Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire First bike in almost a decade.

Sweet music...

Love the sound of a 2-stroke!

Started out at 10YO on a Honda XR75
Then 5 years later it was a Honda MR175 Elsinore

Did everything short of killing myself on both!

Our local Kawasaki dealer has a brand new 750 triple in a display/show case. It has never been started. Talk about a cool time capsule.

Have you ever been to the Barber Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham? It is IMPRESSIVE!

The Kawasaki 2 stroke triples were very fast for their time. More than that, they were cheap and available. The fact is, they were not so much fast as they were difficult to ride well. They were short and light in the front end and power delivery was sneaky. The truth was, ten years later, the GPz 550 was just as quick and handled much better. I still remember though; a friend who expressed disgust when he realized, for 800 dollars, anyone could buy a bike which would blow right by the HD Sportsters he worked on. He consoled himself with the belief that the Sportster sounded better.
I still like 2 stroke MX bikes. I like the sound , the smell, and the feeling of quickness.
My son has a Kawasaki ZX14. This bike is so fast and powerful that it engenders respect from anyone with a brain. Nonetheless, it is so competent that it is relatively easy to ride but only if you are respectful of what it can do. We have never, and probably will never experience the 180+ mph top speed but, at 140, it is just humming along. He was asked if he wished he had a bike like that when he was in his twenties; he said, "Hell, no. I wouldn't have survived it." Amazing bike though. There are others which are as fast or faster but they are harder to ride. His is the last of those without electronic limits.
Along with the power of the new bikes, we get improved frame geometry, better suspension, awesome brakes and good quality parts. What we have lost is simplicity and ease of maintenance. Just like in our cars, we now need a computer to turn on the damn headlight! GD

The power band is what made them feel so fast.

The swap meet in Davenport IA is freaking wild too. Walk in with enough money and walk out with enough parts to build just about any bike from any era.

I started out on a Honda 50 Monkey, but saved up my yard mowing money and bought a 1976 XR 75. Terrorized the neighborhood! Why did I ever sell it?

Running around on a ‘13 Honda CBR600RR these days mostly. Plenty of zip for the city and running around back roads.

A guy in the neighborhood built this vintage Texaco station in his driveway. I take my cars there for pictures. The pumps don't work, but it is a thing of beauty...

Damn that goat is a beaut! Brings back some great memories.

I owned this one for about a year & when I went back to Honda with the left shifter & right brake it was like I never left. Guess I'd have gotten use to the Triumph eventually.
Embarrassed now about the long fork tubes, but many were doing it at the time & when I look back, it was really dumb. But loved the Z bars & reverse megaphone upsweep pipes, they called them.

Nice bike, KY221! Hope you enjoy it.

My college bike, and me riding it, 50 years ago...

CL?
OR
CB?

Neither, SL-350 Motosport...

SL 350.

Thanks Both.
Looks like my buddies CB100 that he got when I got the XR75, many, many years back.

You have to go back 50 years to the 1972 Hondas. The CB was the street model with the exhaust below the motor, the CL or scrambler with the exhaust up on the side and the SL which was the off road version and had some extra special plates you could remove from the mufflers that gave it just a little more ooomph...

That's the time frame, we were wee little kids with pretty powerful bikes for our age.

Buddies was the CB and it was abused on the trails.

Good times.