N
nickjtc
Guest
Greetings, from BC. I thought that I had already started this, but it was a long time ago and the memory is not what it used to be!
Anyhoo I have a 1977 GS750 which I bought new in July of 1977, in Fort McMurray, Alberta. My avatar shows me fettling it in preparation for the 1978 riding season, in McMurray. A season that was all too short thereabouts! While I owned the bike the missis and I did a trip over the Rockies to visit relatives in the Shuswap, and then in 1979 we moved to Vernon, so I rode it to there. By that time the first of our kids was born so the bike had to go, so I sold it with about 5,000km under its wheels, in 1980.
Forgive me for what I am going to tell you next. :hypnotysed: In the early '70s I lusted after the then-new CB500 Honda in the s#!t brown colour, but never could afford it on my apprentice wages. So in a fit of, I do not know what, I rattle can painted the GS in a disgusting brown colour. Yes, WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!
So, the GS was gone, with happy memories of an all too brief time together. The fellow who bought it from me (quite wisely) had the bike re-painted black. Still pretty ugly, but a huge improvement over what I had done to it!!
Fast forward to 2009, in which time I had moved back to England, come back to Canada (living primarily in Kamloops, BC), got back into riding, become a rider instructor and latterly a driving/riding examiner. A job posting opened up back in Vernon so I applied and got the position. Within days of moving here, and getting to know my new colleagues, I found out that one of them was a rider too. We got talking about bikes, he said he owned a GS750, I commented that I used to have one too, and things moved on. After a year or so I asked if I could see his bike (he had it in the garage, unridden for 17 years) so I went to look.
You guessed it. It was my old bike, recognisable by the luggage rack I had mounted on it! Turns out that the fellow who bought it from me defaulted on his financing, so the bank re-possessed it. Gary then bought it, rode it for a few years and then parked it. Long story short he finally decided to sell it in 2013 and offered me first refusal at a price about half what I was prepared to pay. Needless to say I snapped it up, trucked it home and it now sits proudly in the back bedroom at home.
The plan is to slowly get it back to its original glory. Fortunately it is all intact. The pipes have a bit of (hidden) rust underneath, and of course the paint is all wrong. (What was I thinking!) I am currently in the process of doing that, but having a real issue with finding the exact Candy Gypsy Red colour. Got the decals, though. Since there is no hurry with this it is a true labour of love.
My other bikes are a '97 Honda XR650L for getting dirty on and a '96 Triumph Tiger for the road.
Anyhoo I have a 1977 GS750 which I bought new in July of 1977, in Fort McMurray, Alberta. My avatar shows me fettling it in preparation for the 1978 riding season, in McMurray. A season that was all too short thereabouts! While I owned the bike the missis and I did a trip over the Rockies to visit relatives in the Shuswap, and then in 1979 we moved to Vernon, so I rode it to there. By that time the first of our kids was born so the bike had to go, so I sold it with about 5,000km under its wheels, in 1980.
Forgive me for what I am going to tell you next. :hypnotysed: In the early '70s I lusted after the then-new CB500 Honda in the s#!t brown colour, but never could afford it on my apprentice wages. So in a fit of, I do not know what, I rattle can painted the GS in a disgusting brown colour. Yes, WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!
So, the GS was gone, with happy memories of an all too brief time together. The fellow who bought it from me (quite wisely) had the bike re-painted black. Still pretty ugly, but a huge improvement over what I had done to it!!
Fast forward to 2009, in which time I had moved back to England, come back to Canada (living primarily in Kamloops, BC), got back into riding, become a rider instructor and latterly a driving/riding examiner. A job posting opened up back in Vernon so I applied and got the position. Within days of moving here, and getting to know my new colleagues, I found out that one of them was a rider too. We got talking about bikes, he said he owned a GS750, I commented that I used to have one too, and things moved on. After a year or so I asked if I could see his bike (he had it in the garage, unridden for 17 years) so I went to look.
You guessed it. It was my old bike, recognisable by the luggage rack I had mounted on it! Turns out that the fellow who bought it from me defaulted on his financing, so the bank re-possessed it. Gary then bought it, rode it for a few years and then parked it. Long story short he finally decided to sell it in 2013 and offered me first refusal at a price about half what I was prepared to pay. Needless to say I snapped it up, trucked it home and it now sits proudly in the back bedroom at home.
The plan is to slowly get it back to its original glory. Fortunately it is all intact. The pipes have a bit of (hidden) rust underneath, and of course the paint is all wrong. (What was I thinking!) I am currently in the process of doing that, but having a real issue with finding the exact Candy Gypsy Red colour. Got the decals, though. Since there is no hurry with this it is a true labour of love.
My other bikes are a '97 Honda XR650L for getting dirty on and a '96 Triumph Tiger for the road.
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Here is the urban dictionary entry - 
A +1 on the BC Classics site,could use a bit more Suzi guys there to keep the Kawi guys in line
