Contact us

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Mail Address:
Akazienweg 18, D-32139, Spenge, Germany
Telephone: +49(0)173 576 2019
email: mailme@classicbikenut.com
Skype: thingummybob/Peter Gouws

A bit about me? Well, I have ‘been around a bit’…My contribution started in November 1955, in the heart of the then ‘Belgian’ Congo (a lot has changed since then…). After about four years, Beirut in the Lebanon became the place to hang out and I loved it there! After a while, my parents, (mother British, father South African) thought it a good idea to send me to school in England, coz I only did French and Arabic at school, you see…(not very practical in an english-speaking household!) and due to the almost negligible fact that Beirut was a war-zone(!). So it was off to boarding-school, and after that was over, to University, which was not my ‘thing’ (I was too busy mucking about with ‘bikes!) That, by the way, I had been doing since very early…to roll the film back a bit: at about three, I started taking (quite complicated stuff) apart and managed to get them back together again…so the mould was set. At seven, my parents went out and left me at home for an hour or so. On arriving home, they were confronted by me, sitting on the floor in front of the television/steam radio with it in bits (still plugged in, by the way!) and so my dad decided then and there to interest me in something more harmless…models! As my dad was a Commercial Pilot, aircraft models were the first choice for me and I still remember 1/72nd scale, metallic-red, ‘Frog’ Fokker triplane and the shit-green ‘Revell’ Sopwith Camel that I received as the first attempt at keeping me away from ‘real’ things to play with!

By the time I was thirteen at school in England (early 1969), I had ‘obtained’ my first bike in the form of a ’62 Triumph Tiger Cub, which I ‘restored’ with a mate of mine, Paddy Puxley (who had a fantastic polish neighbour who always impressed me immensely with his (poor, linguistically, as in wrong(!)swearing!)…which I bought for a ‘tenner’ (OMG, I only just realised, the bike was only just 7 years old!! A ‘tenner’!). The gearbox was stuffed and I had to give the rear wheel to my ‘Tutor’ (at school), so that I couldn’t ride it. In Crowthorne in Berks, very near to the school, I managed to find all the gearbox-innards (and a complete rear wheel and trials sprocket and tyre) for 3 Quid! Great, I could now ride the bike and have fun, ‘without’ my Tutor knowing’ (or having to take responsibility!). He knew, of course, but had relinquished his ‘Duty’ to the school Governors, by requisitioning the original rear wheel in the first place! After that, I went to Uni, in Birmingham, dilly-dallied in France for a while and then 25 years in Germany (where I have four ‘children’) and moved to Australia on the 11th of September, 2005, where I have been since and intend to stay!

And so it all started. Since the Cub (1969), I have owned and restored 49 bikes… so this next one has an extra bonus for me, bringing me up to my half-century! For that reason alone, it’s clear to me that this one has to be something special, something that means a lot to me and a bike that, this time, I’m going to KEEP, for a change! I have only been seven years in Austalia, and in the whole time here, I haven’t even been able to contemplate organising a bike again…but the wait has come to an end, this time, it’s for real!!

(2012)

Well, a to has happened since then, of course. Some good, some bad, but for the moment suffice to say that Life Goes On. Here my resent contact details:

I now live in Spenge, Germany, with my wife Maryna and 3-year-old son, Armstrong Oleksiyj (Олексій)

© peter gouws 2023

Made on a mac