I passed my bike test in June 1995 and have since ridden nearly 150,000 miles on holidays, weekend jaunts and commuting.
My first bike was a 1979 Kawasaki KH250 a two stroke triple cheap to buy, but I had to spend quite a bit of money to get it running including having the cylinders rebored.


After realising the KH wasn't a reliable commuter when it broke down yet again, I had the chance to buy my brother's old Yamaha 600 Diversion (he'd sold it to a mate who then decided to emigrate to Australia)

On an impulse we decided to take a foreign holiday to the Dordogne region of France to see all the prehistoric sites including the world famous cave paintings at Lascaux. This adventure took us 3500 miles in the two weeks and wasn't bad for my first ever holiday outside Britain.

In two years I wracked up over 25,000 miles and was getting to the point where I had outgrown the Divvy - I started looking for an alternative. So, coinciding with a new job in October 2000 I traded the Divvy in for a new Fazer600 in gorgeous black. In 3 months I'd done 5000 miles but unfortunately a myopic gent in a Volvo estate (it would be wouldn't it?) decided to pull across the road infront of us, sending Mrs Gringo and myself over his bonnet and writing the bike off. I loved that bike

Eventually the insurance sorted me out with another Fazer600, although by this time the black model was no longer available so the next best choice was the electric blue.



Over the next 9 months I racked up 16,000 miles commuting and pleasure, before getting a job transfer nearer home (which certainly saved my sanity and my life as I was starting to ride like a courier at motorway speeds between Glasgow and Edinburgh). I kept this bike until the 3 year warranty ran out, and by then had decided that with doing a lot of day trips and holidays with full luggage and pillion I was working the bike a bit too hard to "keep up momentum".
So what I needed/wanted was more oomph. Mmm, what bike could do that while still being the upright position I liked... oh yes, how about a Fazer 1000? The only issue was the available colours. I really liked the black paintjob, but these only had the silver engine and frame which I wasn't so keen on. The only version with a black engine in 2003 was the yellow one which was growing on me. My local dealer had one of each colour: black, red and yellow in the show room. However by the time I'd decided I could afford to get a thou the black one had been sold, leaving the yellow with black engine, which by then I actually prefered the look of anyway.




Deal done, it took months to get the grin off my face - has it ever left? don't really think so.
To date, February 2009 I've done 87,000 miles on this bike which has included a trip to the Pyranees, Ireland, Wales (thrice) and countless trips round Scotland, as well as completing a 3,500mile trip round the UK coastline in a week in aid of MS Scotland in June 2007 with my buddy Richard on his BMW GS1200 Adventure. Check out www.RTB.org.uk for details.



4 years ago Mrs Gringo passed her test and after trying many bikes for size has a silver Mk2 600, which she's done about 8000miles on.