Got pulled over this morning

Put the hammer down this morning going over a newly constructed bridge in my home town. I'd say from stop light to stop light is a mile and a half and there is a retaining wall on both sides. Kind of like a drag strip. No one to pull out in front of me or cut me off. So, after finally dialing my JSM carbs(whoa boy..hold on) I head over there on my way home after my shake down ride and just open her up.
Well on the other side of the bridge, about a mile from hammer time(where the stop sign is, is my city's finest with a radar gun pointing at me.
Needless to say he pulled me over about 1/2 a mile down the road. Of course in order to talk to him I have to turn the bike off and put it on its center stand. He walks up to me and looks to be 30ish. I take of my 1976 bell helmet and reveal my grey hair and the look on his face was priceless.
He asks me "what the hell I think I'm doing and do you know how fast I was going?"
I answer "my speedo only goes up to 60mph. I still have to get it fixed". I knew the bike was digging in hard as I hadn't even shifted into 4th. No idea how fast I was going. Maybe 60? 65? I was taching 4600rpm
He comes back with..."I have been sitting here for weeks handing out speeding tickets. Sport bike mostly and I can identify which kind of bike it is before I see it. But I couldn't identify yours. It sounded like a big block mopar". ..Then turns his attention to the bike(1970 Fastback). Then looks at my registration and my license. Then the bike. Without looking at me he states "I clocked you doing 81 miles an hour(in a 40mph zone). I can take you to jail and impound your bike and you will never get it back." Then Pauses, lets out a sigh, looks at me and says, "get your speedo fixed." And gives me a fix it ticket. "And stop going 81 mph again. You are going to kill yourself someday". Then smiles.
I get the impression he thought I was some sort of Burt Munroe type. I haven't killed myself yet. My Thruxton doesn't bring out that 'hammer down' effect the Norton does.

How do I fix my speedo? I wobbles and shows 90mph when, I think I'm going 60. And 60 when I'm going 40. I have 30 days to fix it.

Then I ask myself, "self? how am I going to prove my speedo works and get my ticket signed off? Are the cops going to ride next to me?"

Buy a new Venhill speedo cable and rebuild the speedo drive. Shoild help a bunch. And its good maintainance anyway. The speedi drive comes apart easily for cleaning. And cables are relativly cheap and should be replaced more often than they are. At least the cop was cool about it.

That's a good story. It's not hard to live by tach alone. If you were 4600 in forth, well, you should know better. You got lucky!

Nisongers is my first choice. Google them and give them a call for turn around times. Good Guy.

Or if you need time to save up some scratch to get this done, when it come to testing time just put it on the center stand, put it in gear and show them that it works. After all, it does work, just not accurately.

Buy a lottery ticket. Here you would lose license for 12 months plus $2,200.00 fine for 2 x limit.

If you send it out to instrument specialist, you will have a third party receipt showing it repaired and calibrated.

sole survivor said:

Then I ask myself, "self? how am I going to prove my speedo works and get my ticket signed off? Are the cops going to ride next to me?"

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Sounds like a great time.

I don't know if it works everywhere but around here all you need to do is find a guy with a shop [car or bike] to sign a repair order showing it has been fixed. I have done it several times for people. Jim

bwolfie said:

Buy a new Venhill speedo cable and rebuild the speedo drive. Shoild help a bunch. And its good maintainance anyway. The speedi drive comes apart easily for cleaning. And cables are relativly cheap and should be replaced more often than they are. At least the cop was cool about it.

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He was. But then the Edelbrock headquarters is 2 miles from my house so they see lots of this stuff.
Problem is the PO put in a cam and changed the sprocket and I put in the JS carbs so it excellerates hard. I shift around 5700 RPM to be safe and kind of guestimate my speed. But not on a full excelleration run.

I'll read up on the Venhill speedo cable and rebuild the speedo drive.

Thanks for the tip. It was a good ride today. Tomorrow I'll be taking her up to Malibu. Old Topanga Rd to Muholland Highway and the 'Snake'. I'll show those big liter sport bikes how its done.

It ends up to be a 3 hour ride if I leave early. And I will be exhausted but satisfied when I get back. No high speed runs though. This is turn country and the gear box and iso's are adjusted perfect for each other.

Love this bike.

Way to go ole Sole Boy! You know he'll be wishing he'd hear that power curve coming on again and again. A couple generations avoided ticket by tach alone but still good to know how fast ya going just to review the sensation with a value attached later on. I'd tell the judge yest I was speeding and I knew it but it was the perfect situation know i'm a man with only so much time left, let er rip w/o any risk of harming anything nor breaking the King's Peace. I wish for forgiveness and promise to behave with a speedometer altering me before the wind rush. I'm flying blind w/o even tach last couple of seasons. Got me a no DL ticket contest on now that may go to Federal Appellate or Sup. Ct. to resolve. I shut down today to listen to my bud Wes take off on home today when we split off, its pretty close to a HD's bark and can be heard like 2 miles away as he gased it some to climb a grade at about 70 on a 55 hwy. May just be the cable.

I put a $15 digital bicycle speedo on my bike. My speedo is fine, but the rear wheel gear is messed up and I just don't want spend the $$ to fix it right now.

I don't know about those bicycle speedo above 70 mph. Wes has one he said showed max of 70 today while hauling ass down hill I swear I was pressing 90 to keep up. Maybe his magnet mount is getting slung out of closeness to pick up?
My speedo and tack cables are both non working right now.

I finally bought a new drive gear for mine after getting stopped for doing 65 in a 40. I knew I was speeding, but I really didn't realize I was going that fast...

I bought a speedo cable from the guy who bought the Smiths tooling, think he is in
BC. Anyway I found that the cable will not fit the reproduction Smith's speedo drives
but will fit the genuine Smith. It is a very small difference but keep it in mind.

The speeding ticket thing has really gotten out of hand but I realize it isnt ever
going away.

If you consider what you didn't lose as being a win, you can afford to fix the speedometer. In about 1963 a friend of mine pulled his manx off the trailer , on the way to a race meeting at Mallala in South Australia. As he barrelled a round a bend at about 130 mph, he came upon the town of Keith. So he grabbed the brake and idled through the town. As he reached the other side of town a police utility did the screaing U turn in front of him. They did him for the lot and it cost him nearly 1500 pounds ($3000) dollars. In those days we beginners earned about $50 per week

You had to be on Madrona or the new Del Amo bridge ? I have a friend who had his spedo rebuilt by a guy here in SoCal if you want i can get the number for you. Weather was great today and tomorrow will be good also, have a good ride.

hobot said:

I don't know about those bicycle speedo above 70 mph. Wes has one he said showed max of 70 today while hauling ass down hill I swear I was pressing 90 to keep up. Maybe his magnet mount is getting slung out of closeness to pick up?
My speedo and tack cables are both non working right now.

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Sigmas will generally read high speeds, many brands will not. FWIW Garmin now makes a bicycle GPS speedo and I've been using one, works well...

Yes i've seen some capable bicycle instruments that work well on motorycles so don't know what's up with Wes's or just me zooming extra fast to close back up on the initial pace he set. Besides getting speedo and tach cables going i'm sure looking into a cordless radar/laser detector. I see they have some combined with GPS flat screen unit so not as conspicuous. We passed 2 cops today, one writting a ticket and another oncoming but we were just flowing along legal-ish at that point. I've been arrested off my SV650 and sucks to watch it lifted onto a tow truck and me hauled to jail. In the blinds like here you can even run right up behind a trooper in a flash.

Hi

I remember going for a ride on the Seeley when I finished building it. I went with a friend on his Bonnie. I gave it some stick down a big downhill streach out by Battle in Sussex. When he caught me up he said the bike was flying. As we rode back on the bypass he clocked me & told me that my speedo was wrong. I had had them rebuilt by a specialist & knew they were the right ratio & speedo head running on 18" wheels.
Turned out my mate had been running his bike for a couple of years, wrongly calibrated!
Luckily for him his over read.

Chris

One of the bothers is that our speedos go way too high leaving the area
where we need to know, such as 40mph to60mph, too small and it would
be much better to have a clock that read to 80 leaving much more space
between the numbers.
I hate to go the hobot route but I can see it makes a lot of $ense.
As for radar, Ive had a Valentine in the car since forever. Im not
a big speeder but they keep you aware of just how often you have
been read.

I was going to make a separate post, but this one is in the right vein.

I have a set of Green dots and a set of Snakes that I want to refresh; I have done business with Nisonger, but don't like the attitude or the prices. Any recommendations for Smith and Veglia, other than Nisonger would be appreciated.

Bill.

I used Smiths Magnetic Instrument Repair in Illinois. Not cheap, but good work. Turn around was fast.

dougmatson said:

You had to be on Madrona or the new Del Amo bridge ? I have a friend who had his spedo rebuilt by a guy here in SoCal if you want i can get the number for you. Weather was great today and tomorrow will be good also, have a good ride.

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Bingo. New Del Amo bridge. I live just north of the Madronna/Prairie bridge so I know thats a no no anytime.