Almost a couple of years ago, I bought form a fellow forum member a very clean and very reasonably priced ’91 851 Strada. As my idea was to make a nice toy from it, I didn’t really matter if the bike had some problems. So I paid the bike and after some days she showed up from a truck at an industrial area near home.
My bike just arrived, on the trailer ready to go home.
The first step was to make the bike street legal in Spain which was far more difficult than expected due to new regulations in the matter. Is this EU? So it was just at the beginning of may that I could ride the bike for the first time.
But she’s finally street legal!!
As finally the bike was in very good conditions and stunningly fun to ride (A friend on his 1098 tricolore admitted that he couldn’t believe his eyes!) I decided to have some fun during summer before starting my winter project (That’s what summer is for!)
But unfortunately on the 30th of june 2012, on my way to the Spanish WSBK round I crashed the bike in a decreasing radius right hand turn. A slide which ended with me (completely unharmed) in a concrete kerb and the bike at the top of the roadside…
As we bikers are really hard guys, after towing the bike back home, I swapped my tank bag on my MTS1000 and got on my way to Alcañiz.
Left side is in quite good contition…
...but the right one...
Fortunately, as the bike crossed the road sliding on its side, it turned in such a way that it hit the roadside first with the rear wheel and climbed some 4 m high. So, the front (and more expensive) part got away quite well as the front subframe absorbed the worst part of the impact.
Amazing, no broken fork, instruments or even headlight as it was the rear wheel that hit first!
The most important damages were sustained by the rear of the bike, as the swing arm got bent.
Although not really evident on this picture, the swingarm is bent rightwards... :\
After a one year pause that I’ve spent abroad due to my occupation, I’ve got the bike into the garage to start my project. My aim is to fit a 996 ST4s engine with 996 heads and T1 camshafts to a make a powerful and reliable 851 SP3 réplica.
In the meantime I've been surfing the internet (ebay,of course this forum and some other places) to get all the repair and 'bling-bling' parts for my toy.
So, now the big question is…
How will this end?
To be continued...
