Hello fellow xs lovers,
This is my 79 xs from Holland. Originally it was Canadian and it was imported in 84. My fathers friend Arie and myself hardtail it. He used to build Riggs for trucks so he did a lot of the precession work. It was painted by Royal Jack, a very friendly upcoming pinstriper and artist. He also made me the pinstriped bleu helmet. The son of my old neighbour who works at KLM did the electrical work.
It`s been a real team effort but everyone loved working on it.
It`s been done for four days now and I love riding it. It really makes me feel cool. I get a lot of spontaneous positive response so that is nice. I love watching this site and see all those great motorcycles. The build sometimes was hard because I am not very technical. The xs was a nice bike to work on and this helps. I have taken parts that a lot of guys use, but still I think it has its own karakter. This is my second bike, and I am very happy my loving wife approved.
Well, we will see what else comes up in the future. I get the feeling I am not done building yet, its a great hobby. The build toke about nine months from start to finish. I bought the xs from a guy who made me promise to keep it original I am sorry Marco! At the bargain I asked of him to put in an electronic boyer brandsen ignition. It starts and runs great! It is spilling some oil so I have to put on some new gaskets. The engine is stock en so it`s not rebuild.
The guy I bought it from told me the bike belonged to a service engineer. He told me the gaskets were renewed and I got a lot of receipts from the bike. I first build it up unpainted. I drove a couple of miles on it just to know it`s OK. Then a motorcycle shop who specializes in xs650’s (heiden tuning) put it on a dyno bank.
They changed some things because I have kelks for air-filters and it came back running better than it did. All and all I am pretty happy with the bike.
I love riding it because you can really feel the rawness of it.
The fact is I made a lot of things with my own hands which you can not buy in a store makes it very special to me. For me this took a lot of guts because you`re nearby family and friends look at the bike. The guys on this site who have build a bike probably now what I mean.
Well, I hope you keep on building and riding!
Greetings Jeroen from Holland.
All the pictures on this website are inspiring so keep on building!