A wet day in Lakebay today - December 30th 2023

 We live in a pretty area.

The Home bridge on the Key Peninsula Highway this wet, rainy Saturday morning, for my buddy Geoff's 89th birthday, showing off it's Holiday livery. This is the longer of the two bridges in Home that are at the end of our driveway and

across from the Lakebay Post Office.

Thanks again to the lady that did the decorating.

The small bridge , at the end of our driveway in Home, also received the Holiday treatment.

It is my buddy Geoff Blanthorn's 89th birthday today !

 It is my riding, workshop & walkies buddy Geoff Blanthorn's - 89th- birthday today.

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I have known Geoff since I was 15, from when he first visited me in 1971, when he was on holiday in the USA, visiting friends on Mercer Island, and wanted to meet the only member the Velocette Owners Club had in Washington State at the time.

Geoff ended up buying the house next door , when it came up for sale, keeping it as a rental, until eventually moving from London England, helping me in the shop, and then selling his home in London, retiring, and moving to & permanently living next door in Lakebay, some 30 plus years ago.

I was cookie this evening and did ribs for Geoff's 89th birthday dinner.

A 2022 walk around the workshop -

In April of 2022, Jim B. from Port Angeles Washington came down for a shop tour. He shared with me these images he captured back then. 

Just Doing What I Do

A few images of a couple bikes I did at the same time in the workshop. Both of these were Thruxton replicas, one that Bill Maxwell owned and road often, for about ten years, and the other for Dr. David Levine, bot lived here in Washington state.  

These were custom built by me using ninety percent new production parts. 

  

I'll Be 'Keeping On Keeping On'- for now -

My plans on retiring by the end of the year, is not working out.

I still have a shed full of customers bikes, that I had hoped to have at least a few done by now, and I need my stock and inventory to be able to work on them. I might do like Roy Smith did in England, and put the Velocette Parts Department upstairs, and free up a bit of the main buildings floor area.

Also, with my monthly from Social Security at less then $800, I need to see if I can work out how to do jobs more timely, to get cash flow working. I am feeling well again, and seem to have my heart issue sorted - so far.
I will be starting to do a bit of restocking of the standard consumables used on Velocettes like gaskets, oil filters, fuel petcocks, chains and sprockets. Also work out some specialty parts and services to offer. I have a pretty long list of items and services in mind.

I have lots of new customers this year, that I am happy to continue to help out.

Combined Blogs - No more 'Black Coffee'

I have decided one blog is plenty to try and do, so have deleted my Ed Gilkison Velocette photo blog  - -'Black Coffee' .  If you have been looking for it, it is no more. 

I want to learn, and study up more, on how better to use the features that this blog platform offers. One of the features I am looking for is, to have categories, so I can curate the different customers projects, both current, and ones I have done in the past. - Where you could just click on a category header, then select what bike you want to see images of -  both taken during rebuilding and reference images , etc.  I have photos of some past projects, and loads of the bikes in the shed -

      

Ken's red Vincent

Photos of the 1950 red Vincent Rapide I did with / for Ken Engels of Ken's Powder Coating in Spanaway Washington, about thirty years ago. Ken offered me lifetime of his PowderCoating service in exchange for me doing his Vincent for him. I put $8000 of my own money into the rebuild. and had it on and off in the shed for thirteen years, working on it in stages,  as he would take it home for a time, and take it to shows, then bring it back for another section of it to be totally gone through, and made to as new spec. 

As I had never done a Vincent, I purchased every book printed that I could find, to study up on the bike. 

Over 250,000 miles -

I stopped tallying up my mileage every year when I finally got over a total of a quarter million miles ridden solely on my 1963 Velocette , purchased in England by Bill Snelling's dad Ted Snelling for me in 1979, originally a Viper - that was converted to a Venom spec 500. Original registration ARF25A -
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I get asked by customers, how did I get to know Velocette motorcycles so well, and how much do I ride ?
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I don't ride as often as I use to. I do miss not riding.
- For close to forty years, from my 20s through my 50s, I rode all the time. - so much that, if I never get a chance to ride again, I have put on more miles riding on Velos, then most people have, on any motorcycle.
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I use to do a quick calculation at the end of every year, and working from home most of the time, I still rode my Velo to visit friends, grocery shopping - etc. Most of the mileage was not on long trips, but just local stuff. Visiting friend in Seattle, 70 miles each way - , Up to visit Bob Strode in Woodinville, about 70 miles each way etc.
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I lost track of how many 'annual winter rebuilds' the Velo received but there were many. I had two sets of clothes for my bike, a cafe' set up, with low bars, & rear sets, and the set that I used most, was the standard street touring set with the standard forward footrests, and wider chrome mudguards -

Time to get out the Singer

Our Singer walking foot commercial machine from our Gilkison Boatbuilding Company days, that Mom used to make the cushions for our boats for many years. My brother and I both do a bit of sewing. I have all the manuals for it and will be giving it a service .and spend lots of time getting use to it. My brother John installed a speed reducer pulley to bring it down to standard home sewing speed, from fast commercial speed. Now to spend a lot of time on it honing my skill level , to enable me to do motorcycle seat covers, boat cushions & sails , tool rolls, etc.
A custom seat project where our commercial Singer is suited -
I have a few of these seats on order to do. Velo Thruxton front, with a Fi-Glass sloping hump rear - some will have a tool pocket in the hump -