You gotta love stupid people

Bought another bike. Formulated a new plan. The world is good.

I was on the way to a Motorcycle Swap Meet on Sunday when I saw this little beauty on the side of the road with a for sale $500 sign:

 

OK, so I tell a slight lie: that's a photo from the web (www.eparts.us) what I actually saw was this:

But it’s pretty close. Yamaha YB100 two stroker from 1979.

Knocked on the door and had a chat with the bloke for a while before getting to the all important question “does it run?” to which the reply was the famous “it was running when I parked it two years ago”.

So a bit of haggling commenced and we arrived at $350 if it was running and the electrics were working, or $200 if he couldn’t get it started. Then ensued 15 mins of him sweating and swearing and trying to get it started (and the same period of time where I offered absolutely no help whatsoever and certainly did not tell him the thing that I could see that he was neglecting to do).  Finally he admitted defeat. I handed over $200, loaded it up on the trailer and shot off to the swap meet.

At the swap meet I managed to pick up this little selection of goodies that are needed to get back it through rego for a grand total of $80:

(manual, set of indicators, head light, mirror, speedo, clutch plates, clutch lever, kickstart, taillight, battery and spark plug)

So, dragged it all home and pulled it off the trailer. Then I did the one thing that was needed to get this bike started that the seller had neglected:

I turned the petrol tap on.

You gotta love stupid people

A bit of fiddling with the carb, a bump start (haven’t put the kick start lever on yet) and she fired right up. Took it for a spin around the block. Engine sounds good, doesn’t blow too much smoke (it’s a two stroke after all), and it ran up and down the gears with no problems

Where to next?

So, I’ll spend the next couple of weekends getting this little beauty up to rego condition. Still needs a few things – chain guard, generator cover, new set of points, a few 6v bulbs probably a few new cables. Then give it a run over worth the spanners,  give it a tune, get a roadworthy, put it on club rego (only $50 a year) and away we go. Most expensive thing is going to be new tyres – cheapest I can find is about $60 a piece.

So what’s the plan?

Here’s the plan:

1. get three more of these or similar together and on the road,
2. invite three mates for a long weekend
3. we go for a back to basics ride

I was thinking a few challenges might be in order.

So far I've come up with 4 challenges and a few Roadblocks. Here’s a few of them to give you the idea:

1. Orientbeering: race from one country pub to another via trails, taking photos of specified landmarks on the way. For every landmark you miss on the way, you have to buy a round of beers at the end of the day.

2. Race up Pissweak Mountain: starting at 4 separate points at the bottom of a small mountain, all participants follow a set trail to the top but have to meet particular challenges on the way up.

I’ve got a few others but to tell you what they are would spoil the fun.

It’d probably take me till early next year to get all the bikes together and on the road.