Bike of the Year

[Rhubarb]

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I cannot believe it was the last Bike Night last night!

The weather has rained a couple of nights but we almost made every one.
As usual the 'Bike of the Night' bikes were all on the quay for public voting. It was so damp and dull it was hard to get any photo's and there were so many people (surprisingly) crowding round it was hard to get near the bikes at one point.



This was Mark's vote



This was mine- the yellow 'fizzy'





This is the one I have a horrible feeling won, find out tomorrow in the paper.

(No1 son voted for the AJS, just because it was the oldest bike there and the prize would be totally useless for it- custom refit)

[twisteroo]

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I like the KZ900, although I do have a soft spot for old Kaws.

[Rhubarb]

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The winner.
If I wanted a V10 Viper engine, I would have kept it on 4 wheels

No1 son talked to the owner, an engineer who thought 'I wonder how do you get a self built bike on the road?' He went to the register office and they sold him a book on the rules to get a bike on the road, 4 inches thick and cost £130. It only has one seat to cut the red tape and paper work.

[twisteroo]

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I still like the old KZ.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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The winner.
If I wanted a V10 Viper engine, I would have kept it on 4 wheels

No1 son talked to the owner, an engineer who thought 'I wonder how do you get a self built bike on the road?' He went to the register office and they sold him a book on the rules to get a bike on the road, 4 inches thick and cost £130. It only has one seat to cut the red tape and paper work.

I'm with you on this one, Trudi. That's a car engine. All I see are burned legs driving that thing! Ouch.

[twisteroo]

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And probably 0 to death in about 3 seconds.

[LKTraz]

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I like the chopped Honda CBX just because those were unique to begin with and it's a nice custom job there.

I'm with Twist on the KZ900 though. Those were some slammin' bikes in their time.

[John L]

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My Honda CB750 was at the apex until the KZ900 came along. It didn't sell nearly as many as Honda, but it was still a rocket. I tried on out, and it had more power, but what I liked better were the extra disc brakes, which could get you down to zero very quickly.

Course, I walked away from motorcycles about six months after all this, and never looked back. You couldn't get me on one now, for anything.

[Rhubarb]

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My Honda CB750 was at the apex until the KZ900 came along. It didn't sell nearly as many as Honda, but it was still a rocket. I tried on out, and it had more power, but what I liked better were the extra disc brakes, which could get you down to zero very quickly.

Course, I walked away from motorcycles about six months after all this, and never looked back. You couldn't get me on one now, for anything.

Something happened?

My boss is a closet biker- he had a Kawasaki and to celebrate his engagement to his now wife he was going to buy the bike my hubby now rides, (new from the show room) which is when he discovered his wife was actually terrified of riding on the bike- so he allowed her to teach him to drive.

[John L]

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My Honda CB750 was at the apex until the KZ900 came along. It didn't sell nearly as many as Honda, but it was still a rocket. I tried on out, and it had more power, but what I liked better were the extra disc brakes, which could get you down to zero very quickly.

Course, I walked away from motorcycles about six months after all this, and never looked back. You couldn't get me on one now, for anything.

Something happened?

My boss is a closet biker- he had a Kawasaki and to celebrate his engagement to his now wife he was going to buy the bike my hubby now rides, (new from the show room) which is when he discovered his wife was actually terrified of riding on the bike- so he allowed her to teach him to drive.

No, nothing happened to me. I had a furnice fire in my home, back in the 70s, and my entire pack tray assembly rig was on the shelf next to the furnace floor grate. All of it burned completely up.

I finally took stock in what I was doing with my life. I was jumping out of airplanes almost every weekend, and riding the motorcycle when the weather was good. And of the two, skydiving was the most fun,....and safest. But my favorite rig was now gone, and I just decided that all the money spend on airplane lifts, just to see how many times I could leave it at high altitude, was too much. And that motorcycle in the driveway, well if I ever had to 'lay it down' would most likely do more than ruin my weekend.

I was talking to my Prudential life insurance agent one day, and I told him about my rig burning up, and he told me the insurance company didn't insure things like 'deceleration trauma'. I pointed to the CB750 and said something like "Well that is far more dangerous than exiting perfectly fine aircraft." and he shrugged his shoulders and said "I know it, You know it, but that's just the way the business works."

So right then I said "Fuck it". I'm tired of all this crap. So, I never did replace my Thunderbow rig, and sold the bike to a friend, who had always kept talking about buying the bike from me.

Getting rid of the bike was the best thing I ever did. I will always miss my skydiving though. I am an adrenaline junkie, and jumping out of airplanes is the second best adrenaline high in the world.

The first is being shot at, in the middle of a hot firefight. Now if you really love excitement, nothing beats having the rounds fly by you, going faster than the speed of sound, and the fear of a mortar round landing right next to you. Its the biggest adrenaline high you can imagine. And it is also addictive as all get out, if you like taking chances.