My name is David McKirdy and I was raised and educated here in Hong Kong, my elder brother was a keen motorcyclist and used to take me on the back of his MV Augusta 150. I learned to ride at 12 years old but since I had no licence I could only ride off-road, eventually I grew up and raced Moto-Cross for a number of years resulting in 5 national championships and participation in the 1986 Moto-Cross Des-Nations. During my teenage years my best friend bought a Commando with a Combat engine and Dunstall cafe-racer livery. By way of learning race-craft we used to ride it flat out on the public roads, two-up each of us egging the other on (Hobot, I'm sure we managed 152 MPH one evening on a particularly long stretch of road, but I had no helmet or goggles on so my view of the speedo was a bit blurred). My chum raced it in The Macau Grand Prix, riding without the usual ballast of a pillion gave a performance advantage undreamed of and he finished second in his first ever road-race against Japanese professionals. He didn't pursue the cut and thrust of a racing career, but instead became a lawyer where there was even more excitement to be had. I spent a bit of time in England during the late 1970's and early 80s, during which I worked as a mechanic for BMW Cars and the Brabham and McLaren F1 teams, laterly as  GP mechanic learning my craft. I currently run my own small business repairing and servicing Vintage and Classic cars - mainly European stuff from pre-war and the immediate post-war era.

I never forgot my friend's Norton and when I returned home to HK in 1982 I kept my eyes and ears open for one, soon enough I was offered a Fastback that needed restoration, it was cheap and I bought it, however about 3 weeks later a guy turned up at my office with a Dunstall equipped 750 just like my friend's old bike, I bought it then and there and gave the owner his cab-fare home in addition to the asking price. I rode the Dunstall around until I blew the engine up and then simply swapped the one from my fastback project, this actually produced more power than the original lump. The gearbox finally gave up and I stuffed it in a corner while I procrastinated - for about 20 years! I finally restored both bikes, the Dunstall as a classic cafe-racer with alloy sprint tank and Manx seat and the Fastback as a Roadster. Over the years I have amassed a number of bikes but rather than actively seeking out projects, now I simply wait and they seem to be magnetically attracted to me, I have sold 5 completed bikes in the last 6 or 7 years in an effort to whittle the collection down to a manageable size, but I still have at current count, 11 bikes (mostly in bits); 4 Commandos, 1 Matchless G15 replica, a 1965 and a 1971 Triumph Bonneville, a Triumph T100, a Ducati 450 Desmo circa 1971, a 1927 BSA 500 flat-tanker and a 1929 BMW 500 R57. 
 
The Commando featured here was one that the universe provided; an artistic looking fellow came into my garage one day asking if I wanted to buy a Norton, he had seen the Dunstall parked outside on the pavement and reasoned that here was a chap possibly sufficiently mentally unhinged to take his unwanted heap off his hands, he was a hairdresser and operated a salon not far from my own business, I agreed to meet him at his home that evening and I took a truck just in case we could do a deal then and there, I also took what I considered sufficient cash to tempt him into letting it go. When I saw what he had I offered him HK$500 (about US$65) scrap value, he nearly bit my arm off and we went in opposite directions grinning, each feeling he had gotten the better end of the deal. The hairdresser's uncle had been only the second owner, buying it off a guy who I assume was a teacher and a priest, as the registered address was a Jesuit College. 'Monsigneur O'Rourke' owned the bike for all of 4 months before selling it, I can only assume in order to fund his legal defence on a charge of 'kiddy-fiddling' or something equally common amongst the clergy at the time. The machine was licensed on the 3rd June 1970 and kept on the road continuously until 1981 after which the artistically inclined nephew was entrusted with it's care.

Having enjoyed building and owning a cafe-racer I realised that my rose coloured spectacles were becoming obscured the more I rode it. During the first 5 miles of any ride I imagined myself as Peter Williams at The Isle of Man sweeping all before me, the next 5 miles I was Barry Sheene after his 170 MPH Daytona crash, still fast and stylish but aching a bit in places, the final 5 miles I was Daniel Day Lewis in 'My Left Foot' as I crawled off and hailed a taxi! I resolved to build a bike with upright bars and a conventional seating position. I had always admired the S-Type, probably as a tip-of-the-hat to my own off-road exploits - although I can't imagine anyone wanting to actually ride a Commando off-road. I looked through my various project bikes quietly maturing under the stairs and dragged the old Hairdresser's bike out into the light of day, it had the correct frame and the cam-shaft breather engine and there was so much either missing or messed up that I didn't at all feel that I was canibalising something of value in order to build a non-original bike. I made a list of parts that I would need to turn it into an S-Type and set to, repairing the frame and stripping the engine and gearbox, although the bike was in a bad way the crank shaft, big end shells and pistons were all still standard size and the gearbox showed surprisingly little wear, I cleaned out the sludge trap, fitted new bearings and that was about it for the bottom end. I replaced the swing-arm bushes and pin and had the frame painted then fitted vernier type isolastics from Norvil in the U.K., this gave me a useful platform to fit the newly blasted and repaired Gearbox and crank-case. Many second hand parts were obtained at Rabers Parts Mart in San Jose on several of my trips to the US, they supplied oil-tank and battery tray, forks, seat, side panels and sundry other necessary parts.E-bay was a good source of parts and the exhausts and head-lamp mounting was obtained from RGM motors. A friend gave me a twin leading shoe backing plate and a front mudguard from a Mercury. All chrome work and machining was done locally. 
 
The bike was painted by a talented but somewhat mercurial English painter here in HK who refers to $100 bills as "beer tokens". The trick to doing business with him is to present him with a fistfull of beer-tokens as a deposit, but not so much that he wont need more fairly soon, then visit him a couple of days later, when he will ask for some more cash to buy the appropriate paint for your job, the trick now is to physically manhandle him into your car and take him to the paint shop, pay for the material with a $500 bill and give him the change by way of some additional beer tokens, this may actually persuade him to start work on your paint-job. Under no circumstances can you give him any more beer-tokens until you have seen some progress and at least witnessed the parts in primer. A few additional beer tokens may then be drip-fed at regular intervals and if you are lucky you will have the parts back within a year! I chose Ferrari 'Fly Yellow' as my prefered colour and I am delighted with the finish and depth of pigment, fortunately I planned well ahead of time, so the long wait for these painted parts turned out not to be a problem.  

During the restoration two more Commandos turned up and I halted progress on the S-Type to complete the Roadster that I entered in last-year's competition, it was absolutely complete and had all of the relevant paperwork to make registering it a very easy proposition. I more or less did both bikes side by side and it was the announcement of this year's competition that galvanised me into making the final push to get the S-Type ready. I hope to have the paperwork in order soon so that I can take the bike for a Transport Department test and thereafter just ride and enjoy it. I have matured during this whole process and I no longer visualise myself as a grand prix star of yesteryear, from now onwards I can be Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen or perhaps Dave Aldana.

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