Rick, the Kawasaki clubs and RB's - some history

Early days

Rick’s policy of never binning anything extends to half an engine from his very first machine - a 50cc Phillips Gadabout Delux III. He pestered his parents into buying him the moped as a 10th birthday present. It cost 15 shillings (75p to you youngsters), so you an imagine the condition it was in. Still, it made a great field bike. The remains he has tucked away in some dark corner are the legacy of his attempts to strip it down and rebuild the two-stroke engine after a year or two of action on an old colliery site where he and his schoolmates cut their riding teeth. 

More off-road fun followed on a 125cc Vespa and 250cc Greeves Griffin before he graduated to a moped licence at the age of 16 and a Garelli Tiger Cross. It was a bike that ate FSIEs and AP50s for breakfast but also possessed a voracious appetite for its own pistons, rings and big-end bearings. Agrati were the importers. In 1975 Kawasakis entered and took over his life with the SIB he bought the following year (see update). A tiny rear sprocket had been fitted so it would clock an indicated 105mph in top, though it needed to be bowling down the side of a very steep mountain to do so. ‘The performance was impressive and it never let me down.’ he said. ‘I loved it so much I even used to use it to ride to the shops on the other side of the road from our house.’

At 19 he upgraded to his brother’s S3 which he describes as absolutely faultless. The same can’t be said of his first 750. A great bike when it was going, but that wasn’t very often. Rick was well on his was to completing his training as a motor mechanic by that time but neither he nor any of the professional experts he turned to could find a cure. Dozens of expensive remedies were tried without success before Rick stumbled upon a fellow enthusiast racing a 750-3 grass-track outfit. He pinpointed the fault to the alternator. End of problem. 

Rick decided to celebrate by getting a picture of himself pulling the world’s biggest wheelie. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time. He says all H2 owners are show-offs and lists one of his pleasures as riding down a high street looking at his reflection in the shop windows. A girlfriend was recruited to take the wheelie snap. It all went horribly wrong when the throttle stuck open. Rick escaped injury but the bike came close to destroying itself. Which brings us to another exhibit in the museum’s rogues’ gallery. Twisted handlebars and shattered clocks stuck at 82mph bear testimony to that day’s events.

The clubs

Spares for these machines were no easier to find then than they are now. That, coupled with his disgust at the failure of the so-called experts to diagnose what had been wrong with the bike in the first place, led to his decision to form a club as a kind of self-help group.  An appeal on the letters page of MCN produced four or five replies. From that nucleus grew an H2 Owners Club. It wasn¹t long before riders of the early 500cc machines asked to join too so it became the H1 and H2 Owners Club. 

A ‘What about us?’ call followed from the KH500 brigade. Then fans of the smaller capacity KH and S1, S2 and S3 triples began pleading their case. The evolution process resulted in the club becoming the Kawasaki Triples Owners Club in 1982. They staged their first rally the following year in Rick’s home city of Nottingham. Sixty-one bikes turned up. A big drag bike meeting was taking place at Santa Pod that weekend so they shot along and accepted an invite to stage a mass ride down the track. ‘It was a fantastic sight.’ said Rick. ‘You couldn’t see the strip for blue smoke.’

The 1996 classic motorcycle show at Stafford was the next turning point. By then the club boasted 485 members in a dozen countries but Rick believed they had exhausted the format. He distributed leaflets at the show outlining his plans for the club to begin catering for all Kawasakis over 15 years of age. Being a triples fanatic didn’t blind  him to the virtues of Mr. K’s alternatives.

An enthusiastic response saw the club¹s relaunch the following year as the Classic Kawasaki Club (CKC). The vast majority of the 1050 enthusiasts who have been recruited are Brits but there are card-carrying members in 26 countries, including one in Iceland and another in India. Now, if you think H2 parts are hard to find in London you should try shopping for them in Reykavik or Delhi!

RB's

Rick’s involvement with the club, his passion for the bikes and ownership of so many has resulted in him becoming Britain¹s foremost expert on the three-cylinder machines with a network of world-wide contacts. He is paid expenses for his club work but has never drawn a salary. The whole thing has just been a huge time-consuming hobby. That¹s the way it remains with the CKC but a few years ago year he took the plunge and went into business as well with the launch of RB’s Classic Kawasakis to specialise in the sale of triples and other parts. 

Rick's bike collection had been scattered all over Nottingham, and what he couldn’t get in his own garage, spare bedroom and loft had been billeted with friends and relatives. Having found suitable premises for his business, Rick has finally managed to get all his bikes together in the same place, and the collection now sits proudly in the museum alongside the RB's workshop and office on the outskirts of Nottingham.

In fact, until the museum was opened not even Rick had ever seen the whole collection together!

Footnote

Rick owns 83 motorcycles in all and although he has had other makes models they have all been sacrificed along the way to give room to another interesting Kawasaki.

Some of Rick's bikes

*  *  *  *  New for 2005 *  *  *  *

The Internet has made the Whole world a whole lot smaller, once Rick was Britain's leading authority on Kawasaki Triples, but with his constant travelling in search of triple information  he is now renowned as One of (if not THE)  Worlds leading authorities on the old smokers! with an ever increasing workload, Rick reluctantly found himself having less and less time to devote to the running of the "Classic Kawasaki Club"  as no one was willing to take on the responsibility of running the club it seemed inevitable that the club would fade away. However, late in 2004 a small group of both new and original "Triples Club" members banded together and vowed that the old "Kawasaki Triples Club" would be re-born for 2005, the current status of the "Triples Club" can be checked out at :   www.kawasakitriplesclub.co.uk

2005 will be the start of the new RB's, e-mails and phone calls  will be answered by an all new team!

It's not too unusual to visit RB's and see a few H2's!