As much as you like that bike have you considered getting another just like it? Might be fun to start looking for a low mileage one that you can make the improvements you like on that one. If it’s not in the budget you could call it “assembled spare parts” . That’s how the government does it here if they want another and it’s not in the budget. You could keep it on another continent, saving shipping costs.
That has to be a good idea John, no matter which way you look at it. It has crossed my mind both times that this happened.
Once in Australia and once in Italy.
But here’s the thing…
If I did that, the donor bike would eventually sit in the workshop with enough pieces gone from it such that it was no longer a bike, but just a reminder of what it used to be. I would feel the same as if I’d cafe’d my Mk 2 Le Mans, although I never really got to like that one.
But in any case it would have been a “wasted” bike in my view.
Also.
When the bevelbox let go a couple of years back, I could easily have bought another one on e bay, but I didn’t want a REPLACEMENT one, I wanted MINE…
Thanks to Roper and Michael, that’s how it turned out…
I now look at it and like it more BECAUSE it blew up, not in spite of it…
Finally.
I think the late, great JFK put it best when he said.
“We choose to do these and the other things, not because they are easy…
But because they are hard…”
Sending your bike to Europe every year is not hard, but IS damned expensive and that is why I work 10 months, to spend it in two.
When I’m half way between Brisbane and Alice Springs at 3 in the morning in the truck as the very first glow of the Summer dawn begins to hint at it’s arrival and I feel like no one else on Earth is awake, I’m reminded of why I’m not at home in bed…
Moments like this
Warm Sun and freezing dawn air is a strange combination, but an intoxicating one…
May it always be the same.
When I walk into the depot in London, I don’t want to see a red Norge, I want to see MY Red Norge.
Any other way is too… “easy”.
