Theway we were…

Send us your nostalgic snaps of you back in the day with your steed! Either send to me at bsimmonds@mortons.co.uk or via our vibrant facebook page. C’mon!

Dave Rich says: “I’m from Guernsey and I just thought I’d send a couple of my old bike pictures. I started on a Suzuki GP100 in 1980 at 16 (in Guernsey you could ride up to a 100cc from 14 to 16, then at 16 jump on a Z1300 if you wanted), followed by a GSX250 and CB750F2 before moving on to my favourite. I remember reading MCN in late 1983 and they announced the VF1000FE: I ordered one in red/ white/blue. By August 20 the next year (that date is stamped in my memory after pestering them every week with ‘Is it here yet?’), due to shipping strikes it finally arrived! The telephone call from dealer went: ‘Hi Dave, good news, bike is here, but its black and silver!’. It didn’t matter, I loved it. I loved the torque of the bike, although it developed a problem where it would jump out of second gear under hard acceleration, which apparently was a common fault. I took the bike in and was given a ‘courtesy bike’ which I was hoping was something like a CB900... but it was a Honda C50!

At the time I worked for Natwest and the bike park was outside the local police station. I got a call one evening from my mum whilst at the pub. The Police wanted to speak to me about a bike I had ‘stolen’! Apparently, in the dark I had got on the wrong C50, but with a top-box, who knew one key fitted all?

Following a visit in 1985 to the bike show, show I saw the Rothmans VF1000RG. I wanted to look like my hero Freddie Spencer, so a d eal was done. Riding away from the bike shop I instantly regretted it. It looked gorgeous, but the VF1000FE was a far nicer bike to ride. I met Freddie at one of your Stafford shows later, and what a great guy. So, the pictures are my VF1000FE and my X7, in front of my brother’s Allegro! The second one is me on my Rothmans RG alongside my cousin on his GPZ100RX! Of course, we needed 1000cc with a 35mph speed limit over there!”