CB1100 Monthly Photo Challenge

[pdedse]

Ok, how about this: since some of us are still riding while others have already had to put their bikes away for the season, here are two options. We might have done this before, I’m not sure.

If you are still riding, your CB with a train. Could be a whole train, part of a train, a currently running train, a static, historically displayed train.

If you can no longer ride this month, your bike shown with your oldest motorcycle-specific tool in your arsenal.

I can and will still ride this month, but "oldest motorcycle-specific tool in your arsenal" made me think a bit...

While it could be used for many things, for 15 years this orange beauty of a toolbox has been used to store my tap sets, and they have been used specifically for mc repairs, so I hope that's close enough.

When I was 5 years old, my dad gave me this tool box. It had a big gold sticker on the front in the shape of a star that claimed "7 year guarentee". Or maybe I was 7 years old and the guarentee was for 5 years. No matter, I was pretty happy about that guarentee because it was for longer (or nearly longer) than I was old.

Anywho...this ol' toolbox has with-stood the test of time, travelling from Kansas to Arizona to Oregon, and maybe soon to Costa Rica. It always makes me smile when I think about my dad buying it from Sears Roebuck for his youngest of 4 sons. I was--by far--the least mechanically inclined of the boys. He likely bought it thinking it would help me take an interest in things mechanical.

By the time I took up motorcycling in earnest 20 years ago, my dad was on the decline with dementia and couldn't hold a conversation. I've never really thought about what he might have said of my motorcycle adventures. I think he would have taken a keen interest in the trips I've been able to do, and maybe even have been proud that I try my best to maintain my motorcycles without my brothers' help even.

Oh...and orange was his favorite color.

 

[GoldOxide_imp]

A nice story behind the toolbox, pdedse.

The CB1100 looks to be in mint condition in that image too.

 

[Tev62]

I'm treating this tool as my oldest Motorcycle Specific Tool because I still use it on all my bikes. I know every proper Engineer will scowl at and adjustable for serious work but in a lot of simple scenarios that is all that is needed, especially high quality ones whose mechanism is precisely made with quality materials.

I joined the Merchant Navy (AKA Merchant Marine) when I was 16 and did a four year apprenticeship where I learnt to weld, solder & braze, machine (lathe, shaping machine, Mill and so on), sheet metal work, cold metal work and technology stuff in the classroom. Zeus tables looked daunting at first but they became your invaluable friend.

After two years you went to sea for a year and you are presented with an Adjustable Spanner the first day you enter the Engine room. The shipping company gave you one, lose it and you pay for another out of your own wages. When you were only earning £28.75 per week the high quality BAHCO was an expensive proposition. As everybody had the same spanner, always the 8" too, you stamped it with your initials that day. You carried it everywhere and it was your go to device for nipping up leaky water or steam pipes, adjusting valve stem packing nuts and all manner of things.

I still have it today and use it regularly, 43 years later, no doubt due to the fact I stamped it on day one.

 

[cookiemech]

Tev62, great story and photo! Going to be hard for anyone to top that.

 

[pdedse]

That's a great story, Tev. The adjustable oozes confidence. Coming out of high school, I was drawn to the U.S. Coast Guard and/or Navy, but it became the road not taken.

So if one lost his spanner and someone else found it, would it get back to the owner because of the stamped initials? Or would it get "re-branded" with new initials like cattle-rustlers would do with "lost" cattle on the U.S. frontier?

 

[GoldOxide_imp]

Ah ya. Somewhere around here there is an adjustable spanner from the early 1960s with an integrated rim spoon at the other end.

No initials, but the same old rusty-like iron look and the spanner wrench shows a-many-slip-bolt scars on the pinchers. - lol My knuckles hurt already.

 

[Tev62]

That's a great story, Tev. The adjustable oozes confidence. Coming out of high school, I was drawn to the U.S. Coast Guard and/or Navy, but it became the road not taken.

So if one lost his spanner and someone else found it, would it get back to the owner because of the stamped initials? Or would it get "re-branded" with new initials like cattle-rustlers would do with "lost" cattle on the U.S. frontier?

You always got it back

. Too hard to disguise an overstamp. Plus of course we were all gentlemen

.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[suhawk305]

Commuter trains in the Port Jervis, NY railroad yard. I rode on that train-line for 21 years as part of my commute to my midtown Manhattan.

 

[the Ferret]

Good job Suhawk,

 

[GoldOxide_imp]

Are those train commuter cars the same style as back then, suhawk?

 

[Gone in 60]

1. Park bike near tracks.
2. Wait for train
3. Take pictures

Our freight trains are usually festooned with graffiti, so I wanted to catch one. This was a big-un, all stacked containers, taking about ten minutes to pass, with two sets of multiple locomotives.




I also wanted to catch a passenger train. This is the Metrolink, our commuter train service that connects Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. This is the train I used to take from my town to Union Station in Downtown L.A. when I worked there daily.

 

[GoldOxide_imp]

Looked like a mostly un-festooned moment in southern California train spotting.

 

[the Ferret]

Cool Gone. How long did you have to wait?

 

[Gone in 60]

I went to Fullerton, which is a busy Orange County station where passenger and freight traffic pass through frequently. The freight train rolled through a few minutes after I parked.

For the commuter train, I checked the schedule for when the last one would pass through my town before sunset. Being my last ride before the time change, I wanted to get a shot with the sunset reflecting off of the bike and train.

As far as graffiti, the truck trailer containers don’t usually get hit, but check out the gondola train cars they are riding in.

 

[suhawk305]

Are those train commuter cars the same style as back then, suhawk?

Yes, the passenger cars look the same. Though through the years, passenger cars were replaced with better electronic information displays and new non-ergonomic seating, replacing the old non-ergonomic seating, etc.


Good pictures Gone.

 

[pdedse]

1. Park bike near tracks.
2. Wait for train
3. Take pictures

Our freight trains are usually festooned with graffiti, so I wanted to catch one. This was a big-un, all stacked containers, taking about ten minutes to pass, with two sets of multiple locomotives.




I also wanted to catch a passenger train. This is the Metrolink, our commuter train service that connects Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. This is the train I used to take from my town to Union Station in Downtown L.A. when I worked there daily.

BNSF, 3rd foto...My brother and his son both work for BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) in Topeka, Kansas. Those locomotives very likely have their fingerprints on them.

Along the Columbia River, BNSF runs along the north bank in Washington, while Union Pacific owns the south bank rail line on the Oregon side of the river.

While at the Bonneville Dam a few days ago, the UP train rolled by, but a little difficult to spot with all the other things going on in the photo: the locks of the dam, fall leaves, powerlines, the skeletal remains of the burned trunks...and of course, the CB1100...

That upper forest used to be as green as the middle line of trees until a youngin' of 15 years thought shooting bottle-rockets into the forest at the height of the dry season would be fun (Sept, 2017). The fire that resulted would consume 48,000 acres, shut down a 30 mile length of interstate 84, and wouldn't be fully contained for 3 months. A couple of days after the fire started, about an 1/8" of ash covered our house, deck, cars...fun cleanup.

The boy was fined 36 million dollars (can be "collected" after 10 years, good luck there), and he was given 1920 hours of community service with the Forest Service. So many beautiful hiking trails were destroyed, some will never re-open. A sad tale all around

But, things starting to grow back after five years. It will just be another hundred and five till the forest looks similar. Whoops, off topic.

 

[Gone in 60]

The train in that photo is a Where's Waldo!
Yeah... forest fires are not cool. We've been ominously lucky here in CA so far this year, but with all of the dry brush brought about by our winter rains, they'll be coming. The last stupid-reason fire we had was a gender reveal party in a forest park using fireworks for the reveal. Yup, huge fire erupted. But, if there's an upshot, one of the people who left the area to get away from the raining ash came and bought some motorcycle parts that I had listed.

 

[Cormanus]

The train in that photo is a Where's Waldo!
Yeah... forest fires are not cool. We've been ominously lucky here in CA so far this year, but with all of the dry brush brought about by our winter rains, they'll be coming. The last stupid-reason fire we had was a gender reveal party in a forest park using fireworks for the reveal. Yup, huge fire erupted. But, if there's an upshot, one of the people who left the area to get away from the raining ash came and bought some motorcycle parts that I had listed.

Indeed.

 

[pdedse]

The train in that photo is a Where's Waldo!
Yeah... forest fires are not cool. We've been ominously lucky here in CA so far this year, but with all of the dry brush brought about by our winter rains, they'll be coming. The last stupid-reason fire we had was a gender reveal party in a forest park using fireworks for the reveal. Yup, huge fire erupted. But, if there's an upshot, one of the people who left the area to get away from the raining ash came and bought some motorcycle parts that I had listed.

Indeed.

Indeed.
Waldo being Waldo would only blend in right behind the fall foilage, right?

 

[Cormanus]

The train in that photo is a Where's Waldo!
Yeah... forest fires are not cool. We've been ominously lucky here in CA so far this year, but with all of the dry brush brought about by our winter rains, they'll be coming. The last stupid-reason fire we had was a gender reveal party in a forest park using fireworks for the reveal. Yup, huge fire erupted. But, if there's an upshot, one of the people who left the area to get away from the raining ash came and bought some motorcycle parts that I had listed.

Indeed.

Indeed.
Waldo being Waldo would only blend in right behind the fall foilage, right?

Indeed.
Waldo being Waldo would only blend in right behind the fall foilage, right?
Right.