Cota Frame Paint

My friend Rocky agreed to help me get the frame and tank painted up for my Cota. Rocky has been an auto-body/paint guy literally his entire life. When I showed up with my frame Rocky commented that it didn't really look that bad regaurdless of age. I told him I knew but it looked to be somewhat faded in color and I just wanted to start the season on my 'new' bike as fresh as possible. Well let me tell you, I'm not sure if Rocky did a color match or if he just picked the brightest Ferrari red he could find but the color is beautiful, bright and has a pop and shine that will blind you!!! Needless to say, I'm very happy with it. The pictures really don't do it justice!!!

1983 Montesa Cota 242 "Fixes"

Well it was hard to do but I decided to tear the Cota down and shine it up a little for the upcoming year. I knew I was going to have to do something to remedy blown rear shock and between not knowing what shocks to buy, how much to spend and not really having the money to put into shocks right now, this would be the perfect time to tear the bike down even though I was eager to get some peg time in on it.

After getting the engine out I basically just rattle-canned it with some basic black paint. Nothing fancy, just enough to spiffy it up a little.

I also sanded the pipe, mid-muffler and silencer down and gave them a coat of paint.

And a few other parts....

Cleaned the airbox up.

And replaced the worn out Amal levers and perches with some new Dominos.

Next up; fresh paint from Rocky's!!!

Montesa Cota 242

Recently I saw that Larry Holbert had his Cota 200 for sale on Craigslist. It was hard to beleive knowing how much he likes his white tanked Montesa and how well he rides it. I procratenated for a few weeks and finally gave him a call fully expecting the bike to be gone. Well much to my surprise, he still had the 200 and when I voiced concerns about a guy my size on a 200 he told me he would also be willing to sell his 242. Within a week or so I was at Larry's checking out his bikes.

The first thing I noticed about both bikes was how tight they felt. They had great brakes and no crazy, miscelaneous rattles. Well after riding both bikes, I couldn't decide which I liked better. The 242 had a great engine but the 200 turned and handled much like a modern bike. In the end I went with the 242 for fear of stalling the 200 on hills. Like Larry said, you can be good on either if you ride them enough. I'll take that advice!!!

Bunn Twin Shock Event!!!!

Well, after loads of work by many people the day of the event finally came. We had 25 riders, 4 of them including my friend Sam and his son Ben were first timers. In my group we had me, Jim Ellis, Jerry Young, Mike Young, Mark Barnette and John French on his pristine Matchless. Jerry does things on a twin shock bikes most guys never accomplish on their modern bikes. He does floater turns like a squirrel jumping from branch to branch.

Jim dedicated the event to the Pass Masters Trials and Bill Grapevine. The Pass Masters is an event that was held years ago that Jim used to attend that required riders to complete 2 loops of 50 sections on day one and 1 loop of the same 50 section ridden backwards the next day. This event became so popular it even attracted Mick Andrews who flew over from the UK in his prime. Pretty impressive if you ask me!!! Jim had lots of memorabilia posted on a board about the Pass Masters event as well as a flyer from the first Bunn event held in 1991. It was very interesting to say the least.

Not only did the length of the event take a toll on me but so did riding a line that required more physical exertion than what I was used to. About 3/4 the way through the first loop my carb started acting up and I had to head to the pits for some help from Jim McKenzie to get going again. In the process, I missed about 4 sections and had to double up on a few and ride a few after everyone else was finished. I was so tired after the first 2 loops of 15 sections that I almost took 5s on the last 3 or 4 sections just to get it over with. I went ahead and rode the final sections and carded a few 3s where I would have had 5s had I given up.

It was a tough day for me mechanically, physically and skill wise, it just wasn't there today. Having said all of that, I had a great time and can't wait until the next one!!!! Hopefully we will be able to convince Jim to make this an annual event.

Let's try a KT

After trying to get the TL to ride well and figure out why it didn't have any power I came to the painful conclusion that the TL in stock form wasn't going to haul my big but up hills of any size or logs bigger than 3" in diameter!!!

After setting up sections with Murray and Joe and trying a few out on the TL, Murray Man let me ride his custom TMI framed TL-250. It handled great and had plenty of power. TL-250s have a reputation for being pigs but this one rode great????

When Murray pulled up on my TL-125 the first words out of his mouth were "How in the HELL do you ride that thing"!!!! I took another spin on the 125 and knew without megabucks pumped into the engine this just wasn't going to be the right bike for me even though I have always lusted for a TL-125.....

Anyway, Cowboy Joe, who has an insane surplus of vintage rigs offered to take my TL on trade towards a KT-250 that he had. After several kicks I turned the key to the on position and she fired up, first kick!!!!

Though this was a step up it still had it's expected vintage quirks and problems. Amazingly the bike was completely stock other than the handle bars, a missing tail light and the left hand grip. It even had a title to it!!!!

Anyway, the first thing I realized when I tried to ride my first event on it was that it had fork springs for someone about 70 lbs, rear shocks that might as well have been a hard tail and a frayed throttle cable that almost turned me totally away from vintage bikes all together!!!

After a little encouragement from a few valued riding buddies, I decided to put a few bucks into it and see if it made a noticeable difference.

I never got any "before" picture so here it is with updated bars, the lights stripped off, a number plate added, new fenders and stiffer fork springs installed.

Bunn Twinshock Preview

So here's what I went with. All I have done to it so far is to paint the pipe and touch up the frame a little with some Krylon.

I'm a little torn on how far to go with this project. I removed the tail section of the pipe to see if that had an affect on power and it definitely runs better without it. Obviously, I have a banana in the tail pipe.... I decided to do the basics as far as trying to get it to run properly and then I'll go from there.

Jim at Competition Wheels http://competitionwheelsandcyclesinc.com/ is going to do a full once over tune up and install new fork seals and wipers. If it is still weak power wise I'll decide how far to go at that point.