Why I Ride With Family Pride

Just picked up a little 1974 Kawasaki KS125 enduro for my 12 year old son today. We traded a couple pocket bikes for the old Kawi and it is fitting that we started to restore the bike for my son on the one year anniversary date that I began the rebuild on my '77 Kz 650 Custom. He's a great kid and I look forward to spending time teaching him about the old bikes-pre crotch rocket days.

Back in the spring I wrote a story for the humor newspaper I own in Canada . I thought that it might give some pause for thought on a late October night to other kzrider members who have memories of their bikes and past friends. Sorry about the length, but I am not sure if there are word count limits.

I hope I don't bore anyone with the details, but this story is my little way of thanking the members of kzrider who unknowingly kept me motivated and informed as I spent last winter working on my bike. Cheers-Colin


Zen And The Art Of Motorcyle Restoration

I am turning 44 this summer. I am actually looking forward to it. Not because of any major lifelong goal this represents, but because I am somewhat dyslexic. In other words, I sometimes get my numbers inverted.
The way I see it, 44 is a pretty tough number to screw up if someone asks me my age, so I am laughing till next year when I turn 54...uh...45. Being mildly dyslexic however ruled out a career for me as a an accountant unless I worked as a number cruncher for Enron where the numbers alledgedly did not quite add up anyway. .

I guess turning 44 means that I have officially hit middle age. Like any red-blooded forty-something, male specimen who still thinks he is in his prime. (...like the song says...I Aint As Good As I Once Was, But Im As Good Once As I Ever Was!). I am now the middle-aged owner of a classic motorcycle which I spent the winter bringing back to life and what a ride it was for me!

The bike pitifully sat rotting away, outside my garage for over a decade but raising a family and building a business got in the way of my restoration plans. As John Lennon once said Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

Now it does not bother me that my 13 year old daughters friend called my new toy a mid-life crisis. I think it is a term she may have heard around her house since her Dad recently purchased a beautiful muscle car from California on Ebay. Of course, I will also ignore the fact that her Dad is a few years younger than me.

Back to the bike, my new reason to find excuses to run unnessecary errands like checking the price of gas across town. It was bought new by my brother Kevin back in 1977. The day he brought it home I was almost 16 years old and fell in love for the first time. I lusted after the new bike even more than his girlfriend who had perfected the art of flirting with a testosterone filled younger brother to a science..

Kevins motorcycle was a Kawasaki KZ650 Custom, a bike that was state-of-the-art for the era and would outrun even bigger bikes made at the time. The sound and smell of the exhaust was intoxicating and the silver paint job was a perfect accent to the polished aluminum engine. I needed to own the bike, he could keep the girl!

Kevin used to tease me with short rides that only made me desire his bike even more. Eventually he moved out to Calgary and took the love of my life with him. But after years of hounding him, he finally sold the bike to me in the early eighties. It needed a little TLC but we shared many miles of carefree enjoyment back in the days before I knew the difference between an open or fixed rate mortgage.

Eventually I sold the bike, much to the dismay and shock of my brother and boy, was he angry with me! Sadly, Kevin passed away in the late eighties. After his passing I promised myself that I would track down and rebuild the old bike which served as a bond between two brothers. I found the bike and it sat outside my garage for 12 years while I struggled to build a business while raising a young family.

When I finally wheeled the bike into my garage last October to start the long overdue rebuild, I could not have imagined the journey that lay ahead of me, one filled with lots of head scratching, knuckle busting and of course plenty of good memories. My 3 kids would join me to do their homework, help hold something and generally make fun of their old man and his reborn passion.

Each night I would retreat to my garage to make a little progress on my project. The process was almost zenlike, therapeutic and calming and I now understand how some guys end up spending years restoring old collectible cars that fetch almost unbleievable prices in the range of a home in a middle-class section of our city. From tearing apart and rebuilding the motor and hand polishing everything polishable, I replaced or rebuilt every nut and bolt my old steed. For me, carb issues having nothing to do with a diet, it means I need some adjusting to my carbeurators.

I have overpaid for rare parts on Ebay, hounded the order desks of countless local businesses and generally did my best to kickstart the local economy. I had the luxury of picking the brains of local sportbike fanatics Bob Rawk and his sidekick Kelly, two guys that have forgotten more about old K bikes than I will ever know.

My old bike is finally on the road after nearly 1000 hours of TLC, and it looks like as if it just came out of the factory in 1977. I could have bought a brand new bike for what I spent on my old ride but that was not the point of my efforts.
On my first ride I pulled up beside a guy driving a big expensive Harley. He looked at my ressurected bike and said, “Hey man, wow, nice job. I would trade my ride for yours anytime, but my injured back will not let me ride anything that sporty anymore!

As funny as it might sound, this comment almost made my effort worthwhile. I felt a wave of satisfaction shoot up my healthy back as I gently revved the motor. If I was in my early twenties I would have launched hard and fast with the engine screaming toward redline, but instead I rolled away at a nice leisurely pace. I even had an old high school friends of of my brother drop by and help me with the coil rewiring project from the Kzrider web site (he is a Kzr member-thanks toolman!)

I guess this little project changed me more than I thought. Anyhow I am now a little older and wiser now than when I owned the bike the first time around and anyway, the speed limit in town is only 05...uh 50 kmh, depending on whether or not you you get your numbers mixed up.

Cheers Colin Firth

1977 KZ650 Custom. Brought back from the dead after 13 years of neglect. Totally rebuilt from frame up. Wiseco 700 kit. Ported, polished heads. Triple angle valve job. Properly re-jetted rebuilt carbs, Filters, MAC Pipe, Barnett Clutch, Body mods, Bead blasted rims, 14 tooth sprocket front, Superbike Bars, Painted 2005 Chrysler Magnum Red with silver and gold stripes. Only 13,000 miles on bike. Runs and looks like new and does it ever jump off the line! Currently being re-restored.

Colin Firth-Ontario-Canada

Post edited by: reborn650, at: 2006/04/11 10:26

Thanks Colin...enjoyed it.

Thanks Colin. It makes me wish that I had a brother to share things with. I can sympathize with the "mid-life crisis" thing, obtaining my first bike at age 25, oops, make that 52!
JohnB)

=

I'll give it another shot trying to post pics. Haven't had any luck yet. Colin

Golf claps, brother. great article.

very good article....i`d like to check out those pics when u get them up....

Great story. Sounds very much like my own situation. My bike sat for just over 10 years. I got her going again, and she rides nicely, but she could use a total tear down and rebuild. Maybe some day. Mind you I still have some time until my "Midlife crisis" being 04 myself, I mean 40.

I'll keep my eyes open for those pictures. You could always email them to a fellow Ontraian (Me) or toolman may be able to help with it.

Awesome story! I greatly enjoyed it! I'm in a somewhat reversed situation. My '83 KZ650 is having the Mid-Life crisis and bought me. Now it plans on restoring me over the winter!

you guys got me worried now ,ive been tearing apart and building bikes for 15 years now...and im only 34...what am i gonna do for my midlife crsis...any ideas?...i hope i dont start liking cars....eeewww

Most excellent, Colin.

I really appreciated your article. It's amazing the bond and memories that form around a machine. I'm sure Kevin is watching with an approving eye.

- Nate >>

Here's a picture of Colin's 650:
.

Post edited by: rstnick, at: 2005/11/15 22:10