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October 2007
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CLUB NEWS: Well its now wet and grotty with time to get in to the shed and tinker with our bikes. After 15 seasons I have stripped the Maico Sport and will give it a re paint and go over the forks, brakes etc. I had a chap come in to work to ask about the club as he has just bought a 450 Ducati and is keen as. I also hear of a rider who wants to be nameless and just bought a very nice US Maico 490 (hope it was while the dollar was at 81c against the greenback). Mal Sarg must have enjoyed his fang on the Red Rocket as he tells me it is now in a thousand pieces being tidied up for the coming season. I have gone over to the dark side and bought a BSA Victor. Some later 85 model bikes were snapped up in America while the dollar was at its all time high. The kiwi VMX boys raised $4,700 Dollars for the Felton family to take there daughter overseas for medical treatment. Mike was one of Bazza Senn's mates who bought his RH250 to keep it in the country. Jeff Smith will be riding in Wanganui next easter at Rob's Brittish meeting and the first Vintage Enduro kicks off in Melbourne in Victoria on September 30th. Stripping down the Maico sport made me think of the fun I have had with it and VMX. I have raced it at Barabool Australia, Takaka in the South Island, at Taupo, at Raglan, at new Plymouth, at Whakatane and in Auckland. I have also raced in Wellington, Mt Pongia, Dargle Sydney, Mt Kembla , Woolagong, Broadford Victoria, and at Barrabool. I have been to 3 Classic Dirt events all very social events I must say. I have witnessed the start of a dream "VMX magazine" and met good mates Ray and Barbara. I have visited Ray Ryan and he has stayed with us and gone to 2 VMX meets with us in New Zealand. Through mate Mark "Firko" Firken I got to meet the late Geoff Eldridge from ADB magazine, the late Andy Caldecott, and many Auzie Riders who are legends and through VMX Magazine met Brad Lackey, the lovely Jimbo Pomroy and Rick Siemen Aka Super Hunky. Yes, VMX has been fun and will continue that way. Well its back to the shed to work on the Klub Kevlar Margarita Blender (photos shortly). Oh, and rumour has it that Roger DeCoster and Joel Roberts will be at the next Classic Dirt!
MIKE "O" Webmaster Ramblings Recently I imported a couple of VMX bikes from California. Partly because they are very difficult to find here and partly because the Southern California climate is much kinder to the bikes there than here. I have a friend who lives in Los Angeles whom I have known for 20 years and trust implicitly and so it seemed like a logical plan to find bikes I was interested in and get him to collect, store, crate and ship for me. Now this friend tells me that one year he rode his BMW every day that it did not rain. There were 6 days of rain for the whole year! Ebay is the general point of interest for finding bikes, however experience has taught me that Ebay prices are comparatively high and just when you find a suitable bike you see it is in Missouri or some such remote place. With the USA measuring 5000km across, it is very expensive to move a bike to a port. Some companies will charge around US$1000 just to ship it across country. Therefore, to find a bike local to Los Angeles I chose to check the local listings. Having found a nice YZ400F and a reasonable RM400C, I paid my buddy to collect them. Now you must understand that this is a big favour, so the timeline for shipping is his not mine. It took around 18 months to get them crated and dropped off to the local shipping company. A few weeks later they arrived and were in nice, corrosion-free condition as hoped for. I did rode theme at a local VMX meeting and really enjoyed them. The 1979 YZ400 was very nice to ride and whilst 400cc bikes used to seem like experts-only machines in my teenage days, by today's standards they are rather tame. Whilst it was a good experience I did learn a few valuable lessons about the rules, regulations and how the Americans do business. They have been put to use as I now have a couple more bikes ready to ship - in less than 18 months I hope! For those who are interested, here are some of those lessons I learned. This only refers to bikes that will never be registered here. If you want to register a bike after importing it you must have it registered in your name in the country of origin and it requires additional paperwork.
Importing bikes from another country can be bit of a minefield and I have found that it's really only worth all the hassle if you find something that either you could not find here, or you find something that is in great condition that you would be unlikely to find in a similar condition here. Additionally, unless you can totally trust the person who's selling it to actually send you the bike, you risk losing the money. Realistically, what can you do to recover it? Further, prices have definitely gone up in the USA so it's really debatable if it's worth it other than for the two previous reasons.
Email the Webmaster FOR SALE: Classic Scramble Club T-Shirts Design printed in colour on front of White T-shirt.
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