I was passing my neighbors place on the way to do some logging road riding when I decided to stop by and see if I could catch a peek at his newly acquired
little 50cc Aortic Cat mini bike. The week before he told me a hilarious story about how he had lost his when he was a kid to a police officer who was chasing
him. He dumped the bike and ran and never went back for it. He watched from the bushes as two officers loaded it into the trunk of their squad car. Recently
a customer of his (my friend does top flight Auto restoration) came in with the same model of bike in the back of his truck. It was a pile of junk but he had
to have it so he offered the guy $300. The customer was overjoyed to say the least. Since then he has completely restored the bike to original condition. He
showed me all of the things he had done and then said "you have to ride it". He had souped it up with some very refined motor work and wanted me to
more fully appreciate what he had done. His last words were "take it out on the road and give it a rap". Being a cautious sort I decided to take it
easy on the first run and headed off down the road. When I got to the intersection at the end of the road I turned around and thought "what the heck,
lets see what this little baby can do". Big mistake. Although it wasn't as powerful as a CT90 it did have a lot of kick for a 50cc motor. Add to
that that I am 6'3", it has a very short wheel base and you have a top heavy little accident waiting to happen. I "gave it a rap" and
immediately the front end went up and I and the bike wen down. Fortunately I hadn't gotten up any speed but there I was laying in the middle of the road
looking like a dumb ass (fortunately just out of site of his garage). When I got back he was all grins until I told him that I had dumped his newly restored
bike and smashed the headlight housing. He asked if I was hurt and then inspected his bike closely for any other damage. Hopefully that was it. I felt like
crap and wished I had at least drawn some blood so I could take some of the attention off of the bike but I was apparently unscathed. He laughed it off but I
feel bad that he had spent so much time and money restoring the little thing. When I asked if I could buy him a new head lamp he said that it was new
"old stock" that he had purchased from a guy in New York. Last night I did a search for a 1970 Arctic Cat mini bike headlight and discovered it is a
fairly rare bird.
