There are many reasons why you might single out a particular bike as a bike of the month but invariably those reasons always boil down to the same thing; the bike embodies, in some way, the values that make OSS what it is.
This month’s winner has been too many times the bride’s maid, and never the bride. It holds a special place in OSS folklore and special place in our hearts. It’s the bike that launched a hundred annoying banana stickers and a stroopwafel fueled track day race team/boy band. The infamous chart topping heart breakers that are team Banana.
So, what is it about this hurriedly put together and horribly abused little 750 slingshot that makes it so special? Well, it’s just that; for a hurriedly thrown together little track slag, it has equipped itself admirably around some of the UK and mainland Europe’s finest race tracks, it has been crashed twice repaired twice and really should have died a long time ago, but it has always delivered the goods.
Knowing my good friend Rene, as I do, I sometimes think for a Dutchman, he would make a damn fine Scotsman ( apart form the fact he cant drink). What I mean by that is that Rene knows how not to spend money. We Scotsman recognise and amire a fellow tight arse when we see one. So the Banana was never going to be a “break the bank” build but then Rene’s builds never are. I used to think that Rene was the possibly the luckiest man I knew but I have come to recognise that he makes his own luck. He keeps things simple and that means for the most part, they work.
The thing I admire most about all of the bikes that Rene builds is that they are not built to look at. They will never win a beauty contest or a rosette. They don’t drip with high priced components. They are all built for a purpose. They are built to ride. Be it a journey, an odyssey, a pilgrimage or in the case of the banana a new sport. Rene is a wanderer, he’s never happier than when he is travelling Europe and the UK, couch surfing his way round his many friends or sharing valuable time with his friends in a race paddock for a weekend.
This, for me, and for Rene, is a huge part of what OSS represents. Right from the beginning the rules were clear: you build a machine, you load it up and you take off on a journey to meet other people who have done the same. That’s what the Banana represents for me. It’s where the bike takes you and who you meet that makes a motorcycle the world’s single most amazing invention.
So, 2020 has been a real shit show. We’ve all missed out on so much but it won’t last forever. It will soon be time to get back on the road and back on the track. I wanted to finish the year looking back on a heart warmng high with one eye on a return to much better times round the corner. I don’t know if I’ll ever see the banana again, last I heard, she was looking a bit tired and sorry for herself, but if I don’t, the memory of it and the good times it represents for many of us, will live on.
Congratulations Reggie, the Banana is finally and rightfully our bike of the month December 2020
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