From: wallich@iti.org (Kenneth Wallich)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Re: Looking for a reentry bike
Date: 31 Aug 92 20:56:36 GMT

danac@morc.asd.sgi.com (Dana Crom) writes:

>Need some advice from the net - 

>Came across a '78 Honda Hawk 400 for a good price, but I am a bit unsure
>about how long I'll be happy with it[...]

>Has anyone out there had enough experience with this size bike to give me
>some good feedback?  Yes, I know it can handle the day-to-day, especially
>since I weight in at 155 lbs.  What I want to know is if I can really
>expect anything more than a commuter ride out of this, or should I go look
>for something in the 550 - 650 class?

Well, I guess a used FJ1200, or GS1100 is probably *not* what you're
looking for.  

I used to do everything on my motorcycle in college, and rode year
round for 3-4 years back then, putting about 60k on two bikes.  Then I
got married, and then started riding a lot less, commuting mostly by
car.  After a 5 year stint of not riding much, I got back into it with
gusto about 2 years ago.  I tell this not to reduce your consumption
of sleeping pills for the week, but to let you know I went through a
similar thinking process.  

I sold my CB900F about 4 years ago, and although I had fun riding it
just before I sold it, when I started thinking about riding a again, I
didn't want to get something too big.  I got a GB500, which ended up
being a whole lot of fun, but it was really too small for me.  The
engine was plenty peppy enough, and the bike handled well, but the
frame was just to small for me.  I weigh in about a gymnast and a half
more than you :-), tower 6'3" from the earths crust, and am just a
generally ornery guy :-), I just thought I'd share that with you all.
Oh, ok, fine.  "My names' Ken, and I'm a chocaholic", happy now?

So, about 6 months after buying the GB, I went out and got the bike I
really wanted.  I guess it helped a little to get something smaller to
start again with, but I don't know that I'd want to endure the
ridicule of owning an old Honda twin (although at least you aren't
eyeing a CX500 or a SilverWing ;-).  If *I* were looking at a late
70's Honda to buy, I'd probably look at one of the 4bangers.  I
personally like the CB550K (my first bike, sigh), and the 750's (I
always wanted a yellow 750 SuperSport with black cylinder heads who's
paint peeled off every 10k miles).  But these babies are very heavy,
and handle pretty poorly compared to just about anything made these
days.  Buying one to ease yourself back into motorcycling may not be
the "right thing".  I know that I sure had more fun on my GB that I
did on my old 550 in the mountains.  Perhaps it's a lot of riding
under the belt, but I think it was having a small, light bike that I
could bench press if I wanted to.

After riding a lot of bikes of the years, I'd have to say that pretty
much everthing I've ridden 5 years old or so bigger than 250cc's had
plenty of power.  The older twins, however, really were kinda slow.
Not slow enough to not have fun on, mind you, but slow compared to the
big improvements the Japanese made after the surtax on bikes bigger
than 1000cc's (it was 1000, wasn't it?  I just seem to remember
Harley, bless their little capitalist hearts, wanting to overprice
anything Japanese that had any potential of competing with their
obviously superior machines).  It was at that point that the Japanese
made all the small engines much peppier, IMHO.  Of course, it was soon
after that that Harley got their act together and started making some
reliable bikes.  So, get a Harley.  No.  wait.  They made me say that.

So, I'm sure that small bike fans will probably disagree with me, but
since I'm bigger than they are, I really don't care :-).  I'd say that
a newer (like 1988 or newer) 250-650 would probably be a lot of fun
for a long period of time.  In a >10 year old bike, I'd be really
carefull it was what I wanted.  It could end up needing some work, and
older parts can be fairly expensive (not that newer parts are very
cheap, mind you).  You may find it won't take long before you feel
confident enough to pick up a new FJ1200, and getting something that
you wouldn't be happy with if you rode it every day will just put you
out shopping again.  Of course, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, this is a lot more than you probably wanted to hear.  It's sure more
than I wanted to write.  So, bottom line, buy what you want, they'll
make more.

Ken
--
Ken Wallich
wallich@ncd.com  
ken@wallich.com