Motorbiking

I got my first motorbike (a Kawasaki KH 125 EX when I was about 17 or 18. It was not an act of rebellion, since at the time my parents were both riding motorbikes; in fact, they even paid for half of it in lieu of a car I was going to get from them that they decided was not suitable. (The car was a Mescherschmitt KR200 three wheeler that I helped my father restore. The KR200 featured as the ``personal transportation device'' in the film Brazil.)

After the Kawasaki learner bike, I had a Honda CB400 Super Dream. It was really a Super Nightmare; the bike is an up-sized version of the CB250 ``Dream'', and I believe that the extra weight of the larger engine makes it balance very poorly.

My next bike was one I had a lot of fun with, a Honda XBR 500. I bought it new, put a fairing kit on it, and had it painted a nice dark metallic burgundy colour to match the bike. The XBR 500 is a big single, with a lot of torque. It lacked a bit in top-end acceleration, but the handling was beautiful. I took this bike on quite a few long trips, including a tour of the north of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, and over to southern Ireland for a conference. (114K JPEG).

After a long hiatus without a motorbike, I bought a Yamaha FJ600 when I moved to Seattle. The bike turned out to be a poor buy; it was very old, and had been owned and modified by an ex-racer. The carburettors had been re-jetted and the flow modified, which made it hard to start, and hard to tune. In the end I traded it in for my latest toy, an 1997 Kawasaki ZX600R, pictured here. I have only just (as of April 2001) bought this bike, but I think I am going to like it a lot. (106K JPEG).

Last modified on 12th February 2004 by angus@harlequin.com