My biking history is as follows. I confess I started out as a Honda man in the early '80's going through the fours, a 400, a 550 and a 900F2. I briefly flirted with the dark side with 6 months on a VFR750 but found it far too safe and predictable, not a bike you could respect so I flogged it and bought a Suzuki 750ET and was hooked. This was quickly part-exchanged for an 1100ESD from Straightline Racing which I loved to bits. Sadly, having done some serious tweaking and a nice respray I ended up in temporary accommodation without a secure lock-up and eventually my pride and joy was stolen.
I spent a few years away from biking before my old friend Andy told me he was selling his pop-up. He had bought the bike in the early '90's from BAT as a Japanese grey import and run it for years. After he and the wife were knocked off it (fortunately without serious injury) he replaced the fairing with that from an 1100 and as he worked in a design studio, specified a unique black/orange tiger stripe paint job the remnants of which you can see on the attached photo. He ran it for years in this distinctive colour scheme. Some day I'll twist his arm to dig out the studio pics he took after it was completed by Dream Machine and post them for posterity.
As the bike got rather long in the tooth Andy decided to replace it, was insulted by the part exchange deal offered and petulantly parked it up at the old man's house. I could not resist it and bought it with the intention of an immediate restoration. I serviced the bike, ran if for a couple of months but decided it did need a lot of work and restoring it to pearly white/gold was going to take some money and time.
I did all the hard work sourcing an original sub-frame and servo from a breaker (and ending up with a spare engine, braking system, stand etc - all bar the frame and bodywork). I then got a lovely stainless exhaust made by a dutch chap in Wales (not sure if he is still around but well worth looking up). Fortunately because this was way back in 2002 I was also able to buy all the original missing fairing bits from Suzuki Japan for about £350 and 3 months delivery.
Anyway, time and wives passed and I never got around to it. The usual excuse was time and garage space but this was compounded when I got sucked into buying another mate's cast off, a TLS. Great bike, bags of fun but not ideal for a 6'4" middle aged bloke with a dodgy back. Fatally, I commuted Nottingham-Leicester through winter back in 2007 and despite my best efforts the TL took a hammering. Since then riding has been intermittent with the TL on and off the road, again in need of a bit of TLC.
So today, no excuses any more. I have just moved to a new place with a double garage (no lighting or electricity but where there is a will...) The TL is up for sale and I'm just debating whether to stay bikeless and throw my bike fund at restoring the S3 quickly or if I weaken, buying a cheap Bandit 1200 for fun/commuting and doing the S3 slowly and carefully myself rather than subbing it out to the so called experts. I'm not especially mechanically competent but am comfy with pre-fuel injection and in-line fours so how hard can it be
.Anyway, if any of you guys fancy an original TL1000s '97 Italian grey import I'd be happy to let it go at a very modest price to bolster the Kat fund....If there are any takers I'll post some proper details. I also have a lot of spares for the S3 so once it is back to it's former glory and the garage is unpacked I'll share my spares for posterity.
Thanks for reading and hopefully for a bit of motivation and inspiration.
Rob
