andz

Our borders are sealed and will stay so for the foreseeable future so I don't think your colleague will be here anytime soon. You're in a better position than me, I'd never heard of Die Antwoord! Not really into hip hop 😝

The price I paid for my AGV Corsa R helmet 2 years ago is 6 times the price I paid for that 400N brand new. Of course our currency went into the toilet years ago so the exchange rate is really crappy.

T reg in South Africa wasn't the same as in the UK, it means it was registered in Transvaal province. There has never been anything here indicating year of registration. Before they switched to that system (which has been changed twice since then) the registrations had 2 or 3 letters followed by a number up to 6 digits, the letters indicated the city of registration. Some provinces here still use that system today.

That bag is REALLY old and I still have it 😮

Same here, it was in front of around 30 people!

That 400N was a great handler in its day, there was a new residential area in our town where they built all the roads but no houses for about 5 years so we created a "circuit" and we used to fly around there on Saturdays and Sundays. Mostly kids on 50s and 125s but nothing bigger than a 500. I later had Pirelli Phantom tyres on it (not in these pictures) which were great for grip and the pegs were worn down to about an inch long from being scraped in corners. As you see in the picture I had a Bell Star helmet and Bates gloves (on top of the green bag on the ground), Dainese leather jacket and the obligatory jeans and trainers. One Sunday morning I threw it into a right hander, the peg folded, the mount caught the ground which lifted the rear wheel slightly and down I went. I slid to a stop on my right buttock and right hand, jeans through to skin in a flash (resulting in a rash the size of a side plate) but the gloves saved my right palm, the leather was worn down to almost see through but not a mark on my hand.

So I did some more digging today, sorry for the bad quality but they are scans of prints around 40 years old. Here's my AC50 during a short spell with clubman handlebars, they were terrible! My 1980 CB400N when it was new and still stock Another couple of shots during the aforementioned trip to Durban. I forgot to mention in my first post that I had also replaced the rear shocks with S&W as well as the Moriwaki parts. As you can see ATGATT wasn't so important back then... nice shiny black chromed headers though! Finally found a picture of my CBX550F. It had the same sort of forward/backward adjustable handlebars as the first CB-X 6 cylinder, clamped onto the top of the fork tubes. It was also my first bike with single shock rear suspension, Honda Pro-Link.

This is the only picture I could find of my Suzuki AC50, circa 1979. I still haven't found a picture of my CBX550F 🙈 It's a bad scan of a bad print, taken at Kyalami racetrack north of Johannesburg. The girl in the picture has been my wife for almost 36 years.

I found a picture of my own CB400N, this was us having a rest on the way from Johannesburg to Durban back in 1981. Note the black chrome Moriwaki 2-1 pipe and the Fiamm air horns, even back then I liked a good sound when I hit the hooter button. The distance is around 550km and in those days it wasn't the freeway it is now so it took most of the day to get there. This is the bike loaded up for a 2 week holiday, believe it or not we rode it 2 up like this! I still have that open face helmet tied on the back but I don't wear it anymore.

er, I am more interested in the car, what is that?

I was born in Dumfries and my mother's side of the family still lives in Annan. My parents met during the construction of Chapelcross. Unfortunately I haven't been in the area since 1982 and I never had a chance to ride around the area on a bike but I am sure that the landscape lends itself to great rides, weather permitting!

Where's your screen? How is it to ride like that?

I have 2 helmets, an X-Lite X-802 Carlos Checa replica and an AGV Corsa R. The AGV wind noise is terrible, I can't blame the screen on the Tracer as it was just as noisy when I rode my Fazer. To be honest the X-Lite isn't much better, my old Shoei that I bought in 2004 was way quieter but I don't have it anymore. The X-Lite has a nice dark tint visor and the AGV has an iridium silver visor.

My 2017 Tracer came with the book you refer to, in fact today is a good day to post as it is exactly 3 years to the day since the dealer called to me to tell me that the bike had arrived and they uncrated it in my presence 😁

I just sold my Fazer and when I reviewed the replacement price of the extras I had sold the bike for nothing. So no, you don't recover extras.