Keith Eleftheriou: Easy Rider

Bikes, one of my true loves...saddle-less at the moment, but it won't be long.

XL185 - mine was primarily white with red
graphics

Back when I was a nipper, Stephen Field taught me how to ride the farm bike we had - a Honda XL185 (Super Farmer). I immediately fell in love with them and whenever there was a chance, you could find me up at the sheds looking for permission to take it out on the 5000 acres at my disposal.

My mates next door had a couple of farm bikes, Honda XL200 and the legendary XR250. We used to race out on the gravel roads of the Blythe Valley like a local gang, and tested our off road skills through the back blocks of ours and neighbouring farms (mostly without their knowledge!). It was on this bike I had my first near-death experience. Me and Justin Trist were racing down Nape Nape beach Rd, no helmets of course, with his brother and his mate behind in the two aforementioned bikes when we (I??) put the front whell into a ditch on the side and the bvike flipped and threw us both into the grass, luckily not onto the road. The Bike came through well, a crack in the front guard and a small scrape and dent in the tank.

Yamaha TTR250 - mine was white with purple
seat and wheel rims

After leaving school bikes were lost on the radar, and it wasn't until about 10 years later when I was running the ASB Trust Farm that I purchased a new bike - a 96 Yamaha TTR250 - a road legal dirt bike. The only problem I found with this was riding through Auckland I had issues standing upright at lights, and would often stop near curbs and traffic islands so I could at least plant a foot onto the ground! I loved this bike as the ability to take it off road as well as on road was an advantage I had over other mates when we went on rides (of course I struggled to maintain their speed!).

A mate of mine, Andy, had a Ducati 750 Paso (about 90 vintage) and we used to ride together out to Piha and the likes, and one day to my surprise we swapped bikes - know I was really hooked!

CBR250RR - redlined at 17500rpm!

My first road bike was a 1987 Honda CBR250RR Hurricane, MC17. I bought it off a dealer who traded my TTR and from then on, I got to ride with comparative ability to my mate Andrew on the Duke. We did many rides together and slowly I got used to the whole lean thing, and eventually lost the instinct to use back brake instead of front (which is what you do on dirt trackers). My first long trip, alone, was through the Waioeka Gorge on the way to do business in Gisborne - I became enamoured with this road and would come back to it many times in the future with new mates and different bikes. This bike was written off in an incident with a car on my way home after work one evening.

CBR400R - mine was all black with silver flashes

I didn't replace the Hurricane for over a year - not through fear of another crash or anything, other things seemed to take priority at the time. However, when I started working for Vodafone NZ who was based in the CBD, I felt it necessary to buy another bike for efficiency, traffic, and parking. It was only by accident I came across my next bike...1991 Honda CBR400R.

By this time I had met Rob Anderson who was an ex-motorcycle racer and loves his bikes. He had a 2001 Yamaha R6 which he still claims is one of the best bikes he ever owned. He taught me so much about riding and it wasn't long before I could ride with relative ease on our favourite stretch of road, SH16 up to Wellsford. Now, I could never keep up with him, and was still nervous as hell doing 120+ through the windy's, but I got better and better, and learned more about bikes and their capabilities. Soon I was losing the 'chicken strip' off my tyres and really enjoying myself.

One year we decided to do a long road trip, and I mentioned my time through the Waioeka...so it transpired we set up an East Cape ride from Auckland south, across to Gisborne, north to Hick's Bay, and then back across through Tauranga and back to Auckland. However a cruel hand was dealt to me but some good came out of it...

At National Park - on way to
Cold Kiwi 05

My GSXR600 - notice the black
flashings on tail (UK)

In t-boning a Merc A-Class on the way home from work one afternoon five days before the East Cape ride was harrowing - so me and Rob spent the next three or four days trying to get me a new bike. As a Honda man, I called into the dealer in Barry's Point Road and they advised they had an 2000 CBR600 with low kms that fit my budget and would ring me as soon as it turned up the following day. I still haven't heard from them. I test rode a few bikes in those few days including a Suzuki SV1000S (which I hated - watch this space), Aprillia RSV Mille (which I loved but dealer wouldn't move $150!), and a Yamaha R6 Semi-Sports (model escapes me) which the dealer completely misrepresented, and frankly I didn't like it. The day before we were due to ride and still no bike, I wandered into Coleman's Suzuki and test rode a 2001 GSXR600 (build 99) which was one of three brought to NZ out of the UK as riders for the NZ Suzuki team. I fell in love with Suzuki there and then.

After a year or two of riding the GSXR the desire to go bigger overwhelmed me and V-Twin seemed the logical way forward.

I test rode a few bikes, a new Mille RSV, a Honda VTR1000 (found it 'baggy'), a Suzuki TL1000R and what would ultimately become my choice, a new K5 SV1000S in black which I named Black Night. This is somewhat ironic seeing as a year before I despised riding this model. I had new carbon Yoshis added to it but other than that it was stock standard.

PM Noir - oh dear!

K5 SV1000S with Rob's 749

And again...oh the humanity

I wrote this bike off one night returning from a big day out that included Poker Finals, and dinner with friends - maybe I was tired, maybe wasn't concentrating but I swung a bit wide on a corner about 5km from home and hit the 'ball bearings' from new seal, and the bike went straight into a ditch and landed on top of me. I figured I must have been unconscious for about 45mins and it took another 20 minutes to lift the bike off me which was burning my leg through my jeans. Me and some mates picked it up out of the ditch the following day and I delivered it to Coleman's for assessment, and after a lengthy investigation by the insurers as I admitted to having drinks with dinner(John Baker Insurance, good guys) I was paid out and the search for a new bike began...and it ended up being the K7 SV1000S, in black, new with steel Yoshis (named it PM Noir). I kept this bike for about a year and sold it to help me and my wife into a new home....now the search begins again!

MV Agusta F4 1000i...very nice.

Sweeeeeet...

During this time a mate of mine had been lent an MV Agusta F4 1000i for the weekend, and he asked me if I wanted a ride...hell, what a bike! I throttled it out the drive and wheelstood it for about 30m thinking how the hell am I going to put this down without damaging it! I took it through the back roads of Kumeu at speeds best not revealed, and without getting out of 4th gear and using only about half of the RPMs on tap!
I was also given a Moto Morini Corsaro 1200 to test ride and evaluate. It seemed promising enough, big V-Twin, however I found it a most disappointing ride - there are bikes at lesser or similar money which would be first choice amongst a lot of riders I think. However, the Veloce may offer a better experience.

One day...am thinking between another SV100S if I can find one, or a Suzuki M109T Boulevard.

Other Vehicles...
I have driven and owned a lot of vehicles in my time (joys of being a car dealer) and here are some of my favourites;

1963 Hillaman Minx

1976 Toyota Corona

1978 Pontiac Trans Am 6.6