A Motorcycle Tale

When I was a kid I had some exposure to Harley-Davidsons via a couple of cousins and my brother.  My brother first had a "Hardly-Davidson", an Aermacchi Sprint which never ran right, but it got me hooked on the "Milwaukee Iron".  I rode my bike around pretending it was an H-D and had fun.  Later on my brother acquired a late '70s Sportster and I fell in love with the thing.  I was in high school at that time and was hell bent on being a biker.  My father did NOT want his youngest son riding around on a motorcycle.  I had some Harley shirts, got the requisite engineers' boots, had a Sportster 883 ad (torn from a magazine) in my locker, I watched biker movies, I read a book on Harley-Davidson...  I was Mr. Harley-Davidson without ever having ridden a motorcycle.  Looking back on it I was quite pathetic.

I got a little seat time on one of those small Japanese '70s dirt bikes a friend had.  My brother even let me ride his Sportster once.  Near the end of my Senior year of high school I made a promise to myself that, one day, I would own a Harley.  About ten months after that promise I ended up with a $150 Kawasaki KZ650-B1.  Dad was not happy.  He didn't speak to me for a week.  Dad eventually said that he wasn't happy with my decision but respected how responsible I was.  I had the thing registered, insured, had a helmet etc. right from day one.  It was my first year in tech school.  My instructor at the time used to be a motorcycle mechanic and he changed everything I had thought about motorcycles.

He loaned me a VHS tape of that year's Moto GP at Laguna Seca.  I had never seen road racing before but it caught my interest.  I was also reading every motorcycle magazine the school had.  I then got a subscription to Motorcyclist magazine.  Harleys were constantly being bashed and I couldn't understand why.  "Ah, these guys are all sport bike people and have no idea how awesome Harleys are." I thought.  The writers always complained about poor handling, lack of ground clearance and such.  Harleys were frequently compared to tractors.  The summer between first and second years of tech school I went to see my first road race at the local track.  I heard a Ducati for the first time.

I didn't know it, but I had become a motorcyclist at this time.  Not a biker.

The second year of tech school led to a loss of interest in Harley-Davidson.  I was never going to be able to afford one and, as I was finding out, they weren't much for sport riding.  The KZ650 was slowly becoming more sporting.  unnecessary parts were removed, parts were bobbed, the exhaust went from 4 into 2 to 4 into 1, just like sport bikes.  I was riding the hell out of that thing.  It just kept progressing a little bit at a time.  I started pushing the bike a little more here and there, I pushed myself a little bit too.  I really liked that old Kawasaki.  it wasn't a 600 Ninja, but that old KZ650 was more than enough for my meager skills.

Fast forward to 2009-2010.  The Kawasaki had stopped working just after I got my first place and it was put in the garage for four years.  I bought the house and moved the KZ to another garage where it would sit for years.  I eventually decided that I would figure out the problem and had it diagnosed within thirty minutes.  I kicked myself for not having done it years before.  But, the economy had tanked, major industry disappeared from the city and I had no money for motorcycles.  Things got so bad that I made the heart-wrenching decision to sell my beloved KZ650.  Worst decision ever.  I should have just let it sit in the garage for a couple of years until things got better.  But I didn't and I regret selling it.  Oh well, I had to live with it.  I thought that motorcycling had no interest for me anymore.

Day I brought Sporty Spice home

Three years ago a coworker had been having some trouble with his '98
Sportster.  Some idiot somewhere in the past had put a "big bore" kit on the thing so it went from being an 883 to something like 1150-ish.  The coworker was young, had a heavy hand and had damaged the cylinders.  He had it repaired at the dealer and he promptly did it again.  He did the work that time around and I started asking him (I saw a deal and I could fix it) if he wanted to sell it.  He declined.  He got it running, it puked the oil out, he learned about dry sump oil systems and then rode it for months until "that day".  He said he was out riding with his friends and the thing started running on one cylinder.  He had another Harley in his sights and asked me if I was still interested in buying the Sportster from him.  I got it for $800.  I fulfilled that promise I had made to myself in high school.

The sporty sat in my garage for a year before I decided to see if I could get it running.  Put some fresh gas in, did some rudimentary valve train and cylinder inspection and got it running.  I honestly couldn't tell if it was running right or if it was just the "performance" shit that got put on it.  Lumpy cams and all that kind of stuff.  It also had straight pipes.  Way too freaking loud.  At least it ran on both cylinders as far as I could tell.  I put it back in the corner and there it sat.

This summer I decided to clean the thing up, put a new battery in it, get it registered and take a little ride just to see if it was something I could putt around town with.  Then, something happened.  The motorcycling bug bit me again and after having given up on motorcycling I found myself obsessed with getting this poor, abused Sportster back on the road.  Once it was running and registered I took it around the block to see how things went.  No big problems so it was off to the gas station for a fill up and then I rode around the neighborhood.  I couldn't work on the thing fast enough.  I got it insured and started hunting for some stock exhaust, which I found, and when I was putting the quiet exhaust on I found the origin of the "running on one cylinder" complaint.

You'll have to do the research for yourself but, in short, a lollipop fell out of one of those annoying straight pipes.  That was fixed with the replacement exhaust, the carb got tuned a bit, things that had been ignored for so long by previous owners were adjusted, paint and chrome got polished, the "hammer & chisel mechanic" repairs done by previous Bubbas were fixed properly.

Sporty Spice in its current config

I've put a few hundred miles on it so far and have no plans to stop.  But I've learned something about Harley-Davidsons.  I don't really care for them.  Harleys don't have the little things that the Japanese motorcycles have but everyone ignores.  Flip up seats that reveal a bit of storage and helmet hooks, comfortable riding positions (talking about "standard" motorcycles like my old KZ650), engines that don't shake you to pieces, decent control layout...  When I flipped up the seat of the KZ650 I would see the battery, air filter (both easily changed) a small compartment for the tool kit and a document holder for the owner's manual and registration card.  My Sportster doesn't have any of that and I find it annoying.

As I put more and more miles on the Sporty I am beginning to understand all of those complaints I read about in those old magazines.  There isn't much "feel" with a Harley other than vibrations and aching muscles from uncomfortable riding positions.  I don't like forward controls.  I don't buy into the "forward controls let you stretch your legs out" nonsense.  That's fine for tooling around town while "cruising" and it looks cool, but forward controls got old fast.  Japanese "standard" motorcycles put your feet below your butt where they should be and the handlebar makes you lean forward just enough to cause the wind, at high speed, to keep you supported.  Brilliant!

I have a list of things I'm going to be doing to this Sportster in order to make it more to my liking.  Mid controls to get my feet in a more comfortable spot, a wider  handle bar for a bit more leverage and the slight forward lean of my torso, decent shocks etc.  I'm trying to make it into the KZ650 I loved so much.  It won't be, but I can get it close.  The passenger accommodations have been removed and the seat, with it's passenger pad, is going to disappear soon.  For me, motorcycling is a solitary endeavor.  I'll ride with my best friend, but that's about it.  Large group rides don't appeal to me but I have yet to participate in one of those.  Maybe I'll give that a try this summer.  I have a feeling it wouldn't be long before I started looking for the next turn so I could go out on my own.  That's just me.

I look back on my childhood and think about how I wanted a Harley and how I wanted to be a "biker".  I got the Harley and despite the things I don't like about it, I'm just happy to be back on a motorcycle again.  I haven't smiled so much or felt so happy in a long, long time.  But, I'm a motorcyclist and I'm not brand-loyal.  I wave at every rider I see because, regardless of the motorcycle, we're all out doing the same thing.  Having fun.