JOEL KVERNMO

Well I guess it’s about time that I give an update on my motor life.  I’ve now been commuting to work on my motorcycle everyday for about two months.  I’ve done a few longer trips, and generally have been working out the kinks and getting used to riding such a large bike.  Within the week I’ll have put 2,000 miles on the Interceptor since getting it running in late July.

It’s really fun to ride to work, I feel much less stressed when I get home, which I believe is largely due to the smug satisfaction I get passing the lines of cars on 520 as I zip past in the carpool lane.  Rosanna has become a much better passenger to.  She’s leaning with me in the corners and doesn’t scream when I push the boundaries of conventional “speed limits”.  One thing that seriously needed attention was the fork seals.  Since the VFR700 doesn’t have a centerstand, there really isn’t a an easy way to lift the front end off the ground.  I figured that my handy dad would have a solution so Rosanna and I packed up and drove to my parents for the weekend.

Wouldn’t you know it, it took my dad about 30 seconds flat to detail how we were going to lift the bike up off the front wheel so that we could drop the forks out and rebuild them.

That right there is about 480 lbs of metal and fluids hanging from about $25 worth of wood and rope.  Nice work dad.

We got the forks disassembled, cleaned and reassembled pretty quickly and re-installed on the bike.  It has made a huge difference in the handling of the bike and now I just need to put new tires on and I’ll be ready for the winter.

BIG NEWS!  We finally finished Rosanna’s mermaid moped.  Rather than create my own content like a good journalist, I’m just going to copy her writing from the moped army forum:

i had this idea, and then joel helped me finish it. my goal was to build a bike that could zip around town without being stymied by the hills in Seattle. And then, of course, came the genius idea of a mermaid on the tank for sheer ridiculousness. 

I started building it about two years ago. Initially the project progressed quite smoothly, building the engine, assembling parts, etc. But then little cosmetic things, like the actual mermaids on the actual tank, started taking a while to complete. About a month ago, Joel was getting home from work about a half hour late every day. I thought nothing of it, blaming traffic, until a complete and finished mermaid moped was presented to me. What a guy! He was stopping off at brendan and arianna’s every day after work to drop off the parts he’d had shipped to his work. He even worked to get the tank finished without me knowing and then spent a day getting all the finishing touches in place. 

My friend Rosa painted the mermaids using Testors Enamel model paint. The nice guys at the body shop around the corner from my house clearcoated the tank for free. Responsible Jon powder coated the whole thing. 

Joel fabricated the front disc brake (Avid BB7 disc brake). Naz made the sturdy fork brace. 

70cc treats reed kit 
Polini 4 petal reed block 
24 mikuni carb 
Estoril pipe 
stuffed race crankshaft 
3 shoe clutch 
General hydraulic forks 
Extended pedal arm 
1977 low-rise bars 

Naz welded the extended pedal arm Joel made and also the intake, helped Joel convert the wheels to sealed bearings, let me use his sander to get the tank super smooth, let Joel use the lathe to make the disc brake and in general was a wizard. 

kill switch on the headlight bracket 

12v lighting coil with LED taillight and working brake light! also brad johnsen welded the seat bracket on. 

Celeste cable housing 

Woo! so stoked!

The one detail she left out, is the little mermaid sketch on the chain tensioner.  My friend Rosa painted all of the mermaids, she was my studiomate at Cornish and she is a great illustrator.

That’s all for now.

Well the weather hasn’t been the best, but it certainly hasn’t deterred Rosanna and I from staying busy. We’ve either been out of town or had fun obligations every weekend since May and it doesn’t look like it will let up until October.

This camper was seen cruising down Highway 2 in Eastern Washington.

One of the most exciting news is that I got my Honda Interceptor running.  It really was just a slow process of going through the bag of parts I received along with the bike and replacing things that seemed like they needed fixing.  I got it to idle a couple of times but couldn’t get it to fully run and then Naz came over and helped me discover that the problem was mostly an issue of fuel flow.  After experimenting here and there I got it fired up and running no problem.  One of the weird things I discovered was that the carbs kept getting this goo inside of them.

I think that the problem was that the tank had gotten varnished with old gas and the new gas was making it sluff off into the fuel system.  Gross.  I’ve ridden the bike just a hair under 600 miles since I got it running two weeks ago, so I hope that between the cleaning I did and the miles I’ve put on the bike, the fuel system should be all clear now.

The forks on the Interceptor were a bit too squishy so I thought that I would replace the fork oil.  Note:  forks are pressurized, they will forcibly expel oil if the pressure isn’t bled off.

Not much more is left to fix on the motorcycle, the fork seals are rideable, but need to be replaced at some point, and I’m currently repairing the left side fairing.  This is the first time I’ve done much work with fiberglass, can you tell?

I surprised Rosanna by assembling her mermaid bike, we are still waiting on the tank to get painted but the bike is otherwise complete and is quite quick.

I took the Interceptor on its first long distance trip this past weekend out to Doe Bay fest on Orcas Island.  It was really fun and I really grew to appreciate the Aerostich suit that Rosanna’s Uncle Chris is letting me use.  I was perfectly comfortable in 80 degree weather as well as going 85 mph in 50 degree nights.  My only qualm with the suit is that when I step off the bike I look like I’ve lost my snowmobile.  Oh well, style is a small price to pay for safety and comfort.

Here I am safety’d up with my nieces and mom looking on.

And here is a hilarious paint job spotted in the ferry line on my way to Orcas.

A couple last things to mention, I’ve started another blog.  I review movies based only on the trailer.  I call it I haven’t Seen It, But…

And one last photo.

Remember two years ago when I was talking about how I’d love to have a key with a viking head and a how I’d tear off on my motorcycle?

Well, I’m halfway there.

Back in January, Rosanna and I were having dinner with some of her family. I was telling her cousins how my dream motorcycle would be a late 80′s Honda Interceptor, and one of them said, “Oh Don has one of those, he might even just give it to you.” To my astonishment, when we talked, Don said, “Yes, I do have one, I’ll ask my dad and I’ll see what I can do.”

Well, 5 months later we picked it up and it’s in my possession. I am so excited. It certainly needs a little bit of work before it can blast; one new carb boot, a new battery, and some fuel line, but it is pretty much complete other than some crunched fairing.

I did some reading online and in the late 80′s the US government taxed imported bikes over 700cc in order to ease pressure on the floundering Harley Davidson Company. So it turns out that this bike, while nearly identical to the VFR750, (which many believe is the greatest sport touring bike ever made), was known as a tariff beater and was $800 cheaper than the 750 cc version.

In 1987, the VFR700F2 was the only model sold in the US. The blue/silver model was introduced featuring black engine covers, a midnight blue finish and silver wheels, seat and decals. Functionally, the 87 included many improvements. The ignition became fully digital and no longer required the Cam Pulse Generator. The tachometer no longer fed into the spark unit. The gear shift-arm was shortened for more positive shifting. The front forks were given more damping (though this still left much to be desired). The rear suspension linkage was improved. A new Pro Link shock was introduced. Many engine components were strengthened and lightened. The valve rocker arms were redesigned to cause less friction.

Anyway, I am SO STOKED and hopefully I’ll be cruising aound on this thing soon.

My friend Sierra Stinson that I mentioned back in this post just had a short interview posted about her Vignettes shows. Read the whole article here.

Congratulations Sierra!

Real quick, here is the film that we made for the 24 hour film festival a couple of weeks ago.

So I was sort of at a brick wall tuning wise until I figured out the whole fire hose of gas spewing onto my pant leg. It’s tough to just casually ride a bike and tune it when getting near the thing requires a wardrobe change, a breathing mask, and post ride shower.
So I felt it was important to get myself an air filter to catch as much of that extra petrol as possible. I’m not really stoked on the K&N filters that have been getting popular these days. Though I’m sure they do a great job of high air flow while still filtering, they’re just a little too oversized for my tastes.
After some searching I came across that Marchald filter I linked to in my last post. WOW! What a great filter. First off, it’s really well made. Dual stage foams, metal base, and the rubber adapters that come with it are shaped like velocity stacks to improve the airflow.
I was really impressed at what you get for the price.

I’ll test this out this week.