Motorcycles I have owned, Part 2

     Well here I am back again, seems like only the day before yesterday that I was talking about, oh yeah, it was the day before yesterday, sorry getting old is hell!  Ahhh, now I remember, I was recalling the motorcycles I have owned and had just finished talking about our Suzuki dealership and our carefully calculated decision (my brother in law read about a new six cylinder motorcycle in a magazine) to acquire a Benelli franchise.  Now don't get me wrong, when it comes to motorcycles and hot cars, and gorgeous women the Italians are hard to beat.  When you start throwing around names like Ducati, MV Agusta, Aprilia, and Bimota you are breathing the rarefied air of racing thoroughbreds and to be honest with you Benelli did have some racing success in their background.  The problem was unlike the other Italian makes their racing efforts did not carry over to their consumer motorcycle offerings.  The result of which was that while we patiently waited for the arrival of the six cylinder superbike the Benelli Sei 750 we were forced to accept the most deplorable collection of two wheel vehicles ever produced.  

     I spent every waking moment I had trying to sell these Italian kennel club members to any unsuspecting foo...  I mean customer I could drag in off the street.  As time went on I actually had a recurring nightmare where the poor people I had sold these two wheeled tragedies to showed up outside our shop with a rope, and there was my brother in law pointing towards me shouting "there he is, he's the one you want."  There were more than enough examples of odd outdated technology, confused purpose, just plain crazy models to go around (they actually made a 180 cc man eating mini bike called the "Volcano" which could also of all things be equipped with a sidecar and lights for street use) but perhaps the worst disappointment was the "Tornado 650."  

     The Tornado was supposed to be competition for those dripping with sexiness English upright twins like the Norton, Triumph, and BSA, but while doing a good job of emulating the style of the Brits the "Tornado" came off appearing more like the Bonneville's little sister wearing her mother's make up.  I demoed the bike for about a month and actually took it on one of our group rides of about 200 miles that I can safely say was the most painful experience I have ever had on a motorcycle.  The Tornado vibrated to such an extent that your hands and arms started going to sleep right after starting the engine.  The ride was just a bit more rigid than a Harley hard tail, and the valve train noise was next to deafening, but to be fair the bike did handle superbly, when it was sitting still that is.  Happily Suzuki came out with their four stroke line up the next year and we were able to bid a fond farewell to Italian line up.  As a side note, Benelli pretty much abandoned the motorcycle business a little later on and began making "Benelli Shotguns" achieving great success with them.  Second side note, Benelli has once again started making motorcycles and is beginning to sell them in the USA, say, I wonder if they will bring back the Volcano!
     As I stated in the last paragraph Suzuki finally began the switch from two stroke engines to four stroke engines in 1976 with the introduction of the "GS750" and the "GS400" models.  They still kept the two stroke GT line which featured the 750, 550, 380, and 250 models as in 1975.  The shame is that by this time the GT models really were well built motorcycles, but like the Stanley Steamer car their time had come and gone.  I never got to demo a "GS750" due to the fact that they were in short supply and they sold like hotcakes, but in subsequent years I rode quite a few of them and they really were ahead of the competitions comparable displacement models.  Unfortunately another maker named Kawasaki had come out with a little number called the"Z1 900" in 1972 and the "my engine's bigger than your engine" gauntlet had been thrown down.  Honda introduced the "GL1000 Goldwing" in 1974 which featured a horizontally opposed four cylinder motor with shaft drive.  A forgotten fact about the Goldwing was that it was originally intended to be naked performance bike, but somehow its 584 pound dry weight kept it from being serious competition to the superbikes that were about to show up on the streets of the world.  Yamaha was having so much success with their dirt bike line that they didn't show market a superbike until 1978 when they introduced the "XS1100" which featured shaft drive and did reasonably well racing but was discontinued after three years of production due to lack of consumer interest.

     In 1977 Suzuki introduced the "GS1000" which I feel was their all time best effort when it came to styling, performance, comfort, and price.  I got to ride one of these great motorcycles for almost a year and I will never forget it, I had a black model and my mechanic expressed it best when one day I rode up on it and he said that the "GS1000" looked like a "gentleman's motorcycle."  The "GS1000" continues to be Suzuki's flagship motorcycle until 1980 when the "GS1100" which boasted a top speed of 140 mph+ right out of the box dethroned it.  Don't get me wrong the 1100 would set your hair on fire and caused a great deal of commotion with its top speed claims, but they had to be beef up the frame and suspension considerably in order to deal what I believe to be the first 100 plus horsepower production streetbike.  This "beefing up "sacrificed some of the comfort that the GS1000 provided in the quest for speed.  All in all the "GS1000" might have been my favorite bike of all time and I have sometimes considered picking up a restored one, but memories are a funny thing.  It's like the girl you dated in high school who used to jump into the back seat of your car with you remains seventeen years old with a rock hard body in your mind.  Then you day thirty years later you run across her by accident and the two of you stand there looking at one another thinking, "how could I have been turned on by that!"  The truth is that motorcycles and old loves have a lot in common, I am afraid they are never as fast or reliable or as good looking as you remember, so leaving them in your warm and fond memory collection is where they should stay.
     Unfortunately shortly after the introduction of the GS line our business was faced with another of the numerous ongoing financial policies that crippled or destroyed many small business's during the waning years of the twentieth century.  First it was the infamous fuel shortage.  We sold everything we had on the showroom floor in two weeks which was good, but then could not beg, borrow, or steal another bike from Suzuki for the next six months which was bad.  Later we found out that Suzuki was still supplying the larger dealers with bikes while giving the proverbial shaft to the smaller dealers, then during the winter they sent in all the old orders for motorcycles that we were told were cancelled.  Somehow though we made it through that and still manage to stay afloat, but the final straw came with what was called the credit crunch.  This was a purely uncalled for policy put forth by the large financial lenders to require nearly unheard of credit scores and age in order to get financing for a motorcycle.  Our average buyer back then was twenty-one to thirty-five years of age and the credit companies wanted buyers over the age of forty with five star credit and a sizable bank balance.  This last hurdle was more than our already weather beaten business could handle and we closed the doors in 1982.  Writing this post has brought back it's share good and bad memories but all things considered everything is a learning experience and I suppose that is how I have learned to look at things.
     After our motorcycle business failed I guess you could say that it left a bad taste in my mouth for motorcycling in general, they say that you should never go into business selling something that you love.  Well, for me it certainly proved to be true for a number of years, I lost complete interest in them and my wife and I dedicated ourselves to getting my son through public school and then five years of college.  By the way this is a little off the subject, but have you noticed that American colleges are now providing sub par educations in relation to the rest of the world, and they charge a fortune for a degree that is usually five to ten years behind other countries?  They then convince your offspring that they should take all the time in the world to make up their minds as to a major, of course that depends on how long they or their parents can pay the tuition fees?  And what about post grad school, it used to be that a Masters Degree, or Doctor of Philosophy Degree, was something to be held in awe.  It seems to me that they award them now if you send in ten cereal box tops and write a short paragraph on how I spent my summer vacation.  I personally know one case where a teacher I know literally couldn't come to grips with that higher math concept know as simple fractions but somehow now has obtained a Masters Degree in Education.
     Sorry for that.  Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century, my ideals and expectations seem to be more suited to the nineteenth century, not the twenty first.  So, where was I, oh yes we had closed our motorcycle business and time had moved on, and believe me when I tell you that once you pass thirty the pace picks up exponentially.  But back to my motorcycles.  After my wife and I nursed mine and her parents through to their deaths we decided to move away from the now overdeveloped Annapolis area where we were raised and move to a much less populated area in the mountains of Western Maryland.  After building our home and starting a one man photo and video production business I started to yearn for the good old two wheel days of my youth and decided to purchase a motorcycle.  I explained to my wife that it was strictly to be used for business, and of course she did not believe a word of it but went along with it for my sake.

     I looked at several different makes (needless to say Suzuki was not one of them) and a lot of different models before I decided that I wanted a "Kawasaki KLR650."  It took me back to the good old days of my dual purpose road-dirt machine the "Triumph Trophy" 500 , gosh that still cracks me up to infer that my Trophy was at home on the dirt.  If you don't know anything about the "KLR650" it is a world renowned bush beater, there are people who have actually done the Pan American Highway on one.  The Pan American Highway stretches from Prudhoe Bay Alaska (near the Arctic Circle) all the way to the tip of South America where it terminates at Ushuaia on Argentina's Tierra del Fuego archipelago.  A mere 19,000 miles packed with every conceivable danger to life and limb that mother nature can cook up in her almost endless imagination with the added attraction of third world villainy, so I figured it could handle the fire roads of West Virginia.  I will say that the KLR upheld its reputation with honor and I put 17,500 miles on the old boy before I traded it in on another Kawasaki product.  

     While the water cooled single cylinder engine of the KLR performed flawlessly it did have a minor vibration problem that tended to put various of your body to sleep soon after taking to the road, and since old men are noted for their ability to nap at a moment's notice I felt it was time to move to something with a little less vibration.  A new Kawasaki model called the "Versys", caught my eye when it hit the American shores after making its debut in Europe and Canada.  The "Versys" utilized a two cylinder 650 cc power plant  to push it along.  The name was an acronym for versatile system although I really couldn't see where the bike was so versatile except for its great ground clearance which was also it greatest detraction.  You see the Versys seat height was 33.3 inches and unless you played for the NBA or had recently spent some time on a Spanish Inquisition rack you had to stand on your toes whenever you brought the bike to a stop.  There was a lowering solution offered that compress the suspension but it also sacrifice some of the great handling that the bike possessed.  I owned the Verysys for about three years and over all the it may have been the best all around motorcycle I ever owned, hey!  Maybe the name did fit.

My Bonnie

     Sadly I could not overcome the seat height thing and after falling over twice while standing still I decided the time had come for change.  If you remember at the beginning of this post I stated that when I got out of the Army I really wanted a Norton, but did not have enough cash for one, my second choice was the "Triumph Bonneville" which sadly was also too expensive.  Well it took 40 years but I decided that it was time to get that Bonnie (and they didn't make the Norton anymore), so in 2010 I traded in the Versys on a Green and white T100 and have never been happier.  The bike is a retro style which fits me to a tee since I am also a bit of a retro style.  It of course has very little in common with the old "Bonnevilles" since it's engine can easily last well into the 50,000 to 60,000 (one is reported to have 80,000 miles racked up) mile range without a rebuild, an electrical system that doesn't leave you sitting every time it rains, and a lack of vibration that's almost scary if you are a veteran Triumph owner.  
     I guess the best thing about owning the retro T100 though is the stories you hear.  I don't think I have ever gone on a ride where I stopped for some reason or other that a total stranger didn't walk up to me and begin to relating his Bonneville story to me.  Sometimes it is about owning one and at other times it's about how they wanted to own one, but nearly always you can tell that seeing the reincarnated Bonneville brings back fond memories to them.  I think my favorite Bonneville story was told to me at a restaurant one day by another old codger like myself who happened to see me ride in.  He said that back in 1969 he was pretty strapped for cash but he had developed a great lust for two things he felt that he must have. One was a brand new silver and black "650 Bonneville," and the other was an cute little eighteen old five foot four inch red head with a body that would stop time.  Well, he said, "I didn't have enough money for a motorcycle and a proper honeymoon so I did the only honorable thing, I eloped with my red headed baby doll and proceeded to take a two week motorcycle honeymoon riding from place to place and camping out in a small tent."  He went on to say, "we must have made love at least three times a night every night laying there under stars with only nature to hear our sounds of passion, yep I sure was in love."  I was so moved by his story I couldn't help but ask how his wife was to which he replied, who? you don't mean the little red head, hell we got divorced a month after we got back, just after she found out just how poor I was.  When I said I was in love, I meant with the "Bonneville!"