Well, as quite a few of you know, i have a rather heavily modified FZ6 sitting in my shed! Has had about $20000 spent on it, and as such, is a pretty special thing....
Well, for a while now, people have been either asking me whether it has featured in any bike mag's, or that i should get in contact with a magazine or two, as it that sort of bike! In fact, i sent one photo to a particular mag a while back, and they asked me to send more, or to get back to them when i was ready to show the thing off as "finished"....
So, the other night, i finally got round to writing a big long e-mail detailing all that i had done to the bike, and attached a truckload of detail photo's, and dutifully sent the e-mail off to the magazine in question....Rapid Bikes, definitely Australia's leading bike rag, when it comes to modified street bikes...
Well, you could of blown me over with a feather when the magazine got back to me less than 2 days later, with a reply.
Quote: "Wow that is cool mate -
Can you fill in the attached Spec sheet? I'll organise a photographer in SA. Love to feature the bike with a full story.
Jeff"
So, without any further ado, i can announce that my bike is set to feature in Rapid Bikes in the near future!
What does a feature in Rapid Bike's entail???, i hear you say....well normally it's between 3-6 pages devoted specifically to the bike, with a detailed history, how it came to be, what's been done, etc....plus a truckload of big high res detail photo's of the various bits and pieces....
So to get a feature, you dont just have to have a nice ride, but it needs to be "something a bit special", cause the standard of featured bikes is normally incredibly high....
So, not only was i delighted, but i was a bit taken aback, as i have always thought my bike was nice, but i was never quite convinced that it was "something a bit special"!!!!
What this really means is that, i now have a massive spec sheet to fill out, which will take me hours!!!! But more importantly i have to detail the bike!!!!!
The detailing has begun, in fact, with the ever present help of my "fellow nutjob", Mikey (Ozzieboy to you lot), we have spent most of the last 3 days getting busy on the detailing of the bike....
The bike was already super duper clean, but high res photo's take NO prisoners when it comes to showing up any flaws, or bits that are not quite "right", so the detail begun....
So far we have dissasembled the rear wheel completely (including removing the rear brake disc), re-polished the rear wheel, Mikey polished the rear brake caliper mount, and gave the gold chain a real good clean on each side, i cleaned up my gold 46 tooth GYTR aluminium 520 pitch rear sprocket, and re-mounted it, cleaned the swingarm, polished the axle nut, re-greased the shaft, and spacers, poilshed the end of the axle bolt, and the axle nut washer.
So the back wheel is back in...while i had it out, i gave the titanium end caps a good clean, cleaned the end caps....remove all the bits of tyre rubber that has been flung up onto the underside of them and the end cans, took off the end caps, removed the baffles, replaced the fastening nuts with brand new high quality stainless bolts, as i did with the number plate, and rearsets....polished the powdercoated end caps, etc, etc...
We have removed my faux rear "mudguard", and my registration disc holder.
We cleaned up under the seat, and under the tank, making sure all wiring looms are neat as a pin, and gave everything a good clean under there as well...
Along the way, i have removed lots of other bolts from the bike, and given them a good polish....as has Mikey....all the brake rotor fastening nuts, rear sprocket nuts, etc, etc, etc.
Oh, and by the way, Mikey, if you are reading this, after you left my joint in the early hours of this morning, i managed to "polish" the scuffs out of the frame, axle & fork sliders!!!!
The front wheel is out now, and the front brake disc's are almost off, bar one bolt that wont budge, due to a certain "stealership" burring the hex heads a bit more than a little bit, from when i let them fit the braking wave discs, a long time ago, before i was really tooled up to do such a job myself...so that's a pain, and it cost me $76 today, to get the RIGHT tool to ensure easy removal of the recalcitrant bolt!
Once the disc is off, i can then get down to the lengthy job of re-polishing the front wheel to "show" standard!!!
Once i have finished the initial detail, the bike will be sent back to the paintshop for a secondary detail, where any paint chips, scuffs, etc, will be addressed, before the probing eye of the high res camera comes near the painters original work...which was exceptional anyway....but it is a photo shoot, so at the least, the whole bike will be given a hardcore polish!!!!
Whilst the bike is at the paint shop, we are going to paint te disc carrierson both the front and rear brake discs gold....to match the rear sprocket, ohlins suspension, and the gold spot Yamaha monoblock radial brake calipers on the front of the bike....
When all this is done, i need to put a set of tyres on the bike....cause the present tyres are shot! Am thinking a set of very much track day tyres with minimal tread...which will mean that i will need to go and ride the wheels off the bike at least oncemore before the photo shoot, so that they look nice cand used....cant be having any big ol wide chicken strip's happening in the photo shoot!
I am just starting to understand how one of my glamour models must feel before an important photo shoot.....fix this, polish that, etc, etc, etc.
Anyway, i am proud as punch....2 and a bit years of countless hours of hard toil to make my black FZ6 "Something special" is paying off via some very real recognition via a National respected motorcycle magazine....
As for those of you that want photo's....it's pretty hard to take photo's when your elbow deep in polishing dust! but i will endeavour to keep people updated with the whole process, and hopefully get a few photo's up of the various bits we have detailed....
I will say this though, a huge thanks to Mikey, cause he is just a big a part of this bikes development as me....he has "shared" and more than assisted me in getting the bike to where it is today....that is something that i wll be making sure people know about when the feature goes to print.....nice one Mikey!
Only thing that pi$$es me off right now, is that the bike probably wont have it's powershifter in place before the feature....
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
Well, for a while now, people have been either asking me whether it has featured in any bike mag's, or that i should get in contact with a magazine or two, as it that sort of bike! In fact, i sent one photo to a particular mag a while back, and they asked me to send more, or to get back to them when i was ready to show the thing off as "finished"....
So, the other night, i finally got round to writing a big long e-mail detailing all that i had done to the bike, and attached a truckload of detail photo's, and dutifully sent the e-mail off to the magazine in question....Rapid Bikes, definitely Australia's leading bike rag, when it comes to modified street bikes...
Well, you could of blown me over with a feather when the magazine got back to me less than 2 days later, with a reply.
Quote: "Wow that is cool mate -
Can you fill in the attached Spec sheet? I'll organise a photographer in SA. Love to feature the bike with a full story.
Jeff"
So, without any further ado, i can announce that my bike is set to feature in Rapid Bikes in the near future!
What does a feature in Rapid Bike's entail???, i hear you say....well normally it's between 3-6 pages devoted specifically to the bike, with a detailed history, how it came to be, what's been done, etc....plus a truckload of big high res detail photo's of the various bits and pieces....
So to get a feature, you dont just have to have a nice ride, but it needs to be "something a bit special", cause the standard of featured bikes is normally incredibly high....
So, not only was i delighted, but i was a bit taken aback, as i have always thought my bike was nice, but i was never quite convinced that it was "something a bit special"!!!!
What this really means is that, i now have a massive spec sheet to fill out, which will take me hours!!!! But more importantly i have to detail the bike!!!!!
The detailing has begun, in fact, with the ever present help of my "fellow nutjob", Mikey (Ozzieboy to you lot), we have spent most of the last 3 days getting busy on the detailing of the bike....
The bike was already super duper clean, but high res photo's take NO prisoners when it comes to showing up any flaws, or bits that are not quite "right", so the detail begun....
So far we have dissasembled the rear wheel completely (including removing the rear brake disc), re-polished the rear wheel, Mikey polished the rear brake caliper mount, and gave the gold chain a real good clean on each side, i cleaned up my gold 46 tooth GYTR aluminium 520 pitch rear sprocket, and re-mounted it, cleaned the swingarm, polished the axle nut, re-greased the shaft, and spacers, poilshed the end of the axle bolt, and the axle nut washer.
So the back wheel is back in...while i had it out, i gave the titanium end caps a good clean, cleaned the end caps....remove all the bits of tyre rubber that has been flung up onto the underside of them and the end cans, took off the end caps, removed the baffles, replaced the fastening nuts with brand new high quality stainless bolts, as i did with the number plate, and rearsets....polished the powdercoated end caps, etc, etc...
We have removed my faux rear "mudguard", and my registration disc holder.
We cleaned up under the seat, and under the tank, making sure all wiring looms are neat as a pin, and gave everything a good clean under there as well...
Along the way, i have removed lots of other bolts from the bike, and given them a good polish....as has Mikey....all the brake rotor fastening nuts, rear sprocket nuts, etc, etc, etc.
Oh, and by the way, Mikey, if you are reading this, after you left my joint in the early hours of this morning, i managed to "polish" the scuffs out of the frame, axle & fork sliders!!!!
The front wheel is out now, and the front brake disc's are almost off, bar one bolt that wont budge, due to a certain "stealership" burring the hex heads a bit more than a little bit, from when i let them fit the braking wave discs, a long time ago, before i was really tooled up to do such a job myself...so that's a pain, and it cost me $76 today, to get the RIGHT tool to ensure easy removal of the recalcitrant bolt!
Once the disc is off, i can then get down to the lengthy job of re-polishing the front wheel to "show" standard!!!
Once i have finished the initial detail, the bike will be sent back to the paintshop for a secondary detail, where any paint chips, scuffs, etc, will be addressed, before the probing eye of the high res camera comes near the painters original work...which was exceptional anyway....but it is a photo shoot, so at the least, the whole bike will be given a hardcore polish!!!!
Whilst the bike is at the paint shop, we are going to paint te disc carrierson both the front and rear brake discs gold....to match the rear sprocket, ohlins suspension, and the gold spot Yamaha monoblock radial brake calipers on the front of the bike....
When all this is done, i need to put a set of tyres on the bike....cause the present tyres are shot! Am thinking a set of very much track day tyres with minimal tread...which will mean that i will need to go and ride the wheels off the bike at least oncemore before the photo shoot, so that they look nice cand used....cant be having any big ol wide chicken strip's happening in the photo shoot!
I am just starting to understand how one of my glamour models must feel before an important photo shoot.....fix this, polish that, etc, etc, etc.
Anyway, i am proud as punch....2 and a bit years of countless hours of hard toil to make my black FZ6 "Something special" is paying off via some very real recognition via a National respected motorcycle magazine....
As for those of you that want photo's....it's pretty hard to take photo's when your elbow deep in polishing dust! but i will endeavour to keep people updated with the whole process, and hopefully get a few photo's up of the various bits we have detailed....
I will say this though, a huge thanks to Mikey, cause he is just a big a part of this bikes development as me....he has "shared" and more than assisted me in getting the bike to where it is today....that is something that i wll be making sure people know about when the feature goes to print.....nice one Mikey!
Only thing that pi$$es me off right now, is that the bike probably wont have it's powershifter in place before the feature....
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
