Focus Paul-san, Focus

The CB750 sale was also a result of impending relationship followed by marriage. Although Jill liked motorcycles the self imposed pressure of getting married aided to my setting aside what I would later realize was a real passion.
Let's be clear here, the motorcycle will always loose out to the girl in my case. Now that we have that clear we can move on.
For a short time after getting married I rode a 150 Honda back and forth to work but it did not satisfy my need to ride. Then came children, starting a business and just stuff. Fast forward 15 to 20 years and the kids were going off to college so I thought it was time to fire up the old motorcycle passion again.
Like all real men I waited until my wife was taking a little vacation with her friends in Mexico to run down to the local BMW store and buy a new R1100GS. A friend of mine had been raving about the bike so it was immediately on the short list. Impulse buying can be a bad thing but not in this case. Jill arrives home, sees the motorcycle in the garage and realized that there was no hope.
Still working at the time I did not get to ride much at first. Fortunately I had purchased the full hard bags, top box and tank bag so I had to try them out which meant a road trip of some kind. Once I had taken that first road trip on the GS I was hooked. Two, three and more day rides started to become the norm even if they did not happen as often as I would have liked.

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A little faster please

I owned this Yamaha DT1 and loved it. The bike was light, handled well and I would ride it anywhere. The photo at left is from a ride a friend and I were on from Burbank to Newport Beach to visit some friends. Three days on the road and that is all I had with me. No helmet of course.
One day during a heavy rain in Southern California I went out for a ride on the DT1. We lived in Burbank at the time and a street called Country Club Dr was running like a river. Water pouring down the street, through houses with rocks the size of cantaloupe rolling down the street just below the surface of the water. This looked like a perfect place to take the Yamaha for a ride. I turned up the street and rode to the top, about a half mile or so. It was like riding up a small river but paved. Got to the top, turned around and rode back out. Ah the young and immortal days. Never once did I think I would fall down, get hurt, drowned or worse hurt the bike.
The days of the DT1 gave way to the need for performance. Enter the CB 750

This was Honda's new 4 cylinder hot rod. I rode this bike as much as I could possibly ride and stay employed. The only thing that stopped me was a softball injury that laid me up for a couple of months. Just before the injury I had had a problem with the local dealer. They had tuned the bike and stripped one of the spark plug holes. I was going to pull the head and helicoil the spark plug holes. Figured I would do them all at once to save me time later. Since I was laid up I called a friend / neighbor and ask him if he would help. I got a ride out to see him at his shop and we talked. He said that as long as I was going to basically have the motor out of the bike why didn't we take a look at some other modifications. Did I mention the fact that his name was Dusty Rhodes? You may remember him as a pretty well know dragster owner and top engine builder. Anyway I said what do you think we can do. He said that we could bore it out a little, balance it, CC the head and then see what we got. What we got was an 850cc rocket ship. He installed forge true pistons out of a 450 Honda, CC'd the head, balanced the crank and rods and did some of the trick racing stuff he was famous for at that time. OK, OK it was fast back in the day.
My brother was "breaking it in" for me since I was not able to ride yet. He had a couple of buddies that had the same bike and he kept telling them that the bike was pretty fast. They were skeptical of course. So a challenge ensued. They took three CB 750's up on the freeway. Ran them up to 60 and on the count of 3 all pegged the throttle. My 750 ran away from the other bikes. They ended up doing it three times as the other riders could not believe that the bike was that much faster.
Once I got my leg back, that means they took the cast off. I had a great deal of fun with that bike. One guy that I rode with had a Norton Manx.
We had a couple of good sessions on Mulholland. He was quicker in the curves but I would pass him within 20 yards coming out of the turn. The Honda was just too much for the Manx in a straight line. Another friend had the Triumph 3 cylinder Rocket. That bike was strictly straight line fast but it was no match for my Honda. In fact the only bike I stayed away from was the Kawasaki triple. Stupid fast, uncontrollable and noooooo brakes.



You never wanted to race one of these Kawasaki's. They would beat you in a straight line no matter what you were riding, driving or flying. If there was a corner or stop sign in sight you did not race them because you never knew where they would end up.

As the saying goes a great time was had by all. In the end I sold the CB750 because I spent way to much time going fast. Remember the earlier part about no helmet law. Even in my "immortal" state that came with the age I knew that I was pressing my luck on that bike. When I sold it the guy that bought it did not believe me that it was fast. He had had Norton's and said that he knew fast. I let him test ride the bike and I even gave him the green light to get on it. After warning him of the acceleration he rode off. When he thought he was out of ear shot, he was not, I heard him hit the throttle. He did not stay in it for very long. A couple of minutes later he came back. He had a huge smile on his face and before he even stopped the bike he said "I'll take it". I warned him once again that this bike WILL get you into trouble. He said yeh yeh and rode off with silly smile still plastered on his face.
A little slower please

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It all started here

Once you tell people that you have been riding for a long time they start asking where and when did you start riding. Well, you asked for it.
I think I was 15 when one of my brothers bought a brand new Triumph T100C. It must have been a 1962 as I was a sophomore in high school. He is 4 years older than I am so he was out of high school and working. He had a car and a new motorcycle.
This is not his bike but it is just like his bike.
It was actually the summer before I started high school. My brother would head off to work in the morning, I would wait a few minutes then go out to the garage and hop on the bike and head out for an adventure.
You guessed it. One day he forgot something and headed back home. I saw him coming and made a quick turn up a side street. I knew he did not see me so I beat him back to the house, got the bike back in his spot and plopped down on the couch. I was good. Well the problem here was his room was right off the garage so when he went into his room he could feel the heat still coming off the bike. Boy that is strange. How could my bike be hot if I had not ridden it since the day before. Busted. We had the typical older brother / younger brother family discussion. No broken bones but we did come to an understanding about when it was OK to ride his new bike. Surprisingly it worked out much better than I had ever thought it would. He said that as long as I asked and he was not planning on using it I could use the bike. My friends thought that that was the coolest thing ever. I had a brand new Triumph to ride around. Didn't even have a temporary license yet. California didn't have motorcycle licenses, or helmet laws, in those days so I was BMOC before I was even OC.
I was hooked on riding and life was very good.

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Getting grief already

It's tough having friends that are young enough to be your kids and are geeks. I was proud of myself when I actually got a blog going and now I'm getting critiqued, which I admit I asked for from these friends. It is not so much the blog that they are ragging on me about it is the fact that I told them that I was changing motorcycles.
So here is my trusty R1200GS on a recent trip in Hyder, Alaska. This bike is the greatest single bike that you can own, and I am selling it. I have had all three of the oil head version GS bikes. The 1100, 1150 and now the 1200. All have been my favorite bike ever. So if it is so good why am I selling it. As much as I love to ride I have never been much of an off road rider. I prefer the asphalt to the dirt. The GS is great on both although it really is more suited to the asphalt. The problem for me is the bike is competent off road which tempts me to take it there. The reason I sold my first GS was because I was tempted to go off road. My wife and I decided we had to see the famous Racetrack in Death Valley. It is 27 miles off the asphalt road. 27 miles of washboard, sand, gravel and ruts. You might also realize by now that it is 27 miles back to the asphalt. Three bolts rattled off my GS and my wifes face shield screws fell out by the time we got back. I swore I would never ride like that again and sold that GS immediately. Bought a K1200RS. A year of so later I got tempted again by the then new R1150GS.

Rode the 1150GS all over the place. Even on some dirt roads in Canada and Alaska a few years ago. Got the bug when the new GS came out and sold the 1150 and bought the 1200.
But now I think I need a break from the "adventure" riding thing again and am going to open a new page in my quest for the perfect ride. More asphalt less dirt.


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Old Rider, New Blogger

I love technology but I have never spent any time trying to learn how this blogging thing works. Several friends have tried to get me started but until now I did not take the plunge. Lately though several friends have asked where I had been riding lately so I thought that I would give the blogging thing a try.















In June I headed north to meet some friends in Washington state to take a ride up into Canada and Alaska. I had ridden with most of these guys before so I knew it was going to be a good ride. In fact the only "bad" ride I have ever had included some broken bones and a fair amount of bike damage. That story is for another day though. These pictures are from Crater Lake, Oregon. They had just opened the north entrance so I figured I would take a ride through the park. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I rarely go through Oregon on a motorcycle and not ride the Crater Lake road. Make sure you stop at the old lodge. That is where the lake picture was taken.

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