What's new
By:
Filters

Dangerous THEN & NOW!

matty

matty

Border raider.
Joined
Feb 8, 2022
Member Number
139
Posts
635
Location
England Scotish border
We all know all bikes have the potential to be Dangerous, this is dependent on what bike where it is and what you are doing or trying to do on or with it.
Modern bikes the most part are well developed both power plants and frame braking and suspension.
This was not always the case and being around riding road bikes from 1975 it exposed me to many quite quick for the time but often not that well sorted handling or braking.
I had a Kawasaki Mach 3 500 triple a 1970. it was fast ferocious and frightening, with brakes that were pathetic at best verging on bloody dangerous at times, and the stock tyres INOUE were hard wearing but grip was not really on their remit, and add rain to the equation and it was bowel quiveringly sketchy .
I can recolect others that were less than confidence building rides. Share thoughts on the less than proficient motorcycles that had probably awesome quick engines but everything else a kind of after though or token gesture. Both back in the day or even today.
 
All the bikes I owned over the year seemed well thought out. My lack of skill has landed me in 4 bad wrecks, 2 of which were meatwagon rides to hospital in recent years on a CRF.

The only bike that had it out for me was the Yamaha IT465, I think it wanted me to feel real pain.
 
I had a '73 XL(Super)CH, non existent front disk brake and a rear drum that was laughable. Rode like a buckboard with no real shocks and front end that if you managed to get the front disk to work would bottom out lunging you into the tank. Bloody fun ride though.
 
I remember kickstarting Yamaha XT600 '87, with tuned engine, long range tank, and "Dakar modified" suspension. I miss that bike. When it's cold my knee still hurts.
 
I can't say I owned any particularly dangerous bikes but that's a good thing because crashing in my early days of riding would have been painful given the "protective" gear I wore in those days.

1-x2-jpg.4509
 
I was more dangerous than my bikes were. When all I owned was a bike for transportation (for well over a year around age 22), if it was raining in the morning I used to put my work uniform, underwear, socks and shoes in a plastic bag and wear a t-shirt, old pair of pants, no underwear and flip-flops and ride in the rain, then change in the bathroom at work. I often rode 80 to 100 in the rain because car drivers would slow down so much because the windshield width of a car doesn't shed water like the short curve of a helmet face shield, don't need wipers but the little rain drops feel like needles at that speed.
 
An old classic i have had 2 of back in the day is the humble Yamaha XS2 650, and a good bike they were. Nothing special but nothing terrible either, but one area they were not great at was handling, it was not like they were dangerous as such the frames geometrey was basicaly fine, but the actual frame itself was a bendey wendey of a thing, they improved the rigidity in the late 70s to the end of production in the 80s. The stifening was nothing more than gusets and brasing welded to the frame to add a degree of rigidity, and this did indeed stiffen these latter XS650s up a bit but did add weight too.
 
My 1st bike ..the gs750l had a worn out swingarm bushing which was unknown at the time. I sold it to friend that wrecked it a week later. The rear axle cotter pin tried to scalp his helmetless head. 180 stitches in the shape of a horseshoe. The bike was back on the road in a few days. That is when brake torquing it revealed the swingarm movement. On the center stand the swingarm seemed fine. It took engine power to make it shift.

Years later I bought a gn400 from the same friend for $80. The kickstarter once passed me on the road. This bike felt like it had a hinge in the middle. He wanted the bike back in a month. Offered to pay $120....sold. I had a fzr600 at the time. Same friend also owned at least 4 cm450. And could ride the heck out of one.
 
Danno said:
My 1st bike ..the gs750l had a worn out swingarm bushing which was unknown at the time. I sold it to friend that wrecked it a week later. The rear axle cotter pin tried to scalp his helmetless head. 180 stitches in the shape of a horseshoe. The bike was back on the road in a few days. That is when brake torquing it revealed the swingarm movement. On the center stand the swingarm seemed fine. It took engine power to make it shift.

Years later I bought a gn400 from the same friend for $80. The kickstarter once passed me on the road. This bike felt like it had a hinge in the middle. He wanted the bike back in a month. Offered to pay $120....sold. I had a fzr600 at the time. Same friend also owned at least 4 cm450. And could ride the heck out of one.
Click to expand...
Do not remind me of the GN400, it was mid 90s i was the proud owner of a clean tidy Yamaha DT250 MX and a Equally clean DT175MX. The 250 was a keeper and my main commuter ( I like 2 strokes for commuting) , I used the DT175 now and again i got it as a non runner project aparently stripped for decoke and abandoned. This proved probably correct as punting it back together it was just fine.
Enter the GN400, a Delivery driver who came to the school where i worked kept pestering me for the 250 and he noticed the 175 one day and inquired after it and offered me a 84 GN400 in a straight swap, i provisionaly agreed we set a swap day and a central point which was Edinbourgh On the Ring road the A720.
I rode over on the saturday morning and we met He was happy, i was happy it was not my thing a cruiserish bike but it ran well and i rode it home and it felt ok if a bit vague in handling but i had ideas of dropping the forks in the yokes stripping the big bars off put straight drag bars on etc i was quite looking forward to the bike.
I used it all the next week for work changed the bars one night for some low slightly raised bars and it did feel better.
About three weeks later i was on the GN400 coming home from work and on a rural road i went off on one of my give it some hell sesions and it went ok felt average on the turns but i was careful and kind of learning my way around it feeling fairly confident, then at a road junction i noticed it seemed wirry and naisier somehow, i stoped checked oil it was fine, i started it and it was quite audibly different and it was the camshaft area of the engine. I limped home at 30/ 40 mph and after tea i went out droped the oil and it had sparkly bits in, so left it drain out and next day baught an oil filter cartridge swaped it out and fresh new oil. it sounded better at first but even running in the garage it was noisey on the cam as it warmed up.
Decided to drain the oil it looked ok , but probably not been running long enough to show heavy glitter.
I stripped it down and by (pm i was looking at an ok cam but a very scored and grouved out cylinder head in the cam bearing lands area. running direct in the head no bearing to swap it was a new head casting needed.
I got a secondhand head from a bike breakers in yorkshire and built it back up, put the stock bars back on and listed it in exchange and mart. It sold fairly quickly but i had priced it to get rid and i cant remember what i got for it now, but i was worried it might give issue despite the good replacement head . But never heard anything so presume all was well , who knows. Yes not a positive vibe from the GN400 i am afraid. But its how typicaly poorly maintained bikes with the ubiquitous straight to the head casting cam lands end up with mega high miles and poor maintainance.
 
Last edited:
matty said:
Do not remind me of the GN400, it was mid 90s i was the proud owner of a clean tidy Yamaha DT250 MX and a Equally clean DT175MX. The 250 was a keeper and my main commuter ( I like 2 strokes for commuting) , I used the DT175 now and again i got it as a non runner project aparently stripped for decoke and abandoned. This proved probably correct as punting it back together it was just fine.
Enter the GN400, a Delivery driver who came to the school where i worked kept pestering me for the 250 and he noticed the 175 one day and inquired after it and offered me a 84 GN400 in a straight swap, i provisionaly agreed we set a swap day and a central point which was Edinbourgh On the Ring road the A720.
I rode over on the saturday morning and we met He was happy, i was happy it was not my thing a cruiserish bike but it ran well and i rode it home and it felt ok if a bit vague in handling but i had ideas of dropping the forks in the yokes stripping the big bars off put straight drag bars on etc i was quite looking forward to the bike.
I used it all the next week for work changed the bars one night for some low slightly raised bars and it did feel better.
About three weeks later i was on the GN400 coming home from work and on a rural road i went off on one of my give it some hell sesions and it went ok felt average on the turns but i was careful and kind of learning my way around it feeling fairly confident, then at a road junction i noticed it seemed wirry and naisier somehow, i stoped checked oil it was fine, i started it and it was quite audibly different and it was the camshaft area of the engine. I limped home at 3040 mph and after tea i went out droped the oil and it had sparkly bits in, so left it drain out and next day baught an oil filter cartridge swaped it out and fresh new oil. it sounded better at first but even running in the garage it was noisey on the cam as it warmed up.
Decided to drain the oil it looked ok , but probably not been running long enough to show heavy glitter.
I stripped it down and by (pm i was looking at an ok cam but a very scored and grouved out cylinder head in the cam bearing lands area. running direct in the head no bearing to swap it was a new head casting needed.
I got a secondhand head from a bike breakers in yorkshire and built it back up, put the stock bars back on and listed it in exchange and mart. It sold fy quickly but i had priced it to get rid and i cant remember what i got for it now, but i was worried it might give issue despite the good replacement head . But never heard anything so presume all was well , who knows. Yes not a positive vibe from the GN400 i am afraid. But its how typicaly poorly maintained bikes with the ubiquitous straight to the head casting cam lands end up with mega high miles and poor maintainance. maintainance.
Click to expand...
Probably was a good thing. Pushed hard the bike was terrible. Definitely needed modern bronze replacement parts for the swing arm. Could be a dam good bike but not used and abused stock. These 2 zooks had me transfer over to sportbikes and dualsports just for the improved swingarm pivots. Now I ride kinda normal and might not notice it as much.
 
Riva 125 had the opposite. Terrible front end geometry. No handed at any speed resulted in violent wobbles. My vino125.. I could stand no handed on the seat like a stunter. But the riva was a great winter bike. The universal tires did well in up to 3 in of snow. The riva was slightly faster than the vino. And the fugly styling had a Terminator vibe to it. But only clone leading/trailing link front fork scooters are that screwed up on the front end. Terrible!! The vino had raked forks in the clamps like harley flht touring bikes. And was somewhat self centering. I believe it was a honda in the movie.
 
I had a couple KTM 250's back in the day that were complete handfuls.

'87 250 MX- it had off idle torque like no other dirt bike I've seen, and I'm not exaggerating. The buddy I sold it to actually put a hitch on and used it around his property to haul a trailer! The midrange was pretty much dead and then the top end would hit so hard that it wasn't even fun to ride. I'd taken to keeping worn out tires on the back just to tame the bastard down.

'93 250 EXC- bike had power everywhere but the same wild top end hit that you just couldn't control. I eventually slammed a tree just right and it out the perfect dent in the expansion chamber. It was a joy to ride after that. I promptly went out and bought a pipe guard after that because that dent was worth protecting 😁
 
Its unrealistic to believe all newer bikes are shall we term this ROGUE FREE.
Some of the Muscle cruisers are not that well behaved for example, and no doubt some of the bigger ADVs though undoubtedly breathed on to make them work well are still overweight and down to this fact alone are wide open to potential dangers given that they are expected to be used off road as well as on road.
 
matty said:
Its unrealistic to believe all newer bikes are shall we term this ROGUE FREE.
Some of the Muscle cruisers are not that well behaved for example, and no doubt some of the bigger ADVs though undoubtedly breathed on to make them work well are still overweight and down to this fact alone are wide open to potential dangers given that they are expected to be used off road as well as on road.
Click to expand...
I think the marketing doesnt align with the product. Such as harley using "single track" in the PA adds. 160hp and heavy weight is not trail friendly to the rider or the trail. There is alot off road marketing emphasis on the big adv bikes.
 
matty said:
Its unrealistic to believe all newer bikes are shall we term this ROGUE FREE.
Click to expand...
While my FZ 09 is not the most powerful thing out there, it can really be a handful if you're sloppy with it. It's got good power all over so it kind lulls you in to just tugging the throttle without ever needing to downshift or get the revs up. It doesn't make sense for such a torquey engine to also have a two stroke type hit up top.

2nd gear at around 70mph the front end immediately snaps up off the road and that little triple just starts fucking roaring. So unexpected after surfing the low rpm torque , but when you do let the thing rev it'll just pull and pull forever. There's never a point where the engine doesn't make power and pull hard. I've never banged a rev limiter so much in my life 😁

Quite tame to ride, but absolutely mental if you ask it to be. Handling is a bit meh, but the engine makes me giggle like an idiot..
 
Last edited:
What about the loosely termed muscle bikes like the harley VROD and how about the old yamaha V MAX V4 .
They Look like they might be a handful.
 
matty said:
What about the loosely termed muscle bikes like the harley VROD and how about the old yamaha V MAX V4 .
They Look like they might be a handful.
Click to expand...
One of my relatives has a V-rod. It's surprisingly easy to handle. Feels a lot like an Indian Scout Bobber. Sits just as low but with a wider leg spread.
 
There were many muscle bikes back in the 90s. Sportbikes were sought after. This left riders with affordable 10 yr old "cruisers" All the cruisers were 4 cylinder bikes with 19/16 wheels. The power was impressive and the chassis were ok. Add some wear and age on the chassis...the handling suffered. Plus shaft drive models jacked the rear some under load.

I miss these bikes. The replacement cruisers had less performance. The rake was increase and vtwins replaced the 4 cylinder muscle bikes. Today the same basic vtwin cruisers are still available.
 
matty said:
We all know all bikes have the potential to be Dangerous, this is dependent on what bike where it is and what you are doing or trying to do on or with it.
Modern bikes the most part are well developed both power plants and frame braking and suspension.
This was not always the case and being around riding road bikes from 1975 it exposed me to many quite quick for the time but often not that well sorted handling or braking.
I had a Kawasaki Mach 3 500 triple a 1970. it was fast ferocious and frightening, with brakes that were pathetic at best verging on bloody dangerous at times, and the stock tyres INOUE were hard wearing but grip was not really on their remit, and add rain to the equation and it was bowel quiveringly sketchy .
I can recolect others that were less than confidence building rides. Share thoughts on the less than proficient motorcycles that had probably awesome quick engines but everything else a kind of after though or token gesture. Both back in the day or even today.
Click to expand...
The most dangerous bike I ever owned was a Suzuki TM400. Bad geometry, bad bakes, and a super-narrow powerband created a famously bad motorcycle. I spent a summer on crutches because of the thing.

www.cyclechaos.com

Suzuki TM400 - CycleChaos

www.cyclechaos.com www.cyclechaos.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom Back Refresh