... ok, so the first question most have asked is why? Go back just over a year ago and some will know that I badly dislocated my knee, this meant that I couldn't ride for around 8 months and even then it was very gently as not only was my knee still weak but also the accident had completely knackered my confidence. I have managed to ride for around 40 years and never had an injury other than the odd knock or pulled muscle, having had the pain of the knee dislocating 4 times within an hour and then the resulting months either on crutches or with a knee brace my brain just didn't want to let me try anything that could remotely result in a twist to the same leg again.
I rode two club trials on the Beta and had a couple of plays but the enthusiasm I have always had for riding just wasn't there. Then I was given the chance to ride Steve Saunders' ssdt pre65 winning bike in a local event and thought "what the hell, easy sections and just have a laugh". And it was such a laugh, I rode around with Jai Jacka and a few of the other pre65 riders and really enjoyed the day getting used to the wrong side rear brake and just riding again. Fast forward 4 months and Martin Mathews loaned me one of his SWM Jumbo's to ride in a Zona 1 club event... same thing happened, I just loved the day. It was fun again.

It got me thinking, why do I have a lovely Beta Evo sat in the garage that I wasn't getting the urge to ride and all the time it was sat there was losing value when I could perhaps get a hold of something to tinker with and ride some more of the enjoyable twinshock events. Something else made up my mind, because of the confidence issues I had dropped down a class to ride the middle route over 40's sections and to be brutally honest it was too easy on the Beta for me. I was bored, and asking myself why I was paying 15 quid or so to ride around on auto pilot and lose less that 10 marks all day. I may not want to ride huge sections anymore but I still want to have a bit of a challenge. Riding the SWM on those same sections suddenly made things a bit harder. Until you have spent 30 years riding the more modern bikes and then go back and ride a standard 1980's t/s shock you won't believe the difference.

So the upshot of the story is what you see in the image above. Martin runs motoswm.com and had this 1980 TL320 just delivered from Italy. Being a european spec one means it comes with the plastic fuel tank instead of the steel version we got over here in the UK. It looks like it was only used on the road as there are no big scuffs or any dents on the machine at all. The engine is being stripped by Martin as there was a problem with one of the gears but you can tell it hasn't had a hard off-road life because all of the cooling fins and rubbers are still complete on the barrel and head. A friend has already claimed the red Marzocchi rear shocks for his Fantic, I have a set of Betors on the way. I actually prefer the Marzocchi front forks that were fitted to the 1980 model, the Betor front forks look huge and heavy and funnily enough I had a reply back from ex SWM world champion Gilles Burgat on facebook to say one reason they fitted the Betors was to add weight on the front as the bike was considered very light on the front...!! Not what I would call something that weighs around 90kg's !!

I rode around the trial on Martin's SWM with Dave Dawson who has done a lovely job on rebuilding an SWM (see photo below) to almost make it ride like a modern bike, but I must admit I fancy trying to keep the bike as original as possible and just do mods that could mostly have been done at the time the bike was around. Martins motoswm.com business will supply me most of the parts I require.. already I have from him new mudguards, side panels, flywheel cover, airbox hose and some lovely machined air vented top caps for the forks. Most people seem to assume that I will be blinging the bike up as I did with my Betas but I want to get this usable rather than a show piece so apart from perhaps some graphics and maybe wheel rim stickers I will work with what I have got. The one item that will require changing is the footrest position. It will probably results in either a welded extension to the frame or a special bracket made to get them in a sensible and lower position. Anyone who has ridden an SWM will also know that the clutch activation needs some work... they are bloody heavy!! The easy way would be to fit a side cover from an Aprilia TX model that has a different arm system altogether but I would like to avoid that as I want it to look original. I will try a mod to the internal clutch arm to see how it goes first.

... so there we have it, a complete change. From blinged TTT replica 290 Beta Evo to a 32 year old Twinshock. The reason I went for an SWM and not the better performing, at the time, Fantic is that in 1980 i was 14/15 years old and when I was looking for my next bike almost everyone else in the south east had a Fantic. The world seemed to have turned red over night!! There was no way I was having the same as everyone else and after seeing the bright yellow and black SWM's I had to have one. I loved that bike and wanted to move on to a 350 Jumbo but just before I was going to get one I was given a part sponsored ride on a T350 Italjet..!!! And after very quickly getting rid of that thing I went onto a 300 Fantic... so if I enjoy my visit back in time my ultimate aim is to get a 350 Jumbo. We will see. 

I will add reports here when I start the rebuild and modification phase, at present I am getting together just about everything I need before starting in ernest. Still thinking about going for a tubeless rear rim as I hate tubes!!
So I need to thank a few people for either parts already supplied, stuff that is on the way or advice... motoswm.com, Dave Dawson classicrider444, Steve Saunders SXS, John Cane TYtrial, and a couple of ebay sellers for a few ancillaries. .. please view page 2 for new updates.

.. on the left is Dave Dawson's very trick SWM, on the right is Martin's 320 Jumbo.