Happiness Is A Warm Drum

My entire life I’ve been a worried man, and as long as I can remember I’ve worried my mind about pretty much every single thing, it’s like I’m obsessed, I gave up long ago - it's in my DNA. Back when I was a teenager I used to doubt the laws of gravity a lot, this was the reason I always had birds instead of dogs, I still do. As a kid I believed birds didn’t need gravity in the same direct way dogs do to survive. This gravitational doubt got so horrific at times I had to tie ropes around my ankles when I went to bed at night to keep my body from drifting out in space. A few years ago I magnaflux tested a set of Knuckleheads and when the process proved beyond all reasonable doubt they had absolutely no cracks at all, the old doubting obsession kicked in, so I continued to examine the heads with a magnifying glass so intensely and for so many hours I had to be hospitalized overnight because of the worst attack of dehydration and overstrained eye muscelature you could possibly imagine. See what I’m getting at? I could go on and on but I’ll spare you any further examples…
Riding season is upon us and pretty much everyone who's out under the sun punishing the ancient flatheaded iron tends to get a bit worried about overheating their bike from time to time, or like me - constantly worried about overheating; is the carb running just a little bit lean? Is the ignition just a little bit retarded? Did I get the compression just a little bit too high? Will I have to run another red light? am I really sober yet?
But now, thanks to science you can all breathe a sigh of relief. And this is actually pretty cool, a 1932 74" VL measured by a Fluke Ti32 Thermal Imager. I came across this test a few days ago and thought I'd post it on here; this test article was done by Fluke after the ’32 VL had run 5 miles.

The 1932 74" VL used for the heat test.

Before the test ride, with the engine at the ambient temperature.

Just fired up, the motorcycle quickly heats its exhaust pipes.

After the ride, the rear brake temperature has climbed.

The front brake appears to be running cooler than the rear, possibly because of better air flow.

The intake side of motor.

Infrared image reveals that the rear cylinder is hotter than the front cylinder.

Pretty cool test huh? You can get your own Fluke Thermal Imager right here and calmly study the exact temperature of your motorcycle, for me unfortunately, it'd probably just be a waste of money...