Mods, Moves, and Boxes of Parts

*Editor’s note: Many of us recall a motorcycle from our younger years that we wished we’d never sold or that we had rebuilt, and could ride again in our current years. For Neale Bayly, it’s a prized Laverda 1200 Mirage. In this 3-part series, we journey with Neale from his earliest experiences with this incredible motorbike, through loss and neglect, and the resurrecting of a dream. And the journey continues. Let’s ride along with Neale on his adventure with the dream bike of his youth.

At the end of part one it was winter of 1985, I had left the Laverda, hitchhiked to London and hopped a flight to New York with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red in my bag and $100 in my pocket. It was actually my second visit to the States. The first trip was by hitchhiking from New York to Quebec, across Canada to the Rocky Mountains and then down to California in an old Ford Country Squire. I was with a friend and we sold the car in LA, split up and I hitchhiked back across to Florida ending up living with a bank robber called Jimmy. He hadn’t robbed the bank when I lived with him, but was getting ready to, so with two days in hand I left town and flew into Central America. Over the next two months I traveled from Belize as far south as Nicaragua.

Here, sick and broke with the Sandinista/Contra War raging I finally decided to pack it in and head for home. My sister was getting married in Scotland and I felt the need to be there for her, so I whipped out my hidden credit card and flew to London. The wedding was early March, and I spent the following summer at home in South Devon, England which would be the last time I would live and ride my Laverda in England.

After arriving in New York in late 1985 with an invite to stay with Jimmy the Bank Robber’s brother and work with a construction company, I used my $100 to buy a ticket and boarded a bus for Florida. I worked over the winter and by late spring had met a girl, fallen in love and we were riding out across America on a battle weary 1973 Honda 550. We had bought the Honda from Crazy Laughing Dave Wainright in Melbourne, Florida. And for a little context, he happened to be the getaway driver for Jimmy the Bank Robber.

An early concept of a resto-mod rebuild for the old Laverda.

That first motorcycle trip ended just shy of the Arctic Circle, and we settled in the town of Fairbanks, Alaska, where we worked out the summer. With our pockets full of money and winter coming on fast, we sold the Honda and hitchhiked back to the lower 48. In San Francisco, we bought one-way tickets to Japan and spent the next three months traveling through South East Asia before heading to Australia. Landing in Darwin with $22 to our names, we began the long, hot journey hitchhiking through the red center of the continent to make it to Sydney, where we quickly found work. Here, we bought another used motorcycle, a 1981 Yamaha XV1000, and added 10,000 miles to our travels riding around the “land down under”, including a trip to the Great Barrier Reef to learn to scuba dive.

Karen, who was now my bride, and I eventually settled back in Florida. I took her home to meet my family in England one summer, and during an extended vacation we explored all my childhood haunts, and visited with old friends while doing a bit of paint and polish on the Laverda. It was at this time I made my decision to send the old Mirage to our Florida home. So, we boxed it up and put it on a ship where a few months after our return it arrived thankfully in one piece.

Once in Florida I got a little more serious. I powder coated the wheels silver, installed new bearings and rebuilt the brake calipers using Teflon pistons to replace the old rusty metal ones. New EBC pads and fluids finished the job. Then it was time for a pair of brand new Pirelli Phantom tires- the business back in the day with a whopping 130/80-18 incher on the rear. A set of Marazochhi shocks replaced the old worn out stock items, and for better cosmetics the engine cases were polished. I had done a cheap, orange paint job back in the UK and while it wasn’t perfect, I left it alone. We recovered the seat, then rebuilt and polished the carburetors. The down pipes were shot blasted and painted heat resistant black. We welded an extra tab on the side stand as it had a propensity for falling over. The original turn signals were junked and my makeover was complete.

Living in sunny Florida, raising a family, working a career, and the old Laverda eventually fell into neglect.

Over the next couple of years, the bike got ridden to events, took some daily outings, and turned heads wherever it went, but it was always a little suspect with a nasty rattle down in the primary side that my mechanic was not too positive about. The carbs were a bit worn too, so even with a fresh valve adjustment and the timing done, it never quite ran as well as it had when I first got it from Nick.

Then one fateful day my enthusiasm got ahead of my abilities, both mechanically and financially, and I decided to do a complete restoration from the ground up. The frame got shot blasted and painted and I started pulling the engine to bits. Unfortunately, travels came, children came, careers came and the parts just ended up moving from location to location in boxes. With all the growing responsibilities of family life, spending money on an old box of bits grew further and further from the front burner.

A bike builder from Delaware breezed into town and loaded up the parts with an idea to create a resto-mod for me. We talked design, we talked style and then we didn’t talk and the boxes of bits now gathered dust in someone else’s storage area. One year slipped into three, and my thoughts of the old Laverda now only came very occasionally. Three things then happened to change the course of my life and the life of the Mirage. First, my good friend Tom had been riding dirt bikes with me for a couple of years and listening to my crazy stories. Out of the blue one day out in the trails he stated, “You need to go and get that Laverda back.”

The old girl coming apart with good intentions, but life got in the way.

At the same time I had run across a video from my home town talking about how Greek mythology says we are all connected to everyone we have met, and no matter how far you go, how much you change or grow, we are all intrinsically connected to our home. My decision was made. I drove to Maryland, loaded up the boxes of parts and headed back to Charlotte, NC. The “Laverda Project” was underway and I was committed to going home to Devon.

The third significant thing that happened was being introduced to a gentleman by the name of Nate Hamlin, who had recently opened a new European repair shop in Charlotte called 2Topia Cycles. It didn’t take long for him to offer to rebuild the Laverda, and turn it into a modern fire breathing resto-mod that I could take home to England and blast around the roads of my youth once more. So, as you can see from the photos, the parts went to him, he tore down the bottom of the engine to see what it needed, and we were off and running on the journey to bring the beast back to life. Or so we thought.

Neale Bayly

*next month, a chance (?) encounter that changes everything.