Hi all!
Don't really post here much/at all these days. Unfortunately, long gone are the days where I was a regular contributor and attendee at monthly meets/shows/etc in the imp.
I do still own the imp, however after a bit of a surge in progress a few years ago, momentum was lost when I moved house/town and the car got relocated to a new unit. Since then myself and some buddies started endurance racing in a Citroen C1 so time/money/effort got spent on that and slowly the imp started to find itself buried under surplus C1 stuff.
Recently, I enjoyed a day with the Dave Thorpe Honda Off Road Centre near Taunton, where myself and some friends spent the day blasting around the Somerset countryside on some Honda off road motorbikes. There were two groups of us- experienced bike riders/off roaders and complete newbies who had never ridden a bike before... I was in the latter group. It was a fantastic day and even though my group had never ridden bikes before, by the end of it we were flying around (and admittedly falling over) loving life.... and all of a sudden I wondered if maybe I might want a motorbike!
Rewind back a bit to when I was living in Rugby and making good progress on the imp... my housemate/colleague James started building in the same garage a Honda CG125 into a bit of a cafe racer as a present for his now fiance. Naturally I chipped in and took an interest and all of a sudden found myself interested in cafe racers/brat bikes/scramblers/trackers/etc.
So, you can see where this is going. Having pored over custom 125s all over pinterest and instagram, when I spotted a GP100 restoration project on eBay, I couldn't resist! So my first bike is a nifty little 2-stroke.
The GP100 frame looks to suit the style well and I like the shape of the tank too. From what I've read the engine is pretty good for what it is and most people seem to use a Honda CG/CB, so it will be nice to use something different.
(Excuse the moody IG shot, that was the GFs handiwork who is co-owner of the bike and will hopefully be getting on it too)
Queue the eye rolls.... another 125cc "cafe racer" build.... Well yes, but I do hope to pay some attention to detail to address a few things some people seem to over look. But there are certainly lots of people doing similar things already. I won't be breaking any moulds, that's for sure.
Plan is to make it a bit of a tracker/scrambler (as opposed to cafe racer/brat). Lots of mostly standard/go to/typical mods:
> Upswept seat loop
> Quilted/leather seat
> Remove lights and replace with smaller/neater
> Shrink mudguards
> Improve/tidy wiring
> Bars to suit desired riding position (I might be a bit big for it to be honest, so we'll see)
> Spoked wheels (not a fan of the cast alloys)
To make it a bit more scrambler I'm also going to look into a slightly longer fork swap and accompany rear shocks to maintain rake/trail, along with some nobbly-ish tyres.
An example of a GP that I saw online which really got me fired up and put me in pursuit of a GP instead the more popular/common Honda CG/CB equivalent was this one:
If I end up with anything like this, I will be delighted!
Basic steps will be:
1) Get it running
2) Strip it down and bin lights etc
3) Clean it all up, tidy frame
4) Sort suspension
5) Rebuild
...in theory.
Don't really post here much/at all these days. Unfortunately, long gone are the days where I was a regular contributor and attendee at monthly meets/shows/etc in the imp.
I do still own the imp, however after a bit of a surge in progress a few years ago, momentum was lost when I moved house/town and the car got relocated to a new unit. Since then myself and some buddies started endurance racing in a Citroen C1 so time/money/effort got spent on that and slowly the imp started to find itself buried under surplus C1 stuff.
Recently, I enjoyed a day with the Dave Thorpe Honda Off Road Centre near Taunton, where myself and some friends spent the day blasting around the Somerset countryside on some Honda off road motorbikes. There were two groups of us- experienced bike riders/off roaders and complete newbies who had never ridden a bike before... I was in the latter group. It was a fantastic day and even though my group had never ridden bikes before, by the end of it we were flying around (and admittedly falling over) loving life.... and all of a sudden I wondered if maybe I might want a motorbike!
Rewind back a bit to when I was living in Rugby and making good progress on the imp... my housemate/colleague James started building in the same garage a Honda CG125 into a bit of a cafe racer as a present for his now fiance. Naturally I chipped in and took an interest and all of a sudden found myself interested in cafe racers/brat bikes/scramblers/trackers/etc.
So, you can see where this is going. Having pored over custom 125s all over pinterest and instagram, when I spotted a GP100 restoration project on eBay, I couldn't resist! So my first bike is a nifty little 2-stroke.
The GP100 frame looks to suit the style well and I like the shape of the tank too. From what I've read the engine is pretty good for what it is and most people seem to use a Honda CG/CB, so it will be nice to use something different.
(Excuse the moody IG shot, that was the GFs handiwork who is co-owner of the bike and will hopefully be getting on it too)
Queue the eye rolls.... another 125cc "cafe racer" build.... Well yes, but I do hope to pay some attention to detail to address a few things some people seem to over look. But there are certainly lots of people doing similar things already. I won't be breaking any moulds, that's for sure.
Plan is to make it a bit of a tracker/scrambler (as opposed to cafe racer/brat). Lots of mostly standard/go to/typical mods:
> Upswept seat loop
> Quilted/leather seat
> Remove lights and replace with smaller/neater
> Shrink mudguards
> Improve/tidy wiring
> Bars to suit desired riding position (I might be a bit big for it to be honest, so we'll see)
> Spoked wheels (not a fan of the cast alloys)
To make it a bit more scrambler I'm also going to look into a slightly longer fork swap and accompany rear shocks to maintain rake/trail, along with some nobbly-ish tyres.
An example of a GP that I saw online which really got me fired up and put me in pursuit of a GP instead the more popular/common Honda CG/CB equivalent was this one:
If I end up with anything like this, I will be delighted!
Basic steps will be:
1) Get it running
2) Strip it down and bin lights etc
3) Clean it all up, tidy frame
4) Sort suspension
5) Rebuild
...in theory.