37 years of fun - check it out

Hey everyone, just thot some of you might be interested in what me and a friend started out on in 1972. His is a Yamaha 650 which copied the Triumph 650, vertical twin and all. I'm the one with the Kawasaki Mach lll. At the time it was the fastest stock production bike made in the quarter mile, it was a 500cc two smoke. It was red lined at only 8500 rpms and had no low end torque. When you got on it it really didn't get exciting till around 5000 rpms, then you'd better hang on! You really had to abuse the clutch and transmission to get er screaming but once you got used to it you could bout blow anything off the road. It topped out at around 120 mph. We rode those bikes across the US in 72. We've stayed in touch all these years and just recently rode together again last May, refer to the thread My Deals Gap Vacation. We're both 60 now. I retired from the Air Force in Sept. 88 and now work as a welder. My buddy, Marty, retired from Lockheed Martin this year and lives in suburb near Denver. We're planning another ride next year in Colorado near his home. Enjoy the pics:thumbsup: I'm the one in the sunglasses, we were 21 at the time, first met when we were 19 while in the Air Force.

 

Very nice,....I had one of those Mach 3s. In addition to all that you described it also had shit for brakes, which made going fast on it that much more interesting heeheee

 

Great story, great pics

Whats your buddy ride nowadays?

 

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

brings back fond memories for me too...i had a 72 h2 750 and a 74 suzuki gt550 ...boy i sure miss the smell of yamalube r in the morning.....neither handled worth beans, but we didnt know any better......those where the days

 

I think the bikes made in that era were much better looking than the ones made today. Thanks for the pics!

 

He's now riding a Honda 919, can't remember what year model tho. The VFR out ran the 919, several times.:biggrin:

 

Wish I had kept up with a friend I knew for 3 years in the service............ We had good times together........ Good on ya'......

 

Its always good to run into someone back in the day and still be able to keep contact through the years and even ride the roads together 30 years later. That is awesome

 

I agree completely. Wish I could buy one of those 650 Yamahas now.

The motorcycles now are fast ,but cheap disposable aluminum frames and the manufacturers just keep making them look like transformer toys (lots of plastic panels) thats what the kids in the design dept. grew up with.

Restoring them in the future will be impossible. Junk.
Now it is all about the marketing. and all that digital junk will be broken.

But the well made Ducatis with steel tubular frames will be around for a 100 years.

OK I sound like a bitter old man, but when you see a 650 triumph in a Trackmaster frame street tracker style what would you choose? Transformer toy or real motorcycle? LOL

 

Very cool, thanks for the post.