The highways of the western United States are full of touring bikes. The typical fare generally consist of  BMW’s, Honda Goldwings and ST’s and Harley-Davidson’s and the like. When you are within 100 mile radius from a city you will see more sportbikes and choppers. What you do not see very often are riders on 30 year old small bore bikes.
With their bicycle tires, bench seats, chain drive and high revving engine, they do not suit the open roads to well. . . Well, that’s what contemporary wisdom would say. I, on the other hand, decided to give it a try.
Last September I picked up a 1981 XJ550R, commonly known as the Seca. This is, of course, the predecessor to the Seca II which was so well known for it’s turbo charged version. This bike had been sitting in the backyard of a hot rodder under a tarp for 20 years or so. It only had 4000 miles on it and he just wanted to get it out of his backyard. So, I bought it from him for a pretty good deal. (But really, what’s a decades old, Japanese 550cc bike that isn’t running worth?) After a bit of work assembling the carbs from all the parts in the shoeboxes, changing the fork seals, putting on new tires and cleaning her up she was good to go.
I spent the first 800 miles commuting on the old bike. Nothing at all went wrong. It goes through a little oil, but it seems to be a little tank. Then came the real test. Let’s head down to Tucson, with a passenger and see if the bike holds up. Without missing a beat the bike made it down the back roads to Tucson. There were legions of HD riders and touring bikes out and about, but only one other small bike. An old Triumph twin.
The next week I decided to try the mountains on the little tank. This was much more of a challenge. We are already very close to the maximum load for the bike so the suspension is crap. The engine has to be run at 8k rpm to stay up with traffic. Despite this half day of beating, the bike again came out with only small issues. (There is a leak at the bottom of one of the fork tubes. Not a big deal, but a bit of a pain to fix.)
So, where does this get us?
Back to the beginning.
This is how riding used to be. It’s a nice way to leisurely spend the day on two wheels and actually enjoy the scenery. I’ve done these same runs on an RC51, VTR1000, CBR 954, Magna and a few others (including non-Honda bikes) and have never enjoyed it quite like I did that day. There is far more character with these old bikes. They don’t run quite as well, quite as fast or quite as smooth as these new bikes, but that’s not what it is about. It’s about making the ride as pure as it can be.
How do the other motorcyclists react? These days, it’s like living in a biker no man’s land. None of the other riders can quite figure out if you are like them or not. It seems even the toughest looking bikers give a big wave to a couple of Crazies overloading a little old bike, going faster than reasonable and being miles from anywhere.
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