The Model Info Center

Vintage Car & Motorcycle restoration enthusiasts all share
one thing in common…

The difficulty in obtaining obsolete spare parts.

How many times have you tried to find a special part for your
restoration project, only to find that it’s unobtainable.

For the home restorer on a tight budget, it is actually possible to put money back into your own pocket… real savings can be made by learning a few simple skills. Lets face it, if you are rebuilding or restoring old vintage vehicles then you most likely already have many practical skills & abilities.

You could expand on your valuable practical skills even more.

Take for instance the dozens of mechanical components that need
to be rebuild/reconditioned… professional re-builders will charge you quite a lot of money for reconditioning parts, which to all intents & purposes could be carried out in the home workshop at a substantially reduced cost.

You may already have the luxury of a lathe, milling machine and
a collection of other associated machines in your workshop.

Cast your mind outside the square for a moment… if you’re unable to produce a part by machining parts from a solid billet,
then all you need to do is to build a simple gas fired furnace,
fabricate some tools, mould boxes, and get hold of some green sand to make your sand moulds, learn some new skills, and you’ll be able to melt & pour your own special aluminium & bronze parts.

Then you will be able to machine them in your lathe etc, to produce low cost high quality spare parts… it is possible… many people have been doing this for along time.

Why don’t you join this select band of people who’ve discovered that casting your own metal parts is not that difficult, once you have learnt the basic techniques of the craft.

Once your mini foundry system is up and running, you’ll wonder why the heck you didn’t discover metal casting years ago.

You can read & learn more about hobby metal casting by visiting:
http://www.myhomefoundry.com Where you can download free ebooks, access free foundry directory info, and have a lot of fun learning new skills to add to your practical restoration skills.

Learning about metal casting could open up a whole new dimension
& opportunities for you in your home workshop. But you wont know
just how much until you take the step to learn.
Why not take that step today?

Written by: Col Croucher
Ebook Author and
Administrator of:
http://www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia

Experienced bicycle riders know that fatigue comes from how hard you press on the pedals, not how fast you turn them. Novice racers may try to ride with maximum force on the pedals, but they quickly exhaust themselves and often can’t even finish the race.

Cycling is a power sport. The number of times you spin your bicycle pedals in a minute is called your cadence, and your power is the product of the force that your feet apply to the pedals time your cadence. A study from Ithaca College in New York shows that a very high cadence does not help in shorter races (International Journal of Sports Medicine, Volume 26, 2006). Competitive cyclists were asked to ride a 5-mile time trial at their usual fast cadence. For most racers, this is more than 90 rotations per minute. They then rode a second 5-mile time trial at a 10 percent lower cadence and a third trial with a 10 percent increase. The riders raced far faster at the 10 percent reduced cadence.

A study from Toledo, Spain also shows that spinning the pedals too fast slows you down (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, May 2006). Most bicycle riders do best when they chose gears that allow them to pedal at a cadence of 80 to 90. You want to pedal as fast as you can with the greatest force you can maintain on your pedals, but if you spin too fast, your brain cannot coordinate your muscles so you lose efficiency. Try to choose a gear ratio that allows you to spin as fast as you can and still feel some pressure on your pedals. If you have to push on your pedals so hard that your body moves from side to side, you need to reduce the gear ratio and pedal faster. If you are spinning faster than 100 times a minute, you are probably losing coordination. Bicycle computers that show your cadence are available in bike shops and online bicycle catalogs.

When you are going out on a long ride, try to keep a comfortable fast cadence. However, if you are going to sprint or race for less than 30 minutes, you will ride faster by putting more pressure than usual on you pedals, which will slow your cadence by about 10 percent. You can also use this technique to pick up the pace when you want to catch up with another rider.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

Subscribe to my FREE weekly newsletter on fitness, health, and nutrition at http://www.drmirkin.com/email/newssign.asp

Roaring up on a motorcycle has a strong draw for all of us who have adopted the biker lifestyle. This draw often hits our children too. I know that for me my kids love to ride and probably want to do it as much as I do. I love taking them for rides and sharing the experience with them. But there are some additional considerations that have to be taken into account when loading them on the back of your motorcycle.

Protective Clothing
Just like for us, kids have to have protective clothing on. It’s really great that several of the leathers companies have started producing good quality leathers for kids. I always make sure that they are properly dressed. This means that they have long pants (denim or chaps), long sleeves (denim and leather jackets work best), full finger gloves, good sturdy shoes, and a properly fitted D.O.T. helmet. All of these items can be obtained through a multitude of sources on the internet, local bike and leather shops, and at swap meets.

One other piece of protective clothing is a good pair of sunglasses. Recent studies have shown that the earlier children start wearing eye protection while outdoors the better their chances of avoiding major eye health problems later in life.

Damage to the eyes is cumulative, increasing from year to year. The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation can be very harmful to unprotected eyes and almost half of a person’s total lifetime UV radiation exposure occurs before age 18.
Young eyes let more UV rays inside and normally get more exposure because they spend more time outdoors, usually without eye protection. Exposure to sunlight at an early age appears to be a critical factor in the development of eye cancer.
The good news is that high quality children’s sunglasses (kids aged 3-12) are easier to find than ever. Modeled after adult versions, they feature high impact-resistant lenses with sturdy, durable frames and lots of great colors.

Look for polycarbonate plastic lenses since this is the most shatter-resistant. Always make sure to buy sunglasses that block 99% to 100% of both UVA and UVB.

Passenger Comfort
Often the passenger pegs or floorboards are set for a normal height passenger. They are definitely not set for riding around kids. Make sure that you have a good solid support for them to put their feet on. My son uses the highway bars on the back as his foot rests, since they fit just about right. My daughter has now started using the regular floorboards since she’s gotten tall enough to reach them. I’ve talked to people who have gone as far as rigging up adjustable floorboards on their bike to adjust to the height needed by their passenger.

Passenger Rules
Make sure that your kids understand the rules about being a passenger. Make sure they know where they need to be holding on to. Make sure that they understand not to make any sudden movements. Make sure that they know to keep their bottom flat on the seat at all times. These really are the same rules that would apply anytime you carry a passenger, but with kids you have to make sure that you explain them in a way they would understand.

Rider Responsibilities
When you have a kid on the back of your motorcycle you have to be more aware of what they are doing. They may have a tendancy to move more than an adult passenger. They may play games by sticking their hands out in the wind (like we don’t ever do that do we?). I find with my kids that they generally want to talk more than an adult passenger and they get more excited over things they see from the back of the motorcycle.

Be aware that the steady rumble of your motor can have a tendancy to lull passengers to sleep. There’s been more than once that I’ve had passengers fall asleep when riding with me (must be my stellar personality). With adults this usually doesn’t present much of a problem since it’d be harder for them to fall off. With children it’s a completely different situation. Since there is generally more room for them between the rider and the sissy bar, if they do fall asleep, there is a greater chance for them to flop over to one side or another. When they do this they increase their chances of falling of to the side. When you have a kid as a passenger stay alert of this and be prepared to hold them up and stop, if this situation occurs.

Riding with kids can be a very enjoyable experience. But please be aware that with that comes some additional responsibilities.

—–
Be Safe … Enjoy the Ride

Tools

Jeff Sinason aka “Tools” is a long time motorcycle enthusiats. Being a motorcycle nut, he has run into all kinds of conditions and ridden through them unscathed. He is the owner of http://www.bikerwares.com which is a site dedicated to Enjoying the Ride.

Does hard, honest work pay off in the world of professional sport? Does cycling reward its faithful servants? I think we all wish the answer to these questions was a resounding “YES!”, we all want so bad to believe in the rewards of hard, honest efforts. The real picture, however, is more complex. Much more complex.

We yearn for fairness in sport, much like we do in life. Spectators discuss whether or not the victory was deserved. Did the best man win? We want the hard working, “under-dog” to win.

But we know better. There are no “deserved” victories or fairness in sports. We have lots of rules and regulations and even a few athletes that try and cheat. We even have this concept of fair play, but there are no governing body that evaluates hard work and reward efforts based on this. Long, faithful service does not make a bit of a difference. And quite honestly, it shouldn’t. This is professional sports. Everyone is in it for themselves and it’s up to you to create your own future.

And because of this “lawlessness”, because there is no system that rewards hard work, we all rejoice when that hard, honest and faithful athlete once in a great while wins. We say to ourselves “he really deserved to win”.

If you travel down in the heart of competitive sports, deep down into the abyss, you find a simple truth; every competitor has to perform his best and each man is for himself. We all have to compete within the rules and regulations, but without knowing that every athlete did his very best, the victory leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.

You see, the real joy of winning does not take place at the award ceremony, nor at the press-conference afterwards. It is a short, but indescribable feeling of joy the moment you cross the finish line, and you know. You know that today you were the best. Today you won, you beat them all.

I am a full-time endurance athlete, working towards the 2012 London Olympics. I maintain a blog, describing my ups and downs of training / racing.
http://roadrace1.blogspot.com