Didn't know you were into bikes Baxter. I don't really know how I wound up
with all this stuff, but I've got a few. '72 BMW R50/5 cafe racer that I
built when I was young and stupid, '72 Yamaha 360 MX, '59 BSA goldstar
Catalina, '60 Goldstar clubman (actually a Western Roadster, but I converted
it), '50 Vincent Black Shadow (heavily modified in the '60s--bored to
1200cc, two front heads, lightning cam, Amal MkII carbs, other nice little
tricks), '97 Ducati 916, '62 Matchless G80CS, '68 Triumph TR6 (the
bike--650cc single carb), '62 Honda CA95 (150 Dream), Suzuki GS1100E, and an
X6 hustler converted to a flat track bike, XR 600 Honda and a handful of
XR80's, an XR100, and Yamaha TX350 (mostly for guests to use on the
motocross track behind my house), and a few other's that I've forgotten
about. Not really a collection, just an accumulation--I've owned a lot of
these bikes since they were new (no, not the Vincent or the goldies, I'm not
THAT old). I used to be a bike mechanic by trade--mostly BMW, brits and
Yamaha, but I've worked on almost everything.
BTW, there's no bike on earth that I dislike working on more than Yamaha
YDS/YR whatever. They used to drive me crazy. I never got one to go back
together the first time--always either the seals leaked, or the transmission
shimming wasn't quite right, the shift cam got buggywonkers, or some random
thing went wrong. Haven't seen any of those single cylinder BMWs for a long
time. They weren't bad bikes. I used to have an R69 but I butchered it to
put a VW engine into it and grafted on a huge homebuilt sidecar. Nasty,
nasty bike. Ugly, ugly sidecar. The technology was a la Peyote--tube frame
and not a compound curve in sight. But instead of aluminum, I made the
panels out of old metal shelving. Certainly the world's heaviest sidecar.
It's too bad we're all so scattered. Everybody on this list has pretty cool
toys. It's be great to take them all out and play together. I think we need
a real FOT event to race our cars at.
-----Original Message-----
From: baxter culver [mailto:peyote222@dellnet.com]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 1:53 PM
To: Bill Babcock; jmwagner
Cc: Friends of Triumph
Subject: Re: Matters 'Gloria'
Motorcycles? Who has what "odd-ball, never heard of them before,
goshthatsinteresting stuff lying about. Mine include:
1954 Victoria Bergmeister; 52' BMW R-25/2 (single); Yamaha YDS/2; 1967
BMW R-50/2; a 97 HD "Badboy" and a 94 1200cc XL (Sportster)". And, Bill,
when you speak of junk....well, be discriminating in the use of that term.
Y'know, "one man's junk is/was anothers' treasure. . . ."
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