At 16, I bought my first bike. Well not really a bike, it was a Yamaha FS1E sports moped.   This essentially got me hooked on two wheel transport.  I graduated from this to a Suzuki GT125 and then a Kawasaki KH250, which was a two-stroke triple.

After that I also had a Honda 250 Super Dream and Yamaha RD250.  But when I bought my first house, finances meant that I couldn’t run a bike and the car I neededfor work.

However, in 2000 I was ‘born again’ and bought myself a Black Suzuki Bandit 600S. After  15 years I fair scared the crap out of myself for the first few weeks.  Handling and performance has changed somewhat in those intervening years, all for the better!

It didn't take me long to decide that I really wanted something bigger and with a bit more protection when on the motorway.  I may have more comfortable forms of travel, but that doesn't stop me from commuting in the rain occasionally, especially if I know there is a hold up somewhere.

Candidates for the replacement were a Ducati ST4, Triumph Sprint ST and a  Honda VFR800. Trying to get a test ride on the Triumph turned into a bit of a  drag locally. The Ducati was great fun, but pretty painful for my old bones atfter 20 minutes of riding, so I plumped for the Honda, which was... well it was a HONDA! Comfortable, the engine was great and good protection.

So in May 2001 I acquired an Anniversary VFR 800 FIX from PR Taylors of Calne in Wiltshire.

This did me proud for a while.   But on my trip to Spain, I found that I was working much harder than the guys on sports bikes.   As soon as I moved one of their bikes, the reason was obvious - like me, the VFR was too heavy for serious sport!

So, it was time to find a new bike and the visit to the South of France with Great Escape Tours helped me.  Well sort of.  I came back with a wish list of three - Kawasaki ZX12R, Honda SP2 and Honda Fireblade. In the end I went with the Fireblade, which I picked up in September 2002.

In the meantime, the love of the KH250 got the best of me and I bought a 1974 Kawasaki S3-400 two-stroke triple.   The S range was the predeccesor to the KH range and the particular bike I purchased was imported from Italy.

In all, 2002 was a good biking experience year, two trips abroad exploring exciting fast roads and it was also topped off with two trip to the Honda Ron Haslam Race School at Donington, of which there are some pictures here.

2003 was pretty disappointing for biking.  Big plans for riding in Europe never materialised, nor did the planned track days.  Nearly all of my riding was around Wiltshire and Gloucestershire - not a bad thing - and I didn’t get to any BSB or WSB rounds by bike!  Ho Hum, hopefully 2004 2005 2006 2007 will be better!

Well, there was some interesting stuff in 2006.  My partner’s father has an old Jawa, so there was a challenge to get that going!