My first experience of riding a powered bike (notice I don't say motorbike!) was when I was 17 and my friend told me he was selling his Yamaha FS1E. I said I was interested and asked if I could have a go first, to which he agreed. Well; I got on this bike, fired it up and pulled in the clutch; tap it into gear, a little throttle and drop the clutch. Weyhey! wheel in the air, hit brake, thump! wheel down, more throttle, lurch and I'm off, thundering up the short road thinking to myself, 'how the heck can anyone control this kind of power'! £275 was handed over and the beautiful purple bike was mine.

It was the summer of 76 and I had the time of my life on that bike. At the time, I lived in Southampton and I would ride with my friend Paul, who had an FSIE-DX, to Christchurch through the New Forest. We even took tents and camped on Hengisbury head in a thunderstorm. We got so wet we had to use the hand drier in the ladies loos to dry out our clothes!

That hot summer turned to a freezing cold winter and I was at uni near Windsor, Berkshire. For a while I would return to Southampton at weekends and ride back to Windsor on the Sunday evening. It was a long journey on that FS1E, up the old A30 past Basingstoke. The one journey that sticks in my mind took place on a very cold November evening.

I had been on the road for about an hour and a half and I was freezing. I was wearing a thick jumper and jean jacket with nylon waterproofs over the top. On my legs I wore jeans and the bottoms of the nylon waterproofs, no high tech gear in those days. I'd reached Blackbush airport and thought 'I've got to pull in and walk around to warm up a bit'. Sidestand down and lift leg over bike - mmmm - my leg's not doing as it's told. Can't feel my knee caps. Feet move, knees don't. Ah well, best carry on.

On reaching my lodging in Old Windsor, same problem. Just as well I didn't have a top box so I was able to shuffle off the back of the bike, but then of course I couldn't stand up! So, with helmet still on and in the crouched position I waddled to the front door and fell forward hitting my helmet against the door alerting my landlady as to my presence! Much to her amusement I crawled to the fire in the lounge and spent the most agonising half hour thawing out my kneecaps. And that was about the end of my biking 'till 15 years ago when I became one of those born again bikers.

I've never been able to keep myself from fiddling with my bikes. There's always a bit that looks better polished, or a trick part that just has to be bolted on. The ZX6R didn't escape this tampering and had a Quill anodised titanium can, Dynojet kit and K&N filter fitted together with a purple screen. That bike really flew!

The Bandit got even more attention. Polishing anything aluminium became my latest obsession! If you want to know how it's done so you can have a go yourself take a look here.

I decided to buy the Bandit to slow myself down a bit! and because it would make a more comfortable touring bike 2 up. It was by no means the perfect bike in standard form, so out came the credit card and accessories catalogue!

The first aspect to come under the spanner was the suspension. The forks came out and I took them up to Maxton for a rebuild to make them more compliant and reduce dive under heavy braking. For the rear I purchased an Ohlins shock and spring with every possible form of adjustment on it. Just a note so you realise how sad I am; that Ohlins shock is such a work of art and looks so nice I kept it in my lounge for 3 days before fitting it just so I could look at it and show it off!..................... It's a bloke thing!

With shock and forks fitted I raised the rear of the bike 1" from standard and dropped the yokes down the forks by 10mm. To help keep the forks in check I got a fork brace. The combination of these mods and a few hours riding and twiddling completely transformed the bikes handling. It felt lighter, steered quicker and with less effort but the real difference was felt when 2 up and fully loaded with top box, panniers and tank bag. The ability to dial in more preload to maintain the rear ride height and steering angle meant that I could still enjoy all the twisty mountain roads in France and Spain, even over bumpy surfaces. The addition of a steering damper was completely unnecessary, it just looked good! Brakes were then beefed up using Hell braided hoses. Further mods added were the purple bug screen, crash bars, camshaft oilway links again from Hell, a scottoiler, a Remus Genesis can and of course my accessories power outlets and jump leads with Magelan GPS unit. It now has the Garmin Quest GPS on a RAM mounting system. Check it out here.

Finally, this year I added a set of Givi panniers and top box so my other half has somewhere to put the iron, hair drier, make up, matching set of clothes and shoes for each day of the week ............................;-)

It's a girl thing!