Motorcycling Dopers -- what was your *second* bike?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve had a few beaters, but I just bought my first “real” bike, if you will, so I sort of consider it my “second” bike.

It’s a Kawasaki ZZR1200 . I was pretty drunk at a hockey game, and was going to the gift shop to pick out something for Hockey Monkey*. We passed a few police officers that were auctioning a bike to raise money for one of their own who had cancer. It belonged to an officer who died on his police bike while escorting President Bush. There were no bids, so I placed the minimum bid. I was rather surprised when I got a call on Monday morning saying I had won! I even thought it was a Ninja when I placed the bid because I was a few sheets to the wind. :eek:

*I still blame her for making me walk past the officer’s booth!

22

My first bike was a Honda CM or CB 450. I crashed it, had it rebuilt, gave it to a woman friend of mine and got a Suzuki 750. Don’t remember the make at the moment, but it was a more or less ‘standard’ style with shaft drive. Me lurvs shafts. Make sex jokes if you want.

A 750 shaft was low enough maintenance 'cause I’m not big on mechanical stuff and had a big & comfortable enough engine for tooling around town and long cross country road trips.

My fourth bike was a VX800 though. She fit me like a glove. V-Twin shaft-driven bliss.

23

Hummm, first bike that I actually owned I bought in 1964 in Raleigh, NC. It was a stock 1949 eighty cubic inch Flathead HD with the original leather saddle bags. After I got out in late Oct, of 64, I rode it to Tulsa OK.

Had many bikes since. Now,
1977 KZ 1000 (16 years)
HD chopper, Shovel head, hard tail, front kicked out a bit. (15 years)
HD chopper with a 63 outside oiler generator case , hard tail, more kicked out front end, rocker clutch and jockey shift. (10 years)

Had as many as six at one time but only three now.
Honda’s from 80ci to Rebel to Interceptor 500.
Lot of different Kaw’s.
Yammi Route 66
HD, 53 Panhead, stock more or less.

Lots over the years…

If I need to go over 80 MPH, I get in an airplane.

24

Links to the tree bikes

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dragon43/GusGeneral/photo#5068303552534900354 JB

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dragon43/GusGeneral/photo#5117268060015674786 Spot

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dragon43/GusGeneral/photo#5117268064310642130 blue

25

The first bike I owned was a 750cc Triumph Bonneville. Within 2 weeks I had the spare tire fall off a truck, bounce off the road, hit the handlebars and send me sliding sideways in the dirt at the roadside followed by a truck pulling in front of me in the pouring rain so that I had to go between the back of the truck and the oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road.

I concluded that I was likely to die through no fault of my own and that would be no consolation so I chickened out and stopped riding.

So no second bike yet but it’s only been 31 years.

26

Second street bike: 1979 Harley Sportster XLS 1000. Here.

If you count the dirt bikes I had as a kid, then my second bike was a Yamaha DT1 250 Enduro. Here.

27

As a life long motorcyclist I daydream constantly about my next bike. There are so many good ones that it has become difficult to choose. What works for me is to imagine what kind of riding I want to do. My expeience has been that the more emotional the choice the more satisfying the results. To answer the OP my second bike was a 1964 Suzuki 80cc. A big move up from a 50cc! It was also my first new bike. My last: a 2005 Suzuki 650 V Strom.

tbook

28

Started out with a 50 cc Yamaha BW (known as a Zuma in the U.S.)
Then I took my lessons on a whole bunch of bikes, before buying a 1979 Suzuki GS 750 LT.

I’m currently on a Suzuki Bandit 650S. Happy happy me!

29

Second: '94 Yamaha Virago 1100 because it felt exactly like my first one, an '85 Virago 700.

Now I’m thinking I want something with a little less vibrations. I might try a Honda VTX 1300. I have really short legs so my choices are limited. I’m a little nervous about riding though since a good friend just was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident so I’m halfway between new motorcycle and giving it up.

30

My first was a 1973 Yamaha RD350. This was in 1987 and I was pretty inexperienced. I crashed it on a country highway and it took me 18 years to get another.
My second, and current, is a 1975 Honda CB500T I bought in 2005. I took the MSF Basic Rider Course and am enjoying it quite a bit.

31

#1 was a wee little 1971 Honda. It was the street version of their trail bike. The Honda was stolen by the people I quit loaning it to the day before I was to register it.

#2 1984 Yamaha Maxim which was the cheapest bike for sale in town one Sunday. Five batteries and four paint jobs, innumerable nearly fitting parts from more popular models, and countless hours spent on maintenance and unsticking frozen bolts and the insurance company failing to agree with the state government on the VIN of the bike (it had faded off the chassis ) led me to

#3 2004 Buell Blast w/ 2500 miles for $2000. IT’s quick, light, comfy, and fuel efficient. It’s also bright effing orange. What fun.

The Yamaha will be donated to some friends who can tend to it.

32

Hey! Y’all resurrected a thread I thought I’d killed.

I guess It’s just shy of five months ago, but If it’s not a zombie, the thread has a deep grey complexion, and severe personality disorders. :wink:

33

My first bike was a '71 Yamaha DT 360 enduro. Way too much power for a first bike, but it was cheap!

That was my second bike, too. Same year and everything. Reliable, economic, it got me where I needed to go when funds were scarce. Carried it halfway across the country in my Fiat, frame & motor in the trunk, the rest in the back seat. Managed to get it back together in only a couple of days. Bikes sure were simpler back then.

34

Hush! The question is still perfectly valid! :slight_smile:

35

And besides, I didn’t have my “new” bike then, and I have it now. I wouldn’t have had yet another chance to post about it had this thread not surfaced to the top again. :cool:

36

Fun. When I first got it I was practicing in a local parking lot and someone stopped to say that they had one just like it back in the day.

The coolest thing though was a close friend of mine saw it and said it looked really familiar. A few days later she showed me a picture taken when she was a child next to her dads motorcycle. Same year, model and color. The only difference was his had a fairing. She was wearing shorts and a tank top and had a bit of a belly in the picture. At the time she was pregnant so she put on a similar outfit and took a picture next to my bike to show her dad. It was pretty cool.

37

I’ve had a couple of different phases of life with motorcycles.

Way back when (about 20 years ago) my first bike was a 78 Honda CB550F. A good starter bike that I rode for a couple of seasons. I then went to a 82 Honda CB900 Custom. This was a great bike - did a few big hiway trips with it. Certainly wouldn’t have wanted anything smaller than it was.

I got back into biking a couple of years back with a new 2005 Yamaha Vstar 1100 Classic. Loved the cruiser style but almost immediately was bitten with the Harley bug.

I wasn’t intending on getting rid of the Yamaha so soon, but I was made an offer on a Harley that I couldn’t refuse.

Here’s the Harley Electra Glide that I picked up last summer. 88 cubic inches (1550cc). Certainly not for a novice rider, but given the size and weight (about 850 pounds empty) it’s surprisingly nimble around town and truly a dream to ride on the hiway. This summer’s big bike trip is going to take me from Winnipeg to Vancouver, then across the border to Seattle and meandering back to Winnipeg through the northern states.

38

Kicking this one up, cause you gotta have an active Bike thread on the Dope. :slight_smile:

Last August, I purchased my second bike. I owned my first one, a 1995 Yamaha Diversion 600, for six years. It was a great bike to learn riding on, very forgiving. But ultimately it became a tad boring for a more advanced rider, and quite frankly, the seating position had always been subpar for my 1.86 m. (6’2") frame.

We moved houses in 2007, so we finally had a garage. The Divvy always sat outside, under a cover in the streets of Amsterdam. Not good in this climate…

After several testrides (amongst the contenders the Yamaha FJR 1300 ABS [fantastic, probably the best sporty cruiser in the world, but a tad overkill for my Sunday rides with its 145 BHP] and a Honda VFR 800 ABS [damn, what an engine, and what build quality, but the seating position was a tad too sporty for me]), I ended up riding a 2005 Yamaha TDM 900 ABS, and absolutely loved it. It’s a 900 CC parallel twin, with about 90 BHP and a perfect seating position. It’s surprisingly cornerhappy, and the topmounted luggage case with back rest provided a comfortable buddy seat for my wife. The aftermarket barely legal Laser exhausts sealed the deal, what a sound. :slight_smile:

It’s been a terrible amount of fun last summer and fall.

Winter’s not much for riding around these parts. To my dismay, the TDM had drained its battery on the spyball alarm when I tried to revive it the other week. Orderen an Optimate battery charger, but unfortunaly, one of the battery pole nuts dropped in the well when trying to attach the charger plugs. So, it’s sitting in the garage awaiting further maintenance. With the hope the battery didn’t sustain damage because of the full drain. :slight_smile:

Anyway, it’s a tremendously fun bike to ride, with the ABS system providing an unbelievable amount of safety and confidence.

I traded the Divvy 600 in, and got a fair amount for it. It’s probably in Eastern Europe by now, that’s where they ship all the stuff they don’t wanna put in the showroom anymore. :slight_smile:

39

I traded my Kawasaki Ninja 250 in for a Honda CB599 (called a “Hornet” in Europe). If I had enough money, I’d have kept them both. And even more money, and I’d have a Triumph Street Triple, too.

The Honda CB599, though a very popular bike in Europe and SE Asia, was only imported into the US in 2004 and 2006. It’s a classic naked sport bike with an in-line four, and I love everything about it.

40

Hornets are great all-rounders! Fun to ride, enough grunt if you’re not too heavy yourself, and not too intimidating. Quite forgiving actually.

I rode a CB 500 as my trainer bike, when I got my license in 2001. Even with 100+ K kilometers on it, and God knows how many falls, it still felt sturdy and safe. My teacher had four of them, and said they were the most reliable bikes he ever had. He tended to use the bikes for about 120 K kilometers, after which he bought new ones and used the old ones as part donors, as bikes with that amount of mileage usually only sell for cigarette money. Best to canibalise them, then.