After Christine's big sister Katrin had built herself a C652 from leftover components, and Christine was about to pass her motorcycle license, having exercised the art since her 14th birthday on various Nortons on racetracks, she dearly wanted one like her sister's. Opportunity arose when one was offered in a German secondhand vehicle site. I let a friend contact the owner who turned out to be the son of a deceased customer. This saddened me, having known his father who had been a very nice man with a great sense of humour. The son was not all too sure what he had for sale- the description mistook it for a race bike-, but still tried to tell me details about the motorcycle when I collected it. I told him not to worry- I was the manufacturer.

In the first two years of Christine's ownership the bike was limited to 34bhp through reducing the inlet manifold diameter- a legal requirement for German beginners. On riding the bike I found no real loss in power against the "open" version- the motorcycle was amazingly quick, possibly through lowering the gearing to BMW F650 ratio. With the BMW F650 weighing 20kg more this is probably not surprising. It is now on full power- 50bhp- but apart from all-out top speed performance in traffic seems not much different

left: Christine on her "Mopi", starting out for her first motorcycle tour, shortly after taking her motorcycle test.

Seat height was a problem for Christine at first as she is shorter in the leg than her sister, but now she got used to it and knows how to balance the bike on tiptoe if necessary. She loves her "Mopi" and would not part with it, though she fancies the Tony Denniss bike, mainly because of the glitter paintjob. Kickstarting could be a problem on a Commando for her- on the racetrack (racing Commandos) she is used to being push started by one of the team members.

left: Christine behind Mopi, Simone behind her "training bike", the "Ironing Board"