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IT WAS A LOVELY BIKE. “BEST OF THE NIGHT, TO BE honest. Have you come far?” I asked. When Martin turned up at the local pub bike meet on his Suzuki T500J, it was so spotless that I assumed it was one of those ‘I live just round the corner’ bikes that only come out on sunny days. “Oh, just up from Weymouth,” he replied, instantly banishing my preconceptions into dust. Weymouth is a three-hour, 100-mile round trip across country; quite the journey, even on a sunny Wednesday evening. It’s a long way to come for a pint.
The very least that should have happened to the immaculate T500 was the appearance of a drip of oil or a speck of dirt somewhere. But not this one, which looks better than it must have when it rolled out of the showroom 50 years ago. It had to be checked out, photographed, and featured – and right away.
We met up in Bridport a week later, at the town’s very groovy vintage market on the same day as the Bridport Folk Festival. This meant a lot of dodging of Morris dancers, and a lot of hanging around waiting for the passing searchers-after-vintage-bargains to get out of the way as they drooled and exulted over the beauty of the 1972 Suzuki, all the while failing to notice photographer James and his kit.
