Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/962346
The Vintage Bug By Rick "Super Hunky" Sieman I knew be er, I really did. However, eyes wide open, I walked into the trap. It was painless at first. Probably the way dope addicts get started. A puff here, a pill there, and the next thing you know, there's a garden hose full of heroin run- ning into a vein. My plight started much the same way. First, I rode a vintage race or two on borrowed bikes, then I worked out a deal with Norm Francis to build me a slick YZ125 for vintage racing. Then, Greg Owen (the motorcycling lawyer with a giant stable of bikes) lent me a beau ful '74 400 Maico to race. That should have been enough to sa sfy most anyone, but like any addic on, the urge to get deeper and deeper is insidious. The first thing 1 knew, I was star ng to look at the want ads in the local Bargain Box and Recy- cler newspapers. Back in the used bike sec on. Naturally, it was the "Pre- 1974" sec on that got the a en on. Did I really need an- other vintage bike? Not really. A er all, I already had a '59 650 Triumph, a '72 400 CZ, a Hodaka of ques onable parentage, the trick YZI25 and the high- zoot Maico. That certainly should have been enough to sa sfy most vintage loonies. But, nooooo. I kept looking around. Not real serious, you understand. Then I found out about some bikes from a friend of a friend. I fired up the truck, threw in a loading ramp and some e- downs, just in case, and headed out to inspect the bikes. One was a '74 CZ250 Enduro. Remember it? Painted dog-vomit brown, it was heavy, handled like a plow in a wet field and was u erly reli- able. The other bike was more on the exo c side, it started out life as a '73 Suzuki TM400, which as we all know was a vile dirt bike, but was now housed in a very rare C&J custom frame. As it turned out, the bike had a his- tory! It was one of the bikes originally built for Rich