Page last modified: 09/03/08

Gary, a 1982 GS 850 L, and the Smokey Mountains

This '82 GS850L is my eleventh street bike. I started riding in '71 and worked my way through College "spinning a wrench" in a Norton, Moto Guzzi, Suzuki Shop in the early '70's. I knew these GS850s were decent bikes when I bought mine new (still in the crate) in '87, but I did not realize how versatile they really are. As much as I would like to claim that my "vast?" knowledge of motorcycles led me to my GS, the truth is, the "internal combustion gods" were just smiling on me. It's been a fine adventure tool, does everything well and most importantly makes me smile a lot.

I led guided tours through the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains (Smoky Mountain Motorcycle Adventures) from '87-91 with it. Many of my guests would question my choice of rides until we traded for a few miles.

This bike has also taken me to the Gulf of Mexico several times and on a 5,000 mile two weeker through Santa Fe, Mesa Verde, Bryce & Zion Canyons. Shared a campsite, in Zion, with another GS850 rider, who had 105,000 miles on his '79. He told me the '79 GS850 was RIDER Magazine's "Bike of the Year".

My longest "one day" ride was also on this bike. I left Santa Rosa, New Mexico at around 9:30 AM Monday and arrived in Asheville, North Carolina (1422 miles) at 5:00 PM Tuesday. Didn't plan to ride that far, I was heading home and "just felt like riding".

My favorite ride is still a spirit cleansing sunset ride up to Craggy Gardens, which is two stop signs and 20 miles up the Blue Ridge Parkway from our house.

I changed the handlebars on mine immediately, and the addition of a "bar snake" dampened out the handle bar vibration nicely. I also added an inch of pre-load to the front fork springs and changed the fork oil to 10w. This allowed me to lower the air pressure to 5-8 psi. Progressive springs and no air would probably be better, but this setup works pretty well and is a vast improvement over stock.

By far the most dramatic modification was the elimination of the bottom of the air box along with installing a K&N filter. Keeping the "still air" (top half) of the air box allowed me to retain the stock CV carb springs and needles (remove the nylon spacer & replace with 1mm washers to correct mid-range mixture). 140's worked best as main jets for me. I would not recommend this modification to anyone who is not very comfortable with re-jetting, as this is a much more radical change than most any exhaust modification you might consider making. Re-jetting is REQUIRED. It also adds a beautifully soulful intake howl as the revs build without any unwanted excess noise during normal riding.

"He who Knows he has enough, is rich." Lao Tzu

For more information about Smoky Mountain Motorcycle Adventures, you can reach Gary's homepage at: http://www.motorcycleadventuremap.com/
current as of August 2001.

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