Holy Grail XT500 restoration for little Josephine's cancer fund

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MaxThePanda

Race Dog
Joined
Jan 13, 2009
Messages
2,168
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Location
Cape Town
Bike
Vespa (all models)
If there’s just one thing that binds us bunch of hooligans together, it’s a love of motorcycles and wild open places. Like any group, we have strongly divergent opinions about politics, religion, food, beer, art, beauty. But if there’s one thing we agree on, it's that God created motorcycles for our pleasure. And She made them glorious!

For more than ten years I have hung out here, sharing stories, reliving wonderful trips and experiences, and generally stoking my stoke. This has been a very happy place. And yet today I bring you a different tale...

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My good friend Andrew has a beautiful young daughter called Josephine. She’s not even 2 years old! Listen to this story by her mother Penny:

“One day our beautiful, healthy 20 month-old  daughter Josephine  was tearing around, the next she started vomiting. Quite random vomiting in the morning only. Diagnosed first as nothing, then a possible bladder infection, more vomiting more regularly meant we did a scope and gastritis was then indicated. Finally, after four weeks of vomiting, back and forth between doctors, in and out of hospital we did an MRI of her brain. There it was. In the doctor’s words "a large aggressive tumour" in her head. She had developed hydrocephalus as a result and the tumour was pushing her brain stem triggering her vomiting.

We spent the following month in Red Cross Children's Hospital after a 7 hour surgery, where the highly skilled team of Doctors had removed a tumour the size of a small orange - this was  roughly 85% of it. The remainder was left due to the risks involved in taking it out as the tumour had enveloped critical neuro-vascular structures…”

That’s just the start of it. Josephine is really sick. You can read the rest of the story here: https://www.gofundme.com/josephine039s-cancer-treatment-fund. But the gist of it, is that like any loving parent, Andrew and Penny are doing everything they can to help their daughter. You would too, wouldn’t you?

There’s a chance of good results in Germany, with a special kind of Proton Therapy, and you can read the details on the GOFUNDME page. They are not wealthy people - Andrew is a physio and Penny is currently a stay-at-home mother, and the costs of the treatment that they need are over 100,000 Euro!

It’s mind boggling and overwhelming, but a mutual friend has set up a fundraising campaign and we’re all pitching in to help. All of the characters you’ve seen popping up in my ride reports - the Midge, English, Camel, and all of the rest of the various miscreants - know and love Andrew and Penny very dearly.

So… my very first adventure ride was led by Arch on his 640 - also known in these parts but a bit of a lurker - and he comes from a very long line of adventure riders. He owns a number of classics in addition to a ridiculously pimped XR650, and one of them is an original XT500 which his dad bought brand spanking new, and recently passed on to him. Arch has decided that a great way of gathering the tribe and doing something for our friends, would be a bike-related activity together for Josephine, and he has given his XT500 up to  be renovated by the team, and then auctioned off to raise money for her treatment.

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And now here’s the great part... For a measly R500, you can buy a raffle ticket to stand a chance of walking home with a fully restored classic XT. Most of these bikes have been mistreated and abused their whole lives, passed from hand to hand and left in a ditch somewhere. Not this one. She’s hen’s teeth! In one family since new, and fully original! We’re going to spruce her up and make her perfect for one lucky person to enjoy. The old girl is going 100% original - or as close as we can get her. No cafe racer hack jobs for our lady.

Yup, that’s right, folks. For R500 you can own a piece of motoring legend… AND help a very little girl survive cancer!!!!

So… here’s the scoop:

The Woodstock Moto Co. https://woodstockmoto.co have kindly offered to host Josephine (the bike not the girl) while we’re rebuilding her. They will also be running the raffle, so you can ship over there  and buy a ticket https://woodstockmoto.co/pages/yamaha-xt500-charity-raffle. And  don’t stop at just one... more tickets is more chance of winning. And all the proceeds go to Josephine's treatment - Arch is not taking anything for the bike, but there will be many expenses to renovate her.

I thought some of the generous vendors here may be up for pitching in with some support for the project? All the team are pitching in with their time, energy and cash to help this project along, but there are parts and bits and pieces we need (publicly or privately), and if anyone thinks they may be able to sponsor these please give me a shout:

- Front mudguard
- Vinyl cutting of decals (we have a designer)
- Sprocket front & rear
- Stainless Steel Welding - Repair Pipe Bracket
- Stainless steel tank repair (there’s a small dent)

Thanks so much to the following kind donations to the cause:
  • Dennes Engineering for repairs to metal parts
  • Ian Kinnear from Moto101 Forum for tyres, tubes and rim locks
  • Team SBR from Moto101 Forum for a rear sprocket
  • Aquablasting for particle blasting of the parts
  • Superfoxi for the Fork and Shock Service
  • Yamaha helderberg for a discount on parts
  • AMP for Chain, Oil & Spark plug
  • De-rust-it for treating metal parts
  • Motul for oil
  • Festival of Beer, Cape Town, for tickets for raffle entrants
  • Teng tools for extra prizes for the draw
  • Sailor Jerry for extra prizes for the draw


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Work is proceeding at pace. Many hands make light work, and on Wednesday evening we pitched in and stripped her down. The good hipsters at Woodstock Moto will be blogging this build like crazy, but I’ll also keep this thread up to date.

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Our target for the auction is the last Friday in June: 29 June - so no time like the present to get in there and snap up a few raffle tickets!
 
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