Bikes: HappyHappyFunBike is dead; Long live HappyHappyFunBike.

The Interceptor now darkens my driveway, a glowering maroon reminder of the big plans I have for it; plans that will, unfortunately, occasionally leave it sidelined for repairs or modifications. The problem is that I'm one of those masochistic types who likes to ride year-round, and would therefore be annoyed beyond my ability to cope by having my wheels laid up in a shop through the winter months. What to do?

Well, Alston was getting the itch to ride a bike, much to his folks' chagrin, and my little Ninjette would make the perfect introductory set of wheels for a new rider; a complicated bit of chicanery involving a Colt CCO and crumpled wads of Ben Franklins ensued. He wound up with HappyHappyFunBike, and I was on the market for a good general purpose bike to keep me in wheels while the VF1000F was undergoing various surgeries.

A quick perusal of the EastTNriders.com want ads turned up a 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 550. It was fairly high mileage, but the original owner had put almost all of them on it, and it had been meticulously maintained. He'd fitted it with a Yosh pipe, slightly wider bars, and had treated it to a top-end rebuild not 3,000 miles ago. For someone whose first ride, lo those many years ago, had been an '81 GPz550, the lure was irresistable (which was exactly the effect Kawasaki intended with this retro bike.) I 86'ed my stainless 1991A1 project gun to shake loose the few extra C-notes I'd need, and picked up the phone.

So, anyway, Scuderia Tamara now includes a new HappyHappyFunBike; it's light, small, has a reasonably potent, rorty-sounding motor, and feels nimble in the turns, plus it's kitted out like the trackbikes of my youth. Bonus.
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Note that HappyHappyFunBike sports much larger and more capable front binders than Lardassio in the background, despite being some 150ish pounds lighter.