I remember my step-father owning a suzuki GS1000s, it was a beautiful machine until a "friend" of his ws entrusted to look after it, a "friend "of this "friend" took it for a spin, lost it on a gravel road, and tried to run it on kerosene. I think he sold it for parts not long ago.
my dad rode bikes during the war...i have a picture somewhere.....BSA i think...if he rode anything like he drove it wouldn't have lasted long...
My dads not tall enough to have ever ridden a motorbike, terrified of "the bloody things" he is. Mum would occasionally hop on the back and tell me to give it the berries. My uncle was one of the first Wall Of Death Riders here in NZ with the Mahon Circus, now that's a job.
My dad had a Matchless apparently, and was quite keen on getting more speed out of it (I only found out about all this at his funeral).
My dad had a Francis Barnett. I have no interest in reigniting his memory by doing the same . . . There is a line, people.
My Dad neither had a bike he was a terrible car driver would have hated too see him on a bike anyway, during war was transfered to Stores, owing to pan-caking too many planes on landing, something to do with wheels?
An uncle kept an Ariel Red Hunter under our house....he was a boat builder and stored hulls (Zephyrs) there as well. I had no interest in the boats, but would go down there and look at the Red Hunter, I just knew it was something I wanted to know about. My father had a couple of mopeds he used to get to work on, a Puch and later a Zundapp. He stripped them and and painted them...I remember he painted the Zundapp maroon and grey. Nearly 20 years later a friend got a marron and grey Zundapp, and he gave me the ownership papers which had my father's name on them. He totally ruined the bike and threw it away. Friends are made of this.....
I'm a Dad now and thats why I own a BMW.....
My Dad's first bike was a 1914 Douglas. He had problems with the outside flywheel coming off and had to chase it down Queen St one time. He also had problems with the skinny tyres getting caught in the tram tracks. His next bike was a Matchless 500 and sidecar. He was entered in the 1st NZ TT on Waiheke Island with a Triumph but ended up working in the pits for others. He then lost his right arm in a car accident and rode an Indian whilst convalesing. So then it was into motor racing and he built his own racing car but also raced MGs in the NZGPs. He finished up in the pit crew working on F1 and F5000 cars for my brother around the European circuits.
My dad is a good London boy and was well into his bikes. Ones I know of were a A Matchless G80 (he hated that thing , pushed it through the factory gates in Woolwich so often that in the end they told him they wanted nothing more to do with it!), a Triumph Speed Twin (he liked that) and an AJS racing bike (he crashed that ), he raced on both tracks and road races in the UK... His last bike before I moved over here was a Yamaha Enduro 100cc ... bit of a come down but hey he only used it for commuting round London.
Dad started off with one of those add - on petrol engine jobbies that bolted onto a bicycle, then graduated to a BSA (B31 I think ?). Then a succesion of Triumphs. T110, Bathtub Thunderbird, T100 - this had all the tuning bits on that the Yanks used and was a rocket ship. Pity they never did an upgrade for the brakes, I inherited it and managed to write both it and a Mazda ute off when the moron pulled out of a blind gateway Then he got a Silver Jubilee Bonne. He only stopped riding in his early 70's 'cause off a bad back.
any idea why I can't post pictures in BFTP? Only options down below are automatically parse links and disable smilies. No problem with pics in the main forum.
It's usually the other way around, you can't link to pics in the maim forum, but no problem here. Inset image, 2nd from right.
I can see the "insert image" icon but that needs a URL - I want to attach a pic that is on my computer. Pic is of my Dads last bike 1925 Douglas, now residing at MOTAT. I thought it had gone missing but is in storage (according to Dr Engl, the collections manager)
Photobucket or similar, attaching from your computer is the dorky KB way of doing things. Nobody does that on the real internet.
