In the
summer of 98 I decided I wanted to ride motorcycles. I got a permit,
a helmet, and headed up to Bill's parents house to periodically
ride his dad's 1980 Honda 400. Later that summer, while on vacation
in Tennessee visiting my parents, my dad's friend Brian mentioned
he had a motorcycle for sale. Turns out it was a 1991(?)
Suzuki GSX-R. I got a loan and bought the bike. I had a ticket
to fly home in three days, so my dad and I loaded the bike in
the van and drove it to PA. I didn't have a garage or anywhere
to really keep the bike, so we took it to Bill's to store in his
basement. Bill was storing three hemi motors for my dad,
so we dropped the bike off, took the hemis to my place, stayed
the night then headed back to Tennessee the following
day.
This is a picture of me either test riding the
bike from Brian's or driving it home. The bad part about it was I
"layed it down" in someone's front yard driving it home. I had a
single Budweiser at Captain D's for dinner with my parents before I
picked up the bike. The combination of the beer and the inexperience
with the bike caused me to take a turn too fast and crash in
someone's yard. The worst part was the embarassment of people
stopping to ask if I was ok. I was. The bike was a little busted up,
but I felt really stupid for wrecking my first bike on the first
night
of riding
it.
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The bike needed a new
speedometer since the needle was broken in the original. Once I got
a used
speedometer in better shape and got it to Bill's to put
on the bike, I could bring the bike home.
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Now all it needed was new
blinkers (for the ones I broke in my crash) and tires to pass
inspection. That all
went smoothly and I was riding it in
no time. Lucky for me there were two new guys at work that both had
bikes. I quickly made friends with them and started learning how
to really ride
one of these
things.
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Besides one other crash, I
learned pretty quickly. That winter I decided a make-over was in
order for the
bike. In the early fall Jeff and I aquired the
garage behind my apartment, so I had a place and most of the
tools to do the work it needed. The first step was stripping off
the body work and wheels. The frame had
previously been
polished, so there wasn't much
I
needed to do with
that.
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Here's the little dolly I made
to roll the chasis around without the wheels. I then took the wheels
to get
sand-blasted
and
powder
coated..
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I decided to prep and paint
the bodyword myself. I sanded forever. I sanded all winter long.
Finally I got
around to spraying on the primer when my
aircompressor and will to
finish
it myself
died.
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Instead I took it to a
professional painter to finish the
job. Here's the finished
product.
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I bought the sticker
kits online and applied them myself. The black powder-coated
wheels and glossy
yellow bodywork made a
nice
combination.
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Here's me in the spring
of 1999 zipping around the countryside. Unfortunately the bike
developed some
engine problems soon after. Fortunately the bike
shop had a nice big 1999 Suzuki TLR on the showroom
floor. With
the money I had left over from my stolen Honda Accord and the
money I got selling the GSX-R,
I
bought the TLR and moved on.
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