My Motorbycle Collection


I took my first ride on my dad's Vespa in '58 in my mum's tummy and apparently I earned my birthmark when they both came off it. Good start!











Back in '78/'79 I made a few friends who rode road bikes and another group who had XT500s. There was some cross over, but generally they were two distinct groups. I had quite suddenly been infected by the bug, that burning desire to be in charge of a large machine on two wheels. I had been to the Isle Of Man TT Races in '78 and watched Mike (The Bike) Hailwood take another victory on his Duke. The whole scene intrigued me. It was a tough environment and I was going to master it.


My first bike was a Honda 400 Four. It was blue and I stored it in a friend's garage. I had ridden it once, then I lent it to someone to pick up his girlfriend from the trainstation just down the road. Hamburg, autumn, wet cobblestone road and slippery, slimey, decaying leaflitter in a roundabout. He was trying to show off. She got away with bruises, but my bike was totalled.

I've learned my lesson: Never lend your bike to anyone. Nobody rides it like you do.



The insurance paid up and I had a little windfall. Was it Christmas? Maybe. I found another 400 Four and she was metallic cherry red.

SHE... yes,









I had started to bond... I also met more and more people, down to earth people, people who were able to cope with a great deal more than most. They spat in the face of adversity. They were practical people. They got the job done. They looked tough, walked tough, talked tough and it seemed as if everybody somehow took note when they arrived. I enjoyed belonging to this subculture. ...and I label it in the nicest possible way. There was an element of truly living. "Living dangerously", my mother would say. But perhaps that's when you feel truly alive, when you take death in account. Riding a moped, as I used to call it (even though I never owned a bike under 250cc) had great benefits.

For one thing, I used to work right in the middle of the city and I always had a free parking spot right outside the front door on the foot path. Those were the days of ACDC and Space Invaders...

I learnt to ride (balance) on my blue CB400Four in some paddock in the country side, riding up and down the pothole marked tractor groove, never getting out of second gear, until I got so sick of it that I decided to turn right and just kept riding onto the main road. I remember that there was this beautiful long straight down into the valley at the side of the lake by which we were camped.

Ooooohhh, what a nice sound that bike made as I was giving it full throttle!... and of cause I wanted all my friends to know that I had escaped the confines of those tractor grooves and I remember even beeping the horn as I was getting to the bottom of the valley. Up, up and away, tearing up the straight towards the forest on the other side and there it was...: a CORNER!!!!?

It was a quick right, lined by tall timbers and there were people having picnics everywhere. There were kids, there were cars, there were trees, there was me, almost fainting from the rush of the adrenaline. People were standing, staring, whilst I came screaming up that hill. My very first corner! I had NO idea! No time, no thought, just instinct and I threw myself into the corner...just making it.

MAKING IT!!!

I stopped, shaking from fear, from the residue of the adrenaline and the sheer weight of their eyes resting on me. I would have never forgiven myself had I made these kids witness my twisted and mutilated body being lifted from a pool of my own precious blood. Humbled and elated I returned to camp at a most moderate speed. My friends had not even noticed that I'd been away...

I learned to never assume that they are watching when you are taking a risk to impress them.

About a year later I started a job closer to home in more ways than one: at Kawasaki.


Of cause I had to get a bigger bike! I bought myself a brandnew Z650C in midnight blue and I had a white, sporty seat put on it. It was beautiful! It was powerful, it was perfect.

It was stolen from my front door.

Insurance paid up and I purchased a Z1000, bought a race seat/tail and stripped it of all unnecessary parts, had the frame sprayed fire engine red and all accessories in the brightest white on the market. It was low, light and FAST and it looked like Fritz Egli's work in progress and it hummed.....mmmmmhhh! This is the only picture in existence and unfortunately this one is not a just representation of the bike. We were on our way to Korsika (Corse) and I had reluctantly taken a pillion, which meant that I re-rigged it from race tail to double seat and my side panels were removed at that stage, as the race seat was an all in one. So it looks a bit bare...

In the end I sold that bike for a song, enough to make the return ticket to Australia.

Here in Oz, I purchased an XT500. Funny that! The roads....

The last bike I had was an RD250. Quick off the mark, just the thing for life in the city.

A mortgage and a child...and 15 years later: My NINJA!!!! Dadaaaaahhhhhhh! I'm back!