Weekly vote- Bikes Bike Oh!My!

[MrJumps]

Comment your thoughts below!

[MrJumps]

Caf├® racers <3
I wanna get an ninja 250 and buy one of those kits to turn it inot an cafe racer.

My favorite duelsport/adventure bikes are those fancy BMWs with the drag bars that literly allow you to highside the bike into a abyss and ride it away with no damage to the bike. The KLR 650 is also one of my long time favorites. As for sport bikes I like the 1980s intercepter 250r or the 1999 Honda Hornets.

[MrJumps]

GG,no re ez scooti

<good game, no rematch easy scooting>

[benji]

I used to ride 600cc sport bikes and harleys. There's something to be said about the speed and feeling of riding a fullsize. But it's way easier on a scooter, lighter n ez to manuever. And probably safer at the speeds most of us achieve on these haha.

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

CT-70 for the thrill of new-found fourteen-year-old Freedom.

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XS-750 Yamaha triple for the feeling of 100-MPH touring through the Maritimes and Newfoundland.

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Burned more oil than my Elite!
VF-1100F for a 2000-mile Western States loop with my GF astern. Also mostly 100-MPH, TWO-UP!

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The Honda 750 Sabre was the better overall machine. This thing was over 600 pounds, and really, really hard to change direction at speed.
XL-600 R Thumper for the fun of launching over Farm-to-Market road railroad crossings and landing (mostly) in one piece.

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Two carbs for a single-cylinder engine. I learned a lot from that one.
XL-1200 S Sportster for wearing leather vests and feeling bad-a, er...reared in Deepinnaharta.

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But the bike that put the biggest smile on my fresh face was a 1982 VF-750S Sabre in candy-apple red. Smooth as a Sub-Zero fridge, even at its 10,000-RPM redline. The torque just kept on comin', for a 750 at least. All the trick bits that 1982 Technology could muster, Start-up scrolling engine check in the display and gear selected when it was done. Fiber-optic lock with alarm. With a clip-on windscreen, it wasn't a bad touring mount. Mostly I dug the shiny red paint.

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Sadly, this Canadian-spec bike lacked the EPA sticker and so was denied entry at the North Dakota border crossing when I moved in 1985; not a good year for Grey-Market imports. I had to turn around and find a Canadian dealer who would store it until an ex-GF could come and claim it as her own. She sold her XS-400 Yamaha and sent me the money. After how I treated her, she deserved a good deal.

[benji]

Love the 750 triple!! My dad called those suicide bikes, cuz he knew a couple guys that bought em new n died on em soon after. They were dangerously fast, and rival modern bikes speed-wise.
I used to have a 77 kawi kx750sr 4cyl 4t bike and a Yama xs650special that I turned into a cafe rat, love the old Japanese bikes

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Methinks you refer to the 750 Mach IV Two-Stroke triples from Kawasaki. An underclassman nearly decapitated himself hitting the back of a city bus while astride his Mach.

While the Yamaha was good for maybe 120 with its Kerker header, it wasn't spectacularly fast or quick. In my list, that honor goes to the VF1100 whose 1983 Magna cousin was the fastest bike tested that year. Alas, the V-Max came out in 1984, so my VF was only 2nd fastest. Still, I saw 158 indicated one time despite the large CBX-style fairing. That's more than 140 Groundspeed. At that speed, the road is onrushing so quickly and the inertia from the overall mass and the fat 19-inch front tire was so great that I worried I would not be able to change lanes if a dead cow were lying in the road.

[MrJumps]

The new ninja 300 can hit 130ish the 1000s this day are stupid. But modern scooters are slower.

[EastCoastCB]

I agree, G9.
I've had liter bikes and fast stuff, but these days I'm mostly enjoying my mopeds.
Threw a kit on one of my Tomos peds today. Bliss.

My last big bike was a 2002 ZRX1200.

[ped]

I own a few motorcycles and scooters, and lots of mopeds. And enjoy them all.
My fastest speed was about 165 mph. On my 99 Kawasaki ZRX 1100 Eddie Lawson replica. I bought brand new. After that it sat in the garage for years taking up scooter space. I sold it. I drove my other scooters a 100% of the time.
Also owned a
1987 200cc Yamaha Riva 75 mph, I bought new.
YSR 50 3 speed
CV 80, 50 cool
63 Vespa 150 4 speed.
Morphous 250 80+ mph
BV 500 was the most comfortable of all the scooters. over 100 mph.
1977-80 at lease 7 Motobecane v50 mopeds, Piaggio moped, puch, Batavus, 5star General, jawa, pa50, chicken power Bolt on motor, like the solex. Suzuki SA50. I can't remember them all.
Honda Passport I like alot, spree, helix 250, Honda 500,
malaguti F15 50cc, Eton 50 both went over 50 mph stock.
Again countless motorcycles and scooters if I had to pick One? that's a tough question.
They all had a special time and place.
For practical reasons I would have to pick the bv500 scooter for all around comfort and speed.

also.
86 spreedio
94 SR50
07 reflex 250.

[MrJumps]

63 vespa 150 <3

[Ultraliner]

My first bike was an old 1973 Kawasaki G5 100cc which will always have a very special place in my mind. I've ridden a few road bikes and many dirt bikes, still have my XR250 in storage at my folks place for when I feel like getting on the dirt but jumping on my Nifty 50 after coming home from work and going for a burn is SO much more fun than anything else ive ridden, should have bought it years ago!!

[kuromi]

Bosozoku -> 50% chopper, 50% cafe racer, 110% Japanese

[benji]

I picked scooter, but it was a tough one. Love the sport bikes and the cafe racers too tho.

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Enthusiasm runs deep in the Forum:
Quoth MrJumps:

The new ninja 300 can hit 130ish

Maybe in its wildest, wettest dreams. No publication has gotten it to go faster than 112. Still, that's pretty fast for 300 ccs, and about 10 faster than the older Ninjette 250.

As for Graphie's assertion that his literK cold hit 115 in first...Hmm, you're a real nice guy and all, but that's an awfully tall tal...uh, 1st gear. I worked out on graph paper that my VF11 would exceed the national speed limit (55) at the time by reaching 57, and I grant that the Ninja would be a much faster bike but not twice as fast. But maybe in 3rd.

The point for me is that once I'd proven to myself that I could go fast, I started questioning if I should. That and the fact that even the lightest of my previous bikes were a bit of a pig-heavy, not the least-bit "nimble" and a pain to wheel around the garage. Scooters are just more Fun.