First you need to find a bike that needs help

Not really a barn "find", but it was on a farm complete with chickens.

I grew up riding my Rupp Enduro minibike around the addition we lived on in the country in rural Iowa.  I always loved how it made me feel.  I felt free.  As a small child, you didn't get much freedom of your own, but even as a child, you can appreciate the feeling of being on two wheels and riding where you wanted to ride.  I was never much of a daredevil and kept it pretty low key, but the important part was the freedom to go where I wanted when I wanted, even if it was only for a short time after school.  The Enduro was a good bike.  It was sturdy and, most of all, started most of the time.  It had a centrifugal clutch with a belt drive, so shifting gears was never an issue.  Just roll the throttle and let the little single cylinder engine take me at break-neck speeds.  I bet it went 15 or 20 miles per hour.  Not fast, but for a seven year old, it was fast enough.  I loved that bike.  It ended up being named Melvin, which was my sisters doing. I didn't mind because it kind of was a Melvin.  The name fit.  I rode it for almost three years, then my dad got transferred by the company he worked for and I had to leave my beloved Melvin behind.  I really missed that bike, but we moved to a new town in a residential neighborhood, a neighborhood that probably could do quite well without a minibike running up and down the streets.  Taking it along was just not an option.  I kind of got it out of my head to own a minibike, or even a Moped, which were very popular during the early 80s when I was in junior high.  My trusty 10 speed was my only transportation, outside of Dad giving me a rid to school.  My mother also had this notion that motorcycles were dangerous and were ridden by rough-necks that wore leather jackets and causes problems wherever they went.  While I am sure motorcycles can be dangerous, and that there is in fact a rough subculture of people that do ride them, motorcycles were also cheap transportation, especially when gas prices started to rise, and cars were being neutered into ugly, "fuel efficient" abominations.  Remember the Pinto? Outside of some cloudy years for Harley Davidson, motorcycles were the one thing that suffered the least during that time period.  The bikes of that era were pretty cool.  This was when Japanese made bikes bolted into the market to fill the niche of an affordable, dependable, stylish, and powerful bike that was within most peoples reach.

Fast forward a couple decades to the 21st century and I was still not riding.  Sure, I had ridden after Melvin the minibike, but it was mainly on three wheelers.  Remember the topic of motorcycles being dangerous?  They didn't ban motorcycles, but they did ban three wheelers.  I will be the first one to say that they could be extremely dangerous because they tended to bounce when jumped.  Also, they didn't fall to one side and slide like a motorcycle, they tumbled, often times over the rider.  As you can probably guess, I got a bit more bold in my later, formative years.  But still hadn't ridden a street bike, outside of a couple spins on a friends bike, which almost ended poorly.  Fast motorcycles and young men don't mix well.  You need to be an exceptionally well controlled young man to own a bike that will go over a hundred mile an hour in a very short period of time and not find yourself in trouble at one point or another.  So, here I was, still not riding a street bike until 2010.  My brother from another mother whom I had met later in life, in contrast, had ridden most of his life.  Up to the point that he ordered a Harley Crossbones, he was a metric guy.  He loves all bikes, and means it when he says, "It doesn't matter what you ride, as long as it has two wheels."  He bought the Crossbones because he loved the styling.  Being an artist, he loves aesthetics, and the Crossbones has it.  Spring seat, mat finish, old school pin stripes, and a springer front end.  That was the bike that woke up the biker in me that had laid dormant for all those years.  The sound and look of that bike did it for me. I had to have a street bike.  I decided that then and there.

Being rusty after such a long time driving in a cage, I thought it would behoove me to take some formal training.  After all, the training I had was "there's the throttle, the break, the clutch, and the shifter...try not to kill yourself."  Lucky for me, there was a Harley dealership not 15 miles up the road, so I signed up and handed over my $250 to take their MSF training course.  Although I didn't spring for a Harley, I will say that the training was top notch.  The instructors had tons of miles under their belt and they were there to do everything they could to teach us how to ride safely.  I credit them for saving my life on several occasions by instilling the proper habits and mind-set to, if I may, keep it real.  They didn't mince words.  Riding a bike can kill you, but it has less of a chance to do that if you pay attention and practice what you have learned.  Literally the day after I completed my training and earned my endorsement, I was the proud owner of a 2008 Vstar (Yamaha) 1100.  Enough power to move my fat ass around, but not so much as to try to kill me any chance it had.  It was a great bike to start out on and I still ride it as my primary bike.  That is to say, it is the only bike I have that runs at the moment.  The other bike is what this blog is about.

Enter the 1981 Honda CB750C.  I had seen a colleague ride it back and forth to work many times.  It was kind of cool, but kind of sad in some ways.  He had acquired it in much the same condition he sold it to me in, which was a surprisingly nice bike, despite quite a bit of sin that had been inflicted on it.  It all started with the realization that, while I love to ride, I also wanted a bike related hobby to do when I wasn't riding, which was more often than I would like.  Let's face it, most people don't work 8+ hours a day in a office, then ride the rest of the time.  I wasn't part of a MC that spend tons of time on the road.  I am just an average guy that loves to ride, but I can see my office from my house, so I walk to work.  I would only cut off about 1 block of travel time if I rode or drove.  So, the riding I do is mostly for pleasure.  So, this bike basically feel into my lap.  Since I had seen the bike actually run, even though it no longer would start, I took a look at it and bought it not because I really liked the looks of it, quite the contrary, I bought it because the bike needed help, and anything I was to do to it, was an improvement over its current condition.  So, let's talk about that.  The carbs leaked.  The frame had been modified and the seat was dropped.  The rear fender, or cowl was made out of very heavy gauge steel.  The wiring was fubarred, but functional, and there was no shine on it whatsoever.  It was an ugly little bike, but it was a bike that could be modified without guilt because there was little that could be done to it to make it uglier.  I firmly believe in preservation of old things, unless you can make them better or they need rescuing.  I don't think I could get myself to modify a really nice vintage bike.  Besides, this will make for way better before and after pictures.

You are probably wondering why I call it the Therapy Bike Build?  I use this as my get-away after sitting behind a computer screen, or more accurately, screens all day.  I am a systems engineer, and while my job does have many rewards, being able to hold your work in your hands is not one of them.  Let's face it, when someone asks me what I do, I just say I work with computers.  If I say what I actually do, they flat-line almost instantly, or ask if I can fix their computer for them.  I want to create something that you can look at and appreciate.  I am grateful that I have these skills and it would be a shame if I did not utilize them.  The older I get, the more I realize that you are given a lot of gifts, and it is up to you to recognize them and use them.  I never thought of myself as artistic, because I always thought about art as music, painting, sculpting, and so forth.  But, building a bike is art. So is owning one because you always make it your own with some kind of a modification.  The best part is that it requires engineering knowledge and artistic flair.  Something I used to think was mutually exclusive.