......I'm working late, and I rolled Tommy's chopper off the rack at about 9:00pm. While Tommy and I were getting ready to call it a night, the phone rings around 9:30pm. Dan's on the other end of the line. I hardtailed Dan's Sporty, and posted some photos here on the blog a little while ago, and I also used his frame in my IronWorks how-to tech article on the subject.Anyways, Dan says he met this guy from Japan, and he spun the nut off his front belt drive pulley. Dan's called around, and he either can't get ahold of anybody, or nobody has the tools to get it back on right. He wants to bring this guy over, and could I fix his bike for him. Well, I'm up, and so I say sure, I can't leave a guy stranded.
About a 1/2 hr. later, Dan and this guy roll up. This guy is packed for the road, and he's riding this rigid Shovel, with like this 22over springer on it, no front brake, and Invader wheels. Dan introduces him as "Masao". We roll it on the rack, and it barely fits on there. I clean off his motor shaft threads, and his pulley nut, dab on some red Loctite, and with the jamb bar in place, it takes me about 15 min.in total to get the nut torqued all to spec, and fixed up.
While I'm fixing Masao's bike, we're making chit-chat, and it turns out we know several mutual friends. The more I speak with him, the more familiar he looks. When I was finished, I went inside and got out my Hardcore Chopper magazines, and sure enough, that's where I had seen him before. Masao Suzuki owns MC Peckers, a chopper shop in Japan. He builds bikes, and the springer and the "Invaders" on his bike he's riding are part of his parts line he manufactures. What a small world anymore, huh?Here's a picture of Masao from Hardcore Choppers Vol.21. It was in an article intitled "The Long Fork Philosophy". Masao had 3 bikes built by himself and his shop MC Peckers, featured in the article.
Masao told me he started off from L.A., rode up to Sturgis, then down to Texas, here to Colorado, and is on his way back to L.A., to ship his bike from there back to Japan. Shortly after he gets back to Japan, he's going to ship his bike over to Tibet, and ride around over there for awhile. Wow!
Masao wanted to pay me for the time it took, and I told him to forget it. I told him it was all about the "wheel", and how it all comes around again, and he smiled and understood. He shook my hand, and then he and Dan were off to find him a place to stay for the night.
Safe journeys, Masao Suzuki. We'll meet up again, I'm sure.
Safe journeys, Masao Suzuki. We'll meet up again, I'm sure.
5 comments:
This is too awesome. Small world indeed.
That bike he brought in is amazing!
It is a small world - how do folks find the time to take these epic trips?
Well, maybe it's because in almost every civilized country (except ours)in the world, you have a mandatory 30 days of vacation a year, and most employers in those countries allow you to bank your unused vacation time from year to year.
Most places here you're lucky anymore if you get a week after a year's employment. With employers hiring their workers as "part time" you don't get shit anymore.
Not the case with Masao, but that's why you see Europeans riding all over the USA before and after Sturgis and the like for a month or two.
I saw you won the top motorcycle blog award from Online Schools.. I did too.. I hope you realise it´s just spamming for placing a link to Online Schools to your site..
it has absolutely nothing to do with motorcycles except placing that link which advertise for online schools.. think of it, they also give away awards to Top Dog Blogs, Top Cat Blogs, Top Bird Blog, Top Insect Blog and hundreds of more silly themes.. check it out here: http://www.onlineschools.org/awards/
Do you think this is anything but spam?
Well, they're going to have a hard time linking from my blog, because I pulled the graphic from Online Schools' choices, converted it from a PNG to a JPEG, then put it up here. There isn't a link present.
I know there's no such thing as "something for nothing" anymore. I'm not entirely stupid. Well, I guess some people would argue that last statement......
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