Went to my second Vintage Japanese Motorcycle club meeting today and found it interesting to see two of the V's old competitors, a CX500 and a SS550 Honda four. I don't think the 550 four was made anymore back in 1982, I believe it was now a 650cc four. It was also one of the reasons our Visions did not sale as well as Yamaha hoped for as I believe the 650 four was cheaper then the Vision. I rode a CX500 perhaps a year or so before I bought my Vision and remember that I thought it was a dog. Honda of course upper the 500CX to a 650CX-that really changed the bike (or so the magazines said at the time). http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s279/dadsvision/DadsPictures4-20-07207.jpg http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s279/dadsvision/DadsPictures4-20-07206-1.jpg
I wanted the CX500 right up to the first Vision ad I saw. I rode a CX as well. I didn't have much experience with street bikes at the time - just my KDX175. Compared to that, I thought the CX was a really smooth, interesting bike. About that same time, I rode a friend's GT750 Suzuki Water Buffalo. That bike was fast! The sound of that 3 cylinder water cooled 2 stroke was amazing.
As I recall, the Kawasaki GPz550 and the Honda 500 Interceptor were first introduced in that era as well. They were both less $$ than the original price of the V. They had the flash & slight performance edge over the V - except for top gear roll on acceleration. Took my motorcycle license exam on a GPz550 in 82 or 83.
Sounds like the VJMC meet was interesting. Any guess as to how many bikes were there?
H2O
Im getting a cx500 soon...
And I REALLY REALLY want a waterbuffalo, just so i can have one...
And tell people i keep a water buffalo in my backyard <_<
inanecathode, at the meeting I was at Sunday one of the members had just been given a complete (yes, given-and it has a title) 1972 water buffaloe. Of course, the seat was rotten (it was in the back of a pick-up truck), it hadn't ran in who knows when, but it was complete (almost like some of the new Visions that get posted). The club is currently rebuilding a 1971 SL350 Honda and they will decide what they are going to do with the Suzuki later.
The Honda was taken down to the bare bones and all redone, it looks like a new bike, BUT I'm not so sure they even know if it will run-I guess I would want to be sure of the condition of the engine before going to all the other work-but this was only my second time with this group so I hate to be judgemental, perhaps I don't have all the facts. The bike is to be fund raiser of some sort and uses the collective abilitys of several of the members to do the restore (sounds like just the kind of thing us ROV members would do if we just lived with-in 30 miles of each other!!!).
H2O, not as many bikes there as I would have thought, only about eight or so that night. Sounds like just as many of our Vision friends have, some of these people have muti bikes. A few riders were scared by yesterdays chances of rain. Again, only my second time so not sure I've really seen everything yet.
I suppose it's my older age or Zore's influence (and a very GOOD influence) I was not very impressed by the other riders style on safety. Yeah, they all had helmets, State law in NE, but not much else, oh well, not my call!
Aye, i myself try to not be too judgemental with safety gear but, it's hard not to knowing what you get if you fall off at anything above 20mph o_O