The story reminds me to my first real bike...
OK, I had an sligtly illigal Derbi 125cc dirtbike without having the licence so it was actually on a moped (48cc) licence plate... Managed to trick the police at almost every check I had... It really was the worse moped/bike I ever had. The sparkplug could not cope with the cold, humid winters in The Nehterlands. So every 1,5 / 2 km I had to stop (eh, the engine stopped
), unscrew the sparkplug, remove the little cowl (?) which formed between the electrodes and ride for the next 2 km...
Big advantage... Even during freezing temperatures, I never had cold hands tnx to the heat of the cylinderhead...
My first 'real' bike was a '88 Honda XL600V Transalp, the beige one with brown saddle, purchased in 1992. Magnificent! I owned it for over 70.000 km in 2 years, before changing to a younger model (a '91 with rear disk brake where the '88 had a drumbrake). which I bought in '94. On that bike I had a serious accident - hit by a drunk driver on a Suzuki Intruder (the cause why I dislike chopper and custum bikes even more than I dislike BMuu's
) but lucky for my little green Transalp, it was undamaged (... eh, I wasn't...
- broke my spinal vertebra, 4 ribs, leg, etc but could still laugh...
). So, after my recovery I could enjoy the bike for a few more years.
In 1997 I bought my very first new Transalp. A beauty! Which was exchanged in December 1998 for my very first Varadero (... chrashed after 15.000 km in August 1999)