How many bikes does one need?

Nailbomb said:

Originally the goal was to flip it, but I've got more into it than its worth, so fuck selling it. I'll ride it till the wheels fall off. I haven't done the valve train work to let it rev higher, but with the restrictions removed from the intake, the jardine exhaust, a ignition upgrade, and some toying with the jets, it'll more than keep up with my friends stock 1200 sportster. The thumper has grown on me. Someday maybe I'll pull its heart out of that nimble frame and get it into a roomier frame, LOL. I've seen some interesting bobbers and trackers made using them.
This winter its due for a 515 kit and a raise in compression.

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Hi Nailbomb,
it's hard to tell when my only ride was a 1/2-hour procession in the midst of lumbering H-D twins but I thought the way it fizzled out at ~3,000 rpm in every gear was indicative of the bike having some kinda electronic rev-limiter.
Aesthetically, the stock exhaust's goiter turned me off too, for all that it was meant to look like a racer's air dam. Didn't fool me none though, ugly is ugly, just like the frame.
You could drop that mill into a replica Norton Featherbed frame, eh?

One of each. A Standard, A Special & A Bobber.

TwoManyXS1Bs said:

And a fish kind of gets wet.

Fred, you're demonstrating the symptoms.

Gary has the full-blown disease.

There is no cure....

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If this is a disease I don't want no cure.

I could stop anytime, um gotta go, something just showed up on CL

fredintoon said:

Hi Nailbomb,
it's hard to tell when my only ride was a 1/2-hour procession in the midst of lumbering H-D twins but I thought the way it fizzled out at ~3,000 rpm in every gear was indicative of the bike having some kinda electronic rev-limiter.
Aesthetically, the stock exhaust's goiter turned me off too, for all that it was meant to look like a racer's air dam. Didn't fool me none though, ugly is ugly, just like the frame.
You could drop that mill into a replica Norton Featherbed frame, eh?

Click to expand...

The stock exhaust is both heavy and restrictive. A double negative if there ever was one. The simple replacement of the exhaust with jetting has netted blast owners over 3 horse, and on a engine that made around 30 horse to begin with that's saying a lot. It definitely has a electronic rev limiter, though by sound you would be surprised how high your rpms are when you only hear one lung. Still they are not high RPM screamers by any means, and even doing the work to stretch them out they don't rev high by most peoples standards(you do have to do work to remove the limiter after). The fact that one with the 515 kit head work, cams, carb work, intake and exhaust made over 50 horse and set a Bonneville record made me rethink my perception of the bike. http://v2-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4086

As far as the frame swaps this would be along the lines I'm referring to.



Regardless a frame change is a lofty and expensive goal. I'll re-evaluate it after I finish the current project.

The key word in the question is "need".

The answer is one, if its an XS650. It does everything that I need a bike for. I just made a 2 day trip in the Rocky mountains, and my bike ran perfect. Trip covered 1126.3 kms, and gas consumption was 24.28 km/L or 57.1 mpg (US gallons).

3-4 vintage, a couple chopper/Bobbers,a tracker,a cafe, a race bike, an enduro, a bagger and a trike. And a few projects going all the time. If this is a disease, then I guess I'm stage 4. Lol
Currently, 1 xs tracker/cafe, a cb750 Sohc cafe, a cb750f mad max like project, the cb750dohc(823) trike, a 65 Ducati resto, sold a kikker bobber, sold an xs chop(wish I hadn't- looking for another to build a vintage looking bobber) and several customer bikes come and go to fill the curious urge). Doing a shovelhead in an old paughco frame with a Springer right now. 70s chopper style. Hoping to find a good bagger bike for long hauls and another Ducati vintage racer project. Built a shed to hold spare parts and building a 37 ratrod truck to haul them to shows.

I have 3 bikes. 2 runners, The SG, the '92 XJ600 Seca II and the project KZ650/'82 750 Gpz hybrid. 10 yrs ago I had as many as 10 bikes in the back yard. I called my yard the home of wayward motorcycles. All japanesse. No runners. Ebayed a few parts of some. sold some locally. Junked the rest.

Considering our XSs are getting kind of old, we need at least two bikes.. It's a greater chance that one of them is running when we want to go for a putt.

One should be an XS and the other should be something less than five years old that hasn't been 'dicked with' yet. Or something at least 30 years old that has been throughly 'dicked with'. Like my BMW R90/6. The Airhead really does the 75-80 MPH highway thing nicely. The XS starts to feel a little strained at 80 but the BMW feels like it's just getting into its zone. YMMV.