After much work and angst over the winter and spring of 2016, Lucille was finally ready for a first start-up and at that very time, I was having yet another bad bout with my right knee. So I asked a strapping young buddy to come to the DCW and do the honours. He is a great chap, about 20 years younger than me (a former grad student who now works for Roush Industries - yes...
THAT Roush) and he's very strong, but at the time, he was not a rider.
Anyhow, we popped her up on the centrestand, I turned on the fuel and set the enrichener lever (aka "choke"), gave him some tips on the finer points of kick-starting a bike and told him to have at it. After about 20 kicks, she burped, then one more and she started. Actually, she wound out to about 2500-3000 RPM and started to sashay across the concrete floor at a pretty fair clip!
He looked at me wide-eyed and yelled, "
What the he!! do I do now?", to which I bellowed, "
Keep it running and put the front brake on!".
Unfortunately, he had forgotten which was the brake and which was the clutch - but he soon figured it out. Not, however, before my darling Lucille had scraped her way at least 5-6 feet across the floor and had made a 90 degree pirouette.
It really was quite a scene and one which I sincerely wished I had video'd.
LAKEVIEW
