Kawasaki Z1000

For some unknown reason, I replaced the Honda with a HK Holden V8, but quickly  realised my mistake and started looking at numerous used Kawasaki Z900s.

I saw this advertised at a car dealer for $1850, with just 7,000km on the clock, and nabbed it.

I loved this bike, and rode it often. Midnight summer rides to the beach suburbs on the (then) quiet roads, riding interstate to the legendary Easter Bathurst racing weekend in NSW, fanging through the Adelaide Hills…I rode it pretty much every day.

This was especially so when working for the magazine. Weekdays were usually spent riding all around Adelaide in search of stories, and weekends meant (sometimes long) journeys to cover the motocross, trials and road racing competitions in South Australia.

When I moved to Sydney as the NSW editor for the magazine, it was my daily transport for a couple of years, and I eventually clocked about 250,000km on the thing before finally retiring it in the mid-eighties, vowing one day to restore it back to its former glory.

Over the years it languished in the sheds and garages of friends. In the AMCN owners article featured here, I said I was in no hurry to sever the relationship, and it was true, but I finally did in mid-2025, some forty seven years later, when I gave it to a friend who was storing it for me.