Yikes

[SeaCat]

Well I finally got the call from the dealership.The repair manual was in for my bike. I hadn't ridden in four days and was feeling it. (Not to mention I could hear my bike calling to me in a very seductive voice.)

As I hung up the phone my wife was already pulling my leather out of the closet. I went into the bedroom and changed into denims and boots. Grabbing my helmet, shades and leather I headed out to the bike. It was 1600 when I fired the bike up and slid into my leather. I killed the choke before pulling on my helmet and gloves. I pulled around the car adn I was off.

Main Street in front of our place was busy but not overly so. I waited for the traffic to break because of the light a block down and pulled out. It was relaxed and casual. Then I hit the main North South Road through this city. I caught the road just right and turned left onto this main road with nice clear spaces both in front of and behind me. I hung in the middle lane and headed south.

Then I came up on a traffic light. I stopped and watched in my mirrors as a gaggle of cars came up. The ones behind me were just fine, they didn't cramp me so I was still relaxed. The light changed and I'm scooting ahead and shifting through the gears. My bike is handling perfectly and I glance at the speedo and see I'm pegged right at 50. (The speed limit is 45 here.) I glance up then into my mirrors to see the pack was now up to speed and bearing down on my ass.

People are changing lanes and jockeying for position. The view in my mirrors looks like that head-on shot you see from the start of the Daytona 500. Before I know it I'm being passed on the left by a Soccer Mom with her phone glued to her ear and on the right by a clapped out Pick-Up putting out a smoke cloud. Oh this is not good. I ease on a bit of throttle to keep ahead of the pack and think about what I need to do. I'm in a nasty spot and I know it. I see the next light change to red and breath a sigh of relief as I cruise in to a hard stop and watch the cars close up around me.

Soccer Mom is still on her phone, yelling now, and the guy in the Pick-up is looking at me and smiling while he revs his engine sending out clouds of smoke. I lift my right foot off the pavement and hit the brake with it while letting go of the front brake. I ease out the clutch as I see the left turn light change, I can feel the engine drop RPM's slightly but that's what I want. When the light changes I ease out the clutch and twist the throttle as I bring my left foot back to the peg. I'm hammering the bike now, keeping the RPM's up and letting it have it's head as I shifted up through the gears. I leave the pack of cars in the dust as I watch ahead for what I know is up there. Then I see it, a Radar Trap manned by Motor Cops.

I check mirrors and look to the side before shifting lanes and grabbing the brakes. I'm downshifting like a mothe as I held the brakes and came up on the cops. I'm not sliding, quite, but I'm stopping fast. I pull off the road just past the cops and drop my stand. The Cop with the Radar Gun doesn't even look, he just keeps aiming and calling out the cars to his partner. The partner, who's on his radio to chase cars further up the road keeps calling even as he looks at me in surprise. I ease myself further off the road to stay out of sight and not give them away even as I let my nerves settle.

When this pack went by the guy on the radio climbed off his bike and wandered over to see if I was okay. (I was.) He asked me what that was all about and I told him, I had thought I was playing Pace Vehicle for a major race. He laughed at that and agreed that the cars were going a bit fast for that stretch of road. He told me his partner had tagged sixteen cars for speeding out of that last pack. (I could believe it.)

He then told me his partner had been watching and clocking me, he had clocked me at over 80 when they saw me grab the brakes. They had thought I was trying to avoid them until they saw me pull over and take off my helmet. The cop then gave me a couple of hints on what roads to take to avoid the crush before heading back to his bike. (I took his hints.)

When I finally arrived at the shop I parked the bike, hung my helmet and walked inside as I unzipped my leather. I picked up the manual and headed back to the bike. As I stepped out of the shop one of the salesmen came up and looked at the bike. He asked me what kind of bike it was and I told him. He admitted that he had never seen one, which wasn't a surprise as it was older than he was. We talked bikes for a bit and several other salesmen came out to join in.

After a bit traffic slowed and I climbed back on the bike. Heading out I was a bit freaked to be hitting that same damned road but I found the traffic was a bit lighter as I headed south to the next light for a U-Turn. The ride norrth was much more relaxed and comfortable and by the time I got home I was smiling once again.

I am learning to trust my bike, it's acceleration, it's handling and just as importantly it's ability to brake.

Now I have to think of a name for it. My father calls it the "Beast". (Because of it's size.) My wife calls it "Critter" after our old cat. When I got home today I told my wife the bike ran like a Bitch Kitty because it had an attitude when I didn't ride it, it loves to run and it will do what I want it to after I convince it to with the proper stroking.

Cat

 

[DesertPirate]

You spin a fine yarn sir

My vote is for Bitch Kitty

 

[glynndah]

You spin a fine yarn sir

My vote is for Bitch Kitty

Yep. In flowing script along the side.

 

[SeaCat]

Ya'll have to remember that this bike is a dinosaur. (Okay I have been told it is supposed to be called a Classic.) It's a 1981 CB750c.

What is neat about it is while the newer bikes of the same engine size are V-Twins, (two cylinders set at roughly a 45 degree split.) mine is a straight four. (Four cylinders across the front of the engine.) Mine has incredible torque at both the bottom end and top end of the acceleration band, which means it takes off like a bat out of hell, and keeps running like that at speed.

My bike has a shorter wheel base than most newer cruisers, it doesn't have quite the rake. (The angle of the forks to the ground.) that many of the newer bikes have. This means it's not quite as stable going straight ahead but it does turn better and faster if I let it have it's head. (It's hard to do that right now, but I'm getting better at it. It's a funny feeling when you crank the bike over onto it's side in a turn.) Oh and at 600 pounds my bike is heavier than most sport bikes.

I love this bike and am having fun on it, but at times it scares me. Last week I cranked into a turn and found the turn was a bit tighter than I had expected. It was also a blind turn. 3/4 of the way through the turn I spotted a car poking along at truly slow speeds with their brake lights on. I knew better than to grab the brakes so I pushed the bars even harder and twisted the throttle a bit. The bike leaned even harder into the turn and I screamed past the car like it was sitting still. (It almost was.) That pushed my skills but not the bikes ability. (I later learned that there was an accident on that turn, a car matching the description of the car I had passed had been rear ended blocking traffic for quite a while.) I'm still learning to trust this bike and what it can do.

Cat

 

[christabelll]

You know Cat, you truly seem like amazing man. I love the stories you spin about your day to day life and your beloved Bike.....

Bitch Kitty rules as a name (but you might try - saber toothed bitch if it will fit heheheh)

 

[SeaCat]

You know Cat, you truly seem like amazing man. I love the stories you spin about your day to day life and your beloved Bike.....

Bitch Kitty rules as a name (but you might try - saber toothed bitch if it will fit heheheh)

Nah, Sabre Toothed Bitch wouldn't work. Her Forks aren't long enough.

I'm thinking Bitch Kitty. She's a lovely older bike with a personality all her own. If I don't ride her for a couple of days she lets me know. She likes to run and eat up the road. She eats up the turns like she's hungry. She is like a true bitch. Then again she acts like Critter,

Cat

 

[CrazyCatGuy]

I like your stories about your days and i do have to vote for the name that has the word "kitty" in it ;P

 

[Weird Harold]

Ya'll have to remember that this bike is a dinosaur.

I don't think there were any "kitties," bitch or otherwise, during the age of the dinosaurs, but Smilodon Baby would tag it as a very old, very bad "kitty" indeed.

 

[oggbashan]

Ya'll have to remember that this bike is a dinosaur. (Okay I have been told it is supposed to be called a Classic.) It's a 1981 CB750c.
...

Dinosaur? That's more modern than any bike I've ever owned.

My oldest was an ex-army BSA M20. It was made in 1944 and when I bought it in 1969 it had a genuine 300 miles on the clock from new.

It had girder forks, a rigid rear end, a 500cc sidevalve single engine and brakes that worked if you were prepared to wait... and wait... It pulled like a tractor but it's top speed was about 55 mph downhill.

My then fiancée rode on the back of it once. We went half a mile to the local pub. She decided to walk back.

It had no ignition switch. I just set the air and ignition advance levers to positions that meant it wouldn't start. One person tried to steal it. He didn't use the compression release lever nor reset the other controls. It backfired with a sheet of flame out of the carburettor and the kickstart recoil threw him over the handlebars.

Cornering was interesting. The back wheel skittered across the road like a jumping bunny. I was used to it. Passengers climbed off looking green around the gills. Once I offered to lend it to a friend so he could try it around a couple of blocks while I borrowed his then new Triumph Bonneville. I enjoyed the ride on the Bonneville. He stopped my M20 after the first turn and pushed it back to the starting point.

Then he asked to follow me while I went around the block. Just watching me corner frightened him...

One of my friends had a Vincent Black Shadow fitted with a turbocharger. It was intended for drag-strip racing but he had fitted it with lights and registered it for road use. I was his pillion passenger for a fast ride from just outside London to Brighton in the days before a maximum speed limit. Neither of us were sure what speed we reached because of the vibration over 120mph.

Those were the days. But we had to carry extensive tool kits and be prepared for major repairs every few hundred miles.

Og

 

[SeaCat]

Dinosaur? That's more modern than any bike I've ever owned.

My oldest was an ex-army BSA M20. It was made in 1944 and when I bought it in 1969 it had a genuine 300 miles on the clock from new.

It had girder forks, a rigid rear end, a 500cc sidevalve single engine and brakes that worked if you were prepared to wait... and wait... It pulled like a tractor but it's top speed was about 55 mph downhill.

My then fiancée rode on the back of it once. We went half a mile to the local pub. She decided to walk back.

It had no ignition switch. I just set the air and ignition advance levers to positions that meant it wouldn't start. One person tried to steal it. He didn't use the compression release lever nor reset the other controls. It backfired with a sheet of flame out of the carburettor and the kickstart recoil threw him over the handlebars.

Cornering was interesting. The back wheel skittered across the road like a jumping bunny. I was used to it. Passengers climbed off looking green around the gills. Once I offered to lend it to a friend so he could try it around a couple of blocks while I borrowed his then new Triumph Bonneville. I enjoyed the ride on the Bonneville. He stopped my M20 after the first turn and pushed it back to the starting point.

Then he asked to follow me while I went around the block. Just watching me corner frightened him...

One of my friends had a Vincent Black Shadow fitted with a turbocharger. It was intended for drag-strip racing but he had fitted it with lights and registered it for road use. I was his pillion passenger for a fast ride from just outside London to Brighton in the days before a maximum speed limit. Neither of us were sure what speed we reached because of the vibration over 120mph.

Those were the days. But we had to carry extensive tool kits and be prepared for major repairs every few hundred miles.

Og

That M-20 sounds a lot like the "Mini" Bike I learned to ride on. We're talking an oversized welded tube steel frame. (Over sized so we could upgrade engines.) No shocks on either end. Oversized tires and dual chains. The damned thing would almost climb trees but it was not in the least forgiving. It would toss your ass into the brush in a heartbeat.

Cat

 

[LLs Man]

The old CB750s were pretty much the first "superbike" (at least on this side of the Atlantic), & they still have a good reputation. Of course there are those who would give the Black Shadow the title, & it probably deserves it more!

 

[SeaCat]

The old CB750s were pretty much the first "superbike" (at least on this side of the Atlantic), & they still have a good reputation. Of course there are those who would give the Black Shadow the title, & it probably deserves it more!

The Black Shadow is a legendary bike and rightfully so. The CB750 started a reign of terror on the roads. They were the first Super Cruiser to hit the States. Super because they were fast and had plenty of power. They were also manueverable as hell. Cruiser because unlike many fast bikes they were comfortable to ride over long distances.

Cat

 

[oggbashan]

I hope this link will show a picture of a BSA M20 like mine:

M20

There was an erzatz rubber pad on the back mudguard of my M20. My wife objected to riding on it. The fake rubber had congealed into a hard lump and the rear of the bike had NO suspension at all.

Og