History Part 2…

I spent a couple of years trying to believe that I’d grown up and didn’t want to play with bikes anymore and playing with classic cars, the best of which was a Mk IX Jag. Hard as I tried I never really got into the cars, and never got out of the bikes. During that period I bought a half share in a cheap Pantah, and spent some time doing it up. Then swapped my share for a crashed Guzzi and tried to get that going. At the same time I bought an early T500 Suzuki, and had a go at classic racing. One meeting, three races, I think I got a third in the first race (miles behind two loonies on CB750s), couldn’t start the damn thing before the second race, and circulated round at the back in the third.

About that time I decided I was throwing good money after bad and gave the lot away…

There was one fantastic weekend in my ‘bikeless period’. I’d recently met Lynda and we were already engaged. Christmas was coming up, and I wanted to do the toy run in Johannesburg. I borrowed a hot rodded Laverda RGS from Steve, and Lynda and I went on the toy run. Lynda had never been on a bike before and thought it was fantastic, so I arranged to borrow the RGS again, and took her to the Eastern Transvaal on the next IMOC run.

It was great. The Laverda was the fastest bike there by a considerable margin, Lynda was a fantastic pillion, and I rode the wheels off of it all weekend. It was enough fun that we decided to buy ourselves a bike not long after we got married in Feb. 90.

The bike I bought was a cheapie… an old Yamaha XS1100 special. I decided that it would be a good choice for a two up bike, but not tempt me to go too fast. A very wrong decision…. I wanted to go fast, but the XS had low gearing, horrible seating, and was just wrong. It stayed in the garage about six weeks before getting traded in on a ’87 model Kawasaki GPz1000RX Ninja in as new condition.

That bike was fast. I always said it was faster than I could think. I suspect in retrospect it was just faster than the chassis and brakes could handle. It kicked around for about 2 years, but I hardly used it, and sold it in still immaculate condition in ’92 just after my first son was born.

With four children born in five years, and various job losses and business failures, my biking was severely curtailed. At one point I was working on contract in central Jo’burg. Lynda’s family business needed a delivery bike and bought an old CX500. They gave it to me and asked me to use it and check it out. I’d been using a bus to get to and from work, and the bike suddenly added an hour to my free time every day. Unfortunately it was seriously unreliable and Steve and I ended up rebuilding it twice before we got it working properly.

Guess we got the bug though, and between us we bought a triple basket case. A Yamaha twin and two big Kawasakis all mixed up together (and pretty cheap). Steve was out of work at the time, so he fixed and I commuted. He pulled the XS400 out of the middle in one piece, cleaned the carbs and gave it to me to ride. It got me there for a few weeks and we sold it for more than we’d paid for the collection. A good start. We also sold the z1000ST in bits, cheap, and set about fixing up the GPz1100 we had left. It took a while and Steve lent me an old XR500 Honda for the commute. Loved riding it (I’ve always liked trailies in town) but hated starting it. Eventually I broke the kickstart shaft off (a massive fatigue crack… obviously I wasn’t the only one) and bump started it for a day or two until Steve found a gap to fix it.

In the meantime he first lent me his loopy Laverda, and then, pleasure of pleasures, my old Hailwood Rep. What was he doing with my old Hailwood? Well Henry had got divorced, sold his house and moved into a flat. The Hailwood was part of the rationalisation program, and Steve made him an offer. It was a non-runner when Steve took it over, and still painted orange. Steve has stripped off the outer bits, had the bodywork repainted in red and green again, and fitted Lucas Rita ignition, as the original Bosch bits had packed up. He also bought the old SSD from me, and replaced the front cylinder cam with one from the Darmah. Unfortunately his rebuild went no deeper, so the chrome frame, and tackily painted bits were all still there, but was at least running right.

Before and After

So, I got to ride my old bike again. I commuted on it for a week, and loved it. It was never the best commuter, but it was much better with the Lucas ignition, and handled the job OK. So well I was exiting a series of lovely wooded corners coming down a main road into Johannesburg when a cop stepped out in front of me. He was fascinated by the bike and we chatted for a while. I was late for work, but thought being friendly was worth it. In the end he reduced the speed he’d caught me doing; 106 kph in a 60 limit, to 99, so that I didn’t have to go to court. The fine was still pretty steep.

A few weeks later, Steve got a job in New Zealand, and started making plans to emigrate. He came round one night and dropped the bombshell; he’s selling the Ducati, do I want it. Of course I damn well want it, but I can’t afford it. He tried very hard to get me to buy it, but I had to make the right decision. We were struggling for money, I was in debt up to my eyeballs from a failed business, and I simply couldn’t do it. His offer was that I could pay him when I could, but I simply couldn’t see that much light at the end of the tunnel.

A week or so later, Henry came to stay. He’d moved to Germany in 96 with his new wife and was back for a holiday. He was obviously feeling richer than I was, did a deal with Steve and exported the bike to Germany. It arrived there, got unpacked and put in his garage and stayed there for eight years. It was started regularly and ridden a few times, but has never been registered there (a bit difficult getting it past the TuV I suspect!).

In December of 2000, I moved my family to UK. For various reasons I was sick of South Africa, and really strongly felt I had to move everyone ‘home’. Of course it was only home for me. Lynda is South African, and all four children were born there. Anyway all of a sudden, the Ducati and I were back on the same continent again, albeit about 700 miles apart. Before I’d been here 3 months I was chatting with Henry on the phone and telling him I wanted to buy it one day. His attitude was ‘no chance, I sold it once and I’m not selling it again’. I told him if he ever changed his mind to let me know and left it at that.

Money was a bit tight, so it took a while before I could actually think about a bike again. Eventually I bought a cheap Triumph 900 Sprint, which was a nice bike to ride, but had some real problems that I solved by selling it and buying another, newer version of the same bike.

Then one night came the phone call from Germany. Disguised in ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ was the hint that he might consider selling the Ducati. My business was doing well, Lynda (darling that she is) said ‘Go for it’, and so I did the sums and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He did. So I upped it by a third, but demanded the spare engine he had as well. That did the trick, and from that moment on the Duke was coming home.

The Duke comes home

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