Flight of the Motorcycle Gumby part 3

**F5 Dave** · 14th February 2007, 13:28

You may remember my last couple of threads over the year

(Pt 2)
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...ighlight=gumby

can’t seem to find pt 1, but was back in ’04.

Either way --- he’s still out there un-tethered

Excerpt from last thread:
Parks near Plastic Box in the Hutt (XS650, plastic bag seat cover, Polstar ½ a face helmet, milk-bottle bottom glasses, no gloves, sits on the pillion seat with a demented look on his face.

Well now he has upgraded to photo chromatic glasses, but all else applies.

I’d love to post a pic but only ever see him once a year though his bike is often outside public trust bldg.

Who is this unmasked man? Is he a rising face in the Public Trust?

Then I started to wonder. Maybe he is a KB’r. Maybe a well known personality -incognito?

I think he is single handedly (if that is indeed a word) trying to destroy all the cool parts of motorcycling that made mothers refuse to let their daughters out with bikers but instead making the daughters un-keen in the first place.

Come one, reveal yourself. - Is this your nefarious plan?

**F5 Dave** · 13th May 2018, 14:32

Thread dredge.

Where do these gumbies find their helmets?!
Certainly not in a motorcycle shop.
Sunday last I was riding through the town of welling retracing old routes when I sidled up beside a scooter rider. Shoes, no gloves, trackie pants, a thin light green rain jacket and, I dunno, maybe it was a new style of horse riding helmet with a visor?

So he was at the lights picking his teeth nonchalantly with a toothpick. Guess it's a hipster thing. Rode off with that air of an acc claim in the near future.

.

Gumby.

**OddDuck** · 14th May 2018, 08:27

For some reason this makes me think of a character I'd seen while touring in the SI around a decade ago. He was having an icecream outside a dairy mid-afternoon (nothing wrong with that btw), but the rest of it was gumbyness extraordinaire.

Milk bottle glasses. Track pants and sneakers. Nylon windcheater. Open face helmet that would've been a cheap POS even when new, which he hadn't bothered taking off for his dairy stop. General ambience of saving money on shampoo, soap and laundry.

150 cc scooter. Old, tired, faded plastic rusted metal chipped paint and from the late eighties scooter.

Luggage consisting of plastic supermarket bags tied on all over the scooter. There must've been at least ten stuffed-full bags hanging onto the thing. The bags were filled with cheap clothes etc. It looked like a rolling tip shop!

From memory this was somewhere in the vicinity of the Buller Gorge, so it was definitely open road touring... OK the man was living his dream but it was still the most uncool thing I've ever seen in biking.

**F5 Dave** · 29th May 2025, 16:11

Another thread dredge, thought of this today:

So I’m doing the school run in the rain and in the car having dropped off both kids. Exiting onto an arterial route. Man its busy. I’m at the front of an increasing queue but there’s no safe time to go. Everyone just wants to get through to where they want to go.
Every time there’s a gap to the left, the right is busy and vice versa. Every person who stops to turn holds up through traffic as there are no turn lanes.

Finally, there is a bit of a gap between cars. I could pull out but it would mean the vehicles would have to slow a bit to let me in.

But the vehicle with the gap in front of it, is a tiny old scooter and the occupant it is an enormous encompassing clear/pink plastic, something. I can’t bring myself to pull out.
Not only is it unlikely that thing has effective brakes, but also the chance that the operator can apply the brakes smoothly to slow down rather than sprawl themselves across opposing traffic seems increasingly unlikely as they approach and the state of the scooter, and whatever it is that they are wearing come into sharper focus.

Eventually I can pull out. Further down the road I catch up as the scooter turns. The top half of their ½ face helmet is white and bottom black, most likely leather, like those helmets from the 1960s you see in photos of classic bikes.
Where do they get these things? Oh it was Grandmas.

Gumby!

**husaberg** · 29th May 2025, 18:54

Your original thread
https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/s...rcycle-Gumbies

**F5 Dave** · Yesterday, 07:22

Nice, thank you. Geez was a while back. Recognised a few names. Only one I've seen in meat space recently. Er, I guess post 2020.

**pritch** · Yesterday, 08:46

A local Ulysses guy had his helmet stolen off his bike in town. It's a Schuberth, white with a black map of the world on it. That should stand out.
It used to be that most bikes had a clip or similar so that you could lock the helmet to the bike. Apparently that's not so common now?

**F5 Dave** · Yesterday, 12:39

All my 80s bikes had those. Great feature until it rains. Or someone cuts the strap, even though it's useless to them after. Or pours their drink in it or worse. Because dicks.

Just dealt with the hassle of carrying gear or if prepared tool a large backpack to make it easier. Used to do that a races and dropped it off in pits when I recognised someone

**SaferRides** · Today, 05:26

I don't know about the latest bikes but every road bike I've owned has had a helmet lock. I usually just carry it with me though unless I'm parking the bike for a while.

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**jellywrestler** · Today, 07:49

my honda nc750 has a frunk, front trunk, 23 litres storage in what would normally be the gas tank region. so used to carrying my brain bucket i'vee yet to store it in there though

**Laava** · Today, 08:46

Originally Posted by SaferRides

I don't know about the latest bikes but every road bike I've owned has had a helmet lock. I usually just carry it with me though unless I'm parking the bike for a while.

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Sometimes it is simply a thin wire braid looped at both ends to go over a peg under the seat. So, removing the seat to use as the lock.

**SaferRides** · Today, 08:52

Originally Posted by Laava

Sometimes it is simply a thin wire braid looped at both ends to go over a peg under the seat. So, removing the seat to use as the lock.

Yes, the R1 has a bracket under the pillion seat, so you unlock the seat to secure the helmet. So not a separate lock but does the same job.

One bike I had, I think it was the ZZR1200, had two separate locks.

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