My Latest Project, a Motorcycle Build And The Story Behind It…
Around 18 months ago I’d never ridden a motorcycle and had always said I never would. As someone who has always been massively into cars, especially sports cars, although the speed appealed, the danger and trust in myself not to push beyond sensible limits, didn’t!
But in December 2015, all that changed. At that time I was looking into a trip to Vietnam. Unless you wanted to be stuck on a tourist bus doing all the usual “sights”, the only way to really see and travel where you wanted in Vietnam was by motorcycle. Having scared myself by looking at Vietnam motorcycling videos on YouTube, I decided that Vietnam wasn’t really the place to learn to ride. So in the end I booked my CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) which is a days worth of training, on theory, but mainly practical on a motorcycle. It’s required by law in the UK before you can even ride on L plates. So with some borrowed gear (helmet and clothing etc) I spent a day learning the basics. And I fell in love with motorcycling there and then! Just 3 days later I bought my first bike, a Suzuki VL125 Intruder. After a few thousand miles under my belt, a few months later I did the Vietnam trip and rode the length of Vietnam on an old Honda Win 110 bought for £200. And when I returned, I did my full test, and true to form bought my first “big bike” (A Suzuki Vstrom DL650).
As much as I love the Vstrom, there are lots of other bikes, and styles of bike I like too. The Vstrom is an adventure bike and is a great allrounder. I do think that if you can only have one bike, then an adventure bike is the best of all worlds. However, who says you have to stick to just one bike ;) Earlier this year I rode a Kawasaki KLS250 around Crete, which is an offroad enduro style bike. I really enjoyed this and the riding experience was very different. The bike was so light and small compared the the Vstrom. That combined with the other styles I’ve bike I’d been drawn to like the Ducati Scrambler, and some custom cafe racers got me thinking about having a second bike.
Unfortunately the cost of doing so was just too much, and even I’d admit that the justification for a second bike are pretty flaky. So that’s when I started thinking about getting a cheap project bike. Not only would that remove the cost equation (mostly!), but it would also work in another couple of areas. The first is that although I do ride to some extent all year round, at least tinkering over winter would give me my motorcycle fix. And secondly, I really fancy taking something that has seen better days, and rebuilding that into something unique that I’ve not only designed, but built myself.
So fast forward to today and the purchase of my latest project…
Tomorrow I’ll write about the bike itself, and my current plan for it :)
Thanks
Richard
