I own them...

Kettle Club chairman Dave Hewitson was barely in his teens when he was bitten by the GT750 bug. In 1977 a neighbour was visited by a black GT750B with a Piper three-into-one exhaust. “I can remember the howl from the bike as he shot off down the road,” remembers Dave.

Dave subsequently owned a wide range of bikes, but never a GT. While on holiday in 2003, he found a copy of Classic Bike Guide in which there was an advert for a one-owner blue GT750 for £2500. “Suddenly the desire to own a GT750 was as strong as it had been when I first saw one,” says Dave, who, upon returning home, found a cheque for £2500 as compensation for endowment mis-selling. “It was a sign,” says Dave, but the bike had been sold when he called. The owner – a member of The Kettle Club – recommended that Dave join up to see more GT750s for sale. That done, it turned out there was a GT750A in Bedfordshire only 30 miles from his home: he bought the bike.

“It was like being a child again,” he says. “With insurance in place, I rode off on a warm, sunny afternoon for a 50-mile journey. I thought I had gone to heaven.”

Dave rode to the Blue Haze rally in Hay-on-Wye in 2008 with his wife Lynda, and hasn’t missed a rally since then.

Since retiring in 2012, Dave has had more time to devote to the club. “During the last five years we have seen numbers increase to 700+ worldwide. The youngest is 19, the oldest 79. There are about 2000 roadworthy GT750s in the UK.”