M.F. Profile PART XIV: MATT SMITH

I think the only thing I would change about this fellow is his name. It's just too bland. How about something like; Gerald Winterbottom, or Frederico San Vicente? I think that might be more fitting, don't you? Right now it's at either MATT SMUDGE (as per his amazing ability to get really dirty in a very short amount of time) or MATT SMATH (I don't really get that one). But maybe it's better to pretend he's living undercover. On the surface, he's a seemingly normal man living in Ballard, working in Ballard, pooping in Ballard, ect. But if you are lucky you'll catch the beast, known only as Mad Dog, his alter-ego of insanity. Either way, there's magic in this one...

Photo stolen from my favorite OCD MF FLICKRER. I was going to load up this post with pictures of this dude but I think this one will suffice. In the background we have the tenacious Barrans duo piloting our bus along I-5. Bob is driving, his wife Ann is navigating and/or thinking about deep things like outer space. We are either on our way to or back from LA. (Which if the forums are to be believed, we will be heading down to again this coming March!). I am going to say that this is us on our way down judging by the cleanliness of Matt's hair. While at moped rallies Matt tends to follow this line of transformation, from Matt Smith to Mad Dog ending finally in the Matt Smudge stage. It's an amazing sight to behold. At the moment this picture was taken I believe he was dreaming about... well I really don't know what he was dreaming about, puppies maybe? I do know that he is a friend. A friend who is able to shrug off drunken rage like you're doing nothing more than complaining about parking while giving him a noogie. Hi Matt. Don't forget about T3 this week. We can convine our first official meeting of Club Semantics!

Betty White, in the nude

I'm not sure where I saw it (maybe on the actual TV when I watched such a thing) but there's some really cool footage of Betty White from a long time ago on the Jack Parr show that I wanted to link to. It seems to not exist though, maybe I dreamed it up. That Betty White is quick as a whip though, and not a bit bad looking when she was young either.

My Betty White, may be ready for the road, once again. She's going out sans covers this time, hope I don't get my pants caught in the belt. Or my hair...

The perspective is really wacky on that picture. The front wheel is 16 inches, the back 17, even though it looks like the front is 10 or less. But yeah, we'll see how she does this time with a new piston. I got the brakes working a whole lot better too, YAY for stopping power.

Also, went on a real nice ride with the 425 crew the other day. I guess they're not really the 425 crew anymore since Tagen and Casey are both MFers. West Seattle clocked my bike at 54 m.p.h. Not too shabby for a circuit pipe. I get there hella quick too. Here's Casey trying to amplify his already loud voice with an inner tube...

And maybe this picture is crap and does not actually show you the clutch pads, but that's all I got. The Magnum broke down on my way home the other day. It was surging and cutting in and out and just acting like an all around bitch. The pads don't look too bad and I know I've munched up clutches on my Metra 80 worse than this before...

Either way, I plunked an old two shoe clutch in there and it started right up.

Why even shower anymore?

Man it's been a wet week.



I also love The Beta Band, and despite its sogginess, Seattle as well.

Tuck that Carb in

I'm back. And I've got a new camera! My old one took a dump on me and the camera on my phone is kind of craptastic. I like this new one though, these shots below would have been all blown out and un-viewable with my old camera. It's an Olympus FE.

One day -not today or tomorrow or the day before today, which they call yesterday- Betty White will be done. I've got the new piston installed and it fires up, there's just some finishing touches I need to see to before she is road worthy. The brakes were terrible. I filed some grooves in the brake pads as per Dr. Nazzz's orders and the cables are all routed much better now. And, I got the carb mounted better. Before I had it sticking straight out of the bike to where I couldn't run a filter. After a three minute ride my leg would reek of gasoline. After a thirty minute ride the gasoline would drip down my leg. Yeah, gross...


That's all fixed now with a little piece of raditaor tubing I got at my local auto parts and accessories shop. I'm going to have to do a write up on this place one day, it's kind of magical. And no, it's not touching the wheel. The carb lays gently on the fender and sits gingerly on the swing arm below, what a good little boy that OKO is.

Also kitted a Hobbit engine I had sitting around. It's the Mer Euro kit I got from 1977. I'm going to put it on my black and yellow Hobbit whence I get it back from that weirdo who's been riding it around.


And oh yeah, new camera has a fish eye filter. So look out for some hella cool looking fish eye moped photos. BOOM!

Winter is looming and Tall Paul

It got rainy here a few weeks ago. It's not to the point where the rain is cold and makes you want to slay children, but it's getting there. I've got plans for this winter time. Big ones. One plans involves shaving my head and dipping a tampon... maybe I'll save that surprise for later. Mopeds though, I'll be playing with mopeds a bunch through the winter. I probably have enough moped projects to last me till doomsday, but hey, what's one more?

I got this in the mail today. It's from Ohio...

It's a Murry frame, if you couldn't have guessed. The tank is real clean on the inside and I've also got the pedal shaft and fenders to go with it. Hopefully a guy I know will powder coat it for me.

I've had a set of new (spoked, sealed bearing) wheels and a new Pinto tank sitting around for the last while now. All that was really missing was what's pictured above. I should be able to throw together a nice little E-50 to put on it too. I've been eying this top end for a while now, haven't heard of too many people rocking it though. I really like kits that have a matching head, not just for aesthetics sake. Your cylinder is important and the head is the closest thing to that.

And oh yeah, good luck to my Uncle Paul in Texas who's getting my Mom's bone marrow inserted into him tomorrow. The hope is that when it's all over, and he's all better and everything, he'll all of a sudden forget about Sarah Dimwit Palin and Dr. Evil Dick Cheney and start voting Democrat. The Democrat count in my Mom's bone marrow is at something like 220 so this should not be a problem.

Moped Hands

You ever get really weird patterns or textures on your hands while working on mopeds? I've been collecting pictures of these moped hands of mine for a bit now. Here are some of the better shots I've taken.

This was after starting up one of my Hobbits with a freshly greased variator. I stuck my hand over it just after it started flinging grease all over the walls and my freshly cleaned bike...

Totally made my fingers look like John Locke's face...

Working with a band-aid on. I wonder if this finger tip felt left out or not...

I'm not normally this pink. Riding home in the cold with no gloves on can hurt sometimes...

A better, less imaginary Dragon

While some of you have been dorking it up, I've been working on muh-peds. More specifically, while some of you have been playing D & D, I have been working on getting my Malaguti more beautiful, more speedy and more ready.

This is the first time I've run an SHA carb and so far I don't really like it. I think this is mostly because I'm used to how PHBGs work. It's also a pretty small carb, 16 mm. I know it's going to do wonders over the 12 mm stock carb but having a 19 PHBG I think would be way better. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of room in there.

Last step for this bike, putting on the Dragon stickers. It's going to look so bad ass when that happens. I'll probably pump my fist in the air a few times and then howl at the moon when this happens.

And I think my camera is trying to take a crap on me too. It was never too good at low light envoronments but now it will only save up to 10 pictures before it claims the memory is full. Maybe I just need a new card?