We loved the Ace, Bro bought it new in ’97 and loved it like a first born. Spoiling it, garnished with Vance & Hines, K&N and brazed pipes, used regularly and to its limits, for two wheeled, well, mostly one wheeled, lunacy.

Yamaha ThunderAce

Sometime later… I had moved back from the States and was dying commuting on the train, Bro had other commitments and wasn’t getting much Ace time, and it was mine

Some years later… Bro got a contract working with me in Hammersmith, two-up time.

The Thunderace was falling to bits, every service was costing a fortune. The speedo hadn’t worked for miles, the rear break pedal was snapped off, the front discs where so badly warped the bike would shake at anything other than the mildest slowing. It was hosed.

The path to the current bike was obscured by the wish to save money and reduce the temptation and capacity to excessive speeding. After running the now aging Ace for years, although the Thunderace is now regarded as a weighty tourer (By some mean R1 fans, its funny how many R1′s vanish in its rear view mirror on the ride home :-> ) Anyway, the thought process goes something like this… 1000′s are awesome, however they have little regard for those pesky speed limits and they do shred rear tires (4000 miles max) also, while sports bikes (Yes a Thunderace is a sports bike, feekers) are viable commuters, two-up is not so good, so in an attempt to be sensible, the choice, as gut wrenching as it was, was to go 600. It gets worse, lets face it if you want a sporty commuter 600, “you can’t go far wrong with a Faser”.

So, with our sensible hats firmly pulled down, it was off to the Yamaha dealer. A Short walk up Sheperds Bush Road and there it was, a Black Faser 600 S2, hum, as with any dealer the path to the commuter is packed with awesomeness designed to loosen the hold of the sensible hat, mine had fallen off, the sight of the 180bhp on the R1′s info tags had me thinking! but Bro was being strong, after a brief raised eyebrow when passing the 1000 Fazer, we arrived at the planned choice, the gleaming S2 Faser 600. Paper whizzed around and the Thunderace was reduced to the pages of eBay (R.I.P.).

Details of the ensuing carnage will follow soon…..