks and shock. the other options were doable, but i want to try and keep the whole build cost around $2500 out the door and on the road. i have collected some used parts already, so that's the direction to go. all the custom mounts and such i'll try and fab myself in the shop. every nut and bolt on these bikes is available used, and cheap. something to consider for the versys guys, since many parts are interchangeable between the models.

i'll try to posts updates of the progress.

[jdrocks]

here's an update already.

forgot to add that the shock you see in the photo is the versys shock. longer, heavier spring, damping adjustment, and bolts right in after a very minor clearance on the lower bushing.

i did keep the stock seat and gas tank for the bike but they weren't mounted in the photo. i might change both.

[Bear on a bicycle]

[Jungmann1]

Can't wait to see what you do with this. And so cheap!

[jdrocks]

that's the idea behind using the 650r, ex650, er6f whatever you want to call it as the platform for a custom build like this. the bikes are cheap, the oem parts are cheap, used parts are everywhere and cheap, tons of aftermarket parts and accessories if you want them, parts interchange with other kawasaki models, and they're easy to work on. did i leave anything out?

in the end you get a custom ride that's fun, fast, and versatile. ride around town or take it around the world. the bike is meant to be run and it won't ruin your day to get a scratch on it.

have a guy that wants the 650R forks off the bike. if i sold those, the starting point would be under $1500. not going to use them, but i think i can make my budget without selling them.

[ednukey]

"ah yes, what to do with the ninja? the bike is not wrecked and runs fine. the parts and pieces that were damaged out in montana were mainly the custom pieces i fabricated. the few damaged factory pieces have been replaced. to answer your question, i've already designed a new bike based on the same platform and hope to build it over the winter."

jdrocks - so what happenned with the other "bike platform?"
Did you decide to just go ahead and "start anew" when this deal came around?

Are you planing on reusing the gravel guard, panniers, front light set-up, etc. from the original bike, or did all that go with the other bike when you got rid of it?

Just curious...Either way, I look forward to seeing the results of your latest endeavor.

[jdrocks]

last seasons bike is gone. like i mentioned, the shop fabricated parts suffered most of the damage. the bike ran fine, if you remember from that little mini report, i rode it 2500 miles home with only the right side piaa fog operating. the rest of the lights on the front were crushed thanks to that montana grain truck. the left side pannier was shredded in montana and i came home with just the right side case still mounted. i should have kept the the pieces of the left case just to see if pelican has a sense of humor regarding their warranty.

i kept all the shop fabbed pieces off that bike even though they were damaged so that i have a physical record of the design i used last time. i learned some things from the trip and specifically from that episode out west that i plan to incorporate this time around. the good news was that not a single piece of my shop fabbed work broke in that montana wreck-bent yes, but nothing came apart. nobody would have ridden away from that scene on a stock bike.

so to answer your question, this is a new bike and all the fabrication work will be new.

i should finish the ride report. it was a wild ride.

[jdrocks]

for anyone that didn't wade through the other thread, this is how the bike looked when i left for canuckistan/alaska in may/09.

and after pounding and prying on the bike out in montana to get it in shape to ride, this is how the bike looked when i got home in june.



a rancher pulled that footpeg off some old bike and i mailed it back when i got home.

adventure caught up with me out in montana. the thing to remember is that when you're out on a ride and have a little problem like this, you can't just go to the nearest dealer and have the oem factory parts you need pulled right off the shelf. more on this subject later....

all in all, i was one lucky guy that day.

[stlee29]

Hi Jdrocks,

Glad you are A-OK from your crash.

What I can see is that you could save a lot of $$$ compared with getting a brand new one. Plus adding on what you like and remove what you don't.
Wish I could do build a bike from scratch but don't have the time.
Looking forward to read/see your new upcoming project.

[LukasM]

I am in, looking forward to seeing something even more radical this time.

[jdrocks]

lukas, you're the one with the radical build. you chose a beautiful engine in that kawasaki 650 twin. i run mobil 1 15/50 car oil in mine. never missed a beat. you'll need brass cajones to ride it when done. the er6c/versys is already very fast on the gravel, but that engine in a lightweight frame will be crazy stupid fast. a lightweight 70hp dirt bike.

mine won't be too radical, but durable and fun-need i say cheap. a gravel road runner, adventure tourer type thing. obviously, i'm not afraid to get a scratch on it.

[jdrocks]

i'm getting some parts together for the new bike build and thinking about travel plans for 2010. you can read about where the old red bike went in 2009 here-

Canuckistan and Alaska 2009-Kick the tires and light the fires…Go like Hell.

I spent exactly 4 hours packing for this 30 day trip. I originally left a week in my schedule to pack, prep the bike, and planned to leave rested and fresh. No luck there as a contract job I was working ended up way behind schedule and I was left with just a few hours instead of days. If I had an anger management problem, I could have taken a ball bat to the people responsible for the delays. I was very tired and very pissed. I departed at 5PM on Monday, May 18, and rode 200 miles to my daughter’s house in NW Virginia. In route, I thought I heard an intermittent grinding noise, but when I stopped to look, I could not pinpoint the source. I figured I would look the bike over in the morning, had a good meal, a shot of bourbon, and went to bed.

(Because of the hectic nature of the start of this trip, I have no photos from the first couple days. Sure, I had a camera. Went to shoot, dead battery. Ah, spare battery! Went to shoot, dead spare battery. Ah, backup camera! Went to shoot, dead battery. Now I’m thinking the hell with it…let’s get on down the road. Eventually, there are photos, I promise.)


Tuesday, May 19

I planned an early start and was up, packed, and ready, but first I had to find the source of the noise. I finally found that the oversize foot I had welded on the sidestand would sometimes contact the side of the chain. I rummaged around in my son in law’s tools and found a Dremel tool. Not ideal, but that’s what I had to clearance the pad. I used up a bunch of bits and hoped I had taken enough off. If not, I was stopping at a friend’s house in Wisconsin and he has at least two of every tool ever made. I was on the road at 10AM and super slabbed through the rest of Virginia, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania and the famed Turnpike to points west. Man, I hate that road. I’ve traveled that miserable toll road for decades. They collect plenty of toll money, but whatever they spend it on can’t be the road.

Today presents a new twist in my turnpike tales. When I roll up to get my toll ticket, I see a guy leaning against the toll booth. My ticket pops out, but before I could get it the guy knocks my hand away, grabs my ticket and runs off. WTF! I’m yelling into the semi-functional intercom trying to get a new ticket while a bunch of road rage afflicted drivers are piling up in my lane. The guy behind me is blipping the gas on some POS multicolor primered ricer with a busted ground effects kit. The doper guy behind the wheel is way up the pharmacological hierarchy and obviously had missed his breakfast drugs. Damn, where’s my Glock? Now don’t be getting the wrong idea, not everyone carries in my neighborhood, but I forget her name. I was so pissed I’m about ready to put a round between the headlights of that ragged ass ricer when out pops my new ticket. Ok, now let’s get the heck out of Pennsylvania.

Riding that road is no simple thing. Besides the berserk truck traffic, you’re constantly dodging potholes, tire casings, and broken off vehicle parts. Ride your bike into one of those Turnpike potholes and you would need a spelunker guy to hook a line on it and a crane to hoist it back out. Stop for fuel and find that I’m getting a whopping 35mpg at 80mph. Let’s see, 4 gallon main tank, I better watch that. Hah, you know what’s coming.

On into Ohio, I’m maintaining a good roll until I ride past one too many exits. I had my GPS indexed at the last fuel stop and when I do the math, I might be as much as 10 miles short. Did I happen to mention that I have twin 1.4 gallon saddle tanks? Did I happen to mention that I hadn’t bothered to put a drop of fuel in either? Travel light, right? This could be really embarrassing. First, I need to get off the gas. At 55mph, I know I can get over 50mpg. Now the math is looking like one of those 8th grade test questions and I’m getting a headache. I’m going slow, slow, slow. I feel a big thump-I think a bird flew up and hit me in the BACK of the helmet. I take the next exit and now I’m pulling in the clutch and coasting where I can. When I stop at the toll booth, I get directions to fuel and unfortunately it’s not one of those that’s right at the exit. I do make it to the pump and the bike is still running somehow-the fuel light had been on for a long time. The fuel tank on the 650R is listed as 4.2 gallons. The pump read 4.202. Maybe I should add some fuel to the saddle tanks. Nope, just stop more often. End of problem. Well, not exactly.

I thought I would pick a location about halfway to Madison and stop. I’m feeling good, the bike is running good, just dodged the fuel bullet, got the cop motor, got the cop tires, Blues Brothers, Chicago. Let’s go to Chicago, and now that’s where I’m headed. I stop at Southbend for fuel and call home. The first thing I hear is “Are you still in Southbend?” I had one of those SPOT transmitters strapped to the bars and set in tracking mode. I guess it works. I had come through Southbend last fall on a Notre Dame football weekend on my way down from Canada. It seems all the hotels are booked for 75 miles in every direction. I was able to talk a very very nice young lady into giving me the penthouse suite at her hotel at a regular room corp rate because the people who reserved it just cancelled. Riding up the elevator, I asked a Notre Dame fan who they played and the score. The game had been over for all of six hours and the guy thought long and hard, but couldn’t remember either answer. How smart do you have to be to get in that school anyway?

I crossed into Illinois and had to slow down. Everyone had radar detectors that must have been chirping away and they would tap the brakes at every chirp. It really keeps you on your toes. I decided that I wasn’t going to ride through Chicago, and thought I would go around to the west and up I39. When I got to the I90/94 exit there was almost no traffic, so I changed my mind and shot over to the I90/94 lane. I hadn’t much luck on this route previously, but what the heck, let’s try it in the dark on a bike. Now that it’s dark, there’s road construction, lane changes, jersey barriers, double fines, and jail time, the Chicago driver interprets this as a signal to mash the gas. Either that or it was just Nascar practice for a night race, ya’ know, 4 wide through the corners at 100mph. It’s cold, starting to mist, charging 85mph so I don’t get run over, and I’m starting to sweat. I’d been breathing Chicago air for an hour and my lungs felt like they had been filled with concrete.

One more thing, the fuel situation was…ok, so I hadn’t stopped for fuel. I had been thinking about it for the last hour, but if you’ve been on the south side of Chicago at night lately, you would understand. I get through the worst of what the night time Windy City has to offer and I’m kind of in suburbia but very low on fuel. At least it looks safe to stop and after a few more miles I exit at Barrington Road. Bad choice, but I didn’t know it. Rode a mile and found an open station-only put in 3.973 gallons this time-hardly rates as a close call.

Hopped back on and rode back the way I came, looking for the I90/94 ramp. No signs, must have missed it. Rode back, no signs. WTF?, aren’t these supposed to be easy off, easy on. Nope, not this one. I rode back to the station where I got gas and asked the cashier for directions. He could understand me, but he didn’t speak a language that was anything close to English. After the 5th try, he got so frustrated that he grabbed the notepad and pen out of my hand and drew a map with a big ink scribble that represents where we were standing, pointed the starting direction, and walked away. I can never seem to get a read on those people. When I look in those black eyes, I can’t tell whether I’m seeing hope or desperation.

Now I’m pissed. It’s midnight, I don’t like the Chicago area much, and am not real big on Illinois either. I’ve got my little map, so…let’s get the hell out of here and go to Wisconsin. After miles and miles of road construction in rain and darkness, I arrived in Beloit, Wisconsin, at 1AM. 775 miles. I was in adventure mode for sure.

[LukasM]

Originally Posted by jdrocks

lukas, you're the one with the radical build. you chose a beautiful engine in that kawasaki 650 twin. i run mobil 1 15/50 car oil in mine. never missed a beat. you'll need brass cajones to ride it when done. the er6c/versys is already very fast on the gravel, but that engine in a lightweight frame will be crazy stupid fast. a lightweight 70hp dirt bike.

mine won't be too radical, but durable and fun-need i say cheap. a gravel road runner, adventure tourer type thing. obviously, i'm not afraid to get a scratch on it.

If I look at your stripped down ER-6 and then my empty LC4 frame with the Versys engine and SCARY looking wiring harness sitting next to it, I am not sure which I like better. Cheap gravel road runner sounds pretty good all of a sudden!

Just enjoyed reading your partial ride report above. If you are not riding a KTM at least you seem to like our guns. That toll booth story is pretty funny though, never heard of this happening anywhere else in the world. And you not understanding the guy in Chicago totally cracked me up. I spent a foreign exchange year at the U of C high school which is also located on the south side. Obviously the English I had previously been taught by my Austrian teachers didn't get me very far, so I always viewed my interacting with the employees at Harrold's Chicken, White Castle and Taco Bell as classes in "urban English". Before leaving I was able to slang it out with the best of them.

What's up with 35mpg at 80 mph, is this normal? I might as well get a carbed 950 Superenduro in that case.

[jdrocks]

the wiring harness is actually pretty simple because in typical jap automotive fashion, the multipin connectors can only hook up to one location. the factory manual is a big help because it has the wiring diagram plus the routing so you can also see at a glance where the wires go and what it physically connects to. manuals available on fleabay cheap. the ex650 manual gives you the same info. i like the hard copy over the CD.

having been there, you understand that there was just no way i was going to stop for any reason on the southside at night. gangland there.

white castle-there's a throw back. i can remember the day when white castle hamburgers were 6 for $1. the hamburger patties were semi translucent, but the buns filled you up.

you're right about the english language in the States, it's about done. the urban english must be in some kind of bizarre code. I'd have to watch MTV and BET every day before i could translate...and that's from people whose first language is supposed to be english. i can understand spanglish better, but when i go to speak it no one would ever confuse it for a foreign language. obviously, i'm behind the times.

run that bike hard fully loaded and the mileage falls right off. you really need to be aware of what to expect for range under varied conditions or you'll find yourself on the side of the road. load, speed, head winds, ethanol fuel, etc. all are factors. i might go up a tooth on the countershaft sprocket. the engine is certainly strong enough to pull that gear.

i had lots of fun with the fuel deal on the whole trip. i have more pages of the trip report in the can and i'll start putting them up.

[jdrocks]

bought this tank from a guy last year-50 bucks. has a few small zipper scratches that will buff out. no dents and the rest of the paint is good. i was going to use it last spring but i ran out of time to figure out what i wanted to do with the versys fairing mounts on the sides. i'm still thinking about it, but if you read that first day of the ride report, an extra gallon of fuel in the main tank appeals to me big time.



the tank is a direct replacement for the ER6 tank. slips right into the ER6 front mounts and the tabs on the seat mount end of the tank are the same also. if you wanted to take a versys naked and not deal with fairing mounts, you might try an ER6 tank-they're available cheap. i bought a real good spare last december for $15. have some fun and paint it a custom color. only 4.2 gal fuel in the ER6 though. if you don't ride right by opportunities to fuel up like i seem to, the capacity might not be an issue.

[sambamboo]

"An Extra Gallon" That's the reasoning behind be keeping my original tank for my Versys conversion JD.. 80kms or 50 miles if my maths is correct
on the bikes Fuel usage, is great for those longer trips.

I just gotta finish glassing my new tank bracket covers. doh

[jdrocks]

i just mention that there is an option out there for the tanks. while you and i might want the range, someone else might want a smaller sleeker tank with no side brackets. these bikes are used in many different ways. some go cross country, while others never get past the city limits. some are set up as adventure touring machines, while others want a supermoto or streetfighter. lots of options for the owner to consider whether the bike be an ER6 or a Versys, so i'm going to keep tossing around some ideas.

that's one of the very desirable aspects of this platform-you can take the modifications any direction you want.

[jdrocks]

Wednesday, May 20

I wasn’t expected in Madison until the afternoon, so I didn’t make the point of a sunrise start. I made a phone call and said I would be there mid morning. No problem. I had the hotel breakfast and walked out to check the bike. A friendly couple stopped to talk about the bike, where I was going, and so on. This was a conversation that would be repeated time and again on this trip. When I went back in, the little girl at the desk asked why I had my bike parked directly over the “No Parking” sign on the pavement. I told her I got in late, it was dark, and I hadn’t noticed. She said “But it’s not dark under the canopy lights and….” I gave her a little wink and a smile before she could say any more and she started to laugh.

Packed up and on my way to Madison, a short ride. I have some history in that town, but haven’t lived there for a very long time. When I got there to go to school at the University, the Beat Generation was winding down and the counterculture at UW switched seamlessly from Beatniks to Hippies. I saw my first of many violent demonstrations up on Bascom Hill, and hung around long enough to see the results of the Armstrong’s truck bomb when they blew up the Physics building. In between, I learned quite a bit, drank the bars dry, rode and crashed a bunch of bikes, romanced the UW coeds, and survived many a brush with death. I’ve slowed down since, but my wife doesn’t think I’ve slowed down quite enough.

The guy I’m stopping to see in Madison is a friend of over 40 years, but not a classmate. He and his wife happened to live across the street from a house I rented while in school. Married at age 16, 10th grade education, and one of the smartest business people I’ve run across in my professional career. Some people have a Midas touch, and he’s one. You would never know it to meet him, but his net is pretty damn impressive. He’s one of those “only in the USA” type stories. Old friends are the best kind.

After catching up on life’s events, we get to work on the bike. He has an angle grinder and I use it to grind more off the side stand pad. I change the oil and filter, pull the tank and put in a new set of plugs. The old plugs were good. The air filter was good also. I lubed the chain, repacked the panniers, and now I feel better about the bike even though it had run flawlessly the first 1000 miles. Early to bed. I’ve got places to go tomorrow.

[jdrocks]

Day 1 (The Official Start of the Trip): Thursday, May 21, 2009. Madison, Wisconsin to Badlands, South Dakota

My friend and I are both early risers so we had time for a good breakfast and a chat about the old days. The years have sped by and we have both weathered some big storms. I had to meet Beemer (my riding buddy on this trip) on the other side of Madison, so we said our farewells. Until the next time, my friend.

I rode out to the Gander Mountain store just off the interstate outside the Madison limits. The store moved there because of the onerous Madison gun sale regulations. We had arranged to meet there because it was convenient and Beemer already knew where it was. Beemer was riding up from the Chicago area and wasn’t there when I arrived in the parking lot, but I circled around for a look to make sure there wasn’t another entrance where he could be waiting. Beemer wasn’t late, I was a just a few minutes early. Thankfully, Beemer doesn’t have the late gene, which is good because I don’t like late. Beemer rolled up and we looked over each other’s rides. I knew he had purchased a yellow 1150GS for the trip. It had 25,000 miles and looked showroom new. Beemer looked over what he described as my “pipsqueak” bike-I didn’t take offense because I already knew that’s what the BMW guys call any bike that doesn’t have the badge.

We talked for a minute to review the plan, gassed up across the road, and then west bound on I90. Wisconsin troopers were out and we were only moderately exceeding the limit. Our first gas stop up the interstate brought over some riders to look the bikes over and talk about the trip. Beemer heads out and I’m about to follow when a guy runs over from the pumps and flags me down. “Just wanted to let you know that the gas you put in your bike is just pure crap.” Gee thanks, now that it’s in there.



West again and I know this road well. Back in the day, I would drive up to LaCrosse and hunt ducks on the Mississippi River. I hunted out of there for years before finally hunting out of a camp farther south. I almost died on that river more than once. Across the river and now in Minnesota, with low cloud cover and falling temps. I found the snorty little 650 could run just fine with the 1150-no strain at all.

We were running along with traffic at 80-85mph with the occasional sprint higher than that and eating up some miles. I had around 715 on my sheet to our Badlands objective so we needed to make some time. I had probably passed 100 troopers on my way up from Virginia and not one even gave me a look. I finally met one in Minnesota that gave me a look, almost more than a look.

I did see the car on the east bound side, but he didn’t move when I went by. He did move when Beemer went by-maybe he thought that yellow color was fast. The trooper came up to me with his lights on and I pulled over. He jumped out of his car, ran out into the travel lane and waved Beemer over. There were two troopers and I was talking with them about all kinds of stuff as they went through the standard menu of questions. They didn't seem interested in talking with Beemer, i guess they thought I was on the fast bike after all. The senior guy asked me to take off my helmet and when I did, I saw out of the corner of my eye that he had given the other trooper an almost imperceptible shake of the head. I took that as a good sign and it was.



I always start an expedition with a boot camp haircut and I think it has been a factor in helping me out of many and varied “situations”. People are almost sure about what I am, but there’s a 5% doubt factor and I have ridden that vibe to a favorable outcome many times. I was told that we were only going to get a warning, so while that was being written up, I talked with the senior trooper about bikes, our trip, his job, pepper spray, and the drug trade. He stuck a finger in my face as he left and said “Slow down”, but he was smiling when he did it. “Yes, Sir!” I would meet another trooper under much different circumstances later in the trip, but who knew then.

Badlands, ho. Finished with Minnesota, into South Dakota and pushed on to the Missouri River. This was an alternate stop if it didn’t look like we could get all the way to the Badlands. Stopped for fuel and continued west. I was watching my fuel even more now as the stations got farther apart. I even filled one saddle tank. Had a truck stop lunch with the locals and I chatted with the deli girl as she was making up my sandwich. The place would go broke if everyone stopped to talk with her-my sandwich ended up twice as big as it was supposed to be.

We took the Kadoka exit. It was just a name on the itinerary sheet that would give us an objective. I knew when we turned on the access road that we wouldn’t stay there. It was a town whose fate was sealed when the interstate was finished. The old post war motels were there, and everything in a state of disrepair. We spoke briefly with a motel proprietor and I swear he looked like he had just stepped over from the dark side. Not to be critical, but he resembled a buzzard carcass and smelled like sulphur burning. I could hardly focus on him, he was movin’ around like smoke. Holy bejesus! If that wasn’t bad enough, the whole place looked like meth cooker country to me and I had left my bear gun back in Virginia. Time to go, and I hit the redline poundin’ through the gears.

Badlands Park was just up the road and we went in and paid our camping fee. The restaurant near the entrance was open when we rode by, but closed when we came back for dinner. That was a lesson, because we rode 80 miles round trip at night for the privilege of eating a hamburger. I had every light reaching out the front of the bike and saw many pairs of eyes glowing in the beams. We got back and turned in. I was over 800 miles on the day, and Beemer was over 900. Close to an iron butt.



I had been out through some of the same country at about the same time in 2007. It was obvious to me that there was just a small percentage of the traffic this year as I had seen two years earlier.

[jdrocks]

so i've been thinking about the design of the custom front end since the day of that wreck out in montana. if you're building something like this you have the opportunity to increase both the durability and survivability of your bike-very important if you're a long way from home. so some changes-

lights: i could have mounted a buell again, but i'm going a different direction this time. the buell is kind of like the oem light assembly, if it gets trashed, nobody stocks it and you could get stuck out there. i'm going to add additional protection for the lights, and modify the mounts. still going to have the main and aux lights on separate circuits with the aux lights on their own switch. in other words, the relay trip is not tied into the low beam wiring. i'm going to be burning 220w in two colors coming down the road. if you could see me before, you're really going to see me now. on the last bike, i pulled a spare fused circuit to the front and had a spare switch mounted so i would have some redundancy up front in case things really went to heck and i'm going to do that again. all the lights are mounted on the forks and will turn in the direction of travel. i want 220w pointed the direction i'm going.

main mount: the old mount did ok in that wreck. the tube clamps didn't break and the welded assembly stayed together-bent, but didn't break. this time around, the instrument cluster will be mounted differently to help it survive and the ignition switch/key will be protected. in montana, the instrument mount bent down over the top of the key and i couldn't shut the bike off. kind of a major problem as 5L of fuel drained under a very hot bike with the ignition still on. as long as the tube clamps and base mounts stay together the upper assembly can bend. if it's built too stiff, you can't bend it back into reasonable shape in the field. i'm going to use a set of much stronger tube clamps as part of the base mount system. if those break, the bike is probably totaled. the most exposed parts of mount will be bolted together rather than welded. if they can't be straightened, they can be unbolted.

windscreen: i need at least something up front to help protect the back of the instruments and keep mud off all the wiring and cables. the little buell fairing did that job, but i'm going to design something new. i'm not exactly sure what it's going to look like, so we'll see.

given that the bike is not seriously damaged if you're in a wreck in some out of the way place, the whole idea is to make the bike repairable enough to ride with odds and ends available at any parts or farm store.