The Wheels of Nostalgia

Two weeks ago in this very space I found myself reminiscing about all the bikes I've owned over the years. I ended the story in 1993, just as I'd come back to Motorcyclist to fill Editor Art Friedman's chair after a year at Cycle World, three years at American Honda and, from '85 to '89, four years at Motorcyclist as a junior staffer. By that point I'd already been through about 20 motorcycles, some dirt and some street, but I wasn't done, not by a long shot.

During the early 2000s I'd bought a bunch of bikes, including another low-mileage '79 CBX (VIN 0099, which I still own) and a pristine Suzuki GS1000S, which was totally original except for tires and had just 5,500 miles on the clock. Both were runners, but considering their condition and mileage, I kept my riding to a minimum. Having that first-generation trio—the '70 CB750, '79 CBX and '79 GS1000S—was really satisfying, though I didn't have a great place to keep them. For a few years they sat in the Motorcyclist garage, which wasn't good for the bikes themselves or the other editors, all of who grumbled about the space they took up.

In about 2002 I bought a racebike I’d always wanted—a legendary Yamaha TZ750. It was a restored twin-shock C-model from 1976 done by Stephen Wright, with proper pipes, paint, and parts. It wasn’t a bike you could ride, really, as it was too nice—a museum piece. So I kept it in my office, which was really stimulating. Still, I knew I wanted to ride one at some point, and I did a few years later when TZ aficionado Russ Bigley arranged for me to race Kurt Lentz’s monoshocker TZ at Daytona. I ended up selling my C-model TZ at the Laguna Seca MotoGP auction in order to buy a rideable TZ, a ’77-spec D-model monoshocker I bought from another TZ750 aficionado named Scott Guthrie. I rode and raced it a few times and had some fun, but the complexity and cost of ownership ended up causing me to sell it a few years later. Hey, there were other bikes to buy and sample!

Ever since owning one in college, Suzuki’s GS1000S had remained my favorite streetbike, even surpassing the mighty CBX. I wasn’t riding my pristine ’79 GS all that much due to its very low mileage, so when I found a 50,000-mile GS for sale up near Sacramento, I gobbled it up. And because I’d sold my first-gen CB750 to a collector, and my CBX was in dry dock in a buddy’s living room up in the dry desert, that amazingly capable S-model became my go-to streetbike. Push the button and ride.

I also bought a couple other streetbikes I’d always wanted to own around this time—an ’82 Kawasaki GPz750 and ’83 Honda CB1100F. Both were early ’80s superbikes I’d lusted after back in the day. Problem was, my GS1000S was spoiling me, and neither the CB-F or GPz were as fun to ride. The 1100F felt heavy and soft, and the GPz steered weird and felt cramped. The GS had better brakes, better steering feel, and was quite a bit more satisfying to ride, especially quickly. And so, after a year or so of ownership, I sold the F and GPz.

I tried again with another bike I’d always wanted, a Yamaha RD400F Daytona Special. I bought it from a So Cal owner and had Alex and Mike from Kon Tiki Motorcycles of San Diego make it right by adding stock exhausts, fresh tires, and a full tune and service. It ran great, but again, I just didn’t connect with it as I did the Suzukis. And it, too, went away after a couple of years.

My mom and dad died suddenly in the late 2000s, and being in a nostalgic mood in the months that followed, I found and bought a motorcycle that was Dad's favorite back in the early 1970s—Suzuki's GT750 LeMans. He'd bought a Candy Lavender (pink, really!) LeMans with the dual-disc kit in '73, and we had a ton of fun on it whenever I wasn't riding my SL70. I found one for sale in the Midwest with 12,000 original miles and bought it, expecting to ride it as-is, patina and all. But it sat, and with Malcolm Smith's autobiography keeping me busy, along with my son's cancer diagnosis, surgery and chemotherapy (see Megaphone: A Personal Perspective on the Value of Ride For Kids here), it kept on sitting until a guy offered me really good money for it, which I took. I figured the bike would have a better home with him than with me.

For a long time I'd considered restoring my high-mileage GS1000S, as it had some paint and corrosion issues, along with some engine wear from all the use it'd seen over the years. As well as it worked, it was just too cool a motorcycle to leave with nicks and scratches in the paint, and the engine rattling. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it aesthetically until I saw my buddy Larry Pearson's bike—a custom GS with a fresh repaint (in stock colors) and blacked-out wheels, engine and fork legs. Basically, this sort of treatment turns the already sexy GS-S into a real Wes Cooley Replica, as it actually copied the look of Cooley's racer.

The Wes Cooley Replica nickname that has been somehow attached to the production GS1000S has always bothered me, as it's simply not correct. Wes didn't race a blue and white GS1000 until 1981, the year after the GS1000S went out of production (the bike was only built in '79 and '80). So the production S is not a replica of anything, and calling it that is a bit silly. (If anything, the S-model is an XR69/TTF1 replica.) On the other hand, giving the Cooley nickname to a customized GS that followed the look of Wes's lovely blue-and-white racer is perfectly legit. And that's exactly what I've decided to do with mine.

So a few months ago I took my tank, fender, fairing and side panels to Mike Hogan of Vintage Honda Painting out of Long Beach, CA. Hogan's been painting Japanese dirt and streetbikes for more than three decades, and the jaw-dropping job he did on my GS1000S bits makes me 100% positive his solid reputation for quality is thoroughly earned. The parts look positively dipped, Hogan's blue/white paint job and the superb graphics kit from Diablo Cycle making it easily the best paintwork I've ever seen. With Race Tech and Century Motorcycles helping out on the engine and chassis, I'm going to actually be able to ride and show off my custom S-model in a few months. Look for a thorough story in the pages of Motorcyclist—and online, too—later this year.

With the GS being fettled and my CBX on ice, I didn’t have a streetbike to ride, so I found and bought a clean, one-owner ’82 Suzuki GS1100E from the original owner in a nearby town. It ran well and was really fast, but those GSs never did anything for me aesthetically, and so I sold it to a guy in central California.

Replacing the 1100E is the ’83 GPz550 I mentioned at the outset. When I bought it several months ago, I thought I’d hit paydirt. It cost me a bit over $3,000, but it was so amazingly clean and unmolested I figured it was worth every penny. Those monoshocker GPzs really affect me for some reason, with the blacked-out engine contrasting with the Firecracker Red paint. Of course, I trusted the guy a bit too much, and it was all a little too good to be true. There ended up being a host of hidden problems inside the engine cases, things I’ve spent months and plenty more money trying to fix. The guy I bought it from up in Sacramento wasn’t all that honest about what was wrong, but to be fair, he probably didn’t know how bad it was deep down. I’ll get into more detail about all this in the coming months, and report on how much better things are now.

Anyway, I’m now down to three streetbikes—the CBX, the GS1000S project bike (and a GS1000S parts bike/carcass I picked up), and the troublesome GPz. With the GPz now running well (thanks to Century Motorcycles), three feels about right. I have enough space for them, I can afford to keep them insured and in fresh tires, and I can successfully keep them running and ready to go with Battery Tenders and fuel additives (and storing them with dry carburetors thanks to today’s crappy gas). All three are classics in my book.

Of course, there’s no Yamaha represented. And there should be, given my penchant for classic Japanese bikes. Another old RD or 650 twin, perhaps? Or maybe a mid-80s FZ750, which I remember uncrating and “test riding” at SLC’s Plaza Cycle in early 1985? Hmm…might have to break down and build that garage addition after all!

Mitch Boehm, 53, began riding at age nine, and racing at age 11. His moto career includes staff stints at Motorcyclist (18 years), Cycle World and American Honda, plus he recently helped Malcolm Smith write his autobiography. All of which qualifies him to jabber away endlessly about old stuff.