I Pulled a Backup
Two and a half years, a thousand miles, and a Buell Blast nobody wanted.
I can't tell you about this motorcycle without telling you about Soup.
I've known him since we were eighteen or nineteen. He has always been the kind of person who puts a lot of thought into the things he buys. Not long after I met him he told me he wanted a Porsche 914. Not because it was fast. Because it was unique, and he loved the engine, and he thought it was a really cool car. Between him telling me he wanted one and him actually having one was about two or three weeks.
I told him I thought I could help him with that old Blast he couldn't sell. A week or two later I borrowed a trailer and drove down to his house. I told my wife I was going to help him clear some stuff out of his garage. I came home with a motorcycle. She was not happy.
The quiet part
There are almost no photographs from this stretch. One shot in November of the bike sitting in the garage, and that is it. What I was actually doing was making plans and buying parts, and November turned into a run of it.
Nobody photographs this part. It is the least interesting and most necessary thing that happens to an old bike.
It let go as I was pulling out of the driveway, so it could have been worse.
Economy
Every part and where it came from. The dates are exact because I looked them up. Most of this bike is other Blasts.
| Date | Item | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-04-14 | The motorcycle | Soup, who could not sell it |
| 2024-04 | Oil, filter, brake fluid, bleed | First week |
| 2024-05 | Factory controls, no pedal, wrong colour | eBay |
| 2024-05-26 | MSF Basic RiderCourse | Daytona Harley-Davidson |
| 2024-06 | Rear brake pedal | eBay, chased down separately |
| 2024-06-08 | Shifter off a Sportster | eBay, bolted straight up |
| 2024-11-06 | Backup tail wiring harness | eBay |
| 2024-11-09 | Box of hardware off other Blasts | eBay |
| 2024-11-10 | Tall seat | eBay |
| 2024-11-20 | Carburettor, factory cold air intake | eBay, the rare find |
| 2024-11 | LED taillight, black carbon camo vinyl | Online |
| 2025-02 | Carburettor and intake fitted | Me |
| 2025 | Tyres, 100/70-16 | The sizes I wrote down in 2024 |
What came off
The point of a teardown is what is no longer on the bike.
- Soup's custom rearsets and his own welded linkage, back to factory controls
- The spliced taillight joint, replaced by a spare harness rather than repaired
- The crumbled rubber tank stabilizers, and nine months of riding without them
- The low seat, which came with the bike because Soup is shorter than I am
- My attempt to fabricate new linkage, abandoned when the geometry would not come right
Where it ended up
