Triumphant Triumphs! ISDTRR 2010!

Last race of the season. Amazing. It hadn't exactly been a trouble free year, but the end was truly near and a long winter's nap was nigh. Max's bike had been far easier to trouble shoot than thought. As we were in his shop one night poking it with sticks (genuine Lucas approved sticks, of course) trying to determine the cause of the mystery ignition gremlin that manifested itself at Barber, sparks helpfully lit up the location of a chafed wire. Luckily, the sparks didn't also light up the whole bike, so a couple snips and some "electrical streamlining" later it was running happy as a hardwood tree. If hardwood trees can happily run...whatever. So the three 5 hunnerts and their Floridian riders were on their way to the last installment of the three race ISDT series, the Reunion Ride. For a reminder what this type event is like, read HERE . Decent pics on this one, so I'll keep the word things to a minimum. Anyhow, I'll sum up at the end, so...Pics! Here we go:
Three goons of various descriptions, bikes in impound so nothing to do but drink coffee for an hour or so

The impounded bikes, George's in particular

On the line, waiting for our minute

And we're off!

Max approaching the lunch stop

George, doing the same

Back on the line, leaving the lunch stop

Single lap of the grass track at the end of the first day

Day two was a bit wetter, it rained a bit the night before, but the weirdest thing was the morning fog. The first transfer stage took you straight up a dirt road onto the mountain where visibility was in the single to low double digits. For a good chunk of the way you were following the tail of the bike immediately in front of you, and that was your entire view of the world. But I'm getting ahead of things! Pics!
On the line again

Then it was back to the bright sunshine and a finish on the grasstrack

Max's bike ran great all weekend, meaning he got the points he needed to win Classic Expert, I had already accrued enough at Barber to win Classic Intermediate, and George ended 3rd in Classic Int. George got a bit turned around on day one and got spat out of a special test, which sadly earned him a DNF. Max and I got our 6 Days Awards for having survived the whole enchilada. Damn fun events, those Ahrma Isdt's. I seriously cannot say enough good things. Do one, you'll love it.

I advise you all to throw your K2F's in a ditch now.

At one point I had opinions about strange things...things like magnetos, strong opinions about them, in fact. As I got older and I had to deal with a smaller selection of the things, but a greater selection of other things, those opinions drifted further from from my mind and I instead developed opinions about things that had nothing to do with mags, opinions about flooring, for example... However, I recently discovered that as you sit on the side of the road waiting for your friend George to ride his annoyingly spark-endowed Triumph back to your house to grab your truck to come load up your annoyingly spark-challenged AJS, those opinions come flooding back like a wave.

Once upon a time I had a Royal Enfield Constellation. I hated that bike. Hated it for many reasons, only one of which was its magneto. It's likely that it was about that time I began having opinions about mags. In particular, I didn't like K2F's. Compared to the SR1 on my AJS single, it seemed like a needlessly complicated device, with its fancy rotating armature with everything having to flow in and out of it and such, plus important bits that might need changing as part of routine overhaul buried deep inside...horrible (the word "surgery" always seems to occur soon after the word "condenser" in K2F-land). But then there was the lowly SR, relegated to powering industrial engines an' boats an' such. Not nearly glamorous enough for a motorcycle, I guess, so they were rarely used on two wheeled devices. I never understood this. They are probably the best thing Lucas ever made, the whole thing can be stripped down and rebuilt with a flat tip screwdriver and a small wrench in 5 minutes, lovely. Oddly enough, two of the very few bikes that used an SR were one year of AMC singles (which just happened to be the year I had) and a couple years of Enfield twins (which mine wasn't). I decided I needed an SR2 on the Constellation. I Acquired one. I never bothered to install it. I sold the Constellation. Did I mention I hated that bike?

Back in the present, the Mongrel 20's K2F (rebuilt at considerable expense just last year) packed up this past Sunday just as I was set to load the bike for British in the Blue Ridge and some trail riding on Wednesday night. I can't rebuild a K2F, in fact I don't think anyone can. I once heard from a reliable source the rebuild procedure goes something like this:

1: Receive mag from customer

2: Wait 'til moonless night, bury mag on sanctified ground, sacrifice 2 chickens and a goat on spot mag is buried

3: Wait 'til full moon, exhume K2F, return to customer in exchange for much money

4: Wait a year or two and receive same K2F from customer, repeat steps 1-3

At first I looked for another mag to quickly drop in the duff one's place, I couldn't find a working K2F in the entire Southeast, I needed a Plan B....I glanced around the room, my eyes happened to fall upon the spare SR1 that sits next to my computer (its sat there for a good while, you don't need spare SR mags), I was reminded I hated K2F's, a thought came to mind "I've got an SR2, and I've already modified the mag pinion to take an auto advance". As I waited for phone calls to be returned telling me a drop in replacement did not exist in the miniscule time available I checked to see if the SR would fit, it would. I checked if it had spark, it had spark. Did it have spark in the right direction, it did not, but because its an SR, I grabbed my trusty high tech Magneto Grade Screwdriver and brief moments later (ish) it had spark in the right direction. By 4 o'clock Tuesday the K2F's options were running out as time was running out. The SR it was, time for an adapter plate and a plan to get it in there

It was a tight fit, but it did fit

Just needed to reroute the exhaust to clear the much taller instrument

And the job was done

Did it work? I didn't know and honestly didn't care. I was beat, my shop reeked of a dead rat that I couldn't locate, it was hot, I was being attacked by some of the horrible flesh eating insects of which Florida is well endowed and time was up. Nothing for it but to load up and hope it just needed timing the next day.

The pressure was on, for the three days this process had been playing out I had been crowing how much better SR mags are than K2F's. George and Max were ready to pounce. As I stayed back and timed the engine with my trusty wood wedge, brass rod and cigarette paper they went riding on their reliably sparking Triumphs, visions of the abuse they would heave my way when they returned to a non working AJS dancing in their heads. The AJS started and ran. George and Max looked disappointed. In the end it was a great weekend, this past weekend, with three happy Floridians on mighty Five-hunnert twins scaring themselves witless on horrifying clay downhills in the north Georgia woods, all 6 cylinders just a-sparkin' away (ish). Lovely.