Homework problems
Home-based custom builds never go quite the way they are planned. It’s the law…
THE BIKE SHED’S Ross Sharp recently commented to me that, ‘home builds never work out on time’. In the case of my nascent Post-apocalypse Urban Bruiser™, aka poor man’s Ronin, that couldn’t be truer. Based on the SWM Gran Milano I recently bought for peanuts (Bike, April) I thought the aggressive stance, USD forks and angular tank suited the look I sought. And a brand new machine would lack the shagged-out components that have bedevilled previous builds. Soliciting the help of a local friend who is a whizz with CAD software, and who has access to a large 3D printer and laser cutting machinery, would also facilitate the speedy creation of body panels. Wrong, wrong, wrongity, wrong.
For starters key bits of the donor bike were missing, most notably side panels and a wiring diagram which the factory were unable to supply via the new SWM importer, for months. Then my CAD pal had trouble accurately scanning the bike using his ipad driven software and so had to laboriously measure it by hand. Next up, his and my other work got in the way. So, it wasn’t until early May that I began properly stripping the bike and he could finish his measuring. And thereby hung another tale of frustration: the Milano lacks a centrestand so to hold it upright (never mind attend to a puncture in the real world) the underslung exhaust system needs to be removed. Lacking a sufficiently low paddock stand (which I do) a delicate two-man operation transpires, involving a hydraulic car jack, axle stands and lumps of wood.
Thus hopes of a straightforward build completed by the summer have proven hilariously vain… and is there trouble ahead? Almost certainly so.