Lady Owner, Only Driven On Weekends

NOT!

Yesterday, one of the guys in my office comes up to my desk and starts looking at the photos pinned up on my wall. There are photos of me at the drags on the 400, at the track on the 400 and the R1, stills of the bikes, action shots, burnouts, portraits... my tribute wall to myself.

He points to a photo of my 400 (Paris) parked up at Causeway Honda and asks if its a 400, '92 model and if I bought it from Causeway Honda. I reply "yes" to all of his questions...

It turns out that he was the second owner of the bike! Derek had owned the bike up until about 25,000km at which he traded it in on another Honda. It was then sold for $5,500 to someone else at which it was then bought by me for $4,990 with 48,000km on the clock.

He brought in a photo today of the old girl, with ugly yellow rim strips and gold bar ends. I asked him if anything was wrong with the RH bar end and he confirmed that a bashed-in broomstick handle kept it all in place. That's mah girl! He also confirmed that the belly pan had been busted from day one and only the side bolts held it on. I later told him that I araldited the whole belly pan together and he wondered why he never thought of doing that.

Paris is now a whisker shy of 72,000km on the clock and I hope she can do another 30,000 without a single plume of smoke. Most reports indicate that the 399cc engines will do 120,000km's easy.

Withing the next year, I hope to be able to get her back to her original glory and finally get the fairings fixed (or better yet, remoulded), repainted, and strip her down to her bones and give her a complete wash and electrical overhaul. Robin has already foolishly volunteered to tackle that one. On the bling list will be to get some nice levers (ASV), a new pipe (Yoshimura), polish the rims up, redo the heel guards... who knows what else! Maybe even fork out for some race fairings and take her up and race Formula Two. I might even have a chance at winning something.