Paris Dakar bikes

Honda XL600

BMW R80GS

KTM

XT500

Yamaha XT500

Honda XL600

BMW R100GS

FZ750 based Yamaha

Yamaha XTZ850R

Suzuki DR800 BIG.

Suzuki DR600 Djebel

Honda NXR750 Rothmans

Cagiva Elefant with Ducati engine

My all time favourite, including the helmet. This is the reason why I was proud of my father somking Rothmans. Classy fags, they were.

1980 Vespa 200

Back when men where men and bikes where tough, this Vespa actually made it to the end of the Second Paris-Dakar Rally.

Work of Art

In 1965 ,a few years before disc brakes where invented,  Honda brought out this 6 cylinder 250cc engine with 53bhp and a seven speed gearbox. The first 6 cylinder bike to win the Isle of Man TT.
Still amazes me the kind of commitement, focus and resources these people would have to build something like this. The rising world of accurate tolerances.

TRX850

Pimp my tank

TRX850

This has been my comutter bike for the last 6 months. It ran out of insurance and tax, so I'm now using the bicycle. Never thought I'd say this about a Yamaha, but this is a brilliant bike (the gearbox is not included in the compliment) to ride daily and for the twisties. I managed to survive the North London traffic come sun or come rain with no wing mirrors, indicators, speedo, rev counter, warning lights or temperature gauge. Havent changed tyres since I got it and it "runs like a champ".

Kempton Park jumble

 

Pyke van!!

Loot

 Great day out. Kempton Park on my own, stood in queue from 9 to 10AM and left at 3pm. Lots of time to appreciate this long time pilgrimage and enjoy the great food the burger vans have to offer.

 Might have been the last one, in a long time. Time will tell.

The longest rebuild

For the past 3 months I've been rebuilding this little XR250 engine as as way to fill my time and keep in touch with the "real world". A world where the correct parts are ordered, the correct parts arrive and the correct parts fit straight in without having to grind, cut something off or even remake a whole new part because the ordered one was rubish. Oh, the wonderful world of metric tolerances and neatly machined parts...  Not my weekday world , though.

This engine, bought in the land of the "that'll do" was taken to a workshop because it wouldnt start. Someone threw the piston in the wrong way around and that made it touch the exhaust valves. In the process of solving this (in theory, a pair of valves would be enough) I found a badly pitted and worn out cylinder sleeve, clutch basket teeth randomly removed and later found at the bottom of the sump, worn out camchain and tensioner, stripped M10 cylinder head threads and many, many other annoying little problems.

I do like to get things done at first time and I do spend time trying to find causes for future problems. In other words, fixing things that aren't broken. We'll see how long this one will last without breaking down.