Passes & Canyons Blog

As I had pretty much expected it would, my old 1980 Honda CB750 Custom has made it to Steele’s Cycle.

I was at Steele’s awhile ago following Tyler as he broke a Ninja down into parts and we were out in the yard at one point. Walking along a row of bikes I saw a bit of blue, a shade of blue that I’m extremely familiar with, and I looked closer. It was my Honda.

The funny thing was that I did not immediately recognize it as being my bike; I only thought it was another bike of the same vintage. I pointed it out to Tyler and he asked if this was in fact my bike and I told him no, it was just another like the one I had.

It wasn’t until that evening over dinner when I was telling Judy about it that it dawned on me that no, of course it was my bike. I had noticed that, hmmm, this CB750 has the same kind of sissybar my bike had. But somehow that had not jarred me awareness. But telling her I realized it was my bike. And I went back to look at it the next time I was at Steele’s and it was so obvious I can hardly believe I didn’t realize that the first time.

There was the same case guard, the same highway pegs, the same side panel on one side from a different year’s model. Of course this was my bike. But when I first saw it it did not have so much that I had come to associate with the bike, stuff I had stripped off the bike at the tow yard when I went to look at it after the crash. Without all that stuff it just didn’t seem like mine.

I pointed it out to Rick Steele and he said that considering I got hit head-on the bike didn’t suffer as much damage as it might have. But when I mentioned the cost of bailing it out of the tow lot he got it instantly–way more to bail it out than it would be worth. He said he gets a lot of bikes from that particular tow lot.

As I said, I was not at all surprised. I expected it would end up there and in fact it has probably been sitting there ever since last summer. Now two of my old bikes are at Steele’s. They’ve had my old Concours for a couple years now and at least it’s sitting inside and may eventually be fixed up and sold. It looks like the Honda is just destined for parts.

If anybody needs some parts for a 1980 Honda CB750 Custom I know where you can find them.

Biker Quote for Today

New Year, New Dreams, New Roads

(This is part two of a series on stripping a motorcycle for parts and listing them on the internet for sale. This is all taking place at Steele’s Cycles.)

With this wrecked 2023 Kawasaki Ninja EX650R now reduced to parts, the good separated from the bad, Tyler loaded all the smaller stuff on a dolly to haul it over to his listing station, where he would prep each individual piece for storage and listing.

But first he needed to deal with the larger parts: the engine, the intact and undamaged rear wheel, and the swingarm. These he hauled outside and doused liberally with degreaser. (He had previously sealed and taped every opening in the engine in order to prevent any water or degreaser from getting inside it.) Nothing that gets listed for sale goes out without being thoroughly cleaned, looking as much as possible like new.

Typically Tyler would use a hose to rinse off the degreaser but on this cold January morning the hose was frozen. So he brought out a large bucket of warm water and poured it over them to rinse. Then they were brought inside to his listing station along with everything else.

That was just the beginning of the clean-up, however. Starting with the rear wheel, Tyler lifted it onto the bench and went at it seriously. Every spot on the wheel was scrubbed clean and then he sprayed it all over with a gloss coating to make it look really good.

He moved to the computer to begin the listing. Steele’s Cycles uses a system called MotoLister, which is designed to simplify the whole process of preparing a part for listing on eBay and then actually putting it up as an item for sale. The screen is quite large and vertically oriented, which minimizes any scrolling that might be needed.

Typically Tyler will search for a comparable part and use that as the starting point but in this case it appears Steele’s Cycles had never broken down a 2023 EX650R, and as the first one, Tyler needed to create a new listing.

Once that was done he opened the listing for the wheel and used the connected camera to shoot more than 20 photos, from every angle and showing every bit of the wheel. In this case, the wheel had a small cosmetic gouge in one spot and he was particularly careful to document that bit of damage. He also made a note in the description of the wheel stating that the damage was there.

At times there can be issues where a customer receives the part and then complains about a ding like this that is clearly shown in the photographs. Did you not look at the photographs? Steele’s will take returns and give refunds but they do not offer free shipping on returns. Rick Steele said he wants the customer to have some skin in the game. Everyone knows these days about customers who order a lot of things online, only to return many of them because there is no cost to them. Not at Steele’s.

After the wheel was clean and the photography was finished, Tyler wrapped it with clear plastic tape and laid a red strip of plastic with an identifying number on it next to the wheel for another photo. He then printed out a tag with all the pertinent information, laid it and the red plastic strip on top of the wheel, sealed those in place with more tape, and then shot one more photo of the whole package.

With a few more entries into the listing system the job was done, Tyler pressed the Enter key, and in seconds this wheel was now available on eBay for purchase. Before his job was done he would do the same for every single part he had stripped off this bike.

When all the parts were listed, they were loaded (with the exception of the motor) into a large blue bin and hauled back into the storage room. Here row upon row of shelves filled with similar blue bins store the individual parts of many, many motorcycles. The location of the bin is logged in the computer and when someone buys a particular part it is retrieved from the bin, matched to make sure it is the right part, and then shipped.

And just like a transplanted heart, a piece of that once sad, broken motorcycle helps another motorcycle go on living.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m not a biker by choice; I’m a biker by destiny.

I wanted to see the actual process of breaking a motorcycle down into parts so over two days I watched Tyler, at Steele’s Cycles, disassemble a 2023 Kawasaki Ninja EX650R that had clearly hit something very hard. The story behind the bike? Totally unknown.

The bike was up on a lift when I arrived and Tyler, with the assistance of Kade, had it running and were testing the motor and all the electrics to determine the running condition of these items. Kade shot photos of the instruments to document their functionality.

Meanwhile, the front end was clearly headed for the trash or the scrap metal bin. While the right fork tube was bent, the left one was busted wide open, with the spring inside now completely exposed.

Naturally enough, Tyler started on the outside, stripping off the plastic body panels. The bigger ones were trash but many of the smaller pieces further back were in good shape and clearly worth resale. These were stacked on an adjacent bench, which got fuller and fuller as Tyler worked.

The gas tank was in excellent condition so that came off and had to drained. Tyler removed the gas cap mechanism from the tank and set that aside with the keys. Later when the ignition switch came off the frame it was bagged with the tank cap and the keys. On other bikes, with keyed elements such as helmet locks, those, too, are included.

The muffler came off and would have presumably worked fine but it was dented so it became scrap metal. Is this axle good or is it bent? It looked straight and it rolled smoothly on the floor. Salvage, not scrap.

Piece by piece the bike came apart with everything salvageable set aside with all nuts, bolts, and washers carefully collected. Tyler might start on removing one item but then find that to get it off he first had to remove something else. The construction of the bike dictated the sequence of its deconstruction.

The oil pan came off and the oil had to be drained. The cooling system came off and the coolant had to be drained. Sometimes it was not a clean job; shops rags are close at hand when needed.

Finally it was time to remove the swing arm. Tyler put a jack and a block under the engine and raised it to take the weight off the rear wheel. First the wheel came off and then the swing arm.

Out at the back end, the taillight assembly was in excellent condition—salvage.

One of the very last things to come off was the wiring harness. Pretty nearly everything else had to be removed because that octopus of copper and rubber winds its way through everything.

Now it was time to release the motor, leaving only the frame attached to the front fork and wheel. The triple clamps seemed not to be bent but they would be examined more closely before the decision was made as to scrap or salvage.

Nothing else was good. The wheel itself was shattered on one side and the brake disks were bent.

Amazingly, the front lights and mirrors were undamaged. This bike hit something really hard but that object must have been no more than two feet high and the upper portion was unscathed.

The very last thing to come off the frame was the ignition. And this, Tyler said, was “The most painful frame ever.” Up to this point Tyler knew the words and had been singing along to practically every country/western song that came on his Pandora feed. For the next 20 minutes Tyler did not sing.

The box with the ignition switch was bolted to the frame with bolts designed not to be removed. The only way to get them out was to drill into them and then tap them with reverse bits and back them out that way. But Tyler drilled and tried the bits, drilled more and tried again—over and over and over. They just would not come. Until they finally did.

What had been a motorcycle was now a collection of larger parts—engine, rear wheel, frame—and two benches of smaller parts. The job was half done.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you think a wrench is a bitchy woman.

My one bike these days is my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. With less than 51,000 miles on it currently it has a long life still ahead of it. Particularly considering that the engine is considered bulletproof, as in it will just keep on going and going and going.

But. And that’s a big “but.”

Just last week I ran across an item on Adventure Riders titled “Thinking Long Term,” about this “but” and something we seldom think about.

Zac, the writer, focuses not on the big parts, like the engine or frame, but on the little bits. Things like sensors. We all know how quickly electronic parts become outdated. What do you do if your bike depends on some bit of electronics and that unit dies, and then you can’t find a replacement?

This is not a theoretical exercise. When my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom got smashed I was faced with a decision. Do I bail it out of tow-yard jail and try to get it fixed, or do I just let it go? I chose to let it go because I had a pretty good idea that even if it was fixable–not at all a certainty–the repair would also add considerably to the overall expense and then, could I even get the parts?

Then it became even less theoretical recently when I was talking with Rick Steele over at Steele’s Cycles. We were talking about the factors that come into play when they are deciding what to do with a bike they have taken in. He used my 1999 Kawasaki Concours as an example.

As they do with all bikes they take in, they put it up on the lift and checked it out thoroughly. It ran–I knew that–but they discovered that the water pump was leaking. I did not know about that. And the thing was, Rick told me, you can’t get that water pump any more. They know a guy out east who repairs water pumps and they sent it to him but when they got it back it still leaked. So now, my old Connie is sitting in one of Steele’s storage areas with its fate unclear. The engine is as bulletproof as ever but not the water pump.

I guess this is an issue that aficionados of old bikes have lived with for a long time. Sometimes you can kludge in a different part and make it work. Sometimes you can fabricate a new part if you have the tools and the skill. Sometimes you can’t.

In my mind it makes the point in favor of newer bikes. I’ve lived for years with the reality that all my bikes were old enough that no dealer wanted to deal with them. Fortunately there are independent shops that pick up that trade. But at this point I’d just rather have the convenience of taking the bike to the dealer for service, knowing the parts are available. Plus, some of the new tech is nice. I’ve never had cruise control and that is something I’d like.

All of this is on my mind as I wonder about getting a new bike. And at this point that question is totally undecided.

Biker Quote for Today

Bikes may rust, but the memories they create never fade.

I knew when I went to Steele’s on Tuesday that I had screwed up pretty badly, but it was not until Matthew laid out for Judy and me the impacts they had suffered from the post I had put up that I realized just how very badly I had screwed up. Trust me, that is not a good feeling.

In planning for this meeting I had thought hard about how, while the past cannot be undone, the future can be what you choose to make it. And this thought occurred to me: Big deal motorcycle salvage operations are not a dime a dozen. Steele’s, I figured, has got to have an interesting history. As a writer, that was something I would really like to sink my teeth into. I’d like to tell that story. And at least it would be some sort of compensation.

The meeting was tense. Matthew was angry and he had good reason to be. But finally the moment came when I offered my ideas on how to take some lemons and make lemonade, and the mood shifted. To my immense relief, Matthew was not only favorable toward my idea, he himself had had the same thought. And to top that off, it turns out that Steele’s is coming up on its 40-year anniversary of being in business early next year so the idea of telling the history becomes quite timely.

So now I’m downright excited. By the end of our discussion Matthew was proudly taking us on a tour of the whole operation. And I’ve got to say, if you think of an operation of this sort as just a junkyard with rusting vehicles sitting and waiting for random parts to be stripped off you are way, way off base.

I’m already brimming over with ideas for what in a magazine would be considered sidebars but on a blog simply become addition posts that are related to the main story. For instance, I want to be there one day when they break a bike down and observe the whole process. I want to explore how computers have changed this entire business. And a lot more.

I’m not sure just how quickly you’ll start seeing these pieces but they’re going to be coming. I promise you they are going to be interesting.

Biker Quote for Today

The open road is my therapy; the wind is my healer.

I kind of outdid myself in the area of low mileage last year. Somewhat to my surprise, I did still put more miles on my motorcycles than I did on my car, but the total of all vehicles was substantially below what in some years I have put on a single bike.

To be specific, I put a total of 3,852 miles on my bikes and 3,102 miles on my car. That’s just a hair under 7,000 miles total. Heck, in 2011 I put 10,004 miles on my Kawasaki Concours. In 2013 I put 9,437 miles on that bike. As recently as 2023 I put 3,866 miles on my V-Strom.

Am I getting to be a big-time homebody? Well, maybe, maybe not. In recent years I had really leaned on the folks at the RMMRC to plan rides and then I’d go along. Those rides have dropped off a lot lately and I need to be the instigator at least on occasion rather than depending on someone else to do the work. I do have a couple day rides in mind for after the weather gets warmer and we can go up in the mountains again.

Also, I would have racked up a bunch more miles if I had been able to go on a multi-day RMMRC ride that I planned to go on, but physical issues just made that impossible. And then the OFMC opted in 2024 for a much shorter ride than in recent years, mostly just staying in Colorado.

Well, the OFMC appears to have run its course so now I also need to turn my planning efforts to a longer ride with the RMMRC. I do have thoughts about that, too–I just need to follow through.

The other thing I’d really like to do is get out for some two- or three-day rides with Judy on behind. The last trip we did together was up to British Columbia but that was years ago. I’m not sure she has even been on a bike in several years. My fault. She’s not going to plan something like that; I need to.

OK Ken, you have your assignment. Now get with it dude!

Biker Quote for Today

Is it time for our post-work motorcycle ride, yet?