I have triumphed!

This would be a good answer to "what are your plans for the three-day weekend?", but I missed that QOTD.  Oh well.

My goal this weekend was to rid my loft of the motorcycle that was sitting there, and instead turn it into a motor plus a cycle, or to be more precise, a motor plus a bunch of other random parts.

After an epic battle between woman and machine, I have triumphed over the troops of the evil mounting bolt empire.  It wasn't pretty, it wasn't elegant, and it sure as hell wasn't a professional attempt, but it's done.  Save for the retaining clip on the chain, not one single piece of the bike was damaged during the attempt.  Oh, and I was unscathed too, except save for a couple of broken fingernails (oh noooooo!) and a tiny little scratch where I slipped while doing something egregiously stupid with a screwdriver.

I wasn't going to post this photo, since it highlights the bumbling idiocy nature of my amateurish endeavors, but then I thought better of it.  If you can't laugh at yourself, other people will do it for you and you won't enjoy it nearly as much. [1]

At this point, the forks are the only part of the disassembly that scare me at all-- the rest of it is incredibly simple and straightforward.  I think that tomorrow I shall finish taking everything apart, and then haul the remaining bits to a car wash for a good pressure washing.  After that, I don't know... "take it apart and clean it" has been the whole of my plan thus far, so I really have no idea what comes next.  I guess it's triage, repair what I need to repair, figure out what I need to replace, get all the parts I need, polish, paint, and reassemble.  Sounds easy, doesn't it?

I have to admit that it's been a really interesting learning experience.  A few weeks ago, "take the motor out of a motorcycle" sounded like a huge, mysterious, and scary ordeal.  Now I know that it's really, "disconnect everything, unbolt the motor, and take it out."

[1] Rivendell house rule #2.