Monthly Archives: November 2020

Bike of the Month December 2020

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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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Bike of the Month November 2020

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On OSS we make a point of having new people introduce themselves, preferably with many pics of (relevant) bikes, new and old. If you do it like this;

“If my gsxr were to be a human, it would rule the skatepark, scare children, snort all the drugs, start fights and go after the girls like its life depended on it. It does not care what anyone thinks and does precisely what it wants to do, be a tatty 1200 euro bike in a 90s tracksuits, with the results of my very concerning e-shopping addiction, badly bolted to its flanks”

you have my attention..

I met Cunnerz for the first time not even a year ago, I think. A Brit building a Slingshot pretty much round the corner from me and us not knowing eachother; downright weird. First time we (Jelly and myself) went to visit, we dropped off the purple people-eater ET Cunnerz bought off Jelly and promptly we went onto what could be called an “enthusiastic” run for Cunnerz to get to grips with the mighty 816cc of aircooled goodness we just unloaded on him.

We were told to “keep up” and got thrown the keys to his 400bhp v8 car. We had been there for all of 10 minutes, I’d never met the man before; this was gonna be fun… Back from the shakedown, we were brought up to speed about his soon to be finished slingshot; a bare frame sat on the floor of the shed, just back from the people that were supposed to just de-anodise it, and then had gone to blast the whole thing.

Now, I’ve met many people that had been very keen to get busy with a project and have their deadlines set with no wiggleroom; I personally always take this with a pinch of salt. In my few years, I’ve seen it all and probably bought more half-built projects than some of you will own bikes, because the builders involved lost interest when the enthusiasm wore off and time/money was needed elsewhere, leaving bikes to gather dust in corners, half built, waiting for someone like me to come and rescue them (on the cheap).

I’ve probably grown into the OSS-equivalent of a grumpy old man and honestly, I need to see it to believe it, so when Cunnerz told me he’d have it finished in a matter of months, ready for a trackday, that is exactly what I thought.

Passionate as he was about the 1100 in question,  we were given the rundown of how it came to be and where it was heading. Still a bare frame I was standing next to, stories of wheelies thought Italian towns, 2-up touring all across Europe, crashing it into the side of a mountain and still never missing a beat, It was like I was talking to myself. Owned since 2015 and done everything on one bike is a lot less like me though, because I just get a different one after blowing up/crashing whatever is in the shed at the time.

An unrelenting devotion to a bike so outdated it hurts, but still better than anything that left any factory before or after; there’s just nothing like it, and that’s why it was now in the state it was in; get it to the next level and make it everything better and faster than before, because it earned it.

Countless hours were spent to correct the damage done to the frame by the blasters, slowly but surely the desired finish started to shine through and before long, the engine was back in the frame. Suspension seen to by Dutch K-tech specialist Front Row Components, the front and rear ends followed in short order with a swingarm from a later ’95 (?) 1100.

Fancy PFM brakes with radial calipers up front get the chassis well into the 20th century but with Fiberman fairings to replicate the original silhouette, only those that know, will understand what they’d be looking at. Flatslides and the Yoshi 4-1 make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed in traffic though, even to the most oblivious of motorists.

Painted straight black, it was given to our own Quist to do some decals with the brief “something 90’s”  Knowing Quist and understanding his way of thinking, this could only ever become the loudest bike you’d ever seen, and I called it. When I saw the stickers, I knew I wasn’t wrong and Quist had truly outdone himself (again).

Finished in time ready for the Assen trackday, together with yet another international (inter-continental even) OSS member Kamikaze, the van was pointed in the general north-east direction to the “Cathedral of Speed” for the inaugural shakedown. I wasn’t there, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Cunnerz’ 1100 was easily the coolest bike there, with Kamikaze’s 750 in close second. There’s just something about these bikes, but I might be biased.

Cunnerz77, thank you for showing me that there still are people that put their money where their mouth is; “Imma build this” and then actually do it, in short time and to a standard I’ve all but seen in our little country. Took a Brit to do it, but still..  

I’ll be around shortly for a frikandel speciaal.

Congratulations Cunnerz77, your bike is this month’s Bike of the Month

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