Bike of the month June 2018

May and June have been busy months for the OSS Admin team. Endurance legends at Donington followed by the TT and even some highland scratching thrown in for good measure. So OSS site time has been limited. (OK excuses for late BOTM out of the way)

Three years ago I wrote this article about a long time member who had long held a dream of building an engine that he had been quietly collecting the bits for .It may have escaped the attention of some, but not me, that he actually built that engine this year.

He didn’t just build it for fun either, he built it to compete at the Donington 4 hour endurance race, against some pretty serious competition.

What is even more special about this bike is that the builder found out early on in the build that he been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Lesser men may have chucked the towel in right there and then but not this guy. He was too busy for cancer and decided he would postpone his treatment so that he could finish the bike and compete on it at Donington. The stuff of legends, I know.

In the end the minor inconvenience of a life threatening medical diagnosis must have momentarily distracted him because although this bike got finished there just wasn’t enough time to get it match fit. Our man still competed in the event along with 2 other OSS team members but it was on the back up bike (not a Suzuki)

Now that John has completed his goal of competing in the endurance legends round at Donington his treatment can begin. He hasn’t wasted any time in making some big life changes including selling all of his bikes and parts. I know that he still has the GS though and I hope he keeps it and gets it to run the way he knows it can.

John you are a Legend mate and we love you and your GS is bike of the month.  You are also the only man in OSS history to have been awarded bike of the month 3 times.

Read John’s build here

Members discuss this here.