Returning from Italy fully expecting to find the motorcycle trade in buoyant upswing mode after the advice I offered in last month's epistle, I was a bit surprised to find that it wasn't. For reasons I can't quite fathom, the Big Four failed to take up my suggestion that they should abandon the hugely expensive and ultimately disappointing process of trying to wrench tinier and tinier increments of extra power with each new model year and instead merely disguise the same old ironware with polyester clown-suits. Well it made sense to me anyway, even if I was outside half a bottle of grappa at the time.Instead I smelt the usual hang-dog air of a beaten army as I trudged the mean streets of our glittering metropolis blah-blah-blah, 'Hang on a minute', you're thinking, 'top-notch motorcycle journos don't trudge the streets, they ride around on mighty two-wheeled behemoths putting the fear of Blunkett into the local citizenry and supping scarce fossil fuel like there's no tomorrow.' (Which there possibly isn't).
Well quite apart from the contentious business of notched-tops, (one of which my out-going assistante, the improbably buxom Mavis, was wearing when I last saw her arm-in-arm with a swarthy baggage handler at Pisa airport) I was trudging through the wretched veneer of used syringes and soggy contraceptives that coats the extremely mean thoroughfares of King's Cross in order to get to my mighty two wheeled behemoth. Well actually as indulgent and long-suffering readers will know, in order to deter vandals and nosy rozzers this mighty behemoth is cunningly disguised as a ratty old Suzuki AN125 scooter - is there such a thing as a rat-scoot ? - which was being fettled whilst I swanned around Umbria by top London spannermeisters, Messrs. MotoServe.
And having prised off the Suzuki's recalcitrant bodywork, they discovered that the handlebars were cracked to the point of splitting in twain, doubtless the consequence of the aforementioned vandals wrenching the steering lock asunder. Hence the involuntary quivering in the steerage dept., and although under other circumstances I do like a nice bit of quivering, not when I'm elbow to door handle on the Euston Road. So there was nowt for it but to replace the bust 'bars and therein lies the heart attack: £41.54 plus the VAT is what Suzuki charge for two bits of monkey metal with one weld and not even a frosting of chrome... £41.54 !!!!!!
Now I've railed against spares prices before and I know it must get very tedious for those of you who can't make a living out of new bikes sales to have to read it again. But you've all heard the tales which are not apocryphal of parts managers totting up the horrendous cost of building an Rl from new spares (approx. three million quid) whilst Billy Boy Breaker can put one together for tuppence ha'penny. But lookit, I can get a pair of sexy alloy Renthals for a piffling £28, though I'll spare you any further rancour because I know you've got livings to make. However so have lots of other people, and indeed I came across one of the most ingenious examples of motorbicycle commerce within minutes of handing over a cheque for the extortionate handlebars.
And eight grand isn't much to pay for something that closely resembles the bike that, against all odds, the 'too old' Dick Mann won Daytona on in 1970. A helluva lot less than most Harleys, in fact.
Mind you, these are not new bikes in the every single nut'n'bolt sense, but Tony has acquired eight low mileage K2 roadbikes the engines of which he carefully checks and replaces anything suspect or unduly worn, adding performance cam, pistons, exhaust system etc. along the way .Everything else he's sourced from new / old stock or had made specially and this is one dead sexy machine. Some of it, like the unobtainable Keihin flat-slide carbs and the cut-down magnesium magneto covers, are obviously not on the menu, but for the sort of Sunday rider and track-day dabbler the bike is aimed at, such omissions aren't exactly deal-breakers.
So come 2004 Maitland Racing's creative use of spare parts and custom manufacturing may well confound the doubting Thomases (and indeed, Marks), and maybe that'll inspire others to follow suit. Hell Harley-D themselves already offer the Sportster 883R, essentially a faux XR750, so why don't enterprising Yamaha dealers replicate the gorgeous XS650 dirt-trackers in streetable form, or Kawasaki exploit nostalgic masochism and start reproducing the essential ingredients for re-manufacturing H1 triples.
If the trend took off, maybe Suzuki'll start offering cut-price parts for that hugely underrated junior behemoth, which simply every sad old journo will want to own, the ANI25... And not a moment too soon if the state of my exhaust system is anything to go by.