Motorcycles Unleashed

Our local museum is currently showing an exhibit featuring a huge range of racing motorcycles. Top of the list to see are the Kiwi-built bikes: the mighty Britten, the Buckley 500GP bikes, McIntosh Suzuki's etc. It's on for quite a while and the displays are going to change every now and again so it could well be worth more than one visit.

More here: http://temanawa.co.nz/motorcycles-unleashed.html

Current bike line-up:

Britten Aero-D-0
Britten Pre-Cursor V1000
BEARS Britten V1000
‘World’s Fastest Indian’ Movie Replica
Len Perry’s 1929 Velocette
Hugh Anderson’s 1961 Manx Norton
Dr Rodger Freeth’s 1985 McIntosh Suzuki
Robert Holden’s 1995 Ducati Supermono
1988 BMS Ducati Special (Fast n’
Fragile)
1983 ‘Plastic Fantastic’
1982 Aluminium Monocoque
1999
Buckley Systems GP500 Racers
Thomas Norton Desmodromic ‘Mini-Manx’
Lowe
BSA MC1 ‘Look-alike’
1974 Ducati ‘Green Frame’
1904 ‘Wall of Death’
Indian Single
1952 Vincent1000 Speedway Sidecar
Ice Speedway Racers
Longtrack Speedway Racer
Flat-track Dirt Racer
Ben Townley’s 2004
KTM MX
1958 JAWA MX
1965 CZ MX

Idiot wrecking a Connie

Skip to about the 4:50 mark to. Can't understand what was going on...

Concours Review

This one's a little different - from a woman's perspective: http://www.womenridersnow.com/PublicFiles/DepartmentViewer.asp?ArticleID=1083

A bike for everyone!

"A big bike that looks this good is something worth smiling about, too. It was rare that I arrived at any destination without admiring looks and conversation. Kawasaki says that only around 1 percent of Concours 14 buyers are women, but I don’t see any reason why an experienced sport-bike rider wouldn’t consider upgrading to the Concours with its precision handling, high styling, and
long-distance comfort."

VTR Status Report

Got the good news today that the VTR is going to be fixed - I didn't really want to see her written off as she hasn't got a lot of k's on the clocks and is in good nick. The repair quote came to $6,800 but the shop valued the bike at $9-9,500 so I just snuck in.

I promptly rang the bike shop and asked if I could pick it up on Friday...


...and got laughed at - damn, I was serious! Basically it's just going to depend on parts availability - anything ex Japan will be 2 weeks. I'm hoping that Honda NZ has good stocks of VTR bits...

New 650 Bandit

Looks like the little Bandit is in for some changes next year. Haven't heard anything about changes to the 1250 - yet. Looks like a few changes to the front of the fairing (wish there was a bigger piccy), quite nice.

http://www.easier.com/view/Bikes/Suzuki_News/article-213817.html

http://www.motorstoday.co.uk/SUZUKI-UNVEILS-NEW-BANDIT-650-RANGE.1373.news