The Bikes Page

This page is a compilation of any pictures of bikes that someone in my family owned, most likely my older brother Nick (on the left). It’s also not a comprehensive collection.

Where there are multiple pictures, the ‘Before’ shots are on the left, ‘After’ shots on the right. For full resolution pictures, click on the thumbnails.

This bike is my new current ride, a 1986 Yamaha FZ600. (The Fizz) It is the predecessor to the more commonly known FZR line. This one has an air/oil cooled 600cc inline four. I acquired it real cheap, needing serious TLC. It originally had a full fairing with dual headlights, but this one underwent some cosmetic reconstruction at some point. I got it as these pictures show, with a chrome headlight bucket and a Honda gauge that doesn’t work. I have no idea how many miles it has, but it goes like hell with some persuasion. It is definitely a work in progress. Over winter it’s getting new intake boots and a sync job, and if I’m really lucky, a more updated streetfighter style headlight assembly. More to come…

I had this bike for over 8000 miles, a 1985 Honda Interceptor VF500F. It had a 500cc V-4 engine with a 12,500 RPM redline, 6-speed transmission, and TRAC anti-dive suspension by Showa. A pure sports machine in its day, it’s kind of a classic now. They’re becoming rarer by the year, as all of them were either crashed or the engines blew up over the last 21 years. Unfortunately, this one has suffered a similar fate. At about 35,000 miles, the engine developed a nasty tick, and it kept getting worse. I had to sell it because I couldn’t devote the time or money to fix it, and I couldn’t bear to be the one it died on. I’ll always miss this bike.

This was my first bike, a 1983 Yamaha XS400RK SECA. Dual overhead cam 400cc parallel twin, redlined at a somewhat ill-sounding 10,000 RPM. Plenty fast enough for a 23 year old, air cooled bike. I bought it from a friend who had recently replaced the gas tank with a brand new pre-painted one, so it had a very clean appearance, and I had upgraded the front brake by adding a drilled EBC rotor. It was a relatively rare bike, and it was in good enough shape that I had people ask me if it was new.

Old Max is a 1977 Honda CB550F Super Sport. This bike was by far the funniest motorcycle that ever graced our household. In its day, the 550cc, overhead cam, inline four cylinder engine was a performance machine, but by today’s standards, it’s hardly a sportbike. This bike was definitely the meanest sounding one I’ve ever ridden though. It had a Cherry Bomb muffler on it. The muffler was far more suited for a small block Chevy than a Honda motorcycle, but it sounded throaty and loud, and it got looks everywhere you went. Usually confused looks, wondering where that noise was coming from.

The 1987 Honda Hurricane CBR600F was actually the replacement for the then discontinued VF500F Interceptor line. This bike was essentially the first in a long line of inline four 600cc motorcycles dubbed “Superbikes.” They weren’t called Hurricanes for long, because the name sounded ‘too violent,’ which is reasonable considering how many people were dying on them. They were far and away the quickest 600cc bikes ever made when they were new, the first to break the 11 second quarter mile barrier.

The 1983 Honda CX650C was a strange bike to start with. This bike came to us as a badly mistreated cheapie, acquired for $50 and a case of beer. After some intense bodywork, including paint, metal polishing, recovering the seat, mounting new tires, and other small here and there repairs, this thing was damn nice. The 650cc transverse V-twin ran like a top, had torque for DAYS, and with shaft drive, it rode smoothly and quietly. The terrifying thing is that they offered a turbocharged sportbike version also! First time I ever saw a bike wheelied completely by accident was when Nick was riding this with a fresh clutch and springs. It was a real shame to see this one go, it was the kind of bike you could ride all damn day without getting sore or bored.

This bike in the thumbnail is a 1983 Honda CB550SC Nighthawk. The full resolution picture is a more complete view of the front of my house at one point.
1983 was an experimental year for Honda, as they made something like 4 or 5 different models of bikes that would be offered that year and never again. Examples are the above pictured CX650C and the FT500 Ascot. We also have an FT500 currently awaiting restoration. But I digress…
The 550 Nighthawk was a wonderful bike, amazingly powerful and eerily smooth. Pairing the 550cc dual overhead cam inline four with a shaft drive and rubber motor mounts made the thing almost too smooth on the road. Oh yeah, and that thing could hold a wheelie from about 25 mph up to somewhere between 60 and 70mph!

This 1977 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1000 was the bike that started it all. My dad has had this bike since 1979 (see the picture on the left, featuring our dog Rocco (RIP) and my oldest brother Tony), and it fills my earliest motorcycle memories. If he wasn’t a rider, I might not have been either. Far as the bike goes, it’s a 1000cc 4 speed with kick start only. It can be crabby, but once it’s running, it’ll set off car alarms for a few hundred feet around.