Broom!! Vroooom!

 I love this picture, it is so cute, and it has meaning for me!

While building my first trike, my trike builder one day called me a witch. He was just joking around, teasing me.  That is the day I named my trike BROOM!! I so LOVEd riding Broom, until we were hit by a car and my Broom was bent and broken, as was I. 

Once I was healed, another trike was created using a new bike and many parts from Broom.... Phoenix was born!! The mythical bird arose from the ashes of it's former self. I have so loved riding Phoenix!! I've had two very wonderful summers full of adventures while riding Phoenix, and I will miss him since I plan to sell him once my new trike is built and ready to ride.

I will soon start work on my new, much larger trike who received his name last night in a group meditation at a dear friend's home, The Ashram. He will be called MoJo.... My "high energy" MoJo will be running throughout the land!! I almost called this new trike Broom 2... but now know he's my MoJo.... my energy.... my passion!!!  I can't start work on MoJo's transformation from bike to trike yet as it is winter and I don't have a heated shop to work in.  I must wait until it is warm enough outside to do the work. Meanwhile, I have work to do in finding parts and pieces to do the job with once the weather is where I need it to be.  When all is done and MoJo is ready to hit the road, there will be an official "Naming Ceremony" for him.

I will always remember and love my first trike, my Broom, and the 2nd one, Phoenix, yet it's time to "Go Big or stay home"!! and I have no intention of staying home!!

Staying Home

Most of the time I tend to be out and about, doing numerous different things with my life. I rarely ever stay home and when I do it's only for 1 day, maybe 2 at the most and then I get stir crazy and have to get out of this house or go crazy!! Now, the last while I want to just stay home. I stayed home last Sunday, had to go to town for an appointment on Monday or would have stayed home. I planned to go to work at the Food Bank on Tuesday or Wednesday yet couldn't bring myself to go out so didn't. Again I had to go out for an appointment on Thursday and to get some pellets for my stove as it was about 55°F in my house since the stove ran out of pellets on Wednesday.  I knew I should go get pellets, yet couldn't bring myself to leave home, so combined reasons I had to go out on Thursday.  Friday I planned to go do some Volunteer work at the Food Bank, and again stayed home.  Today is Saturday and I stayed home all day again even though I had planned to go get some groceries. I have run out of some important staples in my diet: apples, bananas, peanut butter... and I am low on Nutritional Yeast. Maybe I will push myself to go out tomorrow, we'll see.

So, you might be wondering what I have been doing all day at home alone. I have been playing a lot of Spider Solitaire on my computer.  I also have been doing some much needed work in my home and have given away lots of 'stuff'.... freezer burned meat from when I was still eating meat; 3 boxes of quilt batting, 2 of them carded sheep fleece and 1 was a mix of small store bought pieces; 4 huge bags of yarns of various colors and kinds (I can't remember what I got it all for so was time to let it all go); 2 huge bags of material bits and old clothes that I had planned to make into a patchwork quilt and know now it will never happen... all through Freecycle on the internet, and I gave a bunch of recipe books, some drinking glasses, and a couple big bags of women's clothing to a thrift store.  My goal is to purge everything that has been here for years and is not being used.  I have stored this all for way too long and it is time to admit to myself that I won't likely use it, and let it all go.

I also have been surfing the internet, looking at all sorts of different web pages on all sorts of different things... the Desert Bar in the Buckskin Mountains of Arizona because my friend Mike told me about this place.  He plans on going to Arizona in his motor home for 2 months next winter and we have been talking about me going along too. He said we will go check out this bar he heard about out in the desert.  He has been doing lots of research on making this trip.  Mike even would let me take my cat Mewsic with me, though I will have to find someone to critter sit the rest of my animals. I don't know what I will do about leaving my home for 2 months in the winter, but I will figure that out too.  

Speaking of my home, I have never liked my kitchen.  There are so few cupboards and they are so old as well as high. I have to always get up onto something like a stool or ladder to get anything out or put things away.  I have most of my dishes and food in storage cupboard things I bought that stand alone in my kitchen. This kitchen is small and over crowded and even when I had my home clean and uncluttered the kitchen was still not at all to my liking.  I dream about having my entire kitchen redone... new cupboards, new sink, new fridge and stove, stuff like that. I sometimes surf the net and look at different web sites about kitchens.  Today I looked at  RTA kitchen cabinets. Someday my dream will come true and I will have a nicer kitchen, whether it is in this home or another one.  I must admit, though, that my dream to have a better trike does take priority. As long as my health allows me to ride my trike (3 wheeled motorcycle) I will do so all summer long... and I will be taking the one I have to Arizona with me on a trailer behind Mikes motor home next year.

Tuesday Ride

After washing dishes and doing a bunch of cleaning in my bedroom, as well as doing some laundry, I was dirty and all sweaty.  I was so happy that this is the night that the All Canadian Riders Club ride is on, and I fully planned to go riding with the club this evening.  I haven't ridden with the club for a few weeks now due to other things keeping me busy and getting in my way. This time, just in time, I remembered I have some important projects to do online before 9pm.  This is a commitment I made and must follow through on. The ride starts at 6pm each Tuesday and at this time of year the ride would be shorter than during the hot evenings of summer, but I doubt I would be back home in time to do the work if I went riding, so again I have missed a club ride.  I wish them all a great ride and I look forward to riding with them again. I wish I had done the work sooner to meet my commitment in time to be able to go out riding. Something to work on for next time!!

A Great Friday

Yesterday my plans were to go to the chiropractor, then to the food bank to do my volunteer hours. I don't have a regular schedule for this, just drop over to the food bank whenever I have time to give. Well, when I came out of the chiropractor's office, I saw my buddy Phil having coffee out on the picnic table at Chevron, just across the street, so over there I went, got a tea and joined him.

When we were leaving, a car pulled up and it was my friend Lorraine whom I haven't seen since last summer. She had seen my trike so stopped to say Hi. As we were finishing a short visit, a guy on a Harley comes in, backs in beside my trike, right where Phil's Harley had been, and just sits on his bike. Lorraine leaves and this guy starts talking to me about my trike. That led to other topics of conversation. He lives in the town where I grew up, where Mom still lives as do some of the other family bits and pieces. He knows my sister Marcy, used to work with her husband Randy, knows many others I have known or have heard of over the years. He bought me another cup of tea, himself a coffee and cigar and we sat there chatting. Since I missed the time frame I'd have to be at the food bank, I decided to ride out to visit an elderly friend of mine, on Gerald's way home, so we rode out together. I decided to stop at a view area, a nice little park over looking Otter Lake. Gerald pulled in behind me "I was hoping you'd stop here!" So we sat there talking for some time too. Finally, we rode together to Armstrong, then he continued on. I had called Glen from the view area and had to kill a bit of time for him to get home, so treated myself to a ice cream cone at McDonalds then rode out to Glen's. Had a nice visit there. By the time I got back it was later than I had planned, so I didn't make it to the Spiritual Gathering I go to each Thursday evening. I phoned friends in Lillooet, planning to ride over there (about 5 hour ride as I have to stop every 100km to fuel up the trike's little gas tank), but there was no answer. SO... today I made it to the food bank. I am once again all caught up on my filing there, and I printed out some recipe labels that were needed for our food bank as well as the one in nearby Enderby. It was all in all a great Friday.

Dreaming of Travels

I just got home from a most wonderful day.  I rode my trike out to a friend's home and had a very good afternoon there. Since Kathy's home is very near the small town where my Mom lives, upon leaving Kathy's I rode down to Mom's. We had a very nice visit, as is the norm for us, and I rode down town to pick up Chinese take-out for dinner. It was such a warm, sunny, beautiful day for riding, yet when I was leaving to head home the sun had gone down and the warm had left the area. Being as it is September, the nights can be rather cool here.  Last night I was out at a friend's home and had to bundle up for the 20 minute ride home as I had to tonight for the 1/2 hour ride. I carry the appropriate gear with me, knowing I will need it, so am relatively warm. However, it saddens me to no longer have the hot days and warm summer nights, to know that the riding season is soon coming to an end. I wish I could go shopping at custom swing sets richmond va or some store in some other southern US state.  Why? Well, one of my dreams is to spend winter riding my trike in warmer places.  I would so love to go visit Facebook friends in North & South Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, California, and to spend some time in Arizona where my sister & her husband spend their winters now. If I had the money to do it, there is only one thing that would make it hard for me to just head on out.  I have pets, my family (1 cat, 1 rabbit, 4 chinchillas, 3 birds) that would not be able to go along and it would not be easy to find anyone to take them in and care for them for the 6 months I would be gone, or to give some of them a new 'forever home'.

More Trike Bling

 In my last post, I showed you some Bling I put on my trike. Here is a bit more.  Phil drew the eagle heads, at first with 2 feathers, but I wanted 3 (one for each wheel of my trike) so he added one more.  He did a lot of the work, and I did a lot of it too... lots more than I did on the feathers because, as I said in the previous post, I do more and he does less on each of the pieces made for my trike.  I am blessed to have a friend who is teaching me this kind of work.

The dull, ugly aluminum is transformed into something so shiny it's almost like a mirror! This is me with my camera.

We made 2 eagles, one for each side of the box. Next year, I hope to have a new box on it too.

Each year I will do something to change the look and to improve my trike. This year I did a lot and it looks almost like a totally different machine.

Bling for my Trike!!

 My friend Phil has been teaching me how to make what I call 'aluminum pretties' or 'bling' for my trike.  He has made a lot of this kind of thing for his Harley Davidson motorcycle, out of aluminum and brass. I don't want to do brass for my trike as it is too hard to keep looking good, so will just be doing aluminum.  With the first piece, Phil did most of the work to show me how to do it, and with each piece made now he does less of it and I do more of it.  He's really good at this sort of thing.

Here, Phil is cutting out a feather from a sheet of aluminum.

Now he's showing me how to file the edges of the aluminum to take off the rough stuff left by the saw blade. 

You are now seeing Feather #1, all shiny... and Feather #2 which has been sanded though at this point still needs a lot more sanding with finer and finer grits of special sand paper.  It take hours and hours of work to make these.

In this photo, you can just see the engraved spine of Feather #1. Feather #2 has been sanded and polished. It is now ready to have its spine engraved onto it, and #1 needs to have the spine engraved again as it has been partially polished off at this point. 

Both feathers have been attached to my gas tank.

These took a lot of work but wow, they sure look good on here!! They will require a lot of work to keep them looking good too.  Phil's show bike doesn't get ridden as much as my trike does, so no problem for him.  Aluminum is a soft metal so it is able to be cut, sanded, polished and bent to fit like this, yet it also damages very easily.

Getting Some Better

I told you the other day that I have been quite ill lately. Today makes it 9 days now and finally I am starting to feel just a wee bit better. I was given 6 antibiotic pills to take, one each night before bed and I will be taking #5 of the 6 tonight. I am still coughing a fair bit, but not as much as I was and the phlegm I cough up is a healthier color now than the brownish mess with spots of blood in it that it was even yesterday. At first, I continued to live my life, out here and there on my trike, doing whatever I wanted/needed to do.  I was determined that I was not to be kept down. However, I was not getting any better and finally had to settle down, stay home and give my body the change to heal itself. 3 days in a row now I have been staying home and I don't mind telling you I really think it is time to get out of here for awhile. The weather forecast for this week looks pretty good for the most part, though the temperatures will be 10°C cooler than what we have had for some time now. I actually won't mind a bit cooler weather, though the evenings/nights are now rather cold for riding the trike, not as much fun as it has been.  However, that just means I will have to carry warm clothes with me so put on for the ride home. The other night, when I was in town and rode home at night, I sure was glad I had my hooded sweatshirt along. I put it on under my leather jacket and did up the hood before putting on my helmet. It really helped a lot as it was very cool, especially coming past the lake.  Tomorrow, if I am feeling up to it, I will ride to the small town where my mom lives, about 1/2 hour ride.  It is her 89th birthday and I do so much want to be there with her on this special day. There was a small family party for her this evening and I had to miss it. I want to visit her and take her out for dinner tomorrow.  I will be coming home early, right after dinner, so that I can be home before the temperatures drop too much.  For people who are walking or driving, it is still very warm, it's just if you are riding a motorcycle you are not protected from all the wind so it is a lot colder.

New Places

Have you ever been to, or heard of a place called Granite Houston?  Neither have I and to tell the truth here, I've never even heard of such a place!! So, why do I mention it?  Well, last night I was talking to a really great lady I met at a friend's home, and we were talking about places we had been and some I have been to she has never heard of before and didn't have a clue that these places even existed! And some she talked about having been to I had never heard of either.  So, by being open to listening we have each discovered new places that we may someday get to explore.

A Great Ride

I went on a 3 day trip on my trike last weekend. I rode to Westbank and met some friends, visited them for awhile then 3 of them on 2 motorcycles joined me for the ride to Penticton (Hwy 97).  We stopped at a Pub for a very nice lunch after which we said our goodbyes and they went to float down the channel while I grabbed a few things at the Dollar Giant (I love discount stores and clearance sales) and rode to Princeton (Hwy 3A then 3). After I fueled up I asked if anyone at the gas station knew Denise who rides a trike.  Being such a small town I knew they would.  I was given directions to her home, as well as to the Coalmont Hotel where I knew she likely was.  She wasn't home so I rode the 20 kilometers to the 100 year old hotel and sure enough she was there keeping an eye out for me and recognized me as soon as I walked in.  We met for about 1/2 an hour last year at a Brothers of the Third Wheel trike event and she's wanted me to go over to visit her ever since.  It was a nice weekend there, we rode around the area on Sunday and on Monday I rode home by way of Merritt (Hwy 5A) and the Coquihalla Connection (Hwy 97C) back to Westbank and Hwy 97 back home.

Tipical For Me

Two days ago I was out to visit my Mom in a small town about 1/2 hour drive from where I live. We had a very nice time together, as usual. We ate dinner at HoJo's Pub and I asked for the Veggie Burger with a salad and with some fries instead of bread. You see, I am a Vegan so eat no animal products and as a diabetic I have found that bread makes my blood glucose levels very high. Since giving up bread my blood glucose readings have gone down significantly.  When we went back to Mom's, I hung several pictures for her as she had some of her walls painted and the pictures needed to be put back up. When I left for home that night I forgot my sunglasses, hey if the sun had still been up I would have remembered them, but it was after dark when I climbed on my trike and headed home.  This evening I rode back up to Mom's to get my 'shades' as I need them when riding on these bright, sunny days.  We ended up going out for Chinese dinner where I had Mushroom Chop Suey and Chow Mien. Since I got home I've been watching a movie on TV while surfing the net.  I have checked out Google Maps and a BC Government distance calculator, planning a trip I'm leaving on tomorrow.  I've also checked out Facebook, some recipes, browsed Scott Kay Cobalt, played some MahJong and now am blogging.  It's nearly time to head to bed so I can get up early and get on the road.

Trike Brakes - Getting Happier!!

I just got a phone call from my new mechanic. I am so going to keep this guy as my mechanic for all my vehicle mechanical needs!!! Well... at least it would appear that he is the answer to my prayers... I will soon know for sure.

He (Doug) said that the linkage as it is on my trike is not working and never going to work (that is the polite version), so he has to rip it all off and start from scratch. He will totally redesign it for me and make my brakes work properly.  He knows I want to ride it to the Show & Shine this weekend, so he said if he doesn't get it done today during business hours, he will stay late to do it for me!! AND, unlike the previous guys who did it all wrong, he's not charging me an arm and a leg for doing it!! Thank God I finally got it to the right place!! I will be telling the world about how bad the other guys are.... and how great Doug is!!! Honest, good at his work, and reasonably priced too!!! I have been most unhappy with past so called mechanics and their shoddy work.... I am not happy to be paying yet another person to do the work.... yet I AM happy that my trike will finally be working right!!

I am going to go back to Dunbar Automotive and tell them I want my $28 back since the drums should not have been machined and they, being in that business, should know better!!! If they don't give me my $$ back I will report them to Better Business Bureau.  I am also going back to Dean at ??? Custom Cruisers (forget the name and will get it right in next couple days) and tell him I want my $$ back for the messy job he did on the linkage.  He charged me $450 and I think he should give it all back to me.... though if he gives me $300 I will not press for more, if he doesn't I will take him to Small Claims Court where he will have to pay the full amount back plus court costs and be in trouble for not charging me Harmonized Sales Tax since I paid cash.  The last thing I want to do is take anyone to court for anything.... yet I also am tired of being 'ripped off' by incompetent people who over charge for their work.

Trike Brakes

After 2 disappointing experiences,  I wondered if "3rd time was the charm" as I took my trike to yet another so called mechanic that said he could fix the back brakes for me. Well, it wasn't!!  I paid this guy, Dean, $450 just to drive away and find that my back brakes don't work any better than they did before I took it to Dean. There was no point in taking it back as he had said he'd done the best job he could do short of redoing the entire linkage system and that would cost me $1500.00!!!

Phil and I decided that the only other thing it could be was the brake shoes.  We had been told by Rod (2nd disappointment) and by Dean that the shoes were okay, but at this point they were the only other thing it could be since we had gotten Dunbar Automotive to machine the drums ($28), I paid Ray last year to change the wheel cylinders, Dean had done this work to the linkage.  So we ordered in shoes, cost me nearly $60, Phil put them in and still no back brakes.

So finally we took the trike to Myron's Automotive Repairs and it turns out my neighbor, Doug, is working there.  Doug seems very knowledgeable so this is a good thing.  He checked out several things and finally they decided that the brake drums are too big, they have been machined too many times and Dunbar should not have machined them for me, it was illegal for them to do so as they were past the point of that being right to do.  So they ordered in a new set of brake drums for me and put them in this morning ($125).  The trike stops better than it did, but still it is not stopping like it should!!! This is really crazy!! Doug is going to change the linkage that I paid Ray to do, Dean to redo, and now will be paying Doug to do the 3rd time!!

Trike Talk

I've been so tied up with trying to get the trike on the road that I haven't even had time to get to the Food Bank to do my volunteer work all week.  This is crazy!! The back brakes have got to be fixed before I can ride the trike and it is just an on going issue that so far no one has been able to fix, yet everyone wants to charge me for their incompetence. Frustration at it's best!! Phil has really gone above and beyond to help with this, yet he only knows so much and has thus far been unable to accomplish as much as needs doing.  The paint job he did is great!!! The 'artsy' stuff is his strong point and he has done that very well, yet the mechanical part is not where he excels, nor is it where I excel, so I must find a good mechanic for the job.

Trike Maintenance

There is so much I have been learning about how to take proper care of my trike, and there is still so much to learn yet.  With Phil's help I've changed my own oil in it and he has me making sure I check bolts and nuts much more regularly than I have in the past. I must admit though that I forgot to check things on it today when I rode it to town to get the fork seals changed. Oh well, I will make sure I check around the trike before I ride it again.... or tomorrow just to have it done.  I learned something today about my front tire, and about how to adjust my carburetors and I still have to learn about cable management, so how to oil the various cables so they don't brake on me.  I am sure there are other things too that I need to learn about basic care and maintenance of my trike. All of this is taking a lot of time when I wish I could just be riding, lol.

Trike Brakes

After spending another $450 on my trike's back brakes (just over $500 now) I sill do not have proper, working brakes. This is really crazy and I am getting very fed up with this problem. Of course, when you have 'go' you must have 'whoa' to be safe and without sufficient 'whoa', I have not been able to ride as I wish to do.

I took it to Phil's last Friday for him to look at some more, after I paid another guy $450.00 to do practically nothing!!  We ended up taking it to a mechanic he has used in the past, a guy named Myron.  Phil went in his car and I followed on my trike. As I pull up in the yard of this guy's shop, I hear a woman say "Is that Alice?"  It turns out my neighbors, Doug & Denise, are now working with Myron.  That was cool!! Both Doug and Myron had a look. I have been told by 2 guys 'in the know' that I do not need new brake shoes and with everything else being done, Phil & I have been thinking that's the only thing left.  Doug and Myron both think I need new brake shoes.  So I went to the auto parts store and they don't carry them, so ad to order them for me and it will take about a week for them to get here.  I am hoping for Thursday or Friday this week.

In the meantime, the trike sits in my carport and I drive my truck!

Trike Make-over

Here are some photos of the Trike Make-over.

This is the front of one of the fenders.  I bought the fenders and Phil, a very good friend of mine, built the brackets to attach them to the trike box.  This box needs to be replaced, but for now it is what it is.  Phil straightened it up as much as possible and make it strong enough to last another year. 

 Here Phil is drilling a hole to bolt the bracket to the box frame, and holes to attach the bracket to the fender.

 This is Phil cutting another piece of aluminum to make a bracket for the back of the fenders.

And this is the bracket he made and how it attaches to the fender and box frame.

We  used acorn nuts to attach the brackets, front and back, but for the fun of it Phil put a 'spiky nut' on, just to see what it would look like.  I love it and wish I could afford to buy a bunch of them and do it all in 'spiky nuts', but the acorns will do for now.

I am so very grateful to have Phil as a good friend, and I am grateful that he did all this incredible work for me.  He really made my trike look beautiful!!  More to come in future posts.

Trike Make Over

The building of a trike can take a long time and be very tiring. Even just a make over on an existing trike can be a lot of work and take a lot of time. My buddy, Phil, is doing most of the work, much of it before I even get there each day, yet each day I go up there to spend time helping with the work and/or keep him company. He is doing such an incredible job of making my trike look better and I am so happy with it so far. Today he painted the base coat, Cosmic Dust, onto all the parts... gas tank, 2 fenders, 2 side covers, and 4 brackets for the fenders.  Tomorrow he will put on the Lazer Blue Candy, 2 coats, and then about 3 coats of clear on all but those 4 brackets which will just get the clear coats now. Phil is really good at working with metals, creating pretty bits, and although he is not a professional painter, he does a good job at it.  It was a beautiful, sunny day today, very warm, so was a good day to start the painting out in Phil's shop, and the nice weather will continue long enough to properly dry the paint without a paint booth in which to bake it.  I will post photos when I can.

More Trike Makeover

Today I drove to Kelowna. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day that was comfortably warm without being too hot. The reason I went was for the Polished Aluminum Checker Plate for the box being built for my trike. My friend Frank had made arrangements for the purchase of this metal and had even gotten it cut to approximately what we need it to be, into handle-able pieces to be worked with. The company he got the material from is right across the street from a friend of his that has a huge saw that worked fairly well for making the cuts, so Frank had the metal taken across the street and cut, he even had bought beer for the guys for doing the cutting. I had to go pick up the sheets, go across and pay for it, then take it and Frank over to his shop where we unloaded the checker plate. I got to see the big machine he will be using to bend the material, thereby making rounded corners for the box.  When out in the sunshine this stuff is so shiny and bright that it hurts the eyes to look at it.  This trike is really going to be awesome!!

Trike Makeover Progressing

Today I bought the paint and supplies for my trike paint job. I got Laser Blue Candy paint (more or less a Turquoise), the base will be Cosmo Dust (sparkly silver).

Tomorrow I go to Kelowna to buy the polished aluminum Checker Plate for the box.

Saturday Ray is going to Kamloops and will take my seat (cut down from double to solo) to a guy he knows to get it recovered. This is all costing more than I had planned... sure hope it's not going to come to more than I have. Oh well, I'm sure it will all work just right. It is going to be awesome when it's done. They are doing a lot more than what I had originally thought/visioned being done... and it is going to be AWESOME!!!

Yes, the Trike Makeover is progressing very nicely.