RD250

Shopping With the winter maintenance season on its way I started looking for parts to get the bike where I wanted it for the 2017 season. Wheels were high on my shopping list as the stock cast wheels weigh a fair bit. I wanted a set of Astralites but they are very expensive. Spoked wheels were going to be the more likely option but getting a good set was't very cheap either. As it happened this pair of Astralites came up cheap on eBay for only £250 with the added bonus of all the spacers for an RD250 fit. They were still in their original anodised finish with the only draw back being a few dents in the rims that would need ironing out. Straightening things up I spent a long time trying to get in contact with the Tony Dawson and   Paul Allender. Tony being the man who brought the Astralite wheel to us and Paul the man who brought them back after a 10 year gap . Paul was selling the wheels again on RennStar  but sadly they have recently announced th...

quitly ignoring the fact that we have already looked at the engine rebuild, lets go back to stripping this thing and talk about some little bits. As I received her I had: A rolling bike with an engine and fuel tank. She lacked carbs, front brakes, throttle and a chain amongst many other little details. The previous owner had braised on foot peg mounts, ignition mounts, fairing mounts and had sourced a tail unit which saved me plenty of work but I still had a great deal to do and in not too much time. I stripped the bike right down to nothing which wasn't hard as the bike was basically tacked together. The frame had already been mostly delugged and didn't need much tidying up at all. After tidying what little needed doing; I rubbed the frame down and painted it matt black. This not only looks nice but it is also really easy to touch up when it gets scratched. For those parts that I wanted bare metal; I hit them with the sand blaster. The engine rebuild, If you ...