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Hi All,
I've been hanging around for a few weeks now, thought I might do one of these intro threads finally.
I've been on a motorcycle since I was 15 when my brother and I dragged a ratty free XS400 Special II home in the back of his van to tinker with. One thing lead to another, we soon had a group of friends all astride cheap old UJMs. In the summer of 2008 we ended up riding our raggedy fleet across the US from Ithaca NY to the California coast and back, 39 days on the road, all on back roads/state highways, mostly camped. I was on a barn find beaten-to-death '76 Yamaha XS500C that had been bought for $50 and fixed up. The writeup for that trip is on "advrider" if anyone is curious (https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/c...366117/page-30), though the photos need to be rehosted.
After earning my stripes riding a well-worn 500 twin across the country, I upgraded to a very nice '78 GS1000C that I scored for $950. Gorgeous bike. Rode it a few seasons and (very) regrettably sold it and moved on to other bikes.
Other bikes came and went over the next decade, I had just about stopped riding up until last year, when I was bitten by the bug again. Remembering how much I loved my GS1000, I got my hands on a pair of project bikes: '81 GS1100E and a '79 GS750E. I spent last year and into this year fixing them up slowly.
I finished up the GS750E this spring and ended up selling it, frankly I originally intended to only buy the 1100E and the seller made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Awesome bike, but IMO functionally my 1100E does everything the 750 does and then some, better.
This past winter, another two project bikes dropped into my lap so to speak: a local scrapper had picked up a pair of old GSes as part of a garage cleanout. Thankfully someone tipped him off that the bikes are worth more than their weight in scrap, so I bought them out of the bed of his rusty S10 for a VERY good price. Amazingly, both bikes are in fantastic cosmetic, complete, low mileage condition. But they have sat since the late 80s and need full going through. I’ve been chipping away at those two now.
Finally and most recently (literally last week), I caved in and bought a nice clean 2002 Bandit 1200 in the “standard/naked” format.
I’ve already gotten so much help from this forum and its members, I plan to make this a long term “home” and look forward to meeting some of you folks at the 2023 Brown County "GS Thang!"
I've been hanging around for a few weeks now, thought I might do one of these intro threads finally.
I've been on a motorcycle since I was 15 when my brother and I dragged a ratty free XS400 Special II home in the back of his van to tinker with. One thing lead to another, we soon had a group of friends all astride cheap old UJMs. In the summer of 2008 we ended up riding our raggedy fleet across the US from Ithaca NY to the California coast and back, 39 days on the road, all on back roads/state highways, mostly camped. I was on a barn find beaten-to-death '76 Yamaha XS500C that had been bought for $50 and fixed up. The writeup for that trip is on "advrider" if anyone is curious (https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/c...366117/page-30), though the photos need to be rehosted.
After earning my stripes riding a well-worn 500 twin across the country, I upgraded to a very nice '78 GS1000C that I scored for $950. Gorgeous bike. Rode it a few seasons and (very) regrettably sold it and moved on to other bikes.
Other bikes came and went over the next decade, I had just about stopped riding up until last year, when I was bitten by the bug again. Remembering how much I loved my GS1000, I got my hands on a pair of project bikes: '81 GS1100E and a '79 GS750E. I spent last year and into this year fixing them up slowly.
I finished up the GS750E this spring and ended up selling it, frankly I originally intended to only buy the 1100E and the seller made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Awesome bike, but IMO functionally my 1100E does everything the 750 does and then some, better.
This past winter, another two project bikes dropped into my lap so to speak: a local scrapper had picked up a pair of old GSes as part of a garage cleanout. Thankfully someone tipped him off that the bikes are worth more than their weight in scrap, so I bought them out of the bed of his rusty S10 for a VERY good price. Amazingly, both bikes are in fantastic cosmetic, complete, low mileage condition. But they have sat since the late 80s and need full going through. I’ve been chipping away at those two now.
Finally and most recently (literally last week), I caved in and bought a nice clean 2002 Bandit 1200 in the “standard/naked” format.
I’ve already gotten so much help from this forum and its members, I plan to make this a long term “home” and look forward to meeting some of you folks at the 2023 Brown County "GS Thang!"
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