one of these was my Suzuki experience in 1971. pretty quick little motorcycle. if you didn't use lots of throttle it would foul a plug, thus making you go fast even when you maybe didn't want to go fast. very reliable, i took highway trips to various places on it. it would buzz along at 70-75mph as long as you wanted it to.i paid $732.00 for it at the Suzuki Dealer in Delano{no longer there of course}. mine was a sort of acid green where this one is orange. wouldn't mind having another.
Bought a 72 Zoo-Key 350 from a neighbor back in '74 for the grand sum of $195.00. He was tired of taking the bike back to the Dealer for clutch work. He kept complaining that the clutch was grabby and the Dealer was a A** Hole.
ReplyDeleteI looked at this as an opportunity to not tell him that if he would stop slipping the clutch, the clutch would work as intended.
Bought it from him, pulled the clutch basket and did a quick sidewalk lapping of the plates. Knocked it back together, adjusted the clutch and off I went. Yep, I had me a new bike with only 520 miles on it for the grand sum of less than $225.00 with tax and license transfer at the DMV.
Put 40k miles on that bike before I sold it 2 years later for $250.00 to the same neighbor.
Darn, I kind of miss riding a ring-a-ding, snicking the right gear while keeping it on pipe and enjoying the ride to the limits of the tires and brakes and road. Yes I do miss the body English to help me in third gear as I screamed up hill in a sweeper getting ready to flop back up to get the line for the curve. Flat on the tank and then the next instant sitting full upright to catch the wind like a sail brake just to scrub enough speed for the transition without coming out of the power band. Such were the early days on the Ortega Hwy in California so long ago......Thank you for the memories, now go away Mitch and tell us of your 350 ramblings and tragic (probably none) mechanical malfunctions of this
GREAT LONG PAST MOTORCYCLE.
You put 20 thousand miles a year on that bike? That is like 56 miles a day...Damn, you are a hard core rider, Jon.
ReplyDeleteParked a 1980 XS11 after I rebuilt it for the third time. Miles on third rebuild when parked and pickled for future use....810,012
ReplyDeleteSecret to high mileage (over 1.3m) is to live in SoCal and keep the Cage for times you need to transport more than 3 souls.