I’ll take “big bike” to mean first one bigger than a moped... mine was a Suzuki GT250M that I bought just after turning 17 and selling my Fizzie (which I sold for £100, I’d be looking to get around £3k for one of those nowadays, but I had neither the space nor money to hang on to all the bikes that have since rocketed in value, oh well...) Where was I? Oh yes, GT250 on L-plates as we could in those days. I got a lift on the back of my mate Tony’s 400/4 to collect the GT from about 5 miles from home, and got a rear puncture on my inaugural ride home... The M model had Suzuki’s ram air system, designed to speed up air flow over the cylinder heads to aid cooling... all it achieved was making spark plug removal difficult. Had to keep an eye on the ignition timing as the points had a habit of slowly advancing, resulting in a holed piston, always on the right cylinder...
