Classic Bikes Thoughts

[XTreme]

33 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

You do get to know a kick start bike's own individuality.

When I had my first stent in, I was trying to stay in and not move about too much, but my friend, who should have known better decided he was going to start enduro racing. He was not the fittest of people or in the first flush of youth.

He'd bought a nearly new Gas Gas 4 stroke, a 400 or 450 I think. This thing self destructed at least twice in a very short ownership and had an engine rebuild each time. It would also have a few break downs on the road in that same period.

So I made my way over to Kent to a place called Canada Heights and watched my mate leave the starting line and disappear down a wooded hill and that was the last we saw of him for a very long time. Eventually he appeared over the crest of the hill on foot drenched in sweat. He'd drained the battery trying to restart the bike on the button after repeated stalls and begged for someone else to have a go at getting it back up the hill if he could get it started. As I walked gingerly down the hill I found a man frantically trying to kick start and early DR350 with the manual decompressor thing on the handlebar, exactly the same model I had fallen off a  zillion times whilst green laning. I asked if I could have a go and started it first or second kick, a few years of anger and frustration had taught me the technique for that one bike.

Anyway, we got to the Gas Gas and that was when he gave me his helmet to put on to ride the short distance up the slope. Jesus, I think the entire fluid content of his whole body (and he was a big bloke) was in the lining. It positively squelched as I put it on.

So you put on a helmet that was drenched in somebody else's sweat Yen?

[yen_powell]

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

So you put on a helmet that was drenched in somebody else's sweat Yen?

I did. This bloke was a proper sweater. I first saw him when I was 11, he was in a different class to me at school, but the classes were combined for games. We had just partaken in my first ever game of Rugby, we were covered in mud, wounds and blood. We had all just tramped back into the changing room. We got a talk from the Welsh games teachers about how we need not worry about stripping off together for a communal shower. It took me a few years to realise that all UK games teachers are Welsh sadists.

The speech was along these lines, 'Look you boys isn't it, who's coat is this jacket, get you into those showers, none of you has anything that the others don't have so don't you be worrying butt, by the way I use a shower cap for my Keegan perm'.

Well they were wrong. 44 boys were pink and hairless, but number 45 (my mate) was a bit further along the puberty motorway and heading for the off ramp. There was hair all over the poor sod, it was like Grendel at the waterhole!

 

[XTreme]

3 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

but number 45 (my mate) was a bit further along the puberty motorway and heading for the off ramp. There was hair all over the poor sod, it was like Grendel at the waterhole!

Did somebody mention pubes? 

[yen_powell]

1 minute ago, XTreme said:

Did somebody mention pubes? 

It wasn't a total disaster, they weren't 'Titian blonde' pubes like yours. I have a story about him, I will put that up now.

[XTreme]

Just now, yen_powell said:

they weren't 'Titian blonde' pubes like yours.

[yen_powell]

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

Google is your friend.

[XTreme]

Now we're talking......a 72 S2 350 Kwak!

With 44bhp it had the most bhp per cc than any other bike on the road back then!

Nearly 14K......but this is a real classic!