Covered in clay

So my mom in law turned 60 a couple of weekends ago and we signed up for a visit to celebrate. The visit turned into an early Christmas because we will not be seeing that part of the family over the actual Christmas time. 

This year moms house was full and we got to stay with my wife's dad on the farm just outside the village. He lives in a house that he literally built with his own hands. 

Cob, a mixture of clay and dry grass, is rolled into balls, slapped in place and shaped with your hands making the wall. This is done in a circular fashion, working your way around the wall until you get back to where you started, by which time the cob should be dry enough to start the next layer.

This process is followed until the desired height s reached. After all this you need to seal the clay from the rain, else it will just become a neatly washed pile of mud. To seal it, it gets plastered with a mix of clay and lime. Then you roof it, floor it, furnish it and move in (in short that is).

What a lovely place. Because of the thick natural walls the temperature is beautifully regulated inside, summer and winter. None of the walls are perfectly straight, giving the house a lovely natural feel.

At night everything settles due to temperature differences, making the house feel alive as it moves at night. A huge porch gives a lovely farmhouse feel and give a great vantage point to enjoy a stunning view over the farm and of the surrounding mountains.

The only thing missing is a line up of motorcycles and some sort of a test track... LOL!! I don't think that dad will bite though... :)

tripple power for the tandem

well. here we go. the family fun ride has become a little cumbersome and required some extra power. so a little (and i mean little) searching brought up a local guy in south africa that imports a little engine for a bicycle and that just seemed right up my ally check it out at www.ecotrax.biz . order placed and took delivery of the kit yesterday.

with this part of the blog i hope to keep up with the progress of the transformation of the bike. will start posting pics as soon as there are some pics to post.

hope you enjoy.

Just standing looking pretty

"I would really like to have one...".  "No problem just buy it cash". That statement narrowed my wildest dreams down to a, well lets say a vintage bike. no problem, I would buy an old running bike cut it up and make a trike or something. Then the only thing was to decide what would "look nice". I settled on a specific bike, the old double overhead cam CB750 Honda's. Maybe means nothing to a reader but meant everything to me. Four exhaust pipes wildly protruding out the front of the engine and real bike sound - like on the YouTube clips. An incentive bonus paid out and the search was on, limited only by a budget.
I found what seemed to be the bike while surveying the Gumtree prospects. The only thing about it I disliked was the color but that was going to change regardless... I bought it!

Loaded the bike on the back of the pickup and brought it home. how i wish that first impressions lasted... This thing was a not nearly as nice as it looked... In fact it did not run anymore. Some nasty words were exchanged with the seller and the work started.

Tried this, changed that, set this like that. Would not have known where to start if it were not for the guys from www.cb750c.com . This was an incredible resource and still is for that matter. If you have one of these bikes, join the forum, but please read the new members thread...

Got it running and started the fun task of sorting out the cosmetics. Enjoyed a three month long adventure of painting the bike with rattle cans and kitchen curtains. Hard work but a good experience.

Finally a bike that looked like I want it to look. It was a fun two weeks that it was running until one morning on the way to work when I had to turn back and change transport.

That is where we are now. The bike is not running again. at least now it looks good.