The advert said it was a 1999 machine, 4400 miles on the clock and in excellent condition. The four year old machine stood outside of the vendor's house, confounded my expectations of a motorcycle that had just stepped out of the showroom as well as bearing no relationship to the description in the advert. It wasn't even a 1999 model but a 1998 one - the owner explained that it had been pre-registered and I'd be a fool to quibble over a few months discrepancy. Normally, I would've smiled politely and walked away from the deal but I'd just hiked about six miles to view the bike (I like walking, honest!)...
Encouraged, the owner went on to say that it looked a bit of a mess because he had not had a chance to clean it. I muttered to myself that it was just as well that it was a shaft-drive machine because judging by the knackered tyres the chain would've been dragging the ground. No tax disc, MOT certificate or working rear brake...
The only good thing, the owner had evidently never touched the mill which rustled into life with perfect equanimity and slicked into gear without any hassle. A quick blast around the block revealed that the speedo didn't work, the mileage another outright lie! Could not fault the motor, though, even if the 600lbs of mass felt very top heavy and somewhat queasy, down I hoped to the dead rubber.
The fairing was a bit scuffed on one side, the owner reckoning that the bike had tipped over at a standstill. No way to tell if the frame was slightly bent, too much junk to see if the wheels lined up. Couldn't find any signs of filler on the plastic or evidence of bent forks.
The price in the advert was four grand but I said it wasn't worth more than two, what with all the work and expense needed to sort it out. If it wasn't for all the lies I would possibly have paid three thousand quid for it but as it was there was too much potential hidden nastiness to offer serious money. GTR's don't have the kind of rider loyalty of BMW's and there is very little residual value in the older ones.
I gave the guy my phone number and told him to ring me if he didn't want to do the deal there and then, maybe he would get a better offer; maybe not. I added that I had a few other GTR's to view and he suddenly decided that I could have it for two and a half. Very tempting but I said I only had two grand on me and that was all I was willing to pay, walking away as I said it. I could hear him swearing under his breath and the look he gave me said that in a fairer world he'd beat the stuffing out of me and just take the money.
Well, the deal was done there and then, after a document check, of course. The next thing I know, I am roaring into London traffic on a heavyweight cruiser with marginal front discs and half the caged population trying to knock me off - the other half were asleep! The GTR makes 110 horses but it is relatively civilized stuff with plenty of midrange poke and even the ability to rumble along in the higher gears at minor revs.
What it won't do is change direction on a whim, rather like big Beemers it likes to be set up on course and progress in a stately manner. Try telling that to London cagers! Although the shaft drive was relatively subtle in its action, it would sometimes churn away in complaint if I tried to whip the engine into action in second or third, slamming the bike through almost non-existent gaps. Thus, there always seemed to be a slight delay before my actions on the throttle and bars were turned into reality.
Several near misses and enough heart murmurs to have me heading for an intensive care ward later, I ambled into my Stanmore bit of suburbia and bunged the bike into the garage, wondering if I'd done the right thing in buying the Kawasaki. Quite worrying, the next few days I found out there were plenty of GTR's that had been stuffed into the tarmac or an energy-absorbing cage, leaving plenty of parts for me to bargain over in the breakers.
Less pleasant, the amount of hassle it takes to remove the plastic - which is nothing compared with the sheer awkwardness of putting it all back on. I was determined to find out if the frame was bent, but it all looked okay to me. As well as the obvious consumables, and a strip down of the braking system, the bike needed a good clean up to take off a couple of years worth of crud, which just revealed tarnished alloy and rusted steel underneath.
Clutching a new MOT certificate, I decided a run up to Scotland would test the bike's mettle, if not my own. In theory, a few hundred miles on the GTR would be a cinch but - there's always a but, isn't there? - there was an annoying amount of buzziness at 70-75mph that reappeared around 90mph in top gear. True, the bike was happy enough to blast along at 100-110mph but the level of paranoia involved made that a less than pleasant experience. Anything under 70mph, the bike would've been swept off the road by impatient cagers.
After 120 miles my backside was twitching in complaint and I pulled off the motorway to the services. I'd basically been trolling along in top gear for a couple of hours and had the shock of my life when the gearbox lever refused to cooperate with my boot! A bit of clutch work and clumping on the lever, I finally got her to go down through the box!
After filling up, fuel worked out at a less than impressive 37mpg. I checked the coolant level as an awful lot of heat was steaming off the motor but it was okay. A fifteen minute coffee break, I was rearing to go. The gearbox a bit creaky but worked okay.
Exactly 91 miles later, the transmission started screaming in protest and there was a sudden bang and the bike was free-wheeling in the fast lane! As might be imagined, this totally confused the cagers and frightened the shit out of me! More by divine luck than anything else, I made it to the hard shoulder and switched off the fast disintegrating motor.
It's at moments like this when I wished I was a good citizen, had joined one of the rescue services. It was unlikely that I could push the massive brute to the nearest exit ramp let alone the nearly 300 miles back to base. Pondering my options, a white Transit van pulled over... a worrying moment as I figured it was the cops out for a quick shakedown but no it was a fellow biker called Fred who happily agreed to bung the bike into his van and head for the nearest bit of civilization.
I am sure he regretted his remarkable generosity, we both did our backs in lifting the GTR into the Transit. To cut a long story short, in the interests of relevance, another mate with a small lorry rescued me from up north once we found somewhere to park that had a telephone.
The GTR's engine turned out to have shed some gear teeth and done in most of its bearings, a basketcase! The thing was sold off for spares at a massive loss. I am now looking for a nearly new Beemer.
Mike Street