Category: Joe Gresh

Dream Bike: 1969 Kawasaki 500cc Triple

The 1969 Kawasaki 500cc Triple.

The ’69 Kawasaki Mach III 500cc two-stroke triple:  Wow!  It was a watershed wunderbike back in the days when the Big Four had serious engineering, the kind that went way beyond Bold New Graphics.  They were trying all kinds of mechanically wild and wonderful things then.  It was a magnificent time to start a motorcycle riding career.

Nicknamed the Widowmaker for its tendency to wobble and wheelie,  the Mach III was the fastest motorcycle of its era, its MSRP was under $1000, and it would whomp a Honda CB750 in a drag race.  I know because I was there.  I had a Honda 750 and my college compadre Keith had the Kawi triple.  I had a 50% displacement advantage and that extra cylinder, but it was to no avail. Keith cleaned my clock at every light.

Good buddy Gobi Gresh is all gaga on these bikes, so I guess that’s what induced my heightened sensitivity to the topic of all things two-stroke triple.  Yesterday morning a note arrived in my email from Motorcycle Classics (the gold standard of motorcycle magazines, in my opinion), and it mentioned an article on a Mach III restoration by Anders Carlson.  I sent it on to Arjiu knowing his perverted puttster predilections, he told me the story was really good, and I read it.  I agree.  I’ve never met Mr. Carlson, but let me tell you, the man can write.

Truth be told, I never wanted a Kawasaki Triple back then in any of the four flavors (I believe that as the line grew, they offered a 250, a 350, the original 500, and a 750 version).  Now, maybe having one would be cool.  I’d be a better man, I think, if I owned one.

I did my first international motorcycle ride ever with good buddy Keith back in the early ’70s.  Keith rode his ferociously fast 500 triple and I rode my Honda 4 from central Jersey to Montreal.  We were in high spirits, as might be expected.   We were two young guys riding our bikes to Canada.  Canada!  It would almost be like going to another country!  We were in engineering school back then, both of us were in Army ROTC, and it was a fun ride.  We joked that folks might think we were draft dodgers, heading to Canada and all.

We swapped bikes for a while somewhere in Vermont and I thought the Kawasaki was downright painful.  That bike could have been an enhanced interrogation tool before the term was invented. It felt like sitting a two-by-four plank.  The 500 triple was fast in a digital sort of way (full on, or full off) and I didn’t care for it.  My CB750 was a much more comfortable bike and it sounded the way I thought a motorcycle ought to.   You know, like an Offenhauser.  The Kawi sounded like a chain saw.

My buddy Peter had one of the Kawasaki 750 triples.  I didn’t know him then, but he told me a story about that bike going into a high speed wobble coming down California’s Cajon Pass (the result being one pitched Peter with a broken shoulder that bothers him to this day).   “I can’t tell you how many times I ran out of gas on that thing,” was his only other comment.  I guess it liked fuel.

Still, the Kawi two-stroke triples are iconic bikes, and the Carlson article I mentioned above is a great read.  If I was going to have a Kawi triple, it would be a white one with blue stripes (the original colors), just like Keith’s and the one you see in the photo above.

Wild Conjecture: The Demise of Kawasaki’s KLR650

Rumors are circulating on the Internet that Kawasaki is finally ceasing production of their KLR650 dual-sport motorcycle. Wild Conjecture has no clue if this is true but uninformed rumors are close enough for us.

Created shortly after the discovery of lead, and mostly made from the stuff, The KLR 650 has been a somewhat reliable off-road partner for generations of thrifty, vinyl-pocket-protector wearing goofballs. Easily crashed yet hard to pick up, the KLR has spawned a huge aftermarket of widgets and freeze-dried gooseberries to remedy the built-in defects that Kawasaki never had time to address during the bike’s short, 437-year production run. Oval pistoned long before Honda claimed to invent it, the KLR suffered from excessive oil use, bad doohickeys, wonky thing-a-ma-bobs, and who’s on first anyway?

As a KLR owner I’ll be sad to see the “Killer” letter designation dropped. Given the history of the 650 maybe Kawasaki can use the iconic KLR combination on a rail-transported pipeline trencher or large bulk oil carrier.

What’s done is done, where does Kawasaki go from here? Wild Conjecture has it on good authority that Mama K is modernizing their big dual sport with a new model designated the 1M-BC. Extensive use of wood and stone will lighten the 1M-BC and chain tensioner issues will be forever solved with a Kawasaki-exclusive “shoe leather” drive system.

My source claims the new 1M-BC will prove it’s woodle by participating in the not-so-demanding Pike’s Peak Downhill Time Trial, a race the bike has a fair chance of winning as no one else is aware of the race and Kawasaki is keeping the event date close to its vest.

Whatever Kawasaki comes up with to replace the KLR650 you can be sure Honda and Suzuki will be watching the result closely. Those two guys have more than paid off the tooling and engineering costs on their 650cc offerings. Who knows (not us!), maybe Kawasaki’s KLR-delete will prompt a renewal of factory interest in the moribund 650 Enduro class?

Wow, more Dream Bikes?  You bet!  Just click here!

The 2018 Motorado Show

The Motorado vintage motorcycle show is held once a year on the eastern outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s a cozy show with a few hundred entries and the parking lot contains a few dozen more worthwhile bikes. I could go into one of my patented off-topic rambles only to bring you back to the show 500 words from now but I’ll spare you the agony. Here are a few of the motorcycles I found notable.

This year’s Motorado was Italian themed and the round-case 750’s came out in force. These are beautiful bikes but the non-desmo, spring-valve GT850 with its bizarre, Jetsons styling is the one for me.

Adjustable rear dampers on the mono-shockish Moto Guzzi Falcone. Also known as the Baloney Slicer for the large outside flywheel. The Falcone sports a 500cc lay down engine and were used extensively by the Italian army and Police force.

Italian-themed doesn’t mean Italian only. Motorado hosts all brands and style motorcycle. This Series C Vincent was blinding in the clear blue skies of New Mexico. Spotlessly restored and British, no one puts this baby in a corner.

In all ways unfortunate, this ’73 Norton High Rider was one of the first-ever factory chopper style motorcycles. Someone at Norton spent a lot of time screwing up a great motorcycle. I can’t imagine how they decided enough was enough but it looks like they just stopped styling on the bike and called it good.

Pre-unit vs. Unit Triumphs: Me being me, I prefer the pre-unit engines for their added complexity and abundant opportunities to leak. The long primary cover looks better too. Unit Triumph lovers are soulless automatons who should never be invited to parties.

The rare Bridgestone GTR350. Disc-valved, two cylinders, this bike was a screamer. Motorado had an unrestored example on display. The owner says he has about 100 motorcycles in his collection! The aluminum crossover intake ducting has only a screen to keep debris out of the engine so I’m guessing these things wore out fairly fast.

A couple of Ravens utilizing Moto Guzzi engines as they were never intended. The twin-cylinder model is shocking enough but the single with its rear cylinder blanked off takes the prize.

My internet buddy Wes dropped by on his H2 with bits and pieces from many years and even some 650 Kawasaki wheels. The whole of the parts exceeds the sum of the parts in this case. It’s a sweet bike and I should have killed him and stolen the thing.

I have about a million more shots from the show but you get the idea. Keep the date open for Motorado 2019 and I’ll see you there, maybe on an old Z1 if I can get the beast going in time.

More Joe Gresh stuff is right here!

Named, noted, and quoted…

A comparo…Slick and Zero. It was fun doing this one.

Hey, this is cool.  Our story on the CSC City Slicker and Zero electric motorcycles was picked up (and quoted extensively) by a website called Electrek, an Internet magazine focused on electric vehicles.   Imagine that…being quoted in a magazine.   That’s cool…other people quoting me.  I’m working on learning how to write gud (spelling and grammar mistakes intended, folks) because when I grow up I want to write as well as Arjiu (and that would be my good buddy and literary hero, Joe Gresh).

Okay, enough on that.   I said I would someday explain the Dajiu and Arjiu business, and this is that day.

Dajiu and Arjiu in China. Yeah, we like gladiator movies…

So I’m Dajiu (which means big uncle, I’m told) and Joe Gresh is Arjiu (which means little uncle).  Our Chinese buddies gave us those names on the Western America Adventure Ride (you can read about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM).   Joe and I were leading a ride around the western US with a group of guys from China, and they were having difficulty with both of us having the same first name.  It’s funny…most of the Chinese guys had adopted English names (Hugo, Leonard, Kyle, etc.) to make it easier for us, but they were having trouble with us having the same English name (Joe and Joe).  On the second day of that ride, Hugo (Zongshen’s factory guy) fixed it by giving us new names, Dajiu and Arjiu.  Hugo called us all together to make a formal announcement, and he handled it in a very solemn manner.   I imagine the ceremony was similar to becoming a made man in the Mafia, or maybe a Bar Mitzvah.  The Chinese guys thought it was marvelous.

The pronunciation is “Dah Geo” and “Ar Jeo” and our new Chinese names stuck.  Whenever we’re with the Chinese guys, they simply refer to us as Dajiu and Arjiu, as if those were our given names.  That’s how we’re introduced to others in China.  It’s pretty cool.  You can call us that, too, if you wish.

Wild Conjecture: The FTR1200 Indian

This photo may or may not be the new Indian FTR1200 that we’ve all been fantasizing about since Indian shoved both H-D and Kawasaki aside and took over flat track racing in America. Posted by Roger Gutterridge and brought to my attention by my internet buddy, Skip Duke, I have no way of knowing if this is the real thing.

Here at Wild Conjecture we don’t concern ourselves with facts. Indeed the very name of the joint suggests half-cocked ideas and squishy logic. But there are a few things that make me think this bike may be real.

What do you think?
A great engine.

The engine seems to be based on the regular Scout, at least the bottom-end looks mostly the same. I really don’t see why Indian would try to street-ify a race engine when the Scout unit is reliable and makes decent horsepower. What would be the advantage of creating another dealer parts stream and the exposure to warranty claims for a new engine that cuts a few pounds? The American motorcyclist has proven time and time again that weight is not a deal killer.

The frame looks pretty cool, perhaps a Ducati employee was spirited away to Spirit Lake? Rear suspension has Indian’s patented no-stroke shock absorber technology and by the girth of the spring looks to be mono shock. Front suspension is via the now traditional upside down fork with a steepish rake compared to Indian’s cruiser offerings. Flat track style handlebars top the front end. The front brakes are huge and doubled. Stopping should not be an issue with this bike.

Giant mufflers occupy most of the left rear section but I’m guessing there’s a box underneath to soak up more life saving noise. Body-wise, the gas tank could be a bit further forward and an inch or so higher in the front. As is it sort of looks like someone put the wrong tank on the FTR. I only have this one angle so it may be fine from another angle. The wheels look like they came directly off the race bike but I’m guessing in 17-inch for a wide selection of tires. Shod with flat track treaded tires, they look the business.

Nothing on the pictured bike looks undoable. Indian could start cranking these things out any time they wanted to. Overall, I like the bike. Since Indian began teasing us with hints of the street-going FTR about 482 years ago I’ve heard many comments from the buying public. The general consensus is that if Indian builds a street version of their 750cc race bike we will beat a path to their door.

This doesn’t look like a street version of Indian’s 750cc racer. It looks like a race styled version of their Scout. For real life street riding the Scout engine is the better choice and you won’t miss changing flywheels for an afternoon ride in the mountains. If you really want to race flat track just pony up the $50K and get the real thing.

Wild Conjecture loves the thing pictured even if it’s a red herring. More importantly, what do you think? Has Indian made the flat track bike that you said you would buy? Is this thing a phony? Is it real enough?

Check out all of our Dream Bikes here!

The Only Time I Bought a New Motorcycle

Our tiny motorcycle world is flooded with hyper-ventilating products. We are spoiled for choice in both gear and bike models to suit an unfathomable number of riding styles, lifestyles and hairstyles. Motorcycle manufacturers pour increasing amounts of capitol into chasing an aging, dwindling ridership. Adrift, bike makers are doubling down on complexity and exclusivity combined with rich textures and finishes. It’s a Corinthian Leather approach to motorcycling that didn’t work for the Chrysler Cordoba, either. The same technology that helps keep computer memory exponentially increasing allows builders to make a (nearly) unique motorcycle for each and every one of us, for a price. It’s still not working for me.

I don’t understand the desires of today’s motorcyclist. I don’t value the things they value and I don’t even understand the conversation when they start talking farkles. To me, farkles are things that break off in a crash. Big, heavy, cluttered motorcycles are the popular choice amongst riders. Riders like massive, unusable power tamed by tinker-toy mystery boxes and acres of plastic covering automotive-quality mechanicals. Strip the faring off of a modern motorcycle and gaze at the industrial wreckage: That’s not why I got into motorcycles, man.

The last time a motorcycle manufacturer spoke to me was in the early 1980’s, by, of all people, Honda. You guys know I’m pretty hard on Honda. Their recent offerings have been bland and sensible, but there was a time when Honda built some of the most desirable motorcycles in the world.

The bike that called my name…the Honda XL600R.

We have lost the ability to be surprised in this Internet age but in 1983 I walked into San Diego’s Fun Bike Center and ran head first into Honda’s new XL600R. I was blindsided by its superiority over every motorcycle I had ever owned. A pulsing red mist settled in over my eyes. With its long travel mono-shock suspension and potent 600cc single-cylinder engine it was not only perfect for dirt, but the semi powerful disc front brake allowed the XL to do a damn good impression of a sport bike on the pavement. Ask that guy riding the Ninja 600 on Palomar Mountain.

I had to have one right now. With $2000 dollars in my bank account I drained that sucker dry and started pitching the deal to area dealerships. The downtown Honda dealer bit and later the next day I was flat broke but invincible.

The bike was a revelation. Trails that I bounced over at 45 miles per hour were now smooth and level at 70 miles per hour. I could go so fast (95 mph!) in the dirt I was overshooting familiar corners. Dry riverbeds became desert freeways. The bike demanded a recalibration of all my senses and a new riding style. It didn’t like pussy-footing around. You had to slide way up on the gas tank and make every move a hard, aggressive move. Kick starting it was a pain but the endless wheelies and powerslides made it all worthwhile. I put 70,000 miles on the XL600. Sadly the engine reliability wasn’t equal to its overall brilliance. I had to rebuild the engine three times.

$10K, to start. Wow!

I look at the zillions of new motorcycle models and none of them fire my passion like that ’83 XL600R. There is one bike though, one bike that almost duplicates that long-ago blood-lust and oddly enough it’s another Honda. The new CRF450L. At $10,000 I wont be rushing down to the Honda dealer with cash in hand like 1983. I’m older and wiser now, and I may not be able to recalibrate my senses.

Long Way Back

Highway 41. Falling safes and ACME dynamite country. Beep beep!

Highway 41 runs from the Gran Quivira ruins to Highway 380. Forty miles of easy dirt, (unless it rains), the road really doesn’t go anywhere I need it to go but I still take the route if I’m going north/south to Santa Fe and have time to kill. I have lots of time to kill.

The consequences of not keeping your rig in shape?

There are old ranches in New Mexico. This dry land requires thousands of acres to support cattle or whatever hybrid, cactus-eating animals they raise out here. Access to these ranches is via roads like 41. The road cuts through warning signs and fence lines working its way past lonely muster stations that no longer thunder with the sounds of hooves and bellowing cattle. Time continues to function out here, hour by hour degrading nails and planks, erasing the best efforts of past generations. It’s a bygone landscape that appeals to a kid raised on a steady diet of Road Runner and Wiley Coyote cartoons.

Highway 41. The red pin is Gran Quivira.

I’d like to think I could have made a stand out here, been a solitary man roping and fence-mending in the bitter wind of a New Mexico winter, surviving by my wits and taming this vast, high desert. I would have mail ordered rockets and catapults from ACME, the cartoon version of Amazon. I’d build windmills and log cabins. I’d eat snakes and shoot quarters out of mid-air with a six-gun that I took out of a dead man’s holster. Then I’d write a Rustic’s poem about the dead man titled, “His Noted Life Was Not In Vain.” I’d have all the trappings of America’s western lore and I would have shouldered it in stride. A life without comfort or ease would be met with a steely-eyed stoicism that concealed deep emotions surging through my fully realized cowboy-self.

A time gone by.
Bring it on, and I’ll still be standing!

Highway 41 is remote, the kind of road that makes you worry about tires or if you have enough water. There’s no cell phone reception and you’ll want your rig in top shape to travel out here. I keep my rig in just-above-collapse shape. Clapped out with three broken engine mounts appeals to my cowboy-self. After climbing a small ridge, 41 becomes increasingly populated by ghosts. Bent and weathered power poles spread their arms, holding nothing. I should have brought more water and a jar of peanut butter.

If you have the time, and the back road leads somewhere you don’t really need to go, I recommend taking Highway 41. There’s adventure in every movement. Joy in discovering a structure that still stands despite it all. America’s private history is waiting to be discovered, starting with the insignificant bits first. It’s on us to record the passing of the Old West. We can be witnesses for unheralded battlefields where stoic cowboys fell to Time and Nature.

Dream Bike: Yamaha RD350

Unlike most of my other dream bikes I’ve actually ridden an RD350. The slightly gaudy 1973 model I rode was mostly the previous generation Yamaha R5 except with reed valves, a disc brake in the front and one additional gear in the transmission giving a total of six. However minor the changes were, the result was spectacular.

The Yamaha RD350…one of my Dream Bikes!

The RD350 was a wheelie king and the bike would blow away any of the other 350cc bikes including the three-pot Kawasaki. Maybe the disc-valve Kawasaki 350 twin from the 1960’s would have outran it but we’ll never know as there were none around my town. It left the Honda CB350 for dead and would stay with a Honda CB750 up to around 70 mph. I know this because we checked.

Not just fast, the RD handled as good as the best bikes of the era. As children we set up a week-end flat track in the high school parking lot and the RD would drift the asphalt corners under power like it was at Ascot Park. That is, until it hooked up and spit you over the high side. Riding it gave you a feeling that anything was possible including dirt trails. It was an all-rounder long before today’s silly, overweight, overwrought, can-opener ADV bikes blundered onto the scene.

Top end on the RD350 was a bit over 100 miles per hour and it got there rapidly. It was slippery in the wet but that was down to the era’s bias-ply, low tech tires. If you rode it hard it drank gas at a startling rate.  Except for fouling a plug now and then or the outside commutator brush wearing down nothing much went wrong in normal use. I have no idea what happens if you race them. Probably nothing good.

The red, 1973 RD model was cool but my dream bike came one year later. In 1974 Yamaha dropped the thick tank badges along with the tacky striping and painted the bike a deep metallic purple. Tastefully subdued decals on the tank sides indicated just who the hell made the thing. It was a thing of beauty and I must own one someday, somehow.

Right side engine, 1974 model.
Left side engine, where the brushes are

Like everything our generation touches, the prices of Japanese motorcycles from 1970’s are getting screwed ever-upwards. Being one of the most desirable motorcycles of that era, RD350’s have gone up quite a bit. You can still find nice ones for $3000 with beaters down around $1500.

Here’s a 1973 RD350 for $1500

I’ve nearly bought one several times but either the distances involved were too great or I came to my senses and bought a thousand bags of concrete instead. As soon as I get a few projects out of the way I’m going to sell off some motorcycles and take another stab at RD350 ownership, in purple for the win.

See all of our Dream Bikes here…

Time Travel

The Husky…a machine for compressing time.

When I was 13 years old in Florida you could get a restricted permit at age 14. The restricted permit was a driver’s license that allowed you to drive as long as an adult was in the car with you. Assuming he/she wasn’t suicidal, the adult was supposed to keep an eye on your driving and coach you. An adult would help you pick up the nuances of parallel parking, rude hand gestures, and, in Dade County, gun fighting after minor traffic accidents. Needless to say, having an aged, creaking burnout sitting in the car fouling the air with the smell of stale urine cut down on motoring fun quite a bit.

There was a motorcycle loophole in the restricted permit system. If a motorcycle was less than 5 horsepower, and if you stayed off the major highways and didn’t ride at night, you could ride solo without adults helicoptering over your ride. It was wonderful. Obey these few rules and a kid could ride his motorcycle anywhere he pleased.

Motorcycles between 50cc and 90cc were right in the 5-horsepower wheelhouse but your average traffic cop couldn’t tell a 175 from a 50. Many bikes were rebadged to appear smaller displacement than they were. I never knew anyone in my circle of friends that got busted for riding a bike too big. Of course, you had to be reasonable about the subterfuge. A 50cc badge on a Kawasaki 750 wouldn’t fly.

Two months before I turned 14 the state upped the age for a restricted permit to 15 years old. The world ended that day. Massive volcanic eruptions, cataclysmic earthquakes, a steady rain of nuclear weapons bombarding the United States, nothing was as devastating to me as Florida’s stupid statute change.

I would have to wait an additional 365 days and I’d only lived 5000 days in total. The year dragged by. Endless days were followed by endless nights only to be repeated one after another. I had to attend yet another grade in school. I couldn’t wait to be done with public conformitouriums anyway and this stolen year of motorcycle riding made it all the more aggravating. The drip, drip, drip of time counted my heartbeats, counted my life ebbing away. I was inconsolable, miserable and the experience placed a chip on my shoulder for government that I have not shaken off.

There are 9 years hidden in there somewhere!

Begrudging the failed clutch on my Husqvarna the other day I came to the jarring realization that I have owned the bike 9 years. I swear, I bought this thing not more than a couple days ago. I degreased the countershaft sprocket area to gain access and removed the clutch slave cylinder. From the inside of the slave I pulled out an aged, creaking o-ring that smelled of stale urine. The leak had allowed the clutch fluid to escape into the crankcase. Except for the missing 9 years the clutch repair went well.

Einstein was right; time is relative. From my 14-year-old perspective a year was an eternity. Now, as an adult I’m scared to close my eyes for fear that another decade will have passed by at light speed. Or worse yet, I won’t be able to re-open them at all.

No More, No Motus

The shocking news is that they lasted 10 years. Motus Motorcycles announced they were shutting down and I mean right now. Which is a shame because I liked the looks of their sport tourer and it apparently had a great engine. Legendary moto-journalist Jack Lewis said he liked the bike and that’s good enough for me. The Motus sold for around 30,000 dollars. That undercut some other American-made motorcycles in the rarified cruiser category but was still a hefty chunk of change for a sport tourer.

The mighty Motus is no more.

I saw Motus at Daytona long time ago, before the production motorcycles were available. There were a couple of good-natured models standing around the bike. Closer to the ground and less aloof than the Ducati models, the girls wore short black skirts and belly-exposing, Motus logoed crop-top T-shirts. I joked around with them and they let me pose for for a photograph with one on each arm. The girls really didn’t know anything about the Motus but they were packing in the crowds. I thought it was damn good marketing.

Good natured and good looking, Joe Gresh is.

I never got to ride a Motus. I never asked the company for a loaner. They were getting plenty of coverage in the moto-press and I am not very ambitious. The V-four engine attracts a lot of attention because of its small size and torque. Loosely based on a Scat style engine, I predict a bright future selling the Motus engine as a stand-alone unit.

Old British sports car owners, guys tired of being run over in 4-cylinder Jeeps, perhaps racers in a spec-engine mini, sprint-car series are all potential customers for a reorganized Motus. Call the new company Motus Power Systems and sell bolt-in kits to repower various lightweight 4-wheelers.

Could taller, more aloof models have saved Motus? Hard to say. My advice to Motus is to forget about motorcycles. There are so many fantastic bikes available we don’t need another. The entire United States motorcycle industry would fit inside the tackle box of the recreational fishing industry. Motorcycles are such a tiny fraction, a statistical rounding error really, of the greater automotive economy that it’s not worth Motus’ trouble.

Hell, if you sold every motorcycle rider in America a Motus you’d still need to borrow money from me to get Uber fare home. The money simply isn’t there. So start work on the Jeep/Motus repower kit, boys. I’ll be first in line to mooch a test fitting in Brumby the YJ. I’ll even let you guys hire models to pose next to the old Jeep.