What is your 'Bike history'?

[ChojiN]

What bikes have you owned, how would you rate them, and what are the stories behind them?

Heres my little list :

1st bike : ~1980 Kawasaki KL250, 4 stroke 'dual sport' bike, brought as a bucket of bits and put together, lasted me 6 years or so!

KL250 (in Red, mine was Orange!)

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8122/KL250_Red.jpg

Had a little amount of bottom end and less everywhere else! but could climb most hills and was maintenance free, in terms of I never did any!

Its now in someones shed restored and meant to be immaculate!

2nd : 1978ish Yamaha DT250, 2stroke.

I had to learn how to rebuild engines with this bike :) but it was fun. Also introduced me to 'wreckers trawling' for parts!

I got hold of a DT400 with a clapped frame and used the dt400 motor in the 250 frame (While on my L's) ! much better motor than the screaming 250!

DT250 (mine was white)

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3369/DT250n.jpg

Suspension was horrid, and very shakey over rough ground.


3rd : 1997 XR600

Great bike! .. Brought brand new, de-restriced and looked after it like you wouldnt beleive! :) Done lots of Kms on it and loved every minute of it .. wish I hadnt have sold it now :/

Similar to this one :

http://www.xr600.de/bilder_xr/sebxr3.jpg


4th (and current) : 83 IT490, BIG 2 stroke

After swearing never to go back to an old bike after the XR, I couldnt resist the urge to get one of the bikes I have always wanted (years after selling the XR). Was purchased with a front disc brake and KX500 front setup, very good structurally but not that hot cosmetically.

Midrange power that makes the XR look fairly tame!, managed to seize the bottom end on it after only 4 rides :( .. now owes me more than I can justify!

It goes back together within a week and I am hoping that it lasts a LONG time ! :)

IT490 example : (mines a fair bit crapper on the plastics!)

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2324/4f_2.jpg

-Ch

[bahaimus]

1st and only bike so far - 2000 Ducati Monster 900

Easy bike to ride. Grabby front brakes......... :D

[kalium]

1st Bike: TS 175 (IIRC).
Wasnt working when I got it. eventually fixed it and rode it for a little bit before I sold it. Was it really crap condition as well.

2nd bike: KH 90
This thing was great :) Small (both engine and bike size) 2 stroke made in the 70's. Road/trail although it didnt take the trails all that well. Only payed a few hundred bucks for it, and it would flog my mates XR80 on a smooth surface. Sold it to a mate who done it up all schmick.

3rd and current bike: 96 KTM 250EXC
Absolute screamer :) keeps up with my mates Husaberg 600 up to about 80km or so. I've got an FMF pipe, lightened flywheel, bigger rear sprocket. First real decent bike I've owned.

[SoarinMZ20]

Age: 3
Bike: 1983 Yamaha PeeWee 50 :D

then

a 1981 Honda XR80

then

a 1992 XL185

then

a 1995 TTR250 - go the electric start ! :D

then

my current baby 1997 WR250 - reow i love this thing ! :)

My brother last night just picked up a 2002 YZF250 with full factory graphics and anodized rims and bits everywhere :)

[womblesti]

Hi Guys (and girls)

First time poster although have been watching 4 a while.

Bikes I've had:
Honda Z50
Montessa 125 trials bike
Yamaha TY250 trials bike
Yamaha YZ400 (the old 2 stroke one. Still have it)
Suzuki 125 (can't remember what type. Old **it box.)
Kawasaki KX500
Kawasaki z500 powered dirt track side car. (Runs methonol, still have it. Almost the best fun you can have with your pants on)
Kawasaki ZXR750. (used to be road bike, now track bike)
'03 GSXR 1000. (Current road bike).

Anyone here do track days on road bikes?

[Oz_Craig]

1st kx80 1983
2nd 197* Z50
3rd 1788 xr600 (come over with captain cook)
4th xr400 1996

[jizmstr0]

Honda XL100
Honda 70cc of some sort :)
Yamaha IT175

All owned before I was 14 and haven't ridden much since.

Would like to get a road bike one day though :)

[Vicko]

learnt on Yam MX100

1st roadie: CBR250RR
Top bike, reliable as hell. Sounded great through cuttings :)

2nd roadie: TL1000S
Handled like puss, but a blast to ride - wheelied like hell. Went bang in the end so I traded it in on...

3rd roadie: CBR600F4i
Nice. Does everything pretty well. Could do with another 20hp though. Comfortable too, I commute on it and used to ride it at the track. Stock brakes were not up to it, but braided lines and EBC pads put an end to sponge city and warping discs. Decent air filter helped injection feel and slightly shorter gearing helped as well. Was getting to its limits at the track and didn't want to dump it, so I bought my...

1st track bike: CBR600F4
Still getting it setup properly, but it goes ok. Stock 600RR will beat it in a straightline, but it didn't cost me much and has a fair bit of shit on it. Just doing some club level stuff and track days and having a ball. Having trouble at PI getting rear tyres to last though - hopefully its a setup thing and not the fact that I'm a ham fisted gumby.


Womblesti - yep, I used to take my roadie to the track, but started doing it more regularly and decided a dedicated bike would be the go :)

[floody]

Hmm...No particular order here.
-1981 Yamaha PW50
-early 70's Honda Z50A Mini Trail - the rigid rear end one (x2)
-1982 Yamaha YZ60H
-1984 Yamaha YZ60J
-1973 Hodaka Dirt Squirt 100 (classic MX bike)
-1979 RM100N (later with 125 barrel, head, piston)
-1991 Honda XL185
-Kawasaki KLX250R (1996 or so if I remember)
-Kawasaki KLX650R (thumper nats race setup)
-1974 Bultaco Pursang 125 MK7
-(in bits) 1978 Kawasaki KX125 A4 frame, forks, wheels, and 1979 ;) KLX250 motor with an old white bros 292cc kit and cam
-Derbi o2 50cc scooter, 65cc kit, race chamber, modded clutch :D

Currently Bikeless, plan to buy a KLX650R and do a grasstrack MX oriented build up on it.

[Spac]

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I only just discovered it...

1. 1984 Honda ATC125M. Bought new for $1700 in 1984 after my dad won $1000 (no kidding). Slow, and generally evil, but when you're eight years old, those things don't matter! Particularly when you have a few mates with bikes (Z50 and an older ATC90) and several thousand acres to explore... I shudder to think of the number of kms that thing did - we used to get up early, get onto the bikes and disappear until it got dark as often as we possibly could (ie every day in the holidays, most weekends).

Did some REALLY stupid things with the old trike, including counting the bounces when landing from a jump (balloon tyres were it's only attempt at suspension) - the record was three, but then we all decided that someone was going to die, so we stopped.
My brother managed to break a hole in a side-cover in about 2000, so it sat in my dad's shed until the shed was burnt down in bush fires a couple of years ago (Xmas 2001).

2. 1977 Honda XL175. Dad bought it for the motor, which he put into a mud-mixer (like a concrete mixer - used to mix the mud to make mud-bricks to make a mud-brick house). It spat a circlip off the centrifugal oil filter which then got jammed in the primary drive, so he replaced it with a proper stationary motor. I got all of the bits and restored it.
Had MUCH fun with that bike, even though it was nearly as slow and handled only marginally better than the trike - when you're twelve anything that's not the trike is good enough.

Got run down over the years - including a clutch that slipped badly when hot and stripped splines on the kick-start shaft... Made things interesting when you stalled it when it was hot...
I sold it to a neighbour/mate for $50, who then apparently swapped it with another neighbour. Believed to have been destroyed in the same bushfires.

3a. 1974 DT250. Bought from a school mate for $50 in Yr9. Had to buy a new rear sprocket before I could ride it, because the teeth were so worn they'd folded over and the chain skipped over the top of them...
Handled only marginally better than the XL, but damn it went a lot better. Again, lots of fun, and taught me about sliding a bike (no other way of gettin the old pig to turn corners!). Also had an impossible gearbox, that required full-on stamping at the gearlever to get it to change gears sometimes... Was the gun bike among my mate's XR75s and the like.

3b. 1974 DT250. Bought from a local wrecker for $200 - I went halfs with a mate. A guy who looked at it before we did turned it down with the words "Dragging it behind a tractor doesn't make it a dirt bike"... Mate and I rebuilt it to look less bad, but did SFA mechanically. Never handled as well as 3a. I bought his share out around the time when he got his licence.
I eventually made the two bikes into one, and still have it. :) Now has YZ400 carby one it and goes a lot better than it should... I have some very vague plans to get it to a decent spec and use it for vintage MX, bt it's way down the list of priorities.
Most of the parts to make the second bike disappeared when my grandmother's house got sold. :(

4. 1978 DT125. Bought from the police auction for $70 - went halfs with the same mate again. Had no compression but ran OK. Again, I bought his share out so he could afford a car.
Got given a DT175 so I put that motor in, using the 125 ignition - it never ran right... Handling was a revelation compared to the 250, but hardly suprising seeing as it weighed about 30kgs less...

Ran out of compression one day at The Bike Farm, and never ran again. I threw the remains out last year when my mum moved house.

5. 1988 KTM125GS - well, it was supposed to be a GS, but was actually a MX with lights and complicance plate...
I got some money for my 21st, so I decided I could finally afford something decent. Cost me $1700. Was a good thing, but parts were hard to get - I'd order a gearlever, and a 1990 KTM250 seat cover would turn up...
Sold it for $1500 (?) to finance a RX-2.

6. 1971 (?) Hodaka Wombat (not the Combat Wombat). Another mate and I went to look at it, and decided to go halfs so we didn't get into a fist-fight over who was going to buy it... Cost $100 in total because it had a gearbox that sounded like bones in a blender whenever it was in 2nd or 4th gear...
Did about a thousand laps of a mate's suburban back yard, then got transferred to my dad's place, where it died in those damn bush-fires. :(

7. 1994 TM125E. Cost me $3000 in immaculate condition in 1997 (well, I picked it up on NYE 1997). Love it to bits - I test rode a 2001 Gas Gas 200, and there was no chance I could justify the extra money to "upgrade" - the bikes were way too close for it to be worthwhile.
I haven't ridden it in three years, but plan on extracting the digit next year. There's no way I'm gonna sell it - it's worth so little now ($1500 to $2500, I figure) that there's no point.

8. I want a new TM250. It aint gonna happen unless I happen to win Lotto or something...

[QABB]

Nice post Spac, i enjoyed that!

[im_boostn]

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