Kaboef
Grey Hound
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
- Messages
- 7,317
- Reaction score
- 1,474
- Bike
- KTM 950 Adventure S
This is a very special day for me.
Today I got the bike back that carried me through high school.
A 19seventysomething Kawasaki KE175 smoker.
In Standard 9 I got this bike from my dad, who bought it from a farmer in Montagu. When I got it, the bike was in a sad state, as a billygoat had eaten the seat and most of the exposed electrics.
So I sold my Honda MTX50 - which I at that time had just finished restoring after purchasing it for R100 from my uncle.
I invested the money in the Kawa to make her pretty again. After a respray and a general fix-up I had a bike with engine capacity more than 3 times that which was legal for age 17!!
Thus it happened that this Kawa played a very pivotal role in my misspent youth.
MANY nights I pushed her up the steep driveway into the street, rolled her downhill in neutral and bump-started her far from the house so my parents wouldn't wake up. Then, with a car tail-light bulb as headlight, I rode to wherever there was a party.
At my age (35) we tend to forget the magnificent feeling of liberation our own first mode of transport gave us.
This was my first transporter, and on her back I grew up.
After school I went to university and the bike stood still, only firing up some holidays when I got tired of driving the car.
So she slowly regressed into disrepair, and there was a decade that I forgot about her.
Then my brother-in-law asked my dad if he could use the bike on his employer's farm in Elgin as a run-around.
My dad and I agreed, and so the bike had a second (or is that a third?) lease on life as an agricultural implement.
On a recent visit I saw the bike standing in the shed behind a pile of tyres and bales, and being bikeless now, I knew what I had to do.
So today I went and fetched her. My bro-in-law bought a 2nd KE 175 as spares a few years back, and he threw that in as a thank-you for all the years he had her.
So I got her home, and thanks to my bro-in-law who put in fresh petrol, she fired up after about the 5th kick!!
So now she has gone full circle, and after almost 20 years after I first got her, she is my exclusive care again.
The plan of action is not to butcher her and soup her up. No, not at all.
The plan is to restore her back to her old glory - or even better.
She's probably worth less than the petrol in her tank, but her value lies in the memories she carries with her. Just seeing her standing here makes me feel like young turk again, ready to "suip, saag and wheelie"!!!
:biggrin:
I will post updates as this project progress.
1rst piccie is her, and 2nd is the extra bike that might donate some spares.
Old school is very, very cool indeed. 8) :biggrin:
Today I got the bike back that carried me through high school.
A 19seventysomething Kawasaki KE175 smoker.
In Standard 9 I got this bike from my dad, who bought it from a farmer in Montagu. When I got it, the bike was in a sad state, as a billygoat had eaten the seat and most of the exposed electrics.
So I sold my Honda MTX50 - which I at that time had just finished restoring after purchasing it for R100 from my uncle.
I invested the money in the Kawa to make her pretty again. After a respray and a general fix-up I had a bike with engine capacity more than 3 times that which was legal for age 17!!
Thus it happened that this Kawa played a very pivotal role in my misspent youth.
MANY nights I pushed her up the steep driveway into the street, rolled her downhill in neutral and bump-started her far from the house so my parents wouldn't wake up. Then, with a car tail-light bulb as headlight, I rode to wherever there was a party.
At my age (35) we tend to forget the magnificent feeling of liberation our own first mode of transport gave us.
This was my first transporter, and on her back I grew up.
After school I went to university and the bike stood still, only firing up some holidays when I got tired of driving the car.
So she slowly regressed into disrepair, and there was a decade that I forgot about her.
Then my brother-in-law asked my dad if he could use the bike on his employer's farm in Elgin as a run-around.
My dad and I agreed, and so the bike had a second (or is that a third?) lease on life as an agricultural implement.
On a recent visit I saw the bike standing in the shed behind a pile of tyres and bales, and being bikeless now, I knew what I had to do.
So today I went and fetched her. My bro-in-law bought a 2nd KE 175 as spares a few years back, and he threw that in as a thank-you for all the years he had her.
So I got her home, and thanks to my bro-in-law who put in fresh petrol, she fired up after about the 5th kick!!
So now she has gone full circle, and after almost 20 years after I first got her, she is my exclusive care again.
The plan of action is not to butcher her and soup her up. No, not at all.
The plan is to restore her back to her old glory - or even better.
She's probably worth less than the petrol in her tank, but her value lies in the memories she carries with her. Just seeing her standing here makes me feel like young turk again, ready to "suip, saag and wheelie"!!!
:biggrin:I will post updates as this project progress.
1rst piccie is her, and 2nd is the extra bike that might donate some spares.
Old school is very, very cool indeed. 8) :biggrin:
