I acquired my Beluga from its original owner in June 2001, after the bike had been sitting outside (under an orange tarpaulin) for several years. In Ottawa we bake in the summer months and, as the second coldest capital after Ulan Bator, Mongolia, we freeze in the winter. Of course the bike wouldn't start. It had old gas in the tank, a dead battery, and I discovered later some carburetor parts were disconnected. The owner is a good friend, and so she gave it to me. The only condition she asked me to honour was to not sell it. In fact, that's the last thing I would want to do.

For all of its sitting outside (including a brief period at a farmhouse when someone offered to work on it and gave up after deciding the problem had something to do with "the float"), the bike was in good condition. Later I heard from Beluga owners who had purchased or inherited bikes with seized pistons or other similar calamities, but by all accounts the engine in this one was fine. The body, apart from its array of stickers on plastic fairings and some surface rust on metal parts, was reassuring—although like other Belugas I have seen the parcel pouch was cracked and a piece needed to be glued in place. The front fender had a hole in the top, attributed to ice falling from the roof above where the bike was parked for several winters. My friend also informed me the electric starter hadn't worked for a while before she stopped riding it. The bike had its original Bridgestone tires, which appeared to have plenty of tread left on them but nevertheless were candidates for early replacement. She found the owner's manual, warranty card, and the original bill of sale. She had purchased the bike new in May 1984 from a local Yamaha dealer for about $942. The odometer indicated she had enjoyed 3,694 kilometers in about 10 years of riding.

To get the bike to my house, I hired a flatbed tow truck. The bike looked absurd on the thing, but it was the only arrangement I could make at the time. I started removing parts almost immediately. One of the first things I did was find the bike's frame and engine numbers: in both instances, 14M000490. It was the 389th CV80J built by March 1982 (the latter date included in details found on a manufacturer's sticker placed on the inside front panel).

In the next two and a half months of restoring my Beluga, I learned a lot more. It's still a mystery to me how a stone the size of a peach pit ended up in the transmission case (a mechanic's talisman, or a transmission pearl?), and I continue to be both amazed and a bit annoyed by the mouse or other creature that had lived in a thick nest of grass behind my headlight (it chewed a lot of wiring and the underside of my instrument panel).

Mostly I reminded myself to be patient ("Zen and the art of scooter restoration"). But at 46, lacking any experience with motorcycles or small engine repair, I also had fun restoring the bike to something resembling its original condition. If nothing else, it ran for a while.