Lists, we all have them; shopping lists, to-do lists, bucket lists. Stuff you “need” to do/buy/build before a certain time.
When you then, in your waking life, don’t get the chance to tick off some of your most desired points on your list, if you’re really lucky, it sometimes happens that some of your friends will do it for you, in your honour and in your memory.
Craig Smith is such a friend. We know Craig as one of our like minded Down Under members who has made VERY good use of what Pops Yoshimura and Wes Cooley started in the old AMA championship, by using his GS as it should be. He has also always made an effort to let us in on all the fun.
This Katana project was started off with previously accumulated parts and a general idea of what the finished product should look like. Craig and a few friends went on to finish the bike that their late friend, Alan Baker, had dreamed off and had actually started building. This project has had many things in common with the OSS Knarf build. Both were documented on the old site.
Only when we got OSS back up and running did we properly learn how the project turned out and how the story had concluded. (imho) this Katana on its own, even when you don’t know the story behind it, is one of the best Kats out there. Revealed to friends and the world in May 2016, it’s more than what anyone could wish for as a lasting monument and a promise that they hadn’t been forgotten.
I realise this project has been finished for quite a while and Smithy hasn’t been on OSS much after it but that’s beside the point. I had this bike on my BOTM list for a long time and here it is; congratulations Craig, Alan’s Katana is Bike of the Month December 2017.
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