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calendar   Sunday - June 15, 2008

Young Lust

Ah, memories!

Once upon a time, in the land of long ago and far away (1984 in Pearl River NY actually) I was young and foolish and had lots of money. I was night shift manager in a grocery store, working 12 nights on and 2 off. Lots of OT, and it was a union job back when union jobs still meant something. Having sent myself on several tropical vacations, having stocked up the basement with fine wines to age, having purchased a brand new 1984 Mercury Capri RS - 4bbl 302 and a 5 speed - and proceeded to pay it off so fast the car loan company called up and told me to stop sending them payments please, I went looking for something else to buy.

I’d been riding dirt bikes for several years, thanks to the bad influences of friends. One guy, Kevin, had a dual purpose bike that was actually street legal. I wanted a street bike, so I found a mint second hand Yamaha SECA 550 and got my street license.

image

This was a great bike. It was lightweight, handled well, and went zooom!! in a good way. the brakes weren’t the best, but it was hella faster than Kevin’s one-lung 250 dual purpose thumper. And since Bob, one guy I was working with, had some punk-ass Honda 350a, with a faggy automatic transmission - on a motorcycle!!! - I was happy with it. King of the Road and all that. It didn’t have huge amounts of torque, but when you wound the engine up really high it suddenly woke up, and away we go!! That was pretty neat, and I enjoyed it for a few months.

Then one night I got to work and Bob’s bike looked different. It had a windshield and saddlebags, and seemed somehow bigger. I asked him when he got all the accessories and he just laughed at me.
“I guess you didn’t look too closely, did you?”
So back out to the parking lot, and a closer look showed that he had a brand new Honda 650. With gears this time. Day-um.

Now Bob wasn’t much of a rider. He wasn’t into major leaning, or dragging the foot bars, or two wheel drifts. But when we went out for a ride in the morning, his Honda ate my little red Yami alive without even trying. I was not gonna take that lying down.

So a few days later I was back at the bike shops, looking to trade in the SECA on something better. I looked at all the Yamahas, the Suzukis, the second hand English bikes ... nothing there that really stole my soul. Finally I went back to the Honda shop, and there she was. Right off the truck, the shop crew had just put her together and were wheeling her into the showroom. The bike never got there; I bought it on the spot. A 1984 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk S.

image

That was mine, in rich irridescent blue. A full size bike with a full size engine, in my unhumble opinion. With a seat big enough for two and power aplenty. While just about every other street bike ever made went for a rounded look - rounded tank, rounded fenders, rounded handlbars, round headlight - this one was angular. It was raked. The front tire was tiny and the back tire was huge, so that when parked the bike had that “jacked up” look that street rods were still using. And dig that sexy little bikini fairing wrapped around a huge square headlight. The engine was the narrowest thing you’d ever seen. It was even thinner than the 550 I was trading in. Instant lust. Drool central. And it was a Honda in the very best way: anti-dive forks, automatic cam chain tensioner, hydraulic valves that never needed adjustment, and a shaft drive with anti-backlash: no chain to oil or fuss with. Hydraulic brakes, hydraulic clutch, 6 speed. Just put gas in it and go. And go it did. Boy howdy.

imageThe other two 750 class bikes Honda was selling at the time, the Saber and the very first Interceptor, both used a water cooled V4, and both weighed dozens of pounds more than the Nighthawk. But the CB700 was no tinfoil piece of crap. It had a very stiff frame and very strong suspension. It was pretty much the last of the UJMs, and the frame was the best that could be made that used the old school double shocks in the back. Heck, this one even used part of the frame as an oil cooler. Strange, but neat. So power to weight was in my corner, and the price was pretty right too.

That’s when I found out about the protectionist “motorcycle industry revival bill” that was in place back then. You see, Harley Davidson was turning out some bikes that nobody was buying. I think they were still owned by AMC back in 1984? Whatever, they were dying on the vine. So they used their political connections to “get a level playing field” and managed to get a HUGE tariff stuck onto every imported motorcyle over 700cc. So Honda, who had designed this scoot as a 750, destroked it. They kept the engine’s bore, kept the cams, kept the nice big carbs, but swapped in a shorter throw crankshaft, so it only displaced 698cc. No tariff, and that was probably $500 saved right there.

But the result was that this 700 wasn’t a 750. No, it was the world’s nastiest and most overcammed 550. At low revs it only had a touch more torque than the SECA I traded in, but when it came on the cam the damn thing took off like a raped ape. VRRRRRROOOOOMM!!! I remember the first time I cracked the throttle open in 3rd gear on Middletown Rd. The front end came right up, a good 18” off the ground, and I carried a wheelie at 65mph (in a 30mph zone) for a good 400 yards. No bull. Holy crap. What a bike. I never dropped it, nor did I ever hit anything with it. I was in love; that bike got two coats of wax each and every time I took it for a ride. After 80 or 90 coats it just about glowed in the dark.

I did put the lower, smaller Interceptor mirrors on it, which looked super cool, and of course I had a set of loud pipes and a carb jet kit, which saved 30lbs, made a few extra horsies, and made the 550-on-steroids experience even more of a rush. The thing would run the quarter in 12 flat and still got 45mpg. But time passed, I grew up a little, and seven years later when I was a piss poor starving college student with thousands of dollars in credit card debt, I had to sell it. There’s never been another motorcycle that had that look, and good luck even finding a new UJM 750 today. After 1984 motorcyles split, amoeba-like, in their design. The hot engines went into “sport bikes”, with their “oh look at me, I’m humping the gas tank” bent over riding position and the full fairings. Fast, but to me riding one looks like you’re having sex with a bass. On wheels. The torquey engines went into “cruisers”, with their laid back, relaxin on the toilet bowl riding position, and got tons of chrome. Little Harley wannabes. Then big Harley wannabes. Both styles have matured in the last two and a half decades, but a middle of the road, straight up UJM is really hard to find anymore. For years and years they weren’t even made. And never again was there an angular, jacked up ride like that Nighthawk S.

Oh, and the rest of the world got theirs with the 750 engine. At one point, I was planning a trip to Canada just to order the crankshaft and rods, but the cost just wasn’t worth it. They came in red too.

image

Many years later, my mother told me she was so glad when I sold that bike. “I used to worry myself sick every time you went out. All I’d hear was Brrraaaaaa all the way across town, and I kept waiting for the crash.” Moms. They’re all alike.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/15/2008 at 01:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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