Helle’s GN250

Helle is is from Vesterbro in Copenhagen, Denmark and got her bike license four years ago. The first bike she bought was a brand new Honda Shadow VT C4 750cc, but she didn’t like it at all. It was no fun to ride, but because it was brand new she didn’t feel it was right to go about changing the things she didn’t like as it would just devalue the bike. The better plan was to sell it and start again, which is exactly what she did.

“Then all the fun began! I bought this little Suzuki GN 250 from 1993 for very little money from a driving school – just to prove that even if the bike is quite ugly from the start – the result may be pretty cool after a rebuild. “ Helle started surfing the internet looking at other GN based builds for inspiration, checking out mostly trackers and brats and soon settled on what she liked the most – a clean, stripped-back bike.

Helle’s philosophy was simple; “Only buy what is absolutely necessary – and use what you already have”, saving time, wasted effort, and of course keeping the costs down.

“I’m a Newbie – and have not built anything like this before – so my boyfriend Jesper helped me a lot with all the technical things.” But Helle does plan to learn how to do it all for herself for next time around. They used Jesper’s underground car park to get the work done, stripping the bike down and getting stuck into it together.

“I did not want a bike with lots of colors – so I just striped the paint from the tank, polished it and gave it some clear varnish. I really like the grey trashy look with a few bumps.” The rear fender is a skateboard, the front tyre came from Jesper’s bike, but re-used at the rear. Ebay supplied a set of clip-ons, a small speedo ,a tail light, heat wrap, and matching grips, plus some longer rear shocks to lift the rear of the bike.

The exhaust is made from the steering column from an old Volkswagen, (Jesper’s bike also stole from his pile of VW parts), while the cover mesh is from a CD player with heat wrap inside. The underneath of the seat is a “baby rack” (we’re not sure what that is – a place to hang up your baby?) and teh air filter is from a Triumph – picked up on the cheap at a swap meet.

“The seat we also made ourselves. Jesper made the bottom and I sewed the seat cover on my 30-year-old Toyota sewing machine. I wanted the color to be the same as the color of the heat wrap and the grips. We put some yellow transparent tape over the front light glass – and the Crash Test logo was obvious to me.”

“It is not a Tracker, Scrambler, Brat etc… But everything in between… And with all these used things in mind my bike is called ‘Recycle’. The bike rides nice – it’s not at very fast bike but very nice in the city and it has a great sound now.”

Helle is very happy with the end results, and her “very swift girly motorcycle.” Her next plan is to rebuild a ’76 Kawasaki KZ400 and we look forward to having the pics and story here on The Bike Shed. Good work Helle & Jesper – and thanks for sharing with us on The Bike Shed.