PIP HIGHAM
He’s back and talking stress levels?
What do they say are the most stressful events in the life of an average bloke? Hmm, been there, done that. Moving house? Well now, there’s a thing, moving house, although troublesome, costly, exasperating and frustrating (there are solicitors, estate agents and many men and women equipped with over and under clipboards and self-loading lasers involved), the process of buying and selling wasn’t a bother to me, it’s the stuff that’s the problem.
You see, I’ve got a shed, with shelves and boxes, many boxes, a LOT of boxes! And there’s more – there are a few bikes to consider. Let’s not get too picky about numbers here, suffice to say there are more than I need, but less than I’d like. Most of them are little ’uns! Definition of little ’uns: well, less than 250cc (and more to the point, less than 150 kilos!). And whilst the prospect of shuffling the pack amongst friends and family is (inevitably) going to be a bit of a chore, it can be done. But it’s the other stuff that woke me, sweating and shaking at four in the morning.
The boxes are numerous, but very manageable. Those, I can deal with, but the herd of assorted drills, odd brackets, (oh, I wondered where that little mudguard brace had gone), a clutch of piston rings plus the inevitable nuts, bolts, spring washers, etc... And a collection of electrical guff that’s been steadily growing like a well irrigated, but somewhat pernicious type of ivy for several months now, despite my best efforts to refine and reduce. There’s a light switch off a Honda 400/4 (lovely thing that, looked for one for ages!), a spare GSX1100 ignition amplifier and half-a-dozen reg/recs of various ancestry. Those bits, and other similarly defined ‘components’, are straightforward and easy to compartmentalise, but the dismembered Bandit wiring harness and the collection of handlebar switches (none actually complete, or if I’m brutally honest, even identifiable), seem to have morphed into a sizeable rat’s nest made out of copper, PVC and various kinds of tape, sticky and otherwise. This, my friends, is the dilemma: stuff. Some of it bought and paid for, some found, some gifted, but all of it falls into that general category: ‘Hmm, best not chuck this, I’ll be needing it next week’ (possibly fortnight, month, year, decade!).
As I survey the shelves and boxes it’s a bit like taking a stroll down a familiar well-worn path. The GSX gearbox cluster, complete with a set of selector forks and rods, is a throwback to when I ran my GSX Funny Bike. It made 325 horsepower, or close to 400 with a tap of nitrous; it was quite peppy, but it did have a healthy appetite for gearboxes, well, second gear in particular, and by the time it had turned that particular set of beautifully machined and heat-treated pieces of gear cut splendour into banjaxed mush, the likelihood was that the resultant shrapnel would invariably trash most, if not all, of the rest of the collection of once lovely cogs. Our familiarity with this propensity to obliterate the ’box was so keenly honed that we could, and did, strip the entire motor and change the gear-set in between rounds on several occasions, speed costs: how fast do you want to go?
And there are other, long neglected boxes. One with a mix of ST50 bits left over from my landing ornament; other Katana Bits NCR (Not Currently Required) Kosman brackets; spacers (some titanium) and templates: Veglia Borletti 62mm speedos and blanking plates (come on, who doesn’t need a 62mm Veglia Borletti blanking plate?).
Over the years I’ve acquired quite an eclectomuddle of stuff covering bikes born mainly in the first 25 years of my existence.
Why? Because that’s the era that I relate to. I much prefer a GS to a Bandit and I’d rather have a CB77 than a CBR600F, hence the collection of bits in my kennel relating to that period.
So, what to do? I fire up the PC, start taking pictures and get listing. Since making that decision a couple of weeks ago I’ve sent leathers to Australia, solenoids to India and a hard-to-wrap SDR200 stock exhaust to America. My Hermes account is buzzing and some of my feedback comments are, hmm, interesting. I’ve used enough tape to truss up Madagascar and I can wrap up a UBF24 Dell while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. Now the boxes are getting lighter and I can see my bench. So far I’ve not missed anything that’s been passed on to greener pastures, but just wait, the first time I need that switch/carb/piston that’s not in its place there’ll be big trouble in sunny Salford!