Update

Progress seems rather slow at the moment even though I have actually put a fair bit of time into it. Engine is semi mounted and as you can see the engine is actually sitting vertically, not many 4 strokes are capable of this yet these little Honda's are very unique.


I have just weighed this bike and it already is at 10kg so need to do some lightening work to it by drilling some holes in it. Speaking of weight my friend Dan Geary took my first bike for a ride and got it to go 8kph faster than I have ever had it going. Dan is 15kg lighter than me so sounds like I need to go on a diet. It really shows that with these little engines are dramatically effected by weight. Sadly stainless is much heavier than alloy (this bike is made of stainless) but at this point we don't have a welder to weld alloy but that will be changing soon as we have one of the way to make up screen printing frames for Freeset. Very convenient !!

Ouch !!

I must confess that since putting my engine on the bicycle I haven't hardly peddled it. So yesterday Toby and I got up early and peddled our bikes 52km south of Kolkata to Diamond harbour which is town on the edge of and Ganges river where the big container ships work their way up the river to the Kolkata container port. Its quite a blast to see a huge container ship go past just a hundred meters off edge of the river.


One great thing about riding bikes in India is that it is pretty much all flat, just as well since I am pretty unfit. Set the record straight I only used the engine for about 10mins!!


While riding along Toby had an encounter with a water buffalo. Trying a head on attack on a full grown water buffalo is not recommended - Water buffalo 1, Toby 0. Toby had to pick himself up from the tarmac, dust himself of and continue the journey mulling through his mind was "don't take on water buffalo again"


Although this morning I am pretty sore from the ride it is an exhilarating experience riding through exotic countries with so much so see along the way, there surely is nothing like rural India !!


Today is an Eid celebration here (a holiday) in which at 8am the Muslims will slaughter a cow/goat/camel or whatever you can afford, they will then give one third to the poor, one third to their family and keep one third for themselves, so I am sure Toby's opponent yesterday met his match at 8am, revenge is complete.