Music. Welcome to the Hole in the Head podcast this week, Andy and Blaine talk with a friend and advisor on all things moto. Jason Wallace is an encyclopedic legend in the Pacific Northwest, writer, mechanic, collector, race scrutineer and just an all around good dude. Hope you enjoy
well. So to give a little bit a little bit more background, playing Jason's one of the first guys that I met when I moved to Seattle. Okay, and it's funny when you meet somebody and then suddenly they're everywhere. So Jason, I brought my ambassador to you. To you, I don't know if you remember this with your international moto Yeah, or moto International, yes, you change the tires on my ambassador. Great. I know this guy named Jason works. He's a goosey guy works at Moto International,
okay? And then I answered an ad on Craigslist. Bought some Ducati mufflers from Eric, and he said, I said something about a goosey and he's, oh, do you know Jason? Yeah, yeah, I know Jason. Okay, so you know what I mean. So
there's only three degrees of separation in the motorcycle world. It's not like, yeah,
you're right, you're right. So then, then the kicker came when I was in San Francisco for a trip, and I found I answered an ad for a moto gutsy police bike. So I drove down to Santa Cruz.
You my hometown,
apparently. So I go buy this bike from a guy who also works at a place that sells Ducati parts on eBay. Start chatting. I said, Yeah, I've got a couple moto goose I'm living in. Was it? I said, Do you know you know, Jason? Yeah, yeah. So very small world, or less Degrees of Separation than we think, or
he, or Jason's a huge celebrity, let's give that a possibility. Well,
Santa Cruz is a fairly small town, surface K town, and it actually quite a bit of a cult motorcycle following you ended up with all kinds of Italian weird shit. Ended up there, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, the whole peninsula there. Okay, Hey, Jason, I
got a question for you, because I want to know this right away. Are you a brand snob? That means you have your I'm not
a hardly fair. I don't I'm not into cruises at all, so
there's that no American Iron for you. No,
I've never owned any. I mean this. I worked on a 1941 Indian here a couple months back, and I won't do that again. That was freaking pain in the ass to get the technology is so antiquated. Oh God, it was interesting. Thing to do. My grandfather had the exact same bike, so that's the reason I did it. And having done it, I'm like, Okay, I'm not doing that.
So, but are you Euro specific? Or could we talk you into biomaha? Are you? Just tell me where you are on that spectrum. I've
had 321, bikes so far, and I would say 60% of those were Japanese, but mainly two stroke Macy. I'm European and Japanese. Two stroke, anything that's non common. I guess I like weird stuff.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's right, that's right up our alley. But, you know, Andy, for example, is a complete brand snob,
and has,
yeah, yeah. And the truth is, so am I? You know, I keep thinking I'm not that. I'm a regular guy, but yet, I've totally looked down my nose at other brands that are not European, and I know that, you know, that's probably not, you know, it's probably not fair or equitable, but that's just the way I am.
Yamaha Suzuki, their engineering was actually great. Kawasaki actually has probably the best of all their engineering. But I hate them. I have no connection to them at all, and I don't know why they are well made. Do you think that?
Go ahead Andy, well,
do you think that snobbery comes from a place of rarity? I mean, Jason, you just said the weirdness. And I absolutely identify, like this thing that I haven't seen before, and probably nobody's got. I want it.
I've actually found a place in Germany called kexel ke Xeo that has pistons for almost anything weird you can think of. I ended up getting a new pisses my Marvel focane On Christmas, and then ended up I just rebuilt it a week ago. So
what's interesting is that are you also this kind of a guy? Is, I'm not interested in anything that is, that is, that works. I like it when it's junky and weird, so but, but I'm way more excited about something that's laying on its side in the mud, and a guy goes, I think this might be, you know, doesn't really know what it is. That's the one I want to buy, rather than a good deal at an auction. Because to me, the bringing it back is the journey
bring it back and the story behind it too. There's always like, especially with Euro stuff, there's always cool to see the story actually just sent me. Somebody sent me an ad for old DKW dirt bike. I'm actually curious if I get an answer back tonight, but it's one of those. Was the rush fever or something. I've heard it called old thing, and you end up with it. I have, I have many projects like that. I have a MZ, es, 250 that is more than halfway done. That ended up,
yes, you start with them. There, sees the shit. And you just like, oh god, yeah. Unfreeze it. Oh, my god, yeah,
that's that's the fun of it. So, but now I've never owned Moto Guzzi, so I got two questions to you about Moto Guzzi. One, where does Mona Guzzi stand in the Italian brand spectrum?
They're well revered because we're thinking about so a lot of just like people, lot of the nationalistic tendencies of different countries tend to make each country's not just their engineering and the personality of that particular country all the same like German Austrian, you can pretty much guess that one company from that country has a very similar thinking to another one, whereas in Italy, it's all clan based. So basically each sub area has its totally own thinking.
Whereas the very northern parts of the country like goods who is in Mandela delaudio, which is less than 100 miles from the Swiss border, is very Swiss and German thinking, and they're very meticulous, and have everything they want. Their stuff reliable, but it wasn't particularly exciting for many years they were trying to and then they're all based on emotion. So the great story I like is there's the two
families. There's three families that originally started the company, but the one guy passed away right away. So the you had the goodsi side, which was the engineering side, you have the parotid side, which was the
banking side. Well, in the early 70s is right about the v7 sport era, they were trying to decide on suspension for their bikes, and one of the parody girls was engaged to one of the marzaki boys, and it fell apart, and they ended up Not using marzaki because of the breakup, because of him, and it's sad because later on, like a decade or two later, they actually made up, and there was an option to have a mosaic in front end, and I've written those, and they handled
five times what the original one did, and if they had gone with mosaic in the first place, they'd be way more, way better known for handling than beamer was. Beamer was a little soft, right,
right. Just give me one quick hierarchy of the Italian brands where goosey falls, you know, just like not necessarily in terms of quality, but quality. But quality
and desirability. So
Augusta is the best Italian bike. Is what you're saying. It's MB.
I'm not talking current. I'm talking finish. I just want to be
I just want to be I just want to be clear that someone who owns an envy Augusta is better than someone who may be not owns an MBA.
I don't. I'm not. I'm not classist about people. Writers enthusiasm the biggest thing, and people that are into their stuff are going to be way more so
Andy is totally a class snob, and he so, why are you bringing this up? Andy?
What Jason doesn't know is that I'm sitting on a an RS 150 project that I found in Spokane. Sport, yeah,
I worked on several of the four cylinders, and they're like, 160 to over $200,000 where I
get I get a little intimidated with Jason. I get excited about this single cylinder, I guess that I found like, oh yeah. And he's like, oh yeah. What about the. But this race bike, or is that the one you got? I'm like, oh, no, it's just the
way. I can't afford that stuff too, right? The only full bike I have, I have, I actually sold
it sears. No, no. I was just saying that. You know, I try to do the same thing too. Is that I don't have enough money or class to involve myself in the high stuff. So I had, still on the high end category. Yeah,
I actually had one of the monkey ward vanellis. It was, it was fine. It looked easy. I eventually I didn't take me super long to break it because it was so small.
Oh yeah, but so just a murder. But so Augusta, is it Augusta or Augusta?
I think it's Augusta, Augusta.
So that's the top shelf.
Anyways, that's, I'd say that's one of the best. I also, yeah, Laverda actually is a huge one for me. But, I mean, they do look kind of like a Honda, unfortunately. But they from a build quality Libertas were some of the best the original factory, which was one and then the next, when they brought them back, there's a factory that's called signing. It looks like Zane, but it's, it sounds like a TS, and they're, they were good quality, but
stupid design. I don't know why they do both the 180 degree motor sounds like dog.
Okay, so tell me this just a little bit of on the inside of the culture too, because I'm interested in that too. So if, if I had to sit down at a table and there's an empty Agusta guy there and a moto goosey guy there and a Ducati guy there, um, which one's going to try the hardest to impress me? Because I hate that Ducati for sure.
Guys, we actually, I actually, in 1994 we were at World Superbike in Laguna, and they, I was one of the first years they had Ducati Island, and I coined the term dukaki. It's when 20 guys standing around one Ducati.
No, I appreciate that, because Andy and I always have this talk about, oh yeah, let's go to this rally, or let's go to this gathering, or whatever. And then sometimes I go and I realize I think I would actually enjoy not interacting with these folks very much, because I just hate getting the lecture. I hate hearing the judgment. I hate hearing the, you know, just the religious end of it that people actually
the atypical beamer guys are actually guys I hang out with, like, the like underground kind of, like, ex gothy kind of crowd that ride beamers tend to be my favorites because they don't like the run of the mill. Beamer guys are pretty staunch and like, oh boy, inside and but I worked at San Jose BMW in my 20s, and we built being a race bikes, and they're lot of loud Ross kind of machines,
yeah. Well, my experience in the BMW crowd is that there is, well, we always call them rivet counters, so if you're selling a BMW, call you and and you'll tell them, hey, this is I found this in the field. I got it running. Do you want to buy it? And the guy will call you up and ask you things, as if it's been in the showroom its whole life. And yeah, clearly, we're on the other side of this. You know,
they usually have a nightmare. Yes, documentation ever had? No,
yeah, I noticed on the wiring, you know, that was coming down out of the speedo, that it wasn't wrapped with a cloth wrap from that period. It looks like more has a vinyl wrap around the wires, you know, if that belongs on that year or not. And it's like, I don't really give a because the wires are not wet, and so we're riding it, you know, that's kind of where I ended up in it.
You know, we've sort of landed on like, or at least I have with with our conversations, that we there are those guys like, whether we like it or not. I hate to sort of generalize, but we're we learned. We learned pretty on, early on, that there are BMW guys, and they can be varying degrees of awful, but then, but, but then the Ducati guys. I had a recent experience in a Facebook group that was maybe want to die, and you don't want to lump everybody in, you know, yeah, you
don't want to, kind
of have to, you kind of have to acknowledge that they're there. Well, look at all of us.
We're not classifiable. Come on.
Well, so that's what I'm saying, is, I wonder what the there's a draw. I think that we're kindred spirits in this way, and that we don't, whereas you tend to work on Italian stuff and goosey is just what I've known of you. Two on one on one basis. But I know a lot
of weird German shit over the years. To just aundap is another brand. I actually say Sunday, oh
yeah,
it was another one I really have always loved. I had a couple as a teenager, scooters, and I always wanted a chaos 601, and a friend had one who's told Stoner. So when it came time he needs to sell it, he couldn't remember who the hell it was. So one day, this is a Bud Light. He comes, He goes my scooter. Anyways, he said he's walking in the door, and I see his expressions change, like, oh shit. Look. I'm like, you fucking sold it, didn't you? He's like, Dude, I couldn't remember it
was that widespread interest is like, I think it Well, that explains us anyway. So it sounds like, you know that is so is it? Is it motorcycles that you're interested in, or is it also this the way things work, and like solving a problem and engineering.
So actually, I would buy things that there's no way in hell that I was ever going to get the thing working, but just to take it apart and see how it works. Actually, I ended up with a jalera single and a single that were in that state, and I ended up mocking him up and put him under a glass coffee table, as my decoration was awesome.
So we always hear how bad our electrics are going to be on our Italian bikes, and everybody tells me, this is going to be your nightmare. It's going to be electric and I can tell you, Andy and I both have had experiences trying to sort out electrics on Ducati. And it's, it's maddening, because one, there's a lack of information, and then there's very vocal guys who seem to not know anything, but yet they're telling you,
giving you all the advice. And then certain things, especially in the vintage area, are getting very hard to find.
Yeah, sure. So, uh, on most of the twins, and the bigger, bigger, more bikes where their electric systems are fairly logical, like this. In particular, all the the charging system components since 71 are all and even before that, they're half the time. They're either Bosch, and later on, they were all Bosch. It's just that the wiring and the fuse panel as well. Were all Italian. The main components were actually pretty
good. So one of the first ones I ever had, and I actually gutted all made my own wiring harness, but on small more Italian stuff, it's really illogical until you understand how it works. So whether it be scooters or small bore Italian bikes, they're completely AC but one of the AC legs is the actual frame. So you look at this thing and it's got pass one way, and you're like,
electrical come back. Well, all comes back through the frame, and it shares the secondary leg with all different all kinds of stuff. It gets really weird. But once you get the concept. You're like, Oh, now
always, yeah, yeah, I got lost in that rabbit hole, you know? I mean, basically. And let me ask you this too. Is it How committed are you to kind of finding original factory solutions, and how committed or and how open are you to thinking, Well, you know what? Oh, I'm all
about not finding factory solutions. I actually like to upgrade. So, like, for instance, my I have a vintage scooter that I've owned longer than any of our own, and I converted, made my own setup to convert it from six volt to 12 volt, and I did it actually with an enduro whereas the tail light, instead of, like, running a separate circuit, I actually have one circuit for both the
running and brake. And it go, and it uses brake light bulbs, but run through a three ohm resistor, and then when you hit the brakes, it steps past the resistor to brighten it back up so your current doesn't change. So you're because they're all running off the same flywheel. So if you had two separate circuits, your headlight would do, but by doing it that way, you get the brake light, the running light in your head like
this, yeah, so, so to could we tell people confidently then that if you fall in love with some oddball Italian stuff, there's a chance that you're going to get spark in the light store?
Yeah? I mean, there's, there's, there's alternative ways to go. Sometimes, if there's not a secondary part, you can always be wine and stuff, the original whining stuff, but it depends on how rare, rare it is. A lot of times there's there's spares. Perilla is one of those ones. It's a lot of stuff really hard to get. Capriola is really hard to get. There's a lot of them are just so odd. Find just takes finding the people that that are still into them, that are also
electronic savvy too. As far as getting online and finding a lot of the like, like the Benelli crowd in Italy is like super old I don't speak
English. I found they didn't. I have to like, oh, technical Italian, yeah. And
I use Google Translate all the time, especially it's usually Germans and Spaniards and union contacting. Bolt is another one of those brands I'm into.
We've got we've got us. I've got some Spanish, yeah, we're after the what is it? Spanish seven Spanish angels
acquire Spanish bikes at this point
I've only had bull taco. A Merlin is in my future, soon as they get the parts for the guys trade. Yeah, Merlin is Spanish built bike that end up becoming part of kajiba Eventually.
I'm kind of wondering, and this is again, a little bit off in the weeds, but just in case anybody's got the Italian bug like we have, I love it when you have non standard solutions, because, you know, there's nothing more heartbreaking than realizing, you know, Andy and I both have these motor Marines, and we need an ignition thing for it. It's like, oh, yeah, you know, you're never going to find them. You know, everybody who has working ones is already using them and
whatever. And so I hate getting involved in that dead end. You know,
are you talking Bosch ignition modules?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
V 52 uses them. The motor marine uses them. I was always use them. They're all slightly but they're all slightly different advanced curves. That's one thing I look out for as long as advanced I'm glad you
mentioned that, because I'm always very comforted to find out that these, these solutions do exist. But it's always very frustrating in the beginning when you're trying to run it down and you can't find it. So I love it when someone thinks outside of it.
And on the other hand, I always hate it when the guys I you know, I heard this term the other day about people that are crate trained, and I think there's a lot of lot of folks that will only do, especially the BMW guys, can be very bad about this, is that, you know, we'll only use this these pieces, and these are the ones that are, you know, correct for
it,
and nothing else. We don't care what stock, you know. But obviously, I'm further down the chain than some of these guys are. So
the Marines, you guys are they three and a half? Yes, yeah. Okay, so I actually know several people that have those in the other guy that I helped the same year I helped Eric and got them both Records was on a three and a half, and he went from, actually, his bike got borrowed by an Italian the year before. Like, it was, like a record of, like, 92 mile an hour. So in the same afternoon, we had him go from 92 mile an hour to 100 and 303. And a half. Yeah, that was, that was the
record. And then he eat it up a little over the next couple events. But that day he's fully blurred in the rules. Well,
that's a good so, so Bonneville, you're heavily involved in
speed, not super heavy.
You're scrutinering, yes, and that's heavier than I'm involved
bmst, Bonneville motorcycle speed.
That's right, how and how did you get into
that? Ah, because I know, I know the sodium distortion crowd, and they're like, Hey, come home. Okay, cool. And I figured hanging out with motorheads that were only bike motorheads for a week would be a lot of fun. So I did that for two years. And of course, Eric ended up going. And then after his demise, I'm like, you know, he'd appreciate me. So I actually took my lemons. 1000 out there. I did not get the speed I wanted. I did 136 on a record that was 143.6 I was having carbon issues. I had
makunis on it. I had measured them, and they're like, they were a millimeter smaller than the geleros, but oh my god, they'll way out for them. And then, like, a week before the event, I go to turn this Rob, I kind of look down the throat and they weren't opening all the way. I'm like, okay, that's weird. So I I gotten these off. They were often on a banshee originally, well, I looked up the spec, and they call them a 35 because they don't open the hole and they're made from
bottom. Oh crap. So didn't perform well or
so. So now you're involved in the scrutineering side of it, and I
know, you know, I haven't even done it a couple years. I just, I don't like doing the same thing every summer. And I always do a lot of I do BDR, BDR, off road, adventure writing with some friends. I have three groups that typically will Washington, Idaho and California. We would all meet up somewhere in between and do off. Road,
okay, yeah,
I have one question about
the scrutineering scene. For the time that you did it, or time that you've seen it done, how often do you just fudge a little bit to get someone through? Or is it absolutely it's absolutely
no. But what's cool about it? It's a very grassroots community, like, hey, go over there. They will help you. They have the equipment, and, you know, the couple camps, they have all the stuff to get it done and they have to correct it. That's, there's, there is no fun.
They're just, yeah, so there's no taking pity on people. No,
no. I mean, they're taking pity on them is helping them get it corrected. So you're like, Okay, bring them beer or bring them something, and they will take care of you. And
that's a good that's a good thing. We've
seen too many people crash out there. It's like, if you crash because of mechanical, that's land. And actually, when I went out and did my rookie run by 1000 there was a guy on a beautiful 1930s BMW going right before me at Brett, and I saw him reach down and adjust his steering damper, turn it up, which reminded me, oh, Better termite, all the way up to oh, he had turned his down and that, and he ate, yeah,
oh no. And
he was really kind of moving that slow that night. I mean, it's all flat, you're just bounced, but it kind of buggered up the bike, pretty good. And and then when I got my run, of course, I was I had to all and it's, yeah, you see stuff like that. But you know, the the classes where you only doing about less than 150 is massively different than, like, some of the guys that are doing over 300 you're like, go down to that speed each slide fall. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, oh yeah. So did you ever have anybody that was just an absolute disaster that didn't make it past scrutineering, or you just thought this poor guy is just
Oh yeah? There's people that there's, there's, it's usually people that have never been Yeah, they'll, they'll, like, Come scrutiny, like three times in a row, trying to straighten something out. Most of the guys that have been there forever, country once done. They know what to do, like the lock team is always freaking spot on. They're down to the team. They got everything done, and they come back with records every time.
Yeah. So, so Andy and I show up and we're completely ill prepared and underpowered financially, but we have dreams, yeah,
actually under priority. Actually find a lot of either on on record, no records in that particular category, or you have them where they're fairly low and it's and that's what most people do, is they'll look at the records. So if you watch the movie pit boy in the Silver Eagle. He actually part of, he goes, finally going for a record that didn't have anything David,
David's, yes, yeah,
the whole movie was very tongue in cheek. It's pretty cute.
But I was gonna, I was gonna go with my little I have a little motoguzi, single pushrod singlelo, and I was gonna be hopeful for 6570
possible. It depends on how much compression you get out of it, and whether you're running a fuel class or gas class. A gas class, if you're running high enough octane, you can just keep that. Sorry
if you haven't gotten the sense by now, I was not going to be doing high octane. I was taking clip ones, I think was about, is there, you know, about all I did have a I put on fiberglass fenders, you know, because the metal ones I think are too heavy, that's a thing. So, yeah, I was going to be doing good to get it running. But,
you know, Eric did great. I mean, he had no idea. So, so two weeks before the event, he's like, hey, you know, I want to test this thing out. And like, okay, cool. I know there's a dead end road. So he comes over my house, picks me up, and we go out to this place down in Fall city, and he fires it up, and it's a Catalina yds three Tuesday twin. And I'm like, you know that's only running on one cylinder, right? He's like, No, oh yeah, you said you ringed it right? He's like,
Yeah. I'm like, Did you hone it? And I get a blank look, dude. I don't have enough time to sort this thing out for you, but I know a guy, and I call Pete, and I'm like, hey, you know we give him a hand. Well, I only met, like. Give him a hand, as far as, like, squeezing them in. But Pete didn't charge him. We only
charge him for parts. And, like, totally took runners ring, and it was awesome, and got it all dialed, even, like, rolled all the pistons where all the hot spots are, to get a lot extra oiling in there so that it would live the whole event. And then we get out there. And I don't think Pete was super familiar with that model. He did. He did mention about the the rotor causes crank flex, but we didn't think it was going to go faster
problem. So we get out there, he tests it out, and comes back and he's like, Yeah, I can't pull fifth. I'm like, I call up Pete. I'm like, Hey, is nothing geared evenly, sequential gearing. He's like, No, it's not. He's like, fifth is a pedestrian, like, overdrive, essentially. So basically, 1234, or even, and fifth is a one and a half ratio, percent ratio out. And you're like, so I was like, so we ended up gearing it and setting up to
run it forth. So yeah, which is fine, and we were geared that we took everything off, that we could set up my timing light and my harmonizer sinking tool and everything with spare because I ended up riding so we could dial in. We actually so the first couple runs, he just tried to check it out. And then that's when we realized the fifth thing. And then we catch sprockets. We changed the gear, and then I made sure everything was tuned and the timing is
right. And then we ended up having to cut off the center stand because the pen wouldn't come out. So we got a bunch of stuff off, uh, take off, some weight, and then record was happy. So, yeah, yeah.
That was a good that was fun. A lot of that was,
I totally agree that with to Pete. So he made that happen. So that was pretty
amazing. Well, Jason, he looks, obviously, you've been into this for a long time. He had a lot of experiences. What's the, what's the one riding experience that you want to have next? Or what's what's else out there on the list? Is there someplace you want to go? There someplace you want to race? Is there something you want to experience in
the motorcycle world race? Bug really doesn't do much for me anymore. I mean, I actually, you know, after doing the BDRs and stuff, I realized that road riding is probably really like is my favorite. I just going, like, high speed, long distance touring is hands down my favorite thing to do. I have a group of guys that we usually go down to, like, in northern Oregon, there's some great places to go where there's you can just ride like a twat and not worry about places.
Wise, I've been ridden in Peru and most of the western United States, but I've only driven in Europe. I never got a chance to ride a bike in Europe. But actually, that's I get that idle vice catalog.
Yes, yes.
What the bummer is, my dad quit riding because he got a pretty bad accident, but he had a spare bike starting Heidelberg, and then he sold it to his body without,
oh yeah, that would have been your ticket,
yeah. Well, but the thing is, the guy that's the Savant cannot that owns the storage place. He does tours, but you can't loan the bike. You have to actually own the bike, because of the way the insurance is set up. Because he sets up insurance just for your trips, you have to own it. So you would have to, like, sell it to the person for for them to use it.
I see, I see, and Jason, also, I'm sorry. Andy, I don't mean to be taken over there. You jump in here. But this is my last question for Jason. Hey, Jason, what? What is the next motorcycle that is worth a worthwhile quest for you, and it doesn't have to be the biggest one of your life, but let's say bigger than, Oh, I saw this on Craigslist, and I'll just go get it, because I can get it, but bigger than that. But, I mean, is there something that you trade 10 of your bikes
for? Is there something that you get? I've
always wanted, SF two. SF two, Laverda, which is the 70.
Tell me about what that is. I don't know 70 twin.
They kind of but they're 360 ring firing order, and they have 36 millimeter round slide PHS, which is far superior to the to the 29 millimeter square slides the so the earliest laverdas came in under the badge American Eagle. They actually was an American guy, that each different model was a totally different brand that he got from other companies. And then he put American Eagle badges. And the biggest one was Laverda, which Evil Knievel ended up campaigning. One, I think one
season or two seasons. Now that was the sentence between, anyways, I always wanted SF two, which was, now this was a dual front desk, but still, drum rare. I. Uh, and not, not the prettiest. I mean, it's not like an SFC. The SFCs were amazing
those 50 to 100 grand. Now, whereas an SF can be had for maybe five grand, if you're lucky, I'm I had two that I got burned on, and then I had a third that I barely missed, and a friend got it, which is fine, but the person that sent it to him didn't realize that was like the bike I wanted more than else.
Is it possible that if you found the right Laverda that was 50 grand? Would you? Would you, would you don't know beyond one?
No, we have horses. There's no ad ever for that. Most trouble you can ever have for one horsepower.
That's it. So, hey Andy, let me ask you real quick. Hey, what else? What is the most acquireable bike on your list at the moment? What's What do you have to have? Or what would you what would you make a big trade for? Or what would you, you know, put yourself at risk to get?
Well, I was, I was thinking about this, and I don't. There's nothing like Grail that I want really like, I kind of feel like I have a lot of the things that I've always wanted, but one thing that I have not had is a very sort of, this is go back to Ducati snobs, but a very sort of classic 70s twin Desmo Ducati, yeah, like a Dharma or just something real clean and sexy.
So the Dharma came with a boat tail, or it came with a sharp tail. The sharp tail one was way cooler looking, I think. Yes,
it had the big, sort of just weird looking, thin tail on the back of it. Yeah.
Well, they have the ducktail on some, and they had the non ducktail on some. Yeah, I'm not a ducktail fan for that model. The only ducktail bike I ever liked was cheesy 750 D model, or there's a Pomona that was okay too, but I would say the TC 70 d by the hands down.
So this is, this is the thing that I found with Jason as well, is that I think I know a thing, and then I talk about that thing, and I realize how little I actually know about that thing, Jason is just a font of information around it. I'm like, Oh, my God, I didn't know it was deeper than that. Like, I used to love going to
Barbara Motorsports Park with friends. I've been there three years in a row, years ago, and whenever somebody knew would be there, like, oh, go, Jason, anything that's on the plaque, you'll know at least that much more about the first year was like two bikes the whole place that I had never seen before. I was like, whoa. And so the guy, the head of race at the time was Chuck Honeycutt, and he said, so what is it I need that we don't have on Oh,
SS 250 DKW for sure. And then you need a FAF 750 GP bike with a Niko bocker frame, which is only three of them never built. You know, he's like, Well, never heard of that. He didn't say anything about the DKW. So the next day, I show up, and Chuck's like, hey, come with me. So he takes me down the garage where they stroll and stuff that hasn't been started yet. As far as restoration and very back corner on the very bottom was an SS 250 I was like, No way. So then the next year we showed up.
They had it apart, and so we went to the VIP that night. We got a little bit toasty. I was at Dave Lanigan, who's a builds race bikes here in this area, and he went with me as well. And Chuck knew this. He's like, Hey, you guys, come down with me and in the race shop. Like, sure. So anyways, we go down there and has, they have it all apart, and they have the supercharger portion of it apart, and they're like, We don't know what it is. You guys have any idea we're looking at? Looks like Bakelite,
but it's a reverse piston. So the the top of the piston is looks like the bottom, but it's filled in, and then what would be the other end is open, so it's actually part of the engine cases, and it moves in and out to change the crankcase mode. Subtract. But it was a two a twinkle, so it's three passes, essentially. So two of them are your twinkle to go up and down and have your transfers on one side, your glass and the other, and then one moves in and out to change the size of the
Crankcases. It was wacky from the 1930s before banned supercharger. Anyways, they got the thing all done, and then chuck got to take it to Goodwood for Venice restaurant and do a parade lap on extremely loud before expansion chambers. It was just straight megaphone out,
wow, I went to Barber. I went to barber this year. Um, and, I mean, we can, I'm conscious of time. But there's an interesting shift in swap meets that that Swap Meet has scaled back about 30% Like, they lost one of the, yeah, it's like, and so I'm just, do you do huge? That was a big swap meet. I
don't actually, I've heard the one in was it Mid Ohio? Mid Ohio? Yeah, it's supposed to be one of the best we have a friend of ours we call Suzuki Canada, because he's got more Suzuki's than Canada. Anyways, Gerald shows up to all
the all. Always some interesting parts for sale, and some Japanese artists had taken and did a black and white picture of him at the swap meet, and put it in a magazine, and it showed it, and he has, like, this very unusual type of, it's like, kind of like a weird minivan only in Canada and and it was a black and white picture of him at a Swami or like, whoa. How weird is that?
If nothing else comes from this like I you guys. You guys are two guys that I see as sort of opposite sides, or similar sides of a coin where Blaine is very curious about why things are done the way they are. The ignition systems are a great example. Like the motor Marini is being a pain in the ass. The Ducati, you have to put the flywheel on a certain time, but it didn't have a Woodruff key. And you just have to know for that particular model. So,
like, why is it this way? And can't we do, you know, can't we build an existing system around this? And I think Jason can solve that, you know, like,
yeah, Italians do that a lot, where they didn't do timing marks. So actually, I've always owned a timing light that has adjustable, adjustable advance, so you can actually make an actual TDC mark. And then as long as you can find the spec on where the timing's supposed to be, you just dial it. It'll strobe right at top and center instead of where it's supposed to and it'll tell you it says, it tells you where it's supposed to be. So I was always
I got one of those early on. We all have the stuff I work on doesn't have marks. I'll just make my own marks. Well,
I know at a certain point we're going to have a call. Hey, we're stuck on this and that we have a couple aerial square fours.
Oh yeah, we're
going to get lost in those.
So I worked on and I had a partner many, many years ago. Owned a huge amount of slash two stuff, and we restore them and sell them, and that's how it got money. And he had a 37 which is the first year squirrel 1000 ironhead. And I used to ride that thing around, and it was quite interesting ride. I really dug it sound like a model. I actually sound like a
Nimbus. A Nimbus is a Danish motorcycle that's an inline with the camshaft enclosed, but the outer half of the rockers and the valve springs were all exposed. You can adjust the valves on the outside. Yeah, really, yeah.
If you guys like, I asked you, you know what your quest bike is, and I asked you, Andy, and then you guys didn't care enough to ask me, so thanks for
that. Oh, well, follow up,
yeah, but if you would have, I would have said Nimbus. Nimbus is the next thing I'd like to acquire. Then there's an English Douglas. I'd like to get
boxer. The next thing's on the list.
I want the 37 arrow Douglas. And so it's a, it's a boxer motor, but it's mounted front, front to back,
front to back. Yeah, I kind
of like that. So hey, but thanks for asking. I made me maybe
well, that said we're going to, we're all going to if there's, if there's something you're looking for, we're going to keep our eyes open and knowing that Jason gets all these crazy offers from out of the blue, if you hear about a Douglas, if you hear about a
actually, now that you said that now, just reminded me there is a bike I have lined up. I don't know whether I'll be at once you get the paperwork sorted, because it's in BC I don't know if I'll be able to get it or not. It's a 1928 Scott Flying Squirrel. And I've always Yeah, yeah. 600 water, cool twin. And when training about Scott was they invented a lot of
things. Not not the twist grip, that was Curtis Glenn Curtis, the aeronautical guy who was motorcycle before, but they came up with the kickstart, the center stand, telescopic Forge, although BMW claims it, they didn't call them telescopic works, but they were, that was Scott, and they came up with auto well Yama, called autolub, the oil injection for two strokes was Scott.
Oh, yeah, okay,
but they're a thermal siphon, so the cooling, the water cooling, wasn't particularly efficient. I think if I had one, I'd probably hide an electric pump in there, although I just saw the porting on one recently, Aqua blast, who's a guy in England that just does vapor blasting and sharing the pictures of a set of cases. And I looked at the party, I was like, yikes. That's horrible. They just didn't know, you know?
And I was like, in the most of the in between the current cases and up to the transfers was totally enclosed. It's it. There's no flow between the team. I was like, okay, they just didn't have any clue at all. Good thing. It's pretty fascinating to watch the evolution of certain technologies and go. So actually, I like doing that. I actually took, I do have a Japanese but I have a old Titan
500 twin. I converted it to revolve and added booster ports and windows in the piston to get, like, 44 hours.
Yeah, you know, it was great. Jason, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show, just because I think as you're casually talking, you're spitting out more technical information than we've put out in three years, more useful information than we've ever put out. And so someone who actually has a motorcycle and wants to understand it has gotten more from this half hour than they've gotten for me and Andy complaining about how we don't like the way Ducati guys drink their coffee. So for the show,
big upgrade. Jason.
Happy to get on here anytime you this podcast is produced and edited by hole in the head moto. Find us on the socials at hole in the head Moto, and see our website, hole in the headmoto.com, for more info, swag and pictures of projects. Want to help us out. Go ahead and subscribe and leave a review. It's a huge help, and we appreciate it. See you next time you.