Neil Graham’s motorcycle beginnings involved neither a ready-to-ride machine nor a straightforward first outing. As a young teenager in a small farming town in Ontario, he spent $50 on a disassembled Hodaka 125 Combat Wombat while working a summer zucchini-picking job. The main complication was that half of its engine was sitting in the trunk of a Buick owned by the father of the seller’s former girlfriend.

Recovering the parts called for a late-night mission. Graham and the seller went to the former girlfriend’s house, opened the trunk with a key and flashlight, and carried the engine components back. Rebuilding the bike was a gradual process. A patient local dealer tracked down obsolete transmission gears one at a time, eventually helping Graham get the Combat Wombat running.

The Hodaka was not a short-lived teenage experiment. Graham used it as his primary ride for three years. He is now a filmmaker, a former editor-in-chief of Cycle Canada and the host of ADVrider’s Lowdown podcast. His current motorcycles include a Ducati 900SS and a Ducati 748RS race bike.

Graham regards that improvised project as an early sign of his adult obsession with vintage Ducatis. The connection is not simply the jump from an inexpensive, incomplete motorcycle to two very different Ducatis. It is also the persistence required to bring a difficult machine back to life, a quality that shaped Graham’s personal entry into the motorcycle world.