My first bike don't laugh,was a Puch Maxi I purchased for £50 in 1972 didn't have it long because 2 of my mates brought Garelli's which were fast but always breaking down so I decided to go the Yamaha route and purchased a FS1E which I kept for about a year and it never missed a beat , great little bike. I traded that in a brought a Suzuki T20 super six, sort of out of the frying pan into the fire, it was like a rocket ship compared to the Yam. Even though it was a 1966 model it had no trouble seeing off the newer Yamaha YDS7 and 250GT's. I kept it for about 2 years and then sold it to go towards the down payment on our first house
With interest rates of something like 15% we decided we couldn't afford 2 cars so kept the wife's mini and sold my 3.0 litre Capri GXL enter another T20 which I got cheap as the forks were bent and got my dad who could mend anything to straighten them, days went by as he played with them between 2 bits of wood in the vice, but he did a great job. After that I had a Suzuki GT185, a Kawasaki Kh250, and a Honda CX500 a much under rated bike if there was one imo, no wonder all the dispatch riders used them.
I had a break from bikes for about 10 year then when my eldest son was 16 he wanted a bike so he brought a Kawasaki AR50 which rekindled the fire so treated myself to a RG500
Don't know how long I kept it but eventually traded it for a Honda NC30, was slower but boy did it handle compared to the RG which could be scary in the wet.
Got rid of that after a while and got a free Yamaha 350YPVS from a mates brother but no wonder he gave it to me, god knows how many people had abused it but it was a lot, hated it but probably if I rode a nice one now it would be different.
Next was a Yamaha RD500 which I got from a dealer and to cut a long story short ran out of fuel one day and I put it on reserve only for nothing to happen, luckily I wasn't far from a petrol station so pushed it there and filled up. On returning home I found that the fuel pipes had been put on the wrong way round if I remember so no reserve, anyway changed them round and all was good , so I thought. This I where the big man upstairs steps in to really make your day ,when changing them over I must have dislodged a small piece of fuel pipe which on my next ride out found it's way into the carb leaning the mixture on that cylinder and then holling the piston, great.
In the background you'll see a Kawasaki ZX6R which I brought when the RD500 selfdistructed,I did rebuild the RD but it took time. Then in 2001 I brought a Aprillia RSV and had that for 12 years great bike but in my later years I came to realise that it was faster than my reactions so in the end I got rid of it and said to myself no more bikes.
A year went by with no thoughts of bikes and this is where you realise what a strange thing the brain is, I must admit that I thought anybody who rode a classic bike was mad and there I was in the early hours of morning on the Kettle Clinic forum thinking I'll have to get me one of those.
This is where the next saga begins and I purchased a GT750L off Freddy, the bike to be fair wasn't bad under all the crude and apart from the Conrod being rusted solid to the crank which made removing the barrels a nightmare has turned out to be all original. The crank has been rebuilt and the cylinder rebored and it is nearing completion
And finally just to show I have gone completely mad I went and brought a GT550 at the weekend off eBay, but nothing's cheap now and I think old bikes are better than money in the bank.
At this point I would like to thank all the people who spend their time and energy posting on this great forum so that people like me can restore a pile of junk into a thing of beauty again. Lew
). I've scared myself a few times with the acceleration of my 750A getting up to 80 then finding a bend I thought was larger radius that it actually was 
