Infidels with two wheels
- Thread starter Fredy Fender
- Start date
Vintage Infidel
Here's some of the finest technology 1972 had to offer.
I've had this '72 Sportster for over 20 years. I don't ride too much anymore, the drivers and roads around here scare the hell out of me.
Back in 2002 I was going to buy an ElectraGlide until I discovered Factory Five Racing. I ended up buying one of their Cobra kits instead.
Charlie
Here's some of the finest technology 1972 had to offer.
I've had this '72 Sportster for over 20 years. I don't ride too much anymore, the drivers and roads around here scare the hell out of me.
Back in 2002 I was going to buy an ElectraGlide until I discovered Factory Five Racing. I ended up buying one of their Cobra kits instead.
Charlie
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This is my bike in Mexico, 07 CBR 600RR, 349Lb, 115hp. As you can see in the second photo the side roads in Mexico are designed to shake the nuts off your bike, and your crotch! This is at Mazamitla (8000 feet).
The freeways and roads to different cities are just as good as any in US, but the side roads are cobblestone, and you never know where a donkey might just decide to pull in front of you!
The freeways and roads to different cities are just as good as any in US, but the side roads are cobblestone, and you never know where a donkey might just decide to pull in front of you!
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Ron Earp
Admin
Iron Sheik,
I see you have those Japanese characters there on your mount. I hope the man from the Land of the Rising sun has not pulled a dirty trick on you and you've got something that says "I'm a pole smoker" there on the side of your ride. That would be mean and incur the wraith of the Iron Sheik.
Ronald THE GUNSLINGER Earp,
You are correct about the Japanese writing on the lower right fairing, It says if you insult white people TOO MUCH, you will crash!!!. However the other writing near the rear wheel says, Infidels will overtake all WHITE DEVILS and their “Fartly Daidsons”.
As a not so funny side note, the original owner of this bike had crashed and died! The bike had a salvaged title when I bought it. All the fairings, left, right were destroyed. Gas tank and radiator was also gone. The chassis and the forks were fine though! It had 500 miles on it when I picked it up and brought it into Mexico. Honda dealer checked it out when I was done with the repair and they said the bike is “Fit for Infidels only”.
You are correct about the Japanese writing on the lower right fairing, It says if you insult white people TOO MUCH, you will crash!!!. However the other writing near the rear wheel says, Infidels will overtake all WHITE DEVILS and their “Fartly Daidsons”.
As a not so funny side note, the original owner of this bike had crashed and died! The bike had a salvaged title when I bought it. All the fairings, left, right were destroyed. Gas tank and radiator was also gone. The chassis and the forks were fine though! It had 500 miles on it when I picked it up and brought it into Mexico. Honda dealer checked it out when I was done with the repair and they said the bike is “Fit for Infidels only”.
Ron Earp
Admin
A couple of years back we were running a car in the 13 hour enduro that had some donor parts from a car in which a fellow had died. Dash, insides, a few other things. Guy had rolled the car and was killed on impact, rather gruesomely.
Anyhow, one of my co-drivers was getting ready to go out for the night light check and I casually mentioned to him that we'd gotten a good deal on the parts for the car and told him why. Mistake. Turns out Robert is a bit touchy on such things and was really spooked about it.
Meanwhile, while he's out in the light check laps Ron, Jeff, and I were trying to figure out how we could rig the radios to turn on a light that would project a ghostly image on the rear view mirror. I figure that would be good for a few tenths better lap time in about hour twelve of the race on that really pitch black back stretch. "Robert, drive faster, he's coming for you, he's a coming!"
Spoooky,,,,,I felt the same way when I was dismantling the fairings.
When I lived in Oakland, CA., I was in a wrecking yard inside of a Mustang and could smell this AWFUL odor!! I came out of the car and looked at it again, there were bullet holes all over the passenger door. I am sure the brown stain was not rain and dirt.
$hit,,,,,,now I am spooked,,,,I have to ride the bike today to a village on the other side of the lake. I hope I don't TIP OVER.
When I lived in Oakland, CA., I was in a wrecking yard inside of a Mustang and could smell this AWFUL odor!! I came out of the car and looked at it again, there were bullet holes all over the passenger door. I am sure the brown stain was not rain and dirt.
$hit,,,,,,now I am spooked,,,,I have to ride the bike today to a village on the other side of the lake. I hope I don't TIP OVER.
Just finished my 1971 Honda CB450 "MANX" this weekend and her maiden voyage was a blast. Turned many heads. I must be getting old, because vintage bikes and cars are getting prettier everyday and I lost my appetite for the new, modern, electronic and plastic rides.
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Ron Earp
Admin
Very very cool! I do want to have a look at her. Take that down to the biker breakfast spot on 15-501 Sunday AM and it'll be a hit.
David Morton
Lifetime Supporter
The real Mcoy:
I'll get one one day.......
I'll get one one day.......
I'm an old-school superbike guy:
From left to right, 1982 Kawasaki GPz1100 (fuel injected, one of the first bikes with factory fuel injection), 1983 Kawasaki KZ1000R Eddie Lawson Replica (the previous owner dropped it, then just painted it a generic green, disguising its identity quite a bit), and my first bike, a 1986 Kawasaki ZX600R Ninja. This photo was taken at Altus AFB in 1991; I still own all three although they are all now rather derelict.
I rode the GPz1100 all over the place, racking up over 80K miles on it between 1988 and 1998. I took it on two transcontinental, 'round the USA trips, including one back in 1992 with Rob Mesa's best friend and old roommate, Doug DeRyke.
Interesting story there. Doug discovered partway along the ride that he had a congenital knee defect, and he simply couldn't tolerate riding a motorcycle for hours at a time. We'd gone from the S.F. Bay Area via back roads all the way up to Glacier-Waterton Nat'l Park in Canada, then down through Montana. His voltage regulator on his Honda VF1000F had conked out and the alternator sizzled his battery, so I would have to physically pick him up and lift him onto his bike (loaded down with tons of luggage etc.), then huff and puff and push-start him (his bike wasn't fond of starting and that often meant a LONG push), then hustle back to my GPz, fire it up and chase after him.
Doug finally flamed out in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We stopped at one of his relative's home, and he phoned home to Rob.
This goes to show what a terrific guy Rob is. He dropped everything, jumped in his pickup truck and drove NON-STOP all the way from Santa Clara, CA (right next to San Jose, a bit south of San Francisco) to Kalamazoo, a distance of some 2300 miles, arriving in something like 30 hours. He walked in looking like a ghost, fell down on the floor and went to sleep for 12 hours or something. Then he got up, they loaded the bike in the truck, and drove back to California, again, non-stop, so he could go to work the next day!
What a friend!
Anyway, Doug built Rob's race motors, and when my GPz motor was well past tired, he agreed to rebuild it for me in 30 days. One thing led to another and it took eight years (!) to get it back. I installed it in the frame about a year ago:
And unfortunately it's been sitting ever since. :sad:
When I was based in Korea (1995-96), Doug was the babysitter for my bikes and cars. He was supposed to ride them every week, but unfortunately on his first drive in my Cobra, the rear suspension snapped in two (completely NOT his fault) and the car was lightly wrecked. I think he became very self-conscious after that and he didn't want to take any more chances with my toys, so my bikes just sat. When I got home, the Ninja ran fine for a few days, then dropped a cylinder and was running on only three.
"I've got to fix that next weekend" I said to myself.
That was 1996. It's now 2010 and it's never turned a wheel again. I finally acknowledged the fact I was never going to get it going myself, and turned it over to my neighbor who's a professional motorcycle mechanic at a dealership, and does side work out of his garage.
I just bought a new battery for it, and with any luck, the engine will be running and this bike will be back on the road tomorrow afternoon! :thumbsup:
I'm then going to bring him the GPz (freshly built engine, just needs assembly, and the fuel injection may need some fiddling), and when that's done, I've got a complete spare set of NOS bodywork for the Eddie Lawson Replica, and he'll get after that too.
The ELR was running until I pulled it all apart to do a ground-up restoration in 1995. It was in a billion pieces when I got the word that I was being transferred to Korea in a few weeks--all the black bits (frame etc.) were at the powdercoating shop at the time. Doug's brother Mike came over after I got the pieces back, and in one day we totally assembled the bike, but every fastener is just finger-tight. So it needs to basically come apart and go back together again properly.
My garage has been a vehicular Jonestown for far too long. I'm hoping to have everything up and running by the end of the summer.
Of course, I just pulled the engine out of the Pantera on Tuesday, so that's not helping the cause...
From left to right, 1982 Kawasaki GPz1100 (fuel injected, one of the first bikes with factory fuel injection), 1983 Kawasaki KZ1000R Eddie Lawson Replica (the previous owner dropped it, then just painted it a generic green, disguising its identity quite a bit), and my first bike, a 1986 Kawasaki ZX600R Ninja. This photo was taken at Altus AFB in 1991; I still own all three although they are all now rather derelict.
I rode the GPz1100 all over the place, racking up over 80K miles on it between 1988 and 1998. I took it on two transcontinental, 'round the USA trips, including one back in 1992 with Rob Mesa's best friend and old roommate, Doug DeRyke.
Interesting story there. Doug discovered partway along the ride that he had a congenital knee defect, and he simply couldn't tolerate riding a motorcycle for hours at a time. We'd gone from the S.F. Bay Area via back roads all the way up to Glacier-Waterton Nat'l Park in Canada, then down through Montana. His voltage regulator on his Honda VF1000F had conked out and the alternator sizzled his battery, so I would have to physically pick him up and lift him onto his bike (loaded down with tons of luggage etc.), then huff and puff and push-start him (his bike wasn't fond of starting and that often meant a LONG push), then hustle back to my GPz, fire it up and chase after him.
Doug finally flamed out in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We stopped at one of his relative's home, and he phoned home to Rob.
This goes to show what a terrific guy Rob is. He dropped everything, jumped in his pickup truck and drove NON-STOP all the way from Santa Clara, CA (right next to San Jose, a bit south of San Francisco) to Kalamazoo, a distance of some 2300 miles, arriving in something like 30 hours. He walked in looking like a ghost, fell down on the floor and went to sleep for 12 hours or something. Then he got up, they loaded the bike in the truck, and drove back to California, again, non-stop, so he could go to work the next day!
What a friend!
Anyway, Doug built Rob's race motors, and when my GPz motor was well past tired, he agreed to rebuild it for me in 30 days. One thing led to another and it took eight years (!) to get it back. I installed it in the frame about a year ago:
And unfortunately it's been sitting ever since. :sad:
When I was based in Korea (1995-96), Doug was the babysitter for my bikes and cars. He was supposed to ride them every week, but unfortunately on his first drive in my Cobra, the rear suspension snapped in two (completely NOT his fault) and the car was lightly wrecked. I think he became very self-conscious after that and he didn't want to take any more chances with my toys, so my bikes just sat. When I got home, the Ninja ran fine for a few days, then dropped a cylinder and was running on only three.
"I've got to fix that next weekend" I said to myself.
That was 1996. It's now 2010 and it's never turned a wheel again. I finally acknowledged the fact I was never going to get it going myself, and turned it over to my neighbor who's a professional motorcycle mechanic at a dealership, and does side work out of his garage.
I just bought a new battery for it, and with any luck, the engine will be running and this bike will be back on the road tomorrow afternoon! :thumbsup:
I'm then going to bring him the GPz (freshly built engine, just needs assembly, and the fuel injection may need some fiddling), and when that's done, I've got a complete spare set of NOS bodywork for the Eddie Lawson Replica, and he'll get after that too.
The ELR was running until I pulled it all apart to do a ground-up restoration in 1995. It was in a billion pieces when I got the word that I was being transferred to Korea in a few weeks--all the black bits (frame etc.) were at the powdercoating shop at the time. Doug's brother Mike came over after I got the pieces back, and in one day we totally assembled the bike, but every fastener is just finger-tight. So it needs to basically come apart and go back together again properly.
My garage has been a vehicular Jonestown for far too long. I'm hoping to have everything up and running by the end of the summer.
Of course, I just pulled the engine out of the Pantera on Tuesday, so that's not helping the cause...
