Black Widow - Overview

This is how I bought it. Just a frame and the fork with the front wheel. The rest came sort of in a box. Well, I always liked puzzles, but this was getting ridiculous! Luckily the previous owner hadn´t taken the engine apart ... yet! He told me the engine had been totally overhauled and renewed. He forgot to tell me there was no oil in the engine, and as I stored it during the time of the restoration (9 months) instead of using it, one of the crankshaft bearings went on the very first trip.

I restored it to this condition. I was planning to have it in immaculate original condition, but it turned out different. Somewhere along the way I had to make a choice between good road holdings and the original condition. I chose the first. It came down to the fork. I had an original 34mm fork with slab yokes, but the fork didn´t work right and the slab yokes were slightly bent. I did however have a good 35mm fork with matching slab yokes, that came from a 1977 model. I changed the shaggy fuel tank and side panels for a nicer set from a 1977 model. I think the gray with black striping looks a treat.

And I´m sorry to say it evolved into this cabbage. I used the bike all through the year, and as winters were hard, cold, and roads sprayed with salt its shiny appearance was totally ruined. Oh yeah, I stopped cleaning it, that didn´t help much either.

As I bolt on a sidecar in the winter, and broke 9 spokes on the rear wheel on holiday, I replaced the standard spoked wheels by cast alloy wheels. The back wheel is a Yamaha XJ550 wheel, the front a 19inch Yamaha XS500 wheel or a 18inch XS400 wheel.

Nowadays I ride it with a sidecar - if you can call it that. It´s a Wasp cross sidecar and I got it very cheap. Very very very cheap!

And then disaster strikes ... again. I was standing at a red light. Three cars in front of me. And a car didn´t stop and smashed into the back of the sidecar. He told the police I braked very hard. You got to laugh haven´t you? Even if I did so, a red light and three cars standing still would be a good reason to brake hard, don´t you think? Well, he didn´t seem to think so, as there weren´t any skid marks to be found. He completely destroyed the seat in the sidecar.

He hit it so hard it smashed into the car in front of me and did quite some damage there too.

Luckely the frame survived. Boy, these things are really made to last! I just took off all the stuff that was damaged or unnecessary.

So I had to (once again) fix the bike and decided I didn´t need a seat in the sidecar, as for some strange reason people seem reluctant to ride in my sidecar. So it has become even lighter than before. I know one thing, if someone tries to steal it I´ll just have to casually stroll up to the first right hand bend and pick ´em up from under the sidecar. It´s so easy to lift the sidecar wheel!

I recently bought a new ´bike´ and kinda like using it too. As a matter of fact, I seem to ride it more than the Yamaha´s lately. So I decided it would be nice if I could take it along if I went places. I started missing the box (that doubled as a passenger seat). Was quite handy to keep things dry and avoid getting my stuff stolen at every petrol-stop.

Looks weird, don´t it? This is SOOOOOO me!!!

Not entirely happy with the box though. It is bigger and a lot higher than the previous one, so sitting on top of it might be a bit too much to ask of people. Still thinking if I want to carry passengers at all. Was playing with the idea of having a seat inside of it, with panels that fold open. And I would put an extra door in the back. For those with good eyes, you can just make out the outline of where I think I´ll put the door to the ´boot´.