1127s go to France

Mr Suzuki probably didn’t envisage their oil boiler GSXRs still being ridden around 30 years after production, we’ve got two here, a near stock N model with some period upgrades, Ohlins, Akropovic… and a bitsa, M frame, ZX7 front end, JMC swinger, Nitron, Akro, etc, and then there’s this…….. Where do I start? GSXR frame, …

Spa 24

With world endurance going back to Spa for a 24 hour race, the first since 2003 we book the ferry and head to the Ardennes for the weekend. WIth the Zeebrugge boat now gone we are on the Rotterdam crossing, giving us a slightly longer journey. We make good time to the circuit, both of …

Where’s Jim – who cares?

Northern Ireland, North West 200, its good to be going back. The coast road from Larne up to Bushmills doesn’t disappoint, stunning scenery as we wind up the coast to the cottage. Thursday is another practice day with 3 races in the evening. Watch some practice down at Ballysally roundabout before moving on to Metropol, …

Riding the Twins

Twin cylinders, rather than sisters! By way of a change we decide to take our winter hacks to the 24 hour race at Le Mans, mine a GS500, Penso’s a GPZ500, costing £600 each they are different to our usual mode of transport in price and number of cylinders. We arrive at Portsmouth no slower …

In the shadow of Hartside

The weather forecast was good so I took a punt and booked an air b n b just outside Alston. I thread a route up there via Ripon, Masham, Leyburn stopping for a butty at the Manor cafe, over the moors to Reeth then along B6270 to Kirkby Stephen before heading up Hartside pass, surely …

Where’s Bernard?

I was beginning to think we wouldn’t get to see one of these things this year, the scheduled North West trip fell due to the madness, but we kept ferry crossings and plumped to book them in September. Luckily we chose the last hot spell of the year and headed over for a few miles …

Shed1R

This project started out as yet another ebay purchase, this time just a bare Z1R frame that had been braced by kipkawa. Its been braced around the headstock, swing arm and near the back of the tank, it came with some really nice lock stops, welded onto the frame but these had to go by …

Suzuki weekend, Cadwell

An early start over to Cadwell on one of the hottest days of the year for the Suzuki weekend, some nice bikes on and off the track.

Le Mans 2019

This report could be classed as being somewhat late, given the race was in April last year, I did write an article at the time but it got lost in amongst stuff when I got back, being distracted by Lilah dog issues. The run up to race weekend had not been good weather wise, bags …

Project GSXR

I had been looking for an 1100 for while, ideally a K model, these had a poor reputation, but for me, the best looking and the handling issues identified in the early 90s could be overcome with some modifications.  I looked at a few but as is common for 20 odd year old bikes, the …