Mixing and not matching
If we, as a collective, ask for advice from our fellow enthusiasts about rebuilding, creating or restoring a motorcycle, then often the advice offered is ‘don’t’ followed by a tale of frustration and heartbreak. This is even if the starting point is a complete motorcycle, so if you add in that you’re going to assemble all the odd bits you’ve had lying around for years and the advice is highly likely to be unprintable in such a magazine as this...
The thing is it’s nothing we didn’t already know, is it? We know such a project will always take longer than estimated; we know it will cost more than envisaged; we know for each step forward there will be several steps back and more false starts than a thing with lots of false starts in it. It doesn’t stop us though, does it? We leap in and ignore common sense, spending hours and hours in sheds and garages when there are pubs to go to, shopping centres to frequent and soaps on the telly.
Luckily, most people
