My First Vintage Duc 450ss in Bangkok

[Lao2stroker]

A few years back, I was going thru boxes of old photos that were from reg film and found these....Back in about 92 or 93...I met these guys thru a musician friend that was married to a woman named Mama Blues, quite the star in Thailand back then. A true Blues singer, she was huge, and belted it out...Anyway, her husband, seen with me and the 450, had a few bikes and agreed to sell it to me for the princely sum of of what I remember to be about $1200US, about 50,000THB...Could you imagine today??!?! SO we'd all meet up on the weekends at Victory Monument and pose and race and pose some more, a Thai pastime..ALways some stunners there, too...These guys knew how to build em up pretty and right....My 450, as were a few others, were all right hand shift, as they came down via Burma....The other 2 are wide case Mach 1 and Mach 3, 250 and 350....I sold him back the bike later, same money, about a year after...BUt what an awesome townie for ragin' around BKK on the streets late at night.....And back then, they were all rockin' 2 strokes.....Today, the only bikes I own that AREN'T 2 strokes are my Ducatis, a 1964 Diana 250 and a 1992 944SS....Twins n 2 strokes.....




Me and Chart






Anyone recognize the bodywork on the shelf above?

 

[KTMphil]

Beautiful bikes Eric!!!

 

[Loop]

Lovely old machines.

This one,an `81 model TT2 600 Pantah, was my pride and joy,built it from the ground up..

 

[Lao2stroker]

O O OO OO O O your Pantah is suuuu-weet!!! I love that megaphone!!!!

Battle of the Twins!!! Great pic

 

[Loop]

O O OO OO O O your Pantah is suuuu-weet!!! I love that megaphone!!!!

Battle of the Twins!!! Great pic

It was a great twins racer,we called it BEARS...British,European,American Racing Series.

Held it`s own against TZ 250 and 350`s of the day too.

Pic chasing the first 888 superbike to land in Oz in a BEARS race late 80`s..

 

[Loop]

View attachment 7460

Anyone recognize the bodywork on the shelf above?

Bultaco Sherpa?

 

[Lao2stroker]

NIce guess, you're in the correct style of bike......It was a Vintage trials bike......It is Spanish........

 

[Loop]

Ok,got to be a Montessa Cota then?

They were mainly red from those days.

 

[Lao2stroker]

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!! Just painted, ready to fit....1973 Cota 250

 

[Loop]

Lovely old trials machine the 247.

I was in a huge shed in rural NSW OZ last year and amongst hidden trucks and machinery the guy had 3 Montessa Cota trials bikes in there.
One of them had a sheared woodruff key that jammed the flywheel on so it wouldn`t run. His property had some nice trials sections to play on!

 

[crowster69]

lovely bikes fellas.lao2stroker i have one of those supersports myself ,if you ever want to sell those wheels please let me know.And lou what a great bike that tt2 is.cheers greg

 

[The Bigfella]

Damn.... I knew the Cota answer too... Honest.

I had a Mk 3 350 that I built up out of a basketcase (and enough for another in spares). Had it in my last year at uni and for a while after. I did sort of dwarf it though.

 

[bigntall]

Dang I was way of with my guess of a Bultaco Alpina.

Who remembers the joy of that damn Amal carb?

 

[Loop]

Dang I was way of with my guess of a Bultaco Alpina.

Who remembers the joy of that damn Amal carb?

My next door neighbour had an early 70`s model Bultaco Lobito that was always a problem. We had a joke that he bought pistons in a 6 pack it went through that many of them 55

I can remember watching him coming down a hill once and the whole front end,bottom of forks and wheel,falling off and the upper forks digging into the dirt and putting him over the handle bars!! It had stripped the bolts at the bottom of the forks that held it all together.
The 175cc Lobido was a supposedly trail/enduro bike of the era. It was very heavy didn`t handle/ride that good and was slow and unreliable as well as leaking oil and fuel from the Amal carb.

 

[The Bigfella]

I saw a guy on his mate's Triumph chopper lose the bottom legs off the forks. At the Alpine Rally, back in 1979... Brindabella Range near Canberra, remote area, camped by a river... and this guy borrows his mate's chopper and does a wheelie. He didn't strip the bolts... they were missing. Wheel and fork legs came off, spewing oil everywhere.

What goes up, must come down.

The forks dug in and the guy bit the handlebars. Not many front or frontish teeth survived. Bent the forks a long way back.

I passed the owner on the way out of the Rally. They'd reversed the forks, so the bend went forward. He was making about 10mph...

 

[bill]

I saw a guy on his mate's Triumph chopper lose the bottom legs off the forks. At the Alpine Rally, back in 1979... Brindabella Range near Canberra, remote area, camped by a river... and this guy borrows his mate's chopper and does a wheelie. He didn't strip the bolts... they were missing. Wheel and fork legs came off, spewing oil everywhere.

What goes up, must come down.

The forks dug in and the guy bit the handlebars. Not many front or frontish teeth survived. Bent the forks a long way back.

I passed the owner on the way out of the Rally. They'd reversed the forks, so the bend went forward. He was making about 10mph...

Sorry for off topic from OP's post but that was a great Rally, went in 85 and 86. Some tents went up in flames in 86....