It turned out to be owned by a friend of my mate with the hot banana Vic, and I made some enquiries of him, but it sold straight after that.

This is one of the pics from the ad.

You built a beautiful bike Yankee Bob, it's the perfect example of a hard core bike from when I was running a W2 650 Kawa round Brisbane in the mid 70's  before moving onto Norton Commandos.

Makes it plain where the styling cues for Streetbobs came from.

I could listen to its idle all day.  

That was certainly more pleasant than riding the fucker 😎

Me thinks nostalgia is best left observed. 

A bloke who knew nothing about motorbikes was selling it (as the story goes) on behalf of his father in law who had imported it from the states over 30 years ago and had never ridden it. The old guy now had dementure and his family wanted to sell it to help put him into a nursing home. The bike still had a minnesota number plate and the sticker on the plate to say it had last been renewed in 1988. Speedo had 16000 miles on it.

Some folk on the forum basically told the guy selling it that it was worth fuck all as it had not run for so long and could have anything wrong with it.

I called the guy and asked him to send a video of him kicking it over to see if the engine still turned over, which it did.

I paid him 8 grand for it and 500 bucks to get it shipped over Bass Straight.

It was missing a few bits like battery box ect and the tires were rock hard as to be expected but with new oils and new fuel it fired right up. I suspect that the old guy who imported it all those years ago had in fact ridden it once, stacked it and thought "fuck that" as it had a dented front rim and a badly cracked plastic seat base.

I have put about 12000 miles on it since and have just got back from a trip to Queensland and back. It's a bloody gem of a thing.

Pictures of when I got it and various changes since. 

Looks bloody good too.

The bike looks fuckin great.  Did you have the home made saddlebags on for the trip? How did they go?

What was it like up in Queensland?  Did you bump into any poofters?

Yeah Beags, I had the home made saddlebags for the trip and the strange thing is that even though I made them to fit the shovel they fit my FXR and 2 Honda 750 fours much better. The rear brake caliper kept hitting the underside of the right hand bag on the way up to QLD and had broken through the stitching. I went to  Saddle world in Gympie and bought some heavy duty thread and a packet of 10 gauge sewing needles and fixed up the bag then bought a pool noodle from Kmart and cut it up a bit and zip tied it to the fender support bracket so the bags stuck out a bit more from the rear wheel and brake caliper. That fixed the issue

Saddle world in Gympie was an interesting place. There was a bottleshop next door and heaps of horny cow girls going into saddle world. It was tempting to buy a carton of coldies and sit out the front to check out the horney horsey girls going in and out of the shop but one is not supposed to drink in public.

As for question 2 and 3. I liked Queensland as it was nice to get away from the lingering chill of the Tassie winter/spring and could move up there as the Arthur Itis sets in. Poofters were the last thing I was looking for but I was very Happy to see Collingwood beat Brisbane in the AFL grand final and Penrith beat Bronco's in the NRL grand final. Not that I really like Collingwood or Penrith but there is built up angst regarding QLD in state of origin games.

Nice dirt road, where is it?

A then and now shot for those who are interested.

Obisteve, the dirt road was a bit of a short cut between Delungra and Ashford on my way from Gunnedah to Warwick on the Fossickers HWY. Even went past your neck of the woods, (see pic) but its a pretty shit pic as the sun was not on the right end of the hall.

Benno, I'd take the after version hands down. Your bike looks great. The Le Pera seat on my bike is a Gel one so it is more comfortable than it looks. The original seat from my bike is very badly cracked in a few places. The plastic they made the bases from then is pretty shit stuff, no where near as strong as the metal Le Pera ones. It might be able to be plastic welded and re-upholstered and if that is the case I'd rather keep it if I ever decide to go down that road, sorry.

It's great riding country, my old place was on the creek, just over the ridge behind the hall. Been almost 3 years since I sold and moved west. Still miss it a bit.

Really don't know how you could have done the trip on that bike, it doesn't have a USB port let alone Bluetooth.

Cheers Beags.

Trip was not all sunshine and lollypops though.

Still struggling to come to terms with the fact that the good old shovel did not go from Tas to Qld and back with NO ISSUES!.

Who would have thought?.

I remember when the Million Dollar Bogan (think of him what you will, just don't ask for my view) did his first trip up towards Cape York on his Road King. He was only traveling in the footsteps of some ex soldier from Pommyland who had done the same trip years before who did it on a shovel and without any legs.

Shovels it seems have never been famous in the reliability department but seeing mine was a 1984 model that has many of the early Evo features and a low mileage example, well serviced etc I thought it would be a cake walk to get to QLD and back without any issues.

Ran like a swiss watch to Qld and some of the way back.

The press ride for the release of the Switchback went through Obi, and pulled in for a photo op. I think Mark Hinchcliffe took this pic. We were still fund-raising for the hall renovation then

And another view of the hall.