This is going to make no sense unless you read "The Liter High" (click here for that one).  Well, there is no guarantee that it will make sense even if you read all my random, potentially steaming ramblings.  My friends (if I can call my therapist and my parole officer friends) told me to apologise to you all for making you read such a load of shit.

Back to the point.  Projects are an essential part of dreaming.  They let you escape to that happy place, the dark recess of your mind that keeps you sane during the normal day to day grind that passes for semi-normality.  Let’s face it, the only person who really loves his job is Ron Jeremy, and what’s the bet he gets home to his wife, and then instead of taking her to bed for some loving (he probably gets tired after a long day of pounding? Ed.), he heads out to his garage and grabs a beer while looking at his project bike.

So, in order to avoid shooting the dullards that I spend 8 hours caged up with (again! More state funded counselling for me...), I have a project track bike.  It’s cheaper than therapy for the litre addiction too, and it provides many hours of make busy time during the working day.
My project is a k5 GSXR600.  I did consider an R6, but I’m not queer.  In the same vein, I looked at a ZX6R, but since my pants actually fit, and I don’t use the word “yo” as a fullstop, it didn’t seem appropriate.  GSXR’s are also useful – the k5 was the last year that most of the bits are sorta kinda interchangeable between pint, three quarter, and liter.  Plus for some odd reason, GSXR’s seem to get parked in the shrubbery more often than this season’s petunia’s.  Thus making parts supply easier again.

I also used a k5 because it’s not a current shape, so buying go faster bits off ex-racers is a cheaper exercise, just use a word  like obsolete and that Yoshimura full titanium system and offset sump become affordable instead of “sell a kidney expensive”.
And before you accuse me of being cheap – well, yes I am.  The trust fund hasn’t appeared, and neither has the lottery.  And I run 3 other bikes as well, so this fits into lunch money territory.  I’ve lost 9 kg while building this bike, and the Subway guys look at me funny when I press my nose against the glass and sigh... alot.

There is also the mythical eBay and TradeMe (our local online auction house. Ed.) hunting.  This is best done during work hours, that way you effectively get paid to build your project.  And full workshop manuals are best when they’re printed on the big assed company printer.
Time is also an important consideration for the duration of the project accumulation stage.  The price of a part is related to how much time you’re willing to wait.  If you go down to the local Suzuki dealer, the price tag reads like a phone number.  If you’re willing to look on the net, or on eBay, the price is normally half that, but it might take a month to find it.  Or, if you’re like me, and you rock up to your buddy’s place and drink their beer until they hand you the bit you’re after and tell you to fuck off, then the price is even better again.  Sometimes the beer drinking thing can take several visits, and long hours of stalking before they let you in yet again.

Thanks especially to Glenn, despite losing his sense of humour a long time ago, he humoured me rocking up to his place lots over the last 12 months.

The fun stage is the accumulation stage.  The building stage is kind of fun as well.  In my case, Ben and Lance decided to rock up to my house and start building the bike themselves since I was clearly never going to get around to it.  I resent it, mostly because it’s the truth.  So, we stood in the workshop, trash talked, and worked through about 15 cardboard cartons of subassemblies that had been worked on during the winter.  Reassembling parts in the kitchen is a good idea, especially parts like injector assemblies – mostly because the kitchen is marginally cleaner than the workshop.   Clearly I spent the winter living without permanent female company, which is surprising given how perfect I am.

Ben is English, and is therefore totally convinced each part will never fit, and the whole thing will never work.  Lance is more positive, but he has questionable manners, and each time he filled the room with his vegan induced methane, we had to clear the room for a while.  We started with a frame, swing arm, and rear shock – a paddock stand and some straps suspended from the ceiling (in your kitchen? Awesome! Ed.).  Hours later, we had bike that, as predicted, didn’t run.  After a few days of thinking about things, and some dubious fucking about with a wiring diagram and some dodgy connections; some small success but still no running motor.

That is, until Mr Positivity himself decides to plug in the last sensor under the airbox (FFS, who would put a plug and sensor under there?); and the pint sized hero started first go.  Considering that the bike was built from 3 donor bikes that had all been ridden into ditches at high velocity, the fact that it ran at all was a major surprise, the fact that it ran really well was flat out fucking astounding.  I owed an apology to Mr Suzuki San for doubting his wisdom.  On that note, I still owe you all an apology for inflicting this endless rant (sack of shit) on you – hold your breath, its coming.
The best part of the bike is the 3 feet long flames shooting out of Mr Yoshimura on over-run... and the complaints from the neighbours about the noise.  It’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!  I’ve got fairings on order, they should be arriving late this week, and once I get some new braided hoses, the pint sized Suzook should stop pretty well too.  The old braided hoses leaked like you wouldn’t believe – they were free, and they were worn out – who would have thought?

I haven’t ridden it on the street yet, but once the brakes actually work, I will be annoying the hell out of the neighbours.  And then, it’s off to the track to see just how badly this thing is bolted together.

(Monty Burns Voice... Eeeeexxxxcccelent!) Another box is ticked off my bucket list.