1987 Honda MT5

My unsilenced 2 stroke engine screaming its way through the wall of rain, I can smell the mix of gas and 2 stroke oil, mingled in with the smell of my sodden ski gloves and wax Belstaff jacket. I am wet, more than that, i'm soaked through. It's going to take a week to dry out from this and i lost the feeling in my fingers in toes about 10 miles ago. I have the throttle wound tightly to the stop, in fact its been like that since leaving Dalgety Bay on my way back home to Dunfermline. I'm fully wide open at 43mphI'm 16 years old, with my first ever Motorcycle. complete freedom on a Honda MT5

 The Mt5 was prety "crash proof". I laid it down maybe 5 times in my 3 year long ownership. Twice on ice or in the snow, once under a bus in the wet, when the bus made an illegal right hand turn right in front of me, but for a 50cc bike, i did over 2000 miles and went everywhere in a cloud of Blue smoke!

The MT5 weighed 180 pounds, with this super feeble front drum brake, better suited to a bicycle. I'd get around 70 miles to the gallon and over 100 miles from it's 2 gallon gas tank. The little MT was finally sold when i bought my first car. What an idiot !

1988 Honda XBR500 

I bought my Honda in 1991 with 12 thousand miles on the clock. The day i picked her up , it started to blizzard in Yorkshire, where the bike was located and i had to ride her home to  Dunfermline. Not FUN !!  When i got to the Forth Road bridge it was closed to bikes and trucks, i dont think i've ever been so tired !

  The XBR was a single cylinder "thumper". One single disk up front, 500 CC carb-fueled engine, with both electric start and kickstart.  NB i never was successful in kickstarting the beast !

 :)

I rode her for 4 years in all kinds of weather conditions as my only transport to and from University whicch was a 100 mile roundtrip. The big single never let me down and was a great "first big bike". She also got  70 mpg , it pretty much rocked. I even liked the metallic burgundy colour ! I sold her after the bike was knocked over and vandalised. the  respray on the tank never did quite match the same luster as the original.

2001 Moto Guzzi V11 Sport

 I bought my V11 Sport, withotu a testride, the instant I saw the bike in a photograph i knew i "had" to have it :) I've owned "britney" for 7 years now, withonly 15 thousand miles in that time. I've xtensively modified the bikes fueling. She has a power commander, titanium Mistral end cans, hi comp pistons by Ferracci, Velocity stacks and uni filters and i upgraded the brakes because the OEM ones really suck :) i've also had the front end resprung, and am in the process of buying a new rear shock.

One of the funniest things i've done with "Brit" is to rally her round the race track. At smaller tracks, like Buttonwillow, where there's not straightaway to speak of, i can hold my own easily with the fastest Group B riders, not really anything to boast about, but i think it  does deflate the myth that an old air cooled twin , thats 100 pounds overweight,cant hang with a sports 600 or litre bike on the race track. With Dunlop DOT Race tires on the bike, my two hero moments involved outbraking a Honda "Fireblade", passing an Aprilia RSVR and GSXR 600 simulatenously on the brakes (pictured) and going around the outside of an R1 at "taladega" , a fast right hand sweeper. Again to put it into perspective, the instructors could pass me at will, like i was standing still, but it was still nice to see i wasnae holding anyone up.

Laguna Seca however was a different kettle of fish. My soft rear shock wasnt up to the higher speeds and it was nigh impossible to hold full throttle on the bumpy long straightaway. I also got black flagged for noise which was kinda lame.

1976 Moto Guzzi Convert

  aka "Margaret Thatcher". I love this bike. Too bad that i broke her, with my first crash in 19 years :(  Margaret is a fully automatic bike with linked brakes, which ultimately led to my demise ! (well that and rider error, see previous blog "zen and the art of not crashing") I have about 5 thousand miles on her and shes currently sitting broken in my garage :(