Hi,
Welcome to my Bikes Page. To me a bike is a motorcycle. A bicycle is a
pushie.
I first learnt to ride a bike with gears at my cousins house. I must
have been about 12 and it was an XL185. I was too short to touch the
ground, so he held the bike while I climbed on board. Over the years I
rode his other bikes, including an old registerable Honda Z50, what I
think was a Kawasaki KE100 (I got my first exhaust burn on that bike)
and his entertaining 1975 Yamaha DT360. The DT360 was fun because it
has a lot of HP (relatively speaking I guess, as I think they only had
32HP). The DT went very fast in a straight line, but couldn't stop or
turn. The suspension and brakes were terrible. Here's my cousin doing a
burnout on a small bit of concrete.
My first bike was a free 1981 Honda CT185. I had converted most parts
of it to be more like an XL185. It was great fun to ride around and
taught me how to work on bikes. This was due to all the failures which
were initially repaired in a very poor manner by a motorcycle shop. As
they say, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
So my self education began.
My next bike was actually my brothers but we shared bikes a bit. It was
a 1980 Kawasaki KDX175. He tended to have little understanding of what
constituted flogging the guts out of a motorcycle, so the 2 stroke
engine handled his punishment better than the poor CT185 could. We
bought this bike for less then $500.
Next up was a 1977 Honda XL175, another freebie. It was a great
bike, the motor was stronger than the CT185 and ran great. It was a bit
heavy and low, I bent the gear lever quite a lot trying to keep up with
mates on motorcross bikes in the bush. Eventually I damaged the bike
quite badly (and myself) when I hit a kangaroo doing about 80kph. I
sold it while recovering from that crash. I don't really know why.
All that was during high school.
After school I still had the CT185 as a paddock basher, but it died
during Uni (multiple times). I eventually got sick of fixing it.
Shortly after high school my brother wrecked his KDX was running the
engine dry of oil. I had my bike learners but never bothered getting my
license as in Queensland you had to get a 250cc licence first.
Queenland eventually changed it's rules and I got my open bike licence.
At the time I was living in Townsville so decided a Honda NX650
(Dominator) would be an excellent bike to explore North Queensland. My
wife and I went everywhere on that bike.
Once we came back to Brisbane the Dominator no longer made much sense.
It wasn't very comfy for the 2-up riding to and from work every day.
The single cylinder didn't really like the stop start traffic, and I
didn't have as many bush places to explore. So I sold it to help pay
for the next bike. I still miss the old dominator, such a great bike.
A brand new 2004 Suzuki DL650 V-strom was next. The V-strom is a
fantastic all round bike. It can be extremely sporty in the mountains,
is very comfy and economical to and from work, does long distance
touring quite well and can even do some basic dirt duties. I have even
taken it to the drags for a few 1/4 mile runs, running a 13.06s ET with
the gearsack still fitted on the back (full street trim). My mates
called me the Pizza Delivery Boy.
A
couple of years ago I bought a Husky TE610 off a friend in parts. The
idea was to put it together and sell it, with a quick spin in the dirt
in between. The real reason I got it was because it was the ultimate
big dirt bike when I was growing up, and I had always dreamed of owning
one. After putting it together and sorting out it's many wiring issues
I found out my 60kg of body weight isn't very well suited to a left
hand
kickstart bike of this size. It had a race cam which made kick starting
even more tricky. I eventually gave up trying to kick start it and roll
started it down the street. I quickly realised I wouldn't be able to
ride it in the dirt because I can't kick start it :( So it got sold on
ebay. I made a little bit of money for my trouble, but didn't get to
experience the beast on the dirt.
I still have the Vstrom, but feel the calling of the dirt again. So I
bought a dirt bike. A new 2009 Suzuki DR-Z400E. I have only had it a
few days so I don't have much to post about it yet.
