Some collect old stamps, rare coins and bottles...even vintage wine.

A few collectors have a love for Bermuda's old motorbikes and want to preserve that part of Bermuda's heritage. They are the members of the recently formed Bermuda Classic Bike Club who fear that a Bill tabled in the House of Assembly will phase out the two-stroke bike engines and make their priceless collection of old bikes useless in Bermuda.

Two members of the club, Zach Sagurs and Paul Martins, have between them about 80 bikes, with Martins possessing about 52 models which range from an Abberdale to a Zundapp. They share interesting stories of how they got started collecting old and rare bikes.

"When I was growing up my father had a Zundapp and that was one thing that always sat in the back of my mind," explained Sagurs who, like Martins, 37, had a Mobylette when he turned 16.

"Later in life, through collecting Triumphs, I met a person called Robert (Bonzo) Pedro Sr - I knew his son - and I used to go round and see his bikes. He was looking to sell a Francis Barnett and some James parts.

The new legislation was tabled in the House just over a week ago and, once it eventually passes, it will ban the importation of two-stroke engines from December 31, 2004.

Some of the collectors of old model bikes in Bermuda are wondering what will happen to their collection, some of which are presently still on the road. Last week a letter was sent to Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown by the Bermuda Classic Bike Club expressing their concerns.

"I bought the Francis Barnett that he had and a James frame and started to research into it and it evolved from there."

Sagurs' collection has grown to 25 bikes, some just given to him.

"People, instead of trashing a bike, have been willing to give me a bike. I have hardly ever bought a bike," he explained.

"Most of my collection has been given to me by Bermudians who want to see someone restore a bike to its original condition and to preserve Bermuda's history. That's how I became a collector. I just love the bikes, I love looking at a Villiers bike because you hardly ever see them on Bermuda's the roads anymore.

"The last one I saw on the road was Paul's son on the charity ride last year. What I'm referring to is the type of motor because Villiers, a Wolverhampton manufacturer, produced just motors, they never produced the bike.

"They sold the motor to motorcycle manufacturers to put the motor of the time on the bike." Said Martins: "Villiers was the Briggs and Stratton of its day, it was the motor on cement mixers and lawn motors."

For a decade Martins has pushed the idea of a museum to preserve Bermuda's automobile history, which also would include bike and car accessories.

Stephen DeCosta, another member of the club who has five Mobylettes and a Francis Barnett.

He stated: "It would be nice to have a museum, but it would also be nice to come home and take a bike and go for a joy ride."

One of the Mobylettes was the first bike DeCosta restored, and he has received tempting offers to part with one of his Mobylettes, but resisted.

All of the members of the club have had offers to sell their bikes.

"There are seven members of the committee of the Bermuda Classic Bike Club (Richard Grant, Winston Smith, James Hallett and Carlos Burch are the other four) and each one of us is an aficionado of Bermuda's motorcycling history," said Sagurs.

"We actually formed out of a need to preserve Bermuda's heritage, based on a meeting on May 1 with Randy Brangman, the Chief Examiner at TCD. He recommended to us that we create a group of people and form an association and he strongly advised that we get the public's feedback. If the Bill gets passed we will lose our heritage.

"I have 25 bikes, or thereabouts, in my collection, ranging from a 1937 Saxonnette all the way up to an Excelsier to a Francis Barnett."

Martins has been collecting for over 20 years, but his passion for bikes go back to his youth when his father brought home old bikes for he and his brother to tinker with.

Now his wife Gina shares his inNow his wife Gina shares his interest of bikes which equates to lots of bikes and parts around the Martins house.

"She's got the touch, she likes `getting in'," he said.

"She called me up one day and said, `can I take the Cyrus apart?' I said sure and when I came home the only thing she couldn't get off was the front forks, everything else was stripped!

"In my hallway I have all kinds of old tools, bike parts, licence plates hanging up. My wife's granny calls it memory lane. I just want to make it look like a normal house again."

Martins, who recently purchased two more Police bikes to bring his collection of those bikes to seven, works in the automotive industry so he is around bikes and cars all the time. The only bike he has licenced and on the road at present is his Triumph.

The Vespa Scooter is Winston Smith's passion. He has three of them, two 1968 models and a 1970 Sprint model. The major difference between the two models is the `68 model has eight-inch wheels and the Sprint ten-inch wheels.

All of Smith's Vespas are licenced and he keeps them in pristine condition by riding them each for a month at a time before alternating. Next month he will ride the black one and in September the red one.

He also doesn't wash the bike with water, but instead uses Pledge Furniture Polish. And he keeps a log book to remind him what maintenance has been done to which bike, like changing oil and sparkplugs.

"This one (blue one) I paid $2,000 for it and was offered $9,000 a couple of months ago," revealed Smith who prefers his bikes to a car.

"I wouldn't sell them for $20,000 each! The black one, a Super 150, I paid $180 for it back in 1972."

Interestingly, the local collectors have a tool that makes searching for bike parts a lot easier than it would have been years ago...the Internet. It enables them to find parts in various countries as far away as England, Sweden, the Philippines and Mexico.

It is also through the Internet that the local bike collectors may have to turn to to find buyers if new legislation outlaws their bikes. Sagurs already believes that every old bike in Bermuda would fail the emission test of 2005.

"If I have to take them off the road and can't ride them anymore in Bermuda, I can very easily sell them," Smith assured, though he admits it isn't something he wants to do.

"I could contact the guy I get my parts from. He has a picture of the bikes in his shop and everybody is asking about them. Or maybe I could sell them on the Internet."

Said Sagurs: "We're not here to fight about whether or not Bermuda removes two strokes going forward, but what we are here about is whether or not Bermuda loses its history of two strokes from the past," said Sagurs.

"What we would do, and Paul has said the same thing, is band together and find one collector and sell the whole lot overseas. You would lose 75-80 bikes from just two people.

"We're not saying we don't want them to ban two strokes, but what we're saying is we want amendments to the Act to say anything prior to December 31, 1984, can still be kept on the road and brought on the road if it is not on the road by 2005."