Past loves ... bikes we miss

[User2]

When I was 15 I bought a used 1983 Honda XL200R. It was 2 years old and looked new with less than 1000 miles on it.



It is the motorcycle that I first mastered and I beat the piss out of it every day.

I lived in Massachusetts and rode the xl200r year round in the woods around a lovely pond. It was all mine, never saw anyone else ride there. I was so lucky to have this growing up and the little Honda was the admission ticket for exclusive use.

I never had a more reliable anything. It would start first kick even when it was well below zero. Jumping snow banks from the street into the yard was a sport I tried to invent with it!

What bike from your riding career do you miss most?

 

[Daniel]

This is my first bike so I'll bow out of this thread gracefully 👋😁

 

[Jerry]

This is my first bike so I'll bow out of this thread gracefully 👋😁

Same here, but... My father was an avid motorcycle rider. I sat on the back of his bike many times. One of the earliest being a Honda XBR

As well as a Honda NTV

Later on, he fell in love with Triumph and bought a Triumph Trophy 900:

Later followed by a 1200.

After that he also owned a Triumph Street Triple, Street Triple R, Sprint GT and two Tiger Sport 1050's, but I pillioned on none of those.

 

[Road Hog]

This was my best bike in australia for going bush on weekends.As i worked for yamaha my shelf and 5 other employees headed for the hills on weekends

and had many great times.We took everything that was breakable off and trashed the shit out of our bikes.But on monday we had a huge sale on the bikes

that needed parts.A great place to work at!

 

[Brammers]

I miss my cb500v. Not because of how it performed, but because it was the first new bike I ever owned.

Kept it for 17 years! Then I got the 650f.

That 500 was bullet proof Honda through and through. 57k miles and never missed a beat.

J

 

[miweber929]

Nailing down just a few would be a tough call, there’s been many bikes that I’ve had and liked for various reasons over the years, I’ll focus on a few that hung around a while and shaped my riding into today.

My favorite dirt bike was an ‘84 XR250R I bought in the mid 90s when I learned a shiny, clean bike doesn’t mean it was taken care of. That bike was BEAT to death under clean plastic and a wash, had been submerged several times and the engine was shot. I also learned to do research on things before buying after that one: it was an incredible dirt bike with a only-for-3 years engine that had a 250cc single cylinder four stroke motor that had two carbs. It was a beast when it ran, but the motor was fragile, parts were scarce and unless you knew how to set them up, ran like crap. Luckily I found a place in California called XRs Only and they worked with my local shop to build the bike up after it melted down and after that ran like a top. I had so many miles on it the roller bearings in the transmission actually failed and destroyed themselves so I rebuilt the tranny myself, installed new bearings and rode it another bunch of years. Picture shows the replacement head on it, a red one from the XL250 which worked with some minor modifications. I sold it in the late 2000s to get an ‘00 CR250 which i built into a woods bike that turned out to be a riot in the dirt but lost the “fun” I had on the XR. Sold the CR a few years later. I didn’t ride it much after I injured myself pretty bad on a motocross track because it was so aggressive and so bought the ‘04 WR450F I still have today.

Street there are a lot, but I talk about my 929 a lot so I’ll focus there. In late 2000 i had taken a job in Madison, Wisconsin and rewarded myself with my first brand new bike, a leftover ‘98 Superhawk that was a great streetbike and pretty much perfect for 80% pace of riding but it had a few flaws. I put 25k or 30k on it in less than two years riding it and the bike was getting to the point that when I pushed it hard, it was just not keeping up with me and a 90 mikes fuel range was getting old. I went to a local dealer to pick some oil or whatever and they had a two year old ‘01 CBR929RR sitting on the floor with under 2,000 miles on it. They actually had two, one was 100% stock, the other modded, and wanted to move them so they priced them well. I hadn’t ridden a 929, knew nothing really about it but immediately knew that’s what I wanted. No, I needed. So I drove home, picked up my Superhawk and traded it on on the stock one within an hour. I put in the neighborhood of 35K or 40k miles on that bike in the time I had it; it was my sport bike, track day bike, race bike, touring bike, that thing did everything I wanted it to do. And NEVER skipped a beat.

I sold it in a fit of practicality: my wife wanted to ride more, she was uncomfortable on the 929 and I had just moved to Minnesota where it took an hour to get to the good roads so I stupidly sold it to fund a ‘98 VFR800 purchase, a bike I HATED and sold it within a month or so. No idea why I hated that bike but I did, everyone else in the world seemed to like them. Anyway, sold that VFR, went onto a cheap CBR954RR, another great bike but I never got on with it quite like I did my 929 and eventually decided to stop street riding when a coworker had a bad motorcycle wreck. That was when I sold everything (my 954, CR and a few vintage bikes I had), bought that WR450 as my do-it-all bike that I could plate and street ride if the mood ever struck me.

Yeah, that lasted around a month when I bought a wrecked ‘07 CBR1000RR, rebuilt it, rode that a while and the rest is history. Lots of bikes have come and gone, only a few made lasting memories that I can close my eyes and remember the feeling of riding it: my ‘76 Z50, ‘82 XL80S, the ‘84 XR250, ‘90 VFR750F, that ‘01 929 and now my ‘11 Triumph Sprint GT and my Ducati Supersport.

 

[Jerry]

That 929 is so beautiful it hurts.
No wonder you fell in love with it.

 

[miweber929]

That 929 is so beautiful it hurts.
No wonder you fell in love with it.

I wish I had better pictures of it; definitely one of my favorite color schemes. I may have some on the home PC, I will have to look for them. This one is from the exhaust side and was a pic I took of it when I was trying to sell it. I almost cried the day they guy came and picked it up. Three guys lifted it int to the back of a truck and fell against the side once they go it in. The new owner shrugged and they drove off.

I cried a little.......and I think that's when I stopped caring so much about bikes.

 

[User2]

This was my best bike in australia for going bush on weekends.As i worked for yamaha my shelf and 5 other employees headed for the hills on weekends

and had many great times.We took everything that was breakable off and trashed the shit out of our bikes.But on monday we had a huge sale on the bikes

that needed parts.A great place to work at!

My first bike was a 1971 Yamaha AT-1. That video reminded me of it.

It was evil! It would run until I was as far as home as possible. Then it would not start again until I pushed it all the way home.

It made me fit. And that sound is exactly like it was when I was shocked it started and it was really time to ride.

I remember my little sister was on it to help bump start in the yard. It started and she panicked and somehow the throttle cable got pinched at the steer tube and she was screaming as it ran wide open in fist gear until I turned off the key. I swear it was possessed by Satan!

It’s funny as hell to remember it now! Nice thread.

 

[Road Hog]

You know Jetflo69,The funniest thing was when riding in the bush on crown land was when the cops tried to catch us.They

came for us in cars at first [that was a joke] than they came on 750 hondas, again more of a joke.I love seeing them get bogged

down but after some time i started feeling sorry for them.Those were the good old days.I really loved that bike!

 

[User2]

Ok it is time to post my “Elanor”. I owned it brand new after always dreaming of having it. It was stolen and totaled in the getaway attempt two months later. She was the fastest machine I’ve ever operated.


2005 Suzuki GSXR-750K5

A guy on a custom chopper caught up to me on a freeway at about 100mph one evening. I dropped 3 gears and gave the throttle a good twist. The bike wheelied and the chopper was a speck in the rear view mirrors. I honesty did not expect such a display of power could be so easily provoked.

Everyone told me it would get stolen. I had it chained to a concrete pillar in a secure garage and it was still gone in 60 days.