reader rides | jeff olsen’s 1979 kawasaki kz750

in my travels over the course of the past 18.5 months since i became the biggest metric motorbike blogger in the world (ha ha), i’ve met some dips**t dumba**es and some incredibly great people. one of those great ones is jeff olsen. over the months he has sent money to help me with the cocker i rescued from a county kill “shelter,” and sometimes he does it when he’s drunk and i mistakenly write something that resonates with him. he keeps an eye out for cool stuff and we’ve probably traded fifty emails since last october. he’s one of bikerMetric’s greatest supporters and i’m very lucky to consider him my friend.

jeff lives about 25 miles northwest of minneapolis. bond and i are planning on coming through in early october. i may spend my birthday at his place where “it ain’t the ritz, but it’s pooch friendly and you can walk around in bare feet without getting a staph infection.”

perfect.

a couple weeks ago a friend of his found the 1979 kz750 twin pictured above in northern minnesota where it had been hiding in a shed since 1998. it was the usual forgotten rat bike with green carbs and a dead battery. the old cycle had a goofy trunk and fairing combo which were immediately torn off and thrown on the “s**t pile.” according to jeff, “there was critter’s nest in the tail fairing and a nice layer of grease for preservative.”

his dad had a 1977 kz750 when jeff was a kid and he loved that thing. as a tribute to his dad’s memory he resited the temptation to chop it and decided to go mild. he added superbike bars and beston-style grips. jeff then lowered the guages and headlight, cleaned up the rusty pipes and painted them in high-temperature flat black. he replaced a bunch of stripped-out phillips head case bolts with stainless socket-head cap screws, de-greased the s**t out of it and polished the cases with scotch-brite and then rolite. with that done, jeff re-upholdered the seat with an ebay cheapo cover and called her good.

he wrote that it was “simple s**t even a hack like me can pull off in a few nights of hanging out, drinking beer and remembering the old man.” his kz isn’t anything fancy, “just a cheap old ratty bike to beat the **** out of.”

i dig it, man. check out jeff’s blog at 10011blog. i think 10011 is binary for “motherf***ing.”

peace out, jeff. please accept my sincere and humble thanks for your continual support of bikerMetric. i am looking forward to tipping a few beers and having some fun this fall with you.

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