Dream SOB

Guzzi 750S3
Van Veen OCR
Harley XR750 & mechanic
GL1500
V-Max

 

1) MotoMartin CBX1000
2) Laverda Jota
3) CB900F
4) Laverda Montjuic (orange with two into two pipes)
5) Triumph TR6C

 

RD350LC or YPVS
Honda VF1000 Bol D'Or
Kawasaki ZXR750 (does this count as a SOB.... must be almost there)
Kawasaki GPZ900R
Norton Dominator (I think.... too young to remember properly)

 

Exactly. With the earlier exhaust port profile but no tie-bars or the
late exhaust port profile but with tie-bars?

 

Oh yes a V-Max. I forgot the V-Max

 

Bearing in mind the number of LC's that are appearing in the list,
perhaps they should re-start production. But not in Brazil.

 

Gyp said...

Later one. I hate replacing exhaust gaskets and the headers used to
crack too.

 

Gyp said...

A true classic bike if ever there was one. Ther are few bikes that have
given so many lads so many fond memories, and broken bones of course

 

Good choice ;-)

 

Heh. You weren't the only one.

 

Gyp said...

I also liked the later 4L0 paint schemes, with the wide silver stripe
added to the red bits. They looked quite sexy in a mid-80s kinda way.

 

Taste issues aside a 4 year old HD doesn't meet my definition of a SOB.

A shite old bike yes, but not a Shite Old Bike, IYSWIM

 

Laverda Jota
Ducati 750SS
Kawasaki H1
MZ ETS 250
Yamaha DT 250

 

VMax
GPZ900R
500 Gamma
FJ1200
RD350LC

 

Just noting that the most popular "wish" bikes seem to be the H1 or H2,
the Jota and Yamaha RD350 (any type)

 

Well, I suspect that's an age thing, for anyone in their later 30s/early
40s:
# the H1/H2 had a certain reputation when they were in their teens.
# the Jota was IIRC the fastest bike for some time and was a real 'mans'
bike (and totally unaffordable to most in the early 80s).
# the RD350 was probably what many of us could afford to ride (or in the
case of the LC variant aspired to)

Of course this assumes a certain 'bike awareness' in one's teens.

 

Hardly a surprise about the RD350 though is it? It was a screaming grin of a
small engined machine back in the days when insurance premiums were set by
engine size. My brother's mate bought one whilst he was rebuilding his
binned Kwak thousand, at the time my brother had a 400-4 (oh and I had an
RS100, which I loved), the RD was literally streets ahead on performance,
you couldn't touch it; nobody that we knew at the time had a faster
(working) machine, though of course all the young lads were drooling over
the likes of the GPZ900R, but for most of the lads that was untouchable
insurance-wise.

Notably though both the chap's RD and my RS have now long since been
confined to the great scrap yard in the sky whereas the 400-4 is still to
this day plodding along (minus second gear I believe, though he's probably
fixed that by now).

 

Erm.... BMW or Yamaha???

I bought a brand new RD350F2 in 1988. Sold a Guzzi Spada and dropped
600cc! We were starting a family and we weren't going to be two-up
touring for a while :-/

It was an absolutely incredible fun machine, and it did everything - you
could tour on it, because it had a good seat and reasonable range.
Commute on it. Hurl it down twisty roads. It cost peanuts to run and
servicing was a doddle. And God, it made you grin.

Worst thing, for me, was the lack of engine longevity. The mains failed
at 14,000 miles, despite a 100% diet of synthetic two-stroke oil. I put
a new crank in. At 20,000 miles I rebored it - par for the course - and
had a Bb Farnham Stage One tune done, which was really just a matching
of the ports and a light head skim. That made it feel way crisper, if
not actually measurably faster.

I sold it at 22,000 miles. 500 miles later the crank let go, big time,
apparently.....

 

Yamaha. Great little bike. Such a shame that I bashed it up good and proper
exiting a roundabout :-/

[Snip RD350]

Indeed, that's what I was sort of getting at elsewhere. The RD was a
grin-factory but not given to longevity - I expect most of them got
seriously binned and wound up as so much scrap metal and plastic, but even
those that didn't surely couldn't be expected to put in serious mileage? My
brother's 400-4 on the other hand was nowhere near as much fun as two-stroke
whizzies but even all these years later he's still riding it, and there are
a few others around that I notice once in a while (e.g. the inlaws'
neighbour has one that he blows the cobwebs out of about once per week).
It's been a long time since I've seen an RD350 around though.

So I think I'll add the 400-4 to my list of desireable SOB's

Timing

 

1) Triumph T160
2) Moto Guzzi 1000S
3) BMW R90S
4) Kawasaki Z1000R
5) Kawasaki GPz 550 (A1)

Never been a great 2-stroke fan...