a mate of mine who had passed his test a year earlier upgraded from a gsxr750 to this. well i say this. !! this is how it looked within half an hour and 10 miles after he wheeled it out the dealers. silly boy!!
after that he got in the shit with money and had it repossesed so ii managed to buy it from the finance company and reframed it and got it all back together over 6 months or so.
No pics, but when I was 17 on my RD250 and racing a mate back to his house, into a tight left hander, looked in the mirror to see where my mate was, and bang I was in the back of a milk float out the side over the pavement and through an old ladies rose bushes and on to her lawn. Milk and glass everywhere and my Griffin Clubman helmet had been instantly converted into an open face model. Learned a couple of valuable lessons, Look where you are going and never wear an open face helmet.
I'd forgotten all about Griffin Helmets. All the rage in olden times. I wish I'd had a camera the day I took my mate to Teign Valley Motorcycles to pick up his brand spanking RD250 (pre LC days here), in classic White, Red and Black Yamaha. He fancied trying it out proper on the way home so wazzed across Shaldon bridge and up the hill towards Torquay on a road that resembles the Stelvio pass for the first couple of miles, including the drops. Anyway, the inevitable happened near the top and it low sided him, luckily for him on the landward side and threw him into the trees at the lee of a blind 90 degree bend. The bike slid to a halt on it's crash bars and foot pegs so was probably cosmetically compromised only. I over shot hard on the brakes, which was a daft thing to do anyway, but made it safely around the bend frantically looking for a spot to turn around, paying very close attention to the artic coming the opposite way. By the time I got back to the scene the lorry driver was parked up and out of his cab looking at the brand spanking RD250 which had come to rest half on, half off of a high kerb, in a perfect position for all 9 of the lorry's near side wheels to run a neat fold of about 30 degrees or so fairly squarely down its centre line.
This was a brand new courtesy bike from the dealer with 200 miles on it (my Blade was back in to sort out the S--T Datatool alarm) I was filtering past a que of cars, when a car decided to U-turn without looking in his mirrors I broke my right femur and fractured my pelvis
Good effort Gary!! Looks like you got off lightly... This thread is brilliant, yet on another we are all questioning why our insurance premiums are so high? Ha ha
To be honest it was the most comfortable crash I've ever had, got away with barely a bruise. Just slid about 15 yards up the wet road. The worst bit was crouching down waiting for the pummelling from the golf ball sized hailstones to stop.
This is a clip of what we hit filmed at a nearby town. It was actually worse than this makes it look. The hailstones were travelling horizontally as the twister went over. We made it to the hard shoulder from the fast lane but two of the three of us lost the front trying to stop. My mates R1 got of lightly and he could still ride it. My bike hit an upright of the armco. It was only 4 months old at the time. This was 10 mins after we all got fined €530 for speeding. We were just 30kms from get back to my mates place afer a week on tour.
ABV, like Ken said. First time you posted that photo, my blood ran cold and no much better this time. This thread should be called The Chamber of Horrors. Ken, My RD was also a pre LC, the one with the coffin tank in met blue. loved it. tazzing around with L plates blowing in the wind with not a care in the world. The good old days. Long hair, White griffin, black visor with MAG "Helmets Yes, Compulsion No" sticker on, Lewis leather jacket, big biker boots and white socks over the top. Never worried that the use by date on your condoms would expire before you used them, Party sevens. Do you remember you could hot wire the RD's with silver foil in the fuse section behind the side panel, how else did you think I could afford new forks, headlight and clocks etc after the milkfloat modification.. Ahhh them’s were the days.
Saturday night disco's and a bunk up in the playing field afterwards. No need for Rohypnol, just a couple of cans of Breaker smuggled in
In a way its sad to see all of these pictures on here, but it does show even when we mess up we do it well
