Shane - Superlite (#43)

So, it's been a while since I was on a bike regularly (like a year) so it was time to get the finger out and find myself another bike (my last one was stolen by scum).

I'd been watching trademe for quite a while and this bike had come up about 3 months ago. I seriously considered it then but it sold to someone else. About 3 weeks ago it suddenly reappeared on trademe, this time as a non-runner because it'd dropped a valve and destroyed the right outside cylinder. I thought even more seriously about picking up this time and after talking to Brent, a bike mechanic mate, I decided I should get it. However, when I logged on to trademe I found that the auction had finished because my brain was a day out!!! The good thing was that it didn't sell so I thought I'd wait a couple of days and contact the seller unless he relisted it again. Next day it was back up so we did a deal

Brent was keen to head up and pick the bike up on the Thursday so after work my wife dropped me off and the boys hit the road. The journey up was quiet. Google maps was bloody fantastic for getting directions and printing out a map of where we needed to go to pick it up. Didn't stop us from missing the turn off though. After a bit of pissing around we found the right place. It was the house behind another and the drive was very narrow and steep. We got in there and pulled the trailer off and spun the car around. After hooking it up Brent jacked the trailer up because it had been feeling a little dodgy on the way up. Looked like the wheel bearings were past their best and needed a tweak. No worries though, it didn't look like it was going to pack up anytime soon.

We loaded up, handed over the dollars and had a good chat with the dudes parents (he'd pissed off skiing for the weekend). The dude hadn't actually got it near a track. He'd ridden it up and down the road a couple of times and it dropped the valve while it was in the shed. Sounded a bit suspicious to me. A bike dropping a valve out on the track is perfectly understandable, but doing it in the shed sounds like someone was fiddling. The fact one of the clutch plates was broken pretty much confirmed my theory. Still, it was looking good despite that. The father got quite a surprise when I told him what I was going to do, ie rebuild it as a 450cc. He didn't realize that was possible and they probably would've kept it if they'd known. Of course, I didn't tell him this until I'd handed over the money and tied it down on the trailer haha.

Getting out of there bloody near didn't happen. Brent powered it up the drive but cos it was quite a mean hill we had to park on, we could smell burning clutch half way across the property. That wasn't good. Still, we knew it'd settle down and should be fine once we hit the motorway. If we could find the motorway. Fark I hate driving in Auckland. We got there though and cruised all the way to the Papakura Autobahn to try out those Angus burgers from McD's. They weren't too bad but McD's still don't do anything that could compel me to go there regularly. A quick check revealed that the trailers running lights were out, but the indicators and brake lights worked fine. We marvelled at our luck because a cop car had powered past us earlier and was obviously too busy to bother with an illegal trailer.

Near Hampton Downs some clown with extremely bright headlights decided he'd crawl up our arse and stay there. Bastard wouldn't pass us and the lights in the mirros were bright enough to give us headaches. As many will know, it's friggin dual lanes all the way to the Te Kauwhata so the only reason the bastard wouldn't pass us was because he was a bastard. Brent got pissed off and signalled that we were turning onto a side road so the pillock finally got in front. Looked like it was a shitty station wagon filled to the roof with crap and a couple of kayaks on the roof so that's why his headlights were so high. The reason he didn't pass us was because the prick was tired, a fact that was extremely obvious from following him for a while. Following the dipshit with the kayaks we soon realized that he's being held up by someone who must've been shit faced drunk. He was doing 55kph on the open road, bloody near mounted the gutter in a couple of places, sat on the shoulder the entire time and threw in some awesome "where's the road gone" style weaves. Both of them got the hell of the way at Taupiri thankfully. Should've dialled *555 but we couldn't see the drunks plate or tell what make/model it was.

We got to Huntly to find a bloody alcohol checkpoint set up on SH1. Brent approached it while lightly dragging the brakes so they hopefully wouldn't notice the lights on the trailer were out. We were both thinking it was going to be a $500+ fine for an out of date rego, the wof was off Karen's bike (dunno if she knew about that haha) and the trailer didn't have a rego either. Things were not looking good. The lovely young lady in the uniform didn't even bother with checking the wof or rego and booze meter gave Brent a pass so we pissed off as fast as you can while looking very casual and unconcerned.

So we arrive and it feels like we've been on a big adventure. I guess pretty much anything to do with bikes and mates is an adventure though. The only thing missing was beer.

Saturday I start taking a good look at the bike and don't find any nasty surprises. Looks like there's nothing much to do except rebuild the engine (it's got another head out in already thanks to the previous owner so I've got a spare head as well as a spare petrol tank and other bits), tidy up the fairings and give it a paint. From what I've seen so far it's looking like I've stumbled on a good deal.