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Having tried to ignore the itch for a few years I decided that I needed to get back on two wheels. Finding the right bike didn't take long, I didn't want a sports bike, been there and done that and my last ride was a BMW R1100RS. A fantastic bike, I put 185,000 miles on it in five years, but I decided that I fancied a Bonneville.

It took me a while to find the right one, I wanted a Green/Cream one and yesterday I picked up a very nice 2009 T100 that has done a measly 4k miles.

I haven't stopped grinning since. Yesterday it was raining but I still enjoyed it. Today it's been glorious and we've been getting to know each other. She's everything I wanted and is a delight to ride.

Tomorrow I'm off to the bike show at Stafford, I need so new boots and I might see if I can find some exhausts to give it that deeper, louder sound.

Not the best pic but I've been too busy enjoying it to take photos.

 

Now that is a bloody good question.

My previous high mileage was a combination of a job where meetings took me all over the country plus some long tours as well as the usual fun stuff.

I took early retirement a couple of years ago at 55 and I'm having a ball, loads to do so very busy. It was spring when I retired and as the autumn approached that first year I was wondering what I was going to do over the winter, having spent most of the spring and summer outside.

My first thought was a classic bike restoration project, in particular a Triumph or possibly a BSA that needed restoration. I'm lucky enough to have both a double garage and a good sized brick built workshop halfway down the garden so space wasn't an issue. I spent ages looking for a suitable bike but it seems that every basket case and box of rusting junk was over priced because the owners of said junk can't be arsed to do the work but want 75% of what they think the completed bike would be worth!!!!

I spent a lot of time pricing parts and some of the costs of restoring a 64 Triumph and worked out that even discounting my time and unforeseen expenses the finished bike would have cost nearly double what fully restored models sell for due to the greed of the current owners. You've got to want a particular bike really badly to do that, so I gave up.

The problem was that the seed of owning a bike again had been planted and I now have a modern Bonny. I've been out on her nearly every day since I got her, even if that was only a short trip, and I haven't stopped smiling. The chances are that come the summer next year I'll take off somewhere so she's certainly going to get higher than average miles. Unlike my brother in law's bike, he spends more on polish than on petrol.

I did 140 miles on Thursday, I live 15 minutes from the delightful roads and scenery of the Peak District, exploring the lanes and villages. That's one of the joys of being a gentleman of leisure, if the sun comes out you stop whatever it is you're doing and bugger off on the old velocipede somewhere.

 

Absolutely.

Just been having a mooch round fleabay, like you do, and these popped up.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-B...457372?hash=item1a1ec63adc:g:77IAAOSw5cNYE57y

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-T...id=100005&rk=4&rkt=6&mehot=pp&sd=112185457372

I'm not sure what the second one will eventually go for but when you consider that I couldn't find a basket case for under £2000 with no guarantee that all the parts were present it makes you wonder what some people are on.

The 64 I looked at was the same model as the second link and his starting price for the rusting heap of bits was £2400 and he wouldn't budge.

This will be worth nine to ten grand when it's sorted. Yeah right, not in this decade or the next!