This bike was my first, and as for all first loves - I adored it. Looking back (minus the rose tinted specs) it was a dog! It had a chocolate frame (engine mounts broke twice) and it was unforgiving - well, no one told me you were supposed to replace the head gasket if you took the head off - still a bit of grinding paste here, a bit of elbow grease there - it was sorted!

A mate at the time was working on an old bike of his, "come in to the garage said the mate to the pissed off Rambler owner...."

A swift exchange of the folding wedge later and I was the proud owner of an XL125! It was great! I had such a ball on this bike - learned a lot too. Like, when you run the tank out, there is a little leaver you turn which lets the reserve fuel go - well it was a lesson learned well (especially as I pushed the bike for about 3 miles - 1 of which was the steepest hill around our parts!) and it was a very long time before I ran out of fuel again (jumps to present day and coasting a VFR down a hill, across a roundabout and bump up the forecourt kerb!) . The biggest lesson I learned was due care and attention - and not tailgating other bikers! Let's just say, tailgated bike OK, tailgatee not so OK! Along come a Morris shITAL van and I take a skydiving lesson over his bonnet. I was a very lucky boy! That's why I ride so slowly now ;-)

Anyway, after all that mucking about with "old" machinery, I decided to plunge in and buy my first (and last I might add!) new bike. It was a shiny red beast, it had 3 miles on the clock, and it was mine - or more to the point the finance companys. So, first things first - adjust the nut on the side of the cylinder to open up the restricted airflow - ker-ching a whole 15 BHP! Wow!

Er... that was until the oil pump fell to bits, and it's at this point I learn about the power of solicitors. 3 MONTHS it took for yamaha UK to fix the biggest selling bike in their range at the time. I could have hand carved the parts out of bare metal in the time it took them to import them from Japan! Still, the threat of a "letter from my solicitor" was enough and after discussing the latter and my malcontent with Yamaha, I got it back. Went on a very eventful trip to the New Forest on it - I remember being very cold, no heated jacket then, not even leathers - no a ski jacket and jeans at 6 in the morning! I also learned about by-laws, and that they have one in the New Forest that says you can't ride motorcycles with no crash helmet and your girlfriend on the back - picky!

Strictly speaking, this was a mates bike. I borrowed it to do my test on - all I really remember was it was very small, and my mate had put on these, well they were like cruising lights that stuck to the tank so no one would T-Bone you - bit excessive I thought. Especially as with them on the tank, my legs jutted out at a funny angle - in the wind! Doing the figure 8 was murder!

Then I had a bit of a break from bikes - brought a house and still no part 2!

BUT! I did get it with this bike - after it had seized because some fool had put the woodruff key in the wrong way around - joy! Anyway, on the morning of my test, I decided it was a good idea to adjust the mirror, I undid the pinch bolt, moved into position, re-tightened the bolt and CRACK! Oops! The bloody mirror mount was broken!!!! ARRGGHH!!! Only 2 hours from my test. Now, this was an old DT model - I had only one chance. I phoned my local bike shop - and by a strange bit of synchronicity, he had one! So raced (well as fast as it would carry me!) to the shop, hoping to borrow some tools - except shop policy was they did not lend tools *&%$*"^$%!! Ten quid he charged me! Still I was just in time for the test as a result - except by now I was so stressed out that I figured I was never going to pass - so I relaxed! It worked!!!

So, with licence in hand, I went in search of a "proper" bike.
I could'nt find one so a GPZ500S had to do instead. I brought it out of a breakers yard in London - it was shagged! Only one of the cylinders fired all of the time, the forks were shot, as was the rear shock, basically WELL USED!
I was skint at the time so I elected to do most of the work myself - I stripped and cleaned/repaired everything except the front end - this was all in the middle of january in a little garage (my &%$%&$ neighbor charged me rent of £10 a week - ooh I do miss London so much!) with no power/bench/heating. I sent the engine to a little custom shop in North London who said if I did some of the work I could reduce the engine re-build cost. I was more than happy with that!
These guys were great - never mind the Teutls, these guys were the real deal. Anyway, they were well known on the biking circuit around north London and used to get visited by a certain biker club! One day a Suzuki 1200 custom came in belonging to one of their senior members, it had an electrical fault on the kick stand switch. No problem says the owner - then sets about it pretty quick! I was in the back working on the build, minding my own. After a day or two, a couple of heavys came in to talk about the bike - "He Wants it Back you know" I distinctly heard - followed by a whimper (I think it was that!) - they were (the bikeshop owners) starting to get panicky and asked me if I knew anything about electrics? Well, I did (do!) - I had passed my C&G Electrical Engineering part 1 a couple of years previous, so I offered some help, at a cost. If I could fix the problem, I had the remaining workshop time free! They were that concerned they went for it!! I started looking for the problem and found the fault within the hour - 3-4 days bench time in a fully kitted workshop for one hours effort - nice!

I digress - got the bike back on the road - split up with my wife, she made the court make me sell the bike, what a bitch! No, really she was a cow!!

Had another year out - then found another beauty at the bottom of a scrap heap! I liked this bike, the first one where I could put my feet on the floor and still feel something in between my legs (ooer!) The only trouble was it sounded "agricultural" - so a mechanic told me. "Change the camchain" - not wanting to do it (or having the space more like) I sent it to a bikeshop specialising in camchain replacement. I got a call to come in and pick up the bike - when I got there he was just finishing off - putting on the water pump. I was chatting to him at the time and then a godforsaken noise occured. He had just broken the end of the thread for the balancer shaft off! Whoops!

He got this guy to weld a bit on to the end of the shaft and cut a new thread - it was awesome to watch - I thought for sure it was not going to hold, but it did.

Sold it not long afterwards though - and the funny thing is, it still sounded agricultural!

Now we are getting into (reasonably!) modern times - and very nearly modern bikes!
My first VFR was a total brick! Never going to make a GSXR shit itself, but I loved it! 34 and polishing it as if I were a kid - marvelous! It was quite fast (140 indicated with two up - or me I should say which is about 2 up!) and so reliable it was funny. Never garaged, ridden throughout the year - show - ice - rain - you name it! Had my worst weather riding on it - freezing fog! When I got to work there was a little blob of ice on my eyelash where I had not been able to ride with the visor down!

Brought it with 55,000 on the clock, sold it two years later with 84,000! It had only cost me £300 for what I got for it.