It was a gentle climb rather than a sweeping youthful swagger as Pat Hennen mounted the machine from his glory years, but that big smile was as infectious as ever.
The 59-year-old American is a special guest for next week's Tri Series finale around Wanganui's Cemetery Circuit much the same streets he dominated as the star of the-then Marlboro Series in the mid-1970s.
Hennen was a world-class rider at the peak of his powers winning the series championship for three of its five years on the back of his Suzuki TR500, TR750 and RG500 machines.
"The successful things become favourites," he said of his times thrilling Wanganui's crowds, adding he will watch on Boxing Day with "a big smile" of nostalgia.
It was one of those Suzuki's emblazoned with his name and basically in the same shape that he competed on it which Hennen sat on at the Wanganui i-Site yesterday.