Project Bike Finished..Kinda

[AndrewNR]

Ah where to begin.. The start I suppose? When a man and a woman love eachother.. like my parents do, They have children. After trying once and ending up with my older brother they tried again and got me.. Needless to say after that they realized they had to stop before things got progressively worse.

Fast forward 17 years and I'd developed somewhat of an affectionate tang towards motorcycles.. I'm not entirely sure why. My father had rode when he was younger, small trail bikes. He had enjoyed himself but after a head on with a combi-van and severing half a foot he retired the boots at around 22 I think.

My uncle's had ridden, My grandad, my grandfather, You all know how the story goes. However nobody immediately around me still rode or had me around bikes. Still, I liked something about them. Come 17 and a change in Car licensing I flip reason the bird and care to the wind as I often do and decided it was time to ride. I dreamt of grandier.. New sportsbikes, custom road bikes, old school style!.. Alas my father wise as he was knew I needed something more moddest to learn on, And before I knew it (albeit some story cut as not to bore you) here I found myself;

My beautiful first bike, The 1981 SR250 Exciter!

As you can see I was budding with youthful enthusiasm riding around the abandon brick works with my brevardo in full swing for all to see clad in my came with the bike helmet, gardening gloves and hoodie.

Fast forward a short time and the bike suffered through my teenage years as I experimented with .. Well.. Later teenage influence.

Enraged by my whimsical and naive abuse of what this proud road bike was it didn't take long and it bit back taking the end of my right middle finger in the gnashing jaws of its chain.. I warn you this is graphic..

I'll spare you out of decency the bloody photos of my mangled stub.

I digress, And I'm growing ever more tired so I'll wrap this up.. I went on to sell it twice, Buy it back each time.. After awhile I realized I couldn;t really part with my first love.. Sure we have our trysts.. and a handful of crashes.. But.. It was time..

I told my father we were going to restore it together, And with some help of some close friends we did.

There's allot more that can be said.. And allot of progress pictures.. And I promise to try find the motivation to go into all of that.. But for now..

My beloved SR250 was finally put back together entirely today.. Although due to an electrical issue.. perhaps its envious my bike family has grown.. it dosn't spark and fire yet.. I have only to fix the spark plug issue.. A service.. And ahem.. perhaps there's a flame thrower going in the exhaust soon.. But here she is..

I got my father and my initials on the tank... And the year in the band was meant to be 2013.. But I got a little screwed over with the paint job.. Without further adue..

I celebrated with a Cohiba Genios and the company of some of those that had helped, My father, my best friend and another friend and unfortunately two others couldn't make it.. There was champagne had it of started.. But that's for another day now..

Be happy and be healthy all,

Andrew.

[polarbear]

Awesome

I have a couple of nice burn scars that my EH wagon decided were a fair reciprocation after years and years of burnouts and general thrashing

I love to hear wheb other people take the time and care to restore something that (at least in your eyes) can bever be reproduced

[madandana]

Cool. Same bike I rode in MC training to get my licence when I was 16. Almost bought it but ended up getting a Maxim 550.

[CaptainQuintero]

Awesome tale! I can't wait to start my own bike story in a few years time when I can find a garage to tinker in, love the pics too!

[REASON]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

[paulF]

Beautiful ride and love the history behind it!

"affectionate tang towards motorcycles.. ", i can definitely relate to that

[El Presidente]

great stuff Andrew

I really admire people who have both the skill and patience to do this. I have neither