New member from the North East (UK)

[badger_eng]

Hello all and thanks for being allowed into the forum.

Very soon to be 64 y.o. living between Durham, Sunderland & Newcastle although born in Hull.

Apprentice trained mechanical maintenance fitter before going on to be a mechanical & process engineer for a couple of large blue chips. Eventually setting myself up as a consultant engineer and travelling extensively to ply my trade.

Started riding bikes (C50's, Raliegh Runabouts / Wisps, NSU's etc etc) illegally on old railway lines and fields as a 13 year old with my buddies and hardly been without a bike since.

First legal road bike was a FS1E, progresssed onto an RD250E before buying my first big bike at 18... a Honda CB750K6. Stuck with various Honda's for decades after the SOHC.... owning a CBX, CB900FD, CBR1000F, a number of CBR600's including a CBR600RR when they first came out in 2003.

I moved away from Honda's in 2006 into a few different manufacturers, subsequently owning a Yamaha FZ1 Fazer, 2 x Kawasaki Z1000SX's / 1 x Ninja 1000SX and as of June 2026, Suzuki GSX-S1000GX+

I've been retired just over 5 years and my plan was to tweak, restore and generally fettle old bikes thru the winter and ride them on sunny Sundays alongside my main bike which the wife and I travel around Europe on for 2-3 weeks every summer.

I love the 24hr endurance races and been lucky enought to do Le Mans 24 (Car & Bike) a few times, The Bol at Magny-Cours and also Spa 24 back in the day when the privately funded Phase One team were going up against the manufacturer backed SERT, Kawsaki and Yamaha teams.

We do less races now as camping and hard floors no longer sit well with my aches and pains but as mentioned, we get into Europe most years enjoying the alpine mountain passes, the castle routes of Germany and the generally pristine road surfaces in Spain & France. We've just returned from the sweltering Dordogne and have got permission from upper management to start planning a 2 week trip thru Germany in 2027.

To a degree, the post retirement plan has worked and I've nut & bolted 3 bikes so far. A 1974 Suzuki GT380, a 1981 Honda CX500 and currently left in the garage a 1976 Suzuki GT500A that is going up for sale later today.

Having yesterday purchased a 1977 Honda CB550K, I thought I better join this forum so I can mingle, learn and no doubt swap some sh!t.

Thanks for having me.

Pete

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[Johnwebley]

Welcome

Some tidy bikes there

We love anything with a motor,

Have fun

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[Nurse Julie]

Welcome to the forum Pete. There are quite a few members whose home City is Hull, although some of them live further away now.

[Otis]

Lovely bikes Badger and a warm welcome from West Sussex.

Is the third picture a 250 because it looks amazingly similar to a bike I rode (not mine) in the 70's. Two stroke and a right handful if I remember; it was either screaming or juddering and difficult to ride slowly.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Welcome to the sohc community Badger. 👍

[Orcade-Ian]

Hi Pete,
Welcome to the forum - lots of great info and help on here - many 550 owners too who will no doubt chime in at some point.  As Julie says, quite a few from 'Ull, me included but now living in Orkney for the last 20 years.  Still enjoying tinkering with a few Hondas and cars and still looking down on the grass!

Ian

[Bryanj]

Welcome, if that is the 550K3 you have bought unfortunately you picked the most unloved and ill supplied model of 550 to go for, you will find the 500 manual with all the 550 supplements in Ash's dropbox

[badger_eng]

Thank you all for the welcome and the comments. You can take the lad out of Ull, Blah Blah Blah 

Nurse Julie - West Hull of course 

Otis - No, its a GT500, most people that see it think its a GT250 but the large diameter downpipes are the biggest obvious cue when in partial disguise like mine is. Took a few goes at getting the carburation right after I'd built it but now its sweet thru the rev range. Sad to put it up for sale but needs must.

Ian - You live in a beautiful part of the country now. I ventured onto Skye with my mate on his Triumph 1200 in July for the first time ever and loved it. We've been doing a yearly Scotland trip since we retired but this was the first time we've made it onto an island. Cal-Mac has cut short our other attempts!

Bryanj - Its a 1977 550K American import (UK registered now) according to the seller. I'll find out for sure on Wednesday when it arrives. I love a Pandora's box.

[Athame57]

Hello Pete
Welcome here, at 63 you are not especially old around here, so don't worry. Lovely bikes, I like the GT380 best, I had one that got me into lot of trouble in the 1980s. 

[Rozabikes Tim]

Welcome. Lovely bikes all of them but the 500T takes it for me.

2 of 3 are custom. Is the 550 going that way?

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[Orcade-Ian]

Pete, I was born at the Town end of Beverley Road but lived in East Hull - someone had to!  Did go to High School in the Wild West though. If you and your mate end 'Up North' again, give Orkney a go - lots of toy cupboards to visit here with all manner of goodies - ask Steve, our illustrious leader.

Ian

[SteveD CB500K0]

Absolutely agree.
Ian and Johnny looked after us brilliantly (directed by their better halves of course!)

They even arranged a whisky tasting at 10:30 in the morning to fit our itinerary


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[badger_eng]

Thanks all. Much appreciated.

Athame57 - Glad to be among some similar old timers. Can’t beat grumpy old men for a good laugh. The GT380 paint job was very very special. Unfortunately the guy who did it no longer does painting for others. He was a great paint sprayer (It was his self taught hobby) and an even better guy.

Tim - The GT500 is on eBay as of now if you’d like to contribute towards the Honda CB550 resto fund 
I’m not 100% decided on what route to take with the 550, without doubt it’ll get full strip and rebuild (powdercoat, paint, vapour blast, zinc and full engine strip etc). That’s the bare minimum with all my projects. Keeps me busy during the winter months.
Will I strip back and cafe it?? Not sure. Want to see the bike first and assess but for sure it won’t be returned to factory standard. What’s most prominent in my mind at the moment is to paint it CBX red with maybe a black engine with polished covers / casings.

Ian - Ha, spent many an hour down Bev Road at Temple Street in the bike scrap yard trying to keep the track bikes alive on pocket money and paper round pay!
Thanks for the Orkney info, it’s my mates turn to plan next years trip as we alternate but fingers crossed he’ll get an extended pass out so we can take in Orkney.

[Laverda Dave]

Welcome to the forum Pete.
Some lovely, lovely machinery there and I bow to your engineering skills. I do love a scratch built bike that has been retro modded as you have done.
As for the spannering in winter, riding in summer idea, great in theory but as I've found out, it seldom works in practice! Trouble is with me I start a restoration and don't want to stop it otherwise the big fear of leaving it over the summer is come next winter and the interest has gone!
As for Phase One endurance, I used to follow the team (and Team Bike before Phase One). I used to ride to Spa and Le Mans with a group of mates to watch world endurance but like you, my back can no longer take camping (and my ears can no longer suffer the noise of V8 engines stuck into shopping trolleys with HUGE megaphone exhausts that plagued the campsites!). You may have read the article published in Bike Magazine last year where Karl Ride (and his team manager) were persuaded to ride an old RC30 in an endurance round at (I think) Spa. He'd never been there, never rode in an endurance race and yet he rode around the outside of experienced endurance racers on far more modern machinery.
Great to hear you have seen the sohc light 👍

[Johnny4428]

Hi Badger and welcome to the forum. I am the other Orkney member on here. I currently have 2.5 550’s. Late 74 K1, 77 K3 (both restored) and another skip 550 that hopefully someday might be something that resembles a viable build! 😜 Lovely collection of bikes there. Very nice!👍