Hello

[Thrang]

Hi I'm Tony and I am an idiot!

I've been broke most of my life, because any spare cash I ever had got spent on two wheels and engines. This inability to walk away from a pretty set of crank cases and shiny chrome mudguard started at a young age when my dad sat me on his Shooting Star and took me round the block sat on the tank in front of him! Well that was it I was hooked, when my friends had posters of a provocatively posed Farrah Fawcett (or the like) on their walls I had pictures of Rocket 3's, The TT and of course the statutory Peter Fonda and Denis Hopper riding over the Mississippi poster from Easyrider.  Like most who went to school in the 70's at 16 I got a Fizzie and then passed my test at 17 on a Suzuki T250.

Even though I worked in Liverpool I had a job (at a brewery)  and everything was going swimmingly until I was 24 when the axe finally fell on Whitbread Liverpool and I was made redundant. As part of my deal was an offer to go University (or a Polytechnic for me) since I was sick of the Merseyside I went to the North East and met my first true love.... A BMW R65LS, which I got as a stopgap with some cash when I part exchanged the one year old GSX-R 750 I could not afford to run on a student grant. Along with the BMW I also met another money pit at Poly when I taught her CBT course through the Poly Bike Club and I'm still married to her!

After collecting a couple of degrees and a post grad teach cert I returned to the employed population, and the soon to be wife decided we needed to buy a house, so much for the nice shiny R1100rs I had in mind.... With mortgage and all the rest of the embuggerance that grown up life brings the R65 kept plodding on until finally we saw light at the end of the tunnel and I got my first 8 valve boxer (I'm now on number 3) which meant the R65 (who the wife calls my mistress) vanished into the shed for 5 years and reappeared looking better than she did when she rolled off the Munich production line.

Although I've ridden BMW's for most of my adult life deep down was still that 3 year old hanging on to the bars of my dads bike saying to himself.... When I grow up I'm having one of these! Well fifty years on from that experience the 3 year old bought himself a 1956 BSA Shooting Star, which is now sat between the R65 and my wife's 'Hardly Ableto' in the shed.

I've not had her long but she runs rather sweetly once I've got her started, which after having a BMW electric boot has been a learning curve. Even the wife who's always said no more bikes has not objected to much although I did get home the other day to find two tins of paint and a large brush sat in the middle of my work bench, so it looks like I'm going to be paying in kind for my new friend.

So that's me, an idiot who's never really grown up, who's lucky enough to live in the Lake District, with a cat, wife and a couple of mechanical bits on the side.  I've got a you tube channel if anyone want to have a look which is me mostly moaning about everything on the bike(s) and riding across the USA.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCFvIwEteqguF2bxr332xnA

I've attached a photos of my Shooting Star.

[a10 gf]

You just won the "Best Intro Post" award (does not exist, but if, you'd won)  :O)

Thanks for the story, welcome aboard. Bike looks excellent.

[bsa-bill]

Hi Thrang - I think you'll fit in here just fine, although Farrah Fawcett ? maybe Dianna Dors would be more familiar here, and two Degrees - most of us will be asking you stuff.
Anyhow Welcome and enjoy

[Topdad]

Good morning Thrang, very nice intro ,hope the shooter lives up to you expectations ,I'm sure she will , my first solo was a shooter which was beauty back in 1966  , til some b'tard " borrowed" it . As Bill said enjoy !!

[Klaus]

Hi Thrang,
An intro with  grinfaktor
You are in best companie, but you are not the only never grow up idiot

cheers Klaus

[RichardL]

Tony,

Welcome to the fourm. I got some laughs from the intro, particularly the part about the paint. I can identify. I also checked out the YouTube channel (thus, I know your first name). I'm envious of the Route 66 trip by bike.  I've done Chicago to LA (and vice-versa) by car, just not tracking the original two-lane highway. Right now, I think you must be more familiar with exactly where that goes than I am.

Regarding the videos, there are a lot there, maybe more than one is likely to view in one sitting. It's more like a serial. I checked out the videos of Illinois, where I live now, and California, where I was born and lived 2/3 of my life in the San Fernando Valley. I'm not sure when you made the trip, but if it was before June, 2014, you went right under my office window as you rode down Adams St. leaving Chicago. Then, about 10 miles south of my home when you rode down I55 (I presume). Finally, to the beaches I frequented along US 1, when I lived not far away from the coast.

Now that you will have a serious BSA affliction, we will be looking forward to your pictures, videos and stories collected while on tour with your Shooting Star.

Richard L.

[muskrat]

G'day Thrang, welcome to your second childhood. Great intro mate. You may think yourself an idiot but your no fool getting an SS. I'm sure you'll have many miles of smiles on her. And she looks a treat.
My avatar started life as a 57 A7SS but she's grown up now to a A10CR (cafe racer).
Cheers

[Greybeard]

 

[Thrang]

G'day Thrang, welcome to your second childhood.

Second childhood Muskrat? I never really left the first. I might have got older, fatter and a hell of a lot greyer but mentally I'm still a ten year old who likes playing with his toys... Admittedly my toys are more expensive, motorcycles and tools for tinkering with motorcycles but the principle is the same.

 

[Klaus]

G'day Thrang, welcome to your second childhood.

Second childhood Muskrat? I never really left the first. I might have got older, fatter and a hell of a lot greyer but mentally I'm still a ten year old who likes playing with his toys... Admittedly my toys are more expensive, motorcycles and tools for tinkering with motorcycles but the principle is the same.

That's all right,

but remember you are much closer to your furnural

[Butch (cb)]

I envy your greyness, unless it is palour (sp?) of which you speak.

[Topdad]

I agree, think I got to 16 and stopped!!