I love to ride. It's what I live for. I sure do hate crashing though, no matter which one it is. I saw someone wearing a t-shirt one time a while ago that said, "If it's got wheels or tits, it's gonna cause you trouble." One of the funniest (and truest things I ever saw).

The current stable:

In various states of repair and condition, I've currently got six bikes. More would be nice, but at least the collection does manage to expand from time to time. The bikes:

2000 Honda XR650
Bought in November 2001, I got this one from a salvage auction. It had a banged up front end, but turned out to be an easy fix so I was rapt when I scored it for a bargain price. This bike is mainly for road use around Perth, but will probably do the occasional enduro. The XR replaces the KLX and will be used for road riding and touring. The XR has been sitting in the shed getting dusty all year, but I'll have it sorted out sometime soon.

1997 Yamaha DT200R
One of my all time favourites. I love the DT200s and this is my fifth one in nine years. With a Pro Circuit performance exhaust pipe and muffler, this bike gets up and goes rather well. This one got stolen and trashed in mid 2000, and I haven't gotten around to restoring it back to this condition yet.

1996 Kawasaki KLX650
Great when it works, but has been extremely unreliable. When the automatic decompressor went back in July 2001 it cost me $1500 to fix. Then, a week later the stator stuffed up. Got that fixed, rode the bike to Kalgoorlie for a weekend and the damn thing seized 20km away from Kal. Pissed off! I'm sooooooooooo much looking forward to getting the XR650 running and on the road so that the KLX can get sold. The KLX650 is a quick bike though, I've done seven runs on the Kwinana Motorplex drag strip and got 14.2 seconds on the quarter mile on my first time there. A bit of practice would get it under 14 seconds, and possibly under 13 if I really got it right. The KLX is in pieces, currently awaiting another full engine rebuild.

1991 KTM540 e/xc
VERY fast bike! Drags EVERYTHING off in a straight line, including Yamaha YZF426s, Husky 610s, KTM520s, and anything else around. No exageration, this thing will catch and overtake any of these bikes. Damn shame the suspension is so stuffed, as soon as this thing comes across a corner or a bump it's just too hard to handle. This bike is the most evil handling thing on two wheels that I've ever ridden, but oh, the power!!!!! Watching trees come flying towards me at a pace faster than my brain can handle is quite an experience. Someday I'll ride this bike in the Finke Desert Race. Now that I've got the Husky, the KTM540 will probably only get used a few times a year until someday I get it restored back to brand new condition and make it into a Super Motard road bike.

1990 KTM250 e/xc
Been in bits since about mid 1994. It died near the end of an enduro, so I stripped the engine down to see what the problem was. Bugger, broken powervalve, that model had heaps of powervale problems. I didn't have the cash at the time to fix it, so it never got rebuilt. Some day I'll have the whole bike restored to brand new condition and just keep it that way. The 1990 KTM250 was the start of KTMs revolution into a major dirt bike manufacturer, so this bike will be a popular classic.

In the future (bikes I'll buy one day):

One of the recently released Honda CR500s that has ADR Compliance (ie street registration). Riding a 500cc two stroke motocross bike around town appeals to me. Shitloads.

A late model KTM300 enduro bike. Maybe a 200 or 250. Maybe even something like a Suzuki RMX250. The Husky WR360 is a blast, and I do love big two strokes, but it's way too demanding for tight enduros and I just don't have the fitness or physical strength to handle it on rough stuff.

Yamaha TDR250 - Wasn't officially released here by Yamaha Australia, but there is a handful of personal imports. I almost bought one in mid 2000, but then my DT200R got stolen so I didn't buy the TDR that I found. What the heck is a TDR250? It was sold in Japan and other countries, and is a road bike with an off road style layout and chassis. It's got TZR250 running gear, such as twin cylinder 250cc two stroke engine, brakes, etc. The one I considered buying was damn fast! I've put some photos of a TDR250 - Photo 1 Photo 2


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