Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Goodbye SR, and good luck.

Five years ago I bought a motorcycle which was to become very close to my heart. Here is the first photo of me on it:



My 1978 Yamaha SR500.

The SR has given me so much joy over the years. It is so passion-arousing. It is as though a smith, the son of a god, took a lump of metal and shaped from that meaningless compound a speed machine.

But yesterday a close friend deposited money in my account, and today he came and took my SR away.













Strangely, I was quite unemotional as I watched the bike disappear. I guess it is time. For a good while I have been feeling the urge to go for something more ploddingly vintage and preferably English. Watch this space for something much less reliable, much less easy to live with, but absolutely bathed in romanticism.


In the meantime, it has been a wonderful relationship, oh my SR.





2 comments:

  1. Hey - I could be mistaken, but I think that it was me who took that top photo. Up the top of Donna Buang? From memory, I rode the SR up the hill and 'resented it' for going so slow. What have I done?

    For what it's worth, your nancy bike's days of being pampered and molleycoddled are over. From here on in, it's going to be trashed and abused as it deserves. You know, if I listen carefully, I can hear it crying out in my shed. It wants to know how it let you down. Why did you abandon it?

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