Since I was a kid growing up I would go out to my uncle’s small farm in eastern Colorado to enjoy lunch with my dad’s side of the family on the holidays. They have about eight old barns on their land and as a kid (even still) I just loved exploring the old buildings and seeing the animals. Now I have a young daughter and she’s just as adventurous as I am so I bundled her up to go play on the farm. My wife asked me to look for any barn wood that could be reclaimed to make a rustic dining table and I thought this would be fun to search for with Delia.
So we’re out tromping trough the dirt and snow, climbing on the tractors, and looking at some of the collapsed outbuildings when we turn toward the backside of a small barn in search for horses and wood. From about forty yards I see the frontend of an old looking bike… I say to myself, “No way, that’s a vintage bike!” I was unable to recognize it because of the odd but cool faring I’d never seen before. As I get closer I start thinking that’s an old Honda, walking faster now I begin to see the same look and lines of my own CB750 and sure enough it’s a 750 (1973)! My sister, cousin, and daughter catch up but fail to understand my excitement. I feel like a six year old on Christmas!!! They think I’m crazy for jumping around in excitement over this pile. I tried to excite them too but I only get odd stares in return. So I’m no longer interested in looking for wood and hurry inside to show my wife pictures of my discovery. Her response, “ooohh, what so cool?”. Of course it’s not wood so she’s not so excited either. I go to my aunt and say, “So, there’s an old motorcycle behind the barn?”
“Yeah, would you like to have it?” she says.
I’d love to have it!
“You can have it. I’ll have to ask my son to be sure but it’s been buried in the barn for 15 years and was given to him by his father in-law. I don’t think he’d mind at all.” She continues, “We moved it out of a barn we fixed up a couple years ago.”
I’m now thinking back to all the time’s I’ve explored the barns and wonder if I ever came upon this not even knowing what it was… other than a motorcycle. I must have seen it before, only not since I came to treasure such things from the past. It was a great Christmas and something to add to my memories of their farm. Perhaps some of you can understand my excitement.
My plan is to pick it up and take it to my parent’s garage to see what I’ve got. From there I’ll have to decide whether to sell any useful parts and use the money to continue the restoration of my 75 or rebuild as a café racer and continue with the 75’s restoration. This frees me from the struggle between wanting both a stock 750 and a café racer out of the same bike.
I’ll try to find out more on the history not spent in the barn. I doubt a title will turn up and last tag was 1991. the motor did not kick over. Can anyone tell me anything about the fairing?
