Newbie in North West Kent

[Yoshi823]

Hi al...

I bought my first of many SOHC4 engined Hondas back in 1978...and loved every minute of it.

It was a CB550F1 in orange.But it was stolen from outside of my flat.

So I bought a CB750F2 in 1979.But when I went to the Isle of Man in 1980 it was like everybody else had one as well.

I'll dig out the photo albums and copy some piccies over as soon as I get a chance.



This was about 1985.I remember it quite well as my first daughter had not long been born.

[SteveD CB500K0]

Hello mate!

Whereabouts in NW Kent? Put your location in your Profile and it will be displayed below your avatar - thus saving all the "where are you?" questions. We have members from Bromley to Maidstone - I'm down there a fair amount too as my kids live in Greenwich and Lewisham and my riding buddy in Canterbury.

Steve

[Yoshi823]

Thanks for the reply.I live in Bexleyheath to be precise,but my 550F1 was stolen from outside of my flat when I lived in Bromley.

I did the very first Mayday Run in 1979,and it was good to see the 30th Anniversary ride go so successfully last year.I don't think that Hastings and Locksbottom have ever been the same since those first days.

I was lucky in those early days of owning a four cylinder bike...I worked at an engineering firm where I could use the lathes,milling machines and other worthwhile facilities to build my 750 up into the machine that you see in the photo above.And it was good fun as well.

I used a CB125s Honda for commuting at the first rebuild of the 750,but learnt from this and bought my 2nd CB550F1 for use as a commuter/runaround bike.This ended up being a worthwhile investment.

[Spitfire]

Hi and welcome to the forum, what are you riding around on now ?

Cheers

Den

[pae]

Hi and welcome to the site,

Phil

[Yoshi823]

Thank you for the welcome everybody.

Nowadays I ride a Yamaha R1 and a FZR1000R (pre-RU),as well as a KTM 450 EXC enduro and a 17" wheeled XR400R that I used to race in enduros.I occasionally still use it for greenlaning when the KTM is having one of it's maintenance times.

Unfortunately the 750 got wiped out while driving home from the pub one Sunday evening.It was on the back roads around Brands Hatch.The car driver was driving on an unlit road....on side lights.I had a twin head light (6" Cibies) Bol d'Or sports fairing and lit up the road nicely.But not when the car suddenly appears out of nowhere around a blind bend.If he had his lights on dipped beam I would have seen him in time,but suddenly.......BANG....and I went over the handlebars.

I'll find the photo of the remains.It's not a pretty sight but luckily I was thrown over the top and landed on my front.Got away with just a scraped knee but the bike was written off.



This is as the bike was after the recovery van had dumped off the remains for the insurance assessor to inspect the bike...or what was left of it.

For some reason UMV 674 S is still showing on the DVLA website as being active but not taxed,even though the assessor wrote the bike off.

[Bryanj]

Depends when it was written off, its only relatively recently, since the cat A,B,C,D that DVLA got involved

[Yoshi823]

It was written off back in 1992...I remember it so well.

And I still have the physical scars...