Project FZR

While recovering from the shock of the ‘you need a new engine’ news, navigating the appropriate government department processes required to get an interstate, unregistered bike re-registered and generally panicking about the whole thing, a wonderful beast appeared on the horizon – that wonderful thing called a ‘parts bike’. It was a 1992 I believe, … Read more

So I was now in a possession of an unregistered, unroadworthy, battered FZR600 that had not seen active duty for quite a few years. I say ‘unroadworthy’ because even to my untrained eyes I could spot: A rear tyre that was squared off to hell and with just barely 6mm of tread left at the … Read more

The mind can do funny things to a person sometimes. Looking back at childhood or any other time in the past can lead us to remember only the good things, until we build up the memory to be far more wondrous than the reality of it all. In a similar way, the three weeks it … Read more

I’d never heard of Tenterfield NSW until the Gumtree ad popped up in June. I had to Google it. But hey, Australia is a big place, with a lot of towns outside of the capital cities. Tenterfield is one of them, nestled inland, and south of the NSW/Queensland border. The bike was close enough. Not … Read more

Having decided on the exact make, model and colour scheme I was after – a black 1989 Yamaha FZR600 – all that was left was to find one, but this proved somewhat harder than first hoped. To explain why, I’ll need to talk a little about the model history both worldwide and in Australia, as … Read more