Of all the bikes I have owned, BBII (Black Betty II) was my favourite for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, it was the most mechanically complete and sound, having only 63000kms on the clock when I bought it and having been scrupulously looked after by the previous owner (this photo taken in his driveway at Springwood in the Blue Mountains on the day I picked it up) as well as being by far the most attractive, in my opinion. My other three 750’s have all been red and, while the “in” joke on OzVFR is that the red ones go the fastest, most of the Gen4’s WERE red and it is a bit commonplace as a colour for me.
Having now been the victim of two standing-still fallovers, Red is now looking a little scruffy, especially since my last attempt at repair after the Heathcote incident was a rattle can job. Not only does the colour not match but the clear coat wasn’t very successful and it is clear (!!!) that an amateur repair has been done. So it was with great joy that a speedway acquaintance of mine offered to do a complete respray of the bike for me for a very reasonable price.
Now this guy has a very responsible job as well as being heavily involved in the preparation of his own sedan car so it wasn’t really a surprise to me that the off-season passed by quickly without any progress on the respray actually taking place. This afternoon is the first meeting of the season for the speedway so I hope to catch up with Justin and firm up some arrangements.
And, in connection with that, since it IS going to be a complete respray, I am thinking seriously of asking him to paint it gloss black as BBII was. I know it’s harder to keep clean and attracts the dust more easily, but it IS rare on a 4th Gen (though my good friend, Russell Downie had an identical one – see below) and I happen to think that it looks pretty good, so hopefully I’ll have a new shiny-shiny paintjob soon.
The traditional end-of-season MotoGp test took place on Tuesday and Wednesday at Valencia and Yamaha’s star new recruit, Maverick Vinales, topped the times on both days. Now, if he can just ignore the crap that he will be getting from the other side of the garage, he will, undoubtedly, become the new pinup boy of MotoGp.