Bike History

My first bike was a 1956 Harley Davidson KH 900

This was a side-valve 900 cc. engine, some early 'sportster' design. This is the bike on which I did my driving licence test after a few months experience around the block. (This was common practice in the early days over here. Now you have to be licenced before you can drive a bike and the licence is graded light/heavy) All of this happend somewhere short after my 18th. birthday.

After a major crash (due to a high speed weave) this bike was rebuild and sold. This was also the end of my biking carreer for a few years.

My second bike appeared during my study Industrial Design. It was a Vespa Scooter that showed up in the garage of one of my fellow students. It was for sale for dfl. 50,= (some usd. 25,-) and I did buy it ofcourse. This bike lasted one year after which the bottom tended to bend in the middle, each time I hit the brakes. Finally I was asked to donate the bike to the trash collector by a friendly police officer.

My third bike came in sight just after the Vespa was shredded. It was 'one of those unique opportunities' I tend to walk into and of which my wife always says: "How could you do that?" This time I met some guy in a bar and he offered me his brand new motorcycle with barely no miles on the meter, for a neat dfl. 350,-. This was not much to ask for I thought, as the bike showed a beautiful yellow one-cylinder 350cc Jupiter Planeta. (This was a USSR brand air-cooled replica of Yamaha but with the performance of a JAWA) This bike lasted for 2 years in which it failed me so many times that my girlfriend (almost wife then) offerd me to buy a very recent modern Japanese bike for me. (I said YES ofcourse)

So my fourth bike came up. A beautiful (they always were ..) blue Honda CX500 with Rickman upper fairings and Rickman saddle-bags. This realy was a motorcycle and it gave me a few pleasant years. Around that time we got married (The girlfriend and I) and we decided that a car would be nice. Thus I traded the bike for a Honda Civic (had to pay some surplus) and my 2nd. bikeless period was there. This was an awfull period so finally (4 cars later) I re-established the bike-ownership with the purchase of

my fifth bike. Yeah.... the first Goldwing, as mentioned before, this was the GL100 K3. A brown bike with white fairings. I did some 3 years commuting on it until it started to fail after winterstops. This was due to bad wiring and corroding contacts all over the bike (it was always outside). I traded it in for a one-year old custom Kawasaki which was my

sixth. bike. A Kawasaki 450 LTD. chopper with a lot of chrome on it and a habit of doing 9000 rpm at 120 km/h. Thus it was no surprise I got the valves burnt out twice in 3 years. So I decided that for my daily usage on highway I needed some more low rpm touring machine.

My seventh bike was a brand new Honda PC800 'Pacific Coast'. This was the first new bike I have bought and it was my start of the 'Tupperware age'. This one did last more than 3 years (I did own a garage by then) and I managed to trade it in for my 2nd Goldwing (A real 1500) for the same amount of money that I bougt it for all those years ago. Whow, what a deal....

My Eighth bike was the above Honda GL1500 A Goldwing. Metalic grey and a lot of functional gadgets. This bike gave me some trouble with the brake pad wearing, for it took me 2 sets of front pads before I learned to use the foot pedal to stop the machine. Now do I tend to drive my wings as if they were just bikes (so I am still on the 5.000 mile limit with my pads).

Number 9,  there is "Dutch Treat", my nineth bike in a row. Again I got the same money back I payed for the grey wing when I bought the Red '97. Still a lot money to add though :-)

Amd now: the yellow GL1800 :