W/NW : Motorcycles

Great article in the Guardian about what a fellow with a Nikon covered in the 60’s

Rebel riders: on the road with a 1960s biker gang – in pictures
 
If I can be granted bit of personal privilege, this is from about 6 years ago. I was about 50 miles from home riding with another fellow when my clutch stopped working. It would not disengage. Here I am smiling and accepting fate after trying futile attempts to fix it. I got a push from a group of Harley guys and made it all the way home without stopping by picking a route with only right turns so I did not have to stop for oncoming traffic and by running several stop signs, stalling out in the driveway of my house a couple of hours later.

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And this dusty scan is me from the early 80's on a fishing and camping trip by motorcycle way into the Maine woods on the Dead River on a Ducati 750 GT, which is not a great dirt bike. By the way, that is also me in my avatar about 1949 on my uncle's Ariel square Four. He was one of the original post WW2 biker types as was depicted in the recent movie. I came by this obsession early and honestly.

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My transportation in southern Idaho, about 1979.

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I had a green one back in the '80s. 1973 350G?

I'm hoping to get back into motorcycling in about a year or so to celebrate a milestone birthday. After I sold the SuperHawk about 7 years ago I thought my riding days were done. But I miss it and want to do it one more time. I've forewarned my wife -- very important!
 
I had a green one back in the '80s. 1973 350G?

I'm hoping to get back into motorcycling in about a year or so to celebrate a milestone birthday. After I sold the SuperHawk about 7 years ago I thought my riding days were done. But I miss it and want to do it one more time. I've forewarned my wife -- very important!
I rode mine daily from Glenns Ferry to my greenhouse job in Grandview - 50 miles each way. It was a nice ride in good weather.
That's Dr. Connealy on my lap. Officer Connealy is steering.
 
My transportation in southern Idaho, about 1979.

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Oh my gosh Mike, seeing your bike got me off my backside and into the basement to dig thru boxes of old motorcycle stuff. Found some "pre-digital" snaps of some of the oldies but goodies. One of them was the same bike as yours. A 1971 Honda CB350-K3. I found mine a few years later than you. This was a barn find that I restored in 1988. Rode it all over the upper midwest.

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It was mostly original, but I had to replace the pipes because of severe rust, so she got a set of Kerker's.

Best,
-Tim
 
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This was my first bike, forty three years ago. A 1981 Honda CM400T.

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Put the Vetter Quicksilver fairing on there and custom painted it to go with the bike. Rode it to Canada that same year, back when it was pretty easy to go back and forth across the border. Fun bike.

Best,
-Tim
 
And finally the last of what I found in the boxes of old motorcycle stuff in the basement.

When I finished grad school I wanted to go motorcycles racing, so I sold the Honda and bought this:

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Because I foolishly thought I could be this (Doug Chandler, AMA Superbike Champion):

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But in reality I ended up being this:

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Which was woefully slower, but still one heck of a lot of fun.

Best,
-Tim
 
After I sold the little 350 I picked up this, a 1989 Honda CB-1 (CB400-F). Road that baby while I was in grad school, and all over Ohio, including in the snow. Not the smartest thing.

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Here in Portland I would sometimes walk past a small building of condominiums. I was always delighted to see parked front and center in the large downstairs window of one of those units a beautiful CB-1. A coworker of mine bought one of those new back in the day. They were really impressive little bikes — before the Ducati Monster or naked bikes in general were really a thing. Meanwhile, I really pined for Honda’s Hawk GT when it was first released in 1988. (I wouldn’t end up buying one until 21 years later.)

American Honda was really adventurous back in the late 80s, bringing over a number of bikes from Japan that were seen as rather out of place for this market so infatuated with ever increasing displacement and/or horsepower. In addition to the CB-1 and the Hawk GT (otherwise known as the NT650 or the RC31) we also received the GB500 TT (the cafe racer styled thumper) and the Transalp (XR600V). While none of these four were a big success in terms of sales, they ultimately proved to be ahead of their time and are cult classics today.
 
Great article in the Guardian about what a fellow with a Nikon covered in the 60’s

Rebel riders: on the road with a 1960s biker gang – in pictures
I rode with a group of guys like this in the early '70's, but did not have a Nikon then, unfortunately. I wonder what happened to them sometimes.
 
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