thoroughly disheartened after the 'i need a japper 600 sportbike' interlude i spent the weekend scouring the 'tinterweb thing for a replacement, i soon became bored looking at the thousand's and thousand's of bikes listed and drifted off into the usual bailey territory of mz's, yamaha szr 660 supersingles, xbr 500 honda's, unfinished sporty projects, bmw boxer twins, italian exotica, gsxr 750's, [80's only thank you, non of that water-cooled bollock's here] vespa px 200's, t5,s and small-frames, norton's, aermacchi's and ducati pantah's and laverda montjuic's, me and vince, [my dear, departed, one-off- hard- as- nail's mate, i just realised, i never admitted to liking two-strokes to vinny, well, you wouldn't after hancock bought a kawasaki 750 h2 and blew vinny's old bonneville into the weed's, hancock had never managed to beat vince until he purchased the almost seven year old kwacker and proceeded to take the piss, wheelie's, looking back and waving ta-ta, slowing down then gunning it past vinny on the wheezing old brit, a laughing hancock soon became aware of his mistake when we arrived at the 'olde english drinking establishment', [or 'the mount as we knew it, 'the mount pleasant'] thing's were far from pleasant as vince threw his old piss-pot helmet across the car-park and ran, [well, when i say 'ran' i mean proceeding across the car park as fast as possible, holding up his wrangler's with one hand, unzipping his ancient 'lewis' with the other, coughing, flicking out a roll-up and lighting it, couple of cough's, a gob and beard bristling, five-foot-fuck-all of total menace, i've seen this bloke take on a whole pub, he never drank, he just had the burning desire to beat anything on two feet or two wheel's, the wrangler wrestling hand has suddenly gripped hancock's throat before he's even had a chance to remove the immaculate white, 'bell' mark 2 helmet, 'you, you, you.......wanker....... hancock' no-one say's a word, hancock is close to pissing himself with fear, then, vinny say's, 'can i have a go.......' laverda 650 formula, top specification, brembo goldline brakes, white power suspension, all rebuilt by 'bikebuildersteve' at
http://www.jalrestorations.com/ class build by an obviously talented bloke, makes me go all misty eyed for the old 'monty' day's, never owned one, never will at the prices they are fetching, but, well, you know, i could fall in love with this little beauty.......
The 650 Laverda-itch wears off quite quickly, once you try to properly ride 'em... the engine is quite nice, but full of flaws (broken cranks, shattered gearboxes to only name two and the nice eeproms for the FI are made of pure unobtanium nowadays...
ReplyDeleteThere's also a 750 version out there... bit more grunt, even less refined, just perfect for (old) tinkerers like us. Nobody ever said, we liked it the easy way.
yeah, checked them out, was going to look at a 750 this weekend, a local bike around fifty miles away, then i did a bit of digging regarding spares, oh dear, like you said greg, frightening, the older stuff doesn't seem too bad, [monty's, jota's, mirages etc.] but, the 650/750's seem to be hard to come by, shame really, the sum of the part's far outweigh's the purchase price of these parallel twin's, great looking bike though and deffo an alternative for the ducati twin's.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, one of the old apprentices of Sulzbacher-Laverda, now runs his own shop only approx. 15kms from my place and seems to know some shops, that still deal with the late Laverda-stuff. Generally you can basically get everything for the old models, but for a price... two camshafts (not new): 600 Euros, crank (for overhaul, depending on condition): 500 - 1000 Euros.
ReplyDeleteThat was the moment when I switched over to a Kwak Z1000 back then... I do miss the sound of my 1200 TS though...