New Member

[jd750ace]

Lurking for some time, finally joined. Check out my album for a look at my 1979 Special II. It was my father's bike. I will be collecting it from Kentucky at the end of this year, and it will become, like my wife's father's bike, another one in the garage. I want to do kind of a resto-mod with it. There's too damn many of 'em chopped up out there. No offense, but I get tired of seeing impractical "town bikes" made out of good basic cycles that ought to be out smashing bugs on the byways of America.

 

[XStretchified650]

Hey jd750ace...I agree with what you are saying, some of these bikes get modified to the point that they are a way too impractical for my taste. I see a lot of ingenuity across the board but some are chopped to the point that all performance and rideability (and safety) is gone. You may be onto something here.

My Rant.....Go ahead and chop it up but don't make it into a two-wheeled tractor. Hell, even tractors have front brakes! And what is the deal with having no suspension, whitewalls and max altitude ape hangers? What's next..curb feelers? Chop em up all you want but please build in some BSP bug smashin potential.
......Okay..I am done now.

I see you are in Texas. On weekends in summer 1979 I rode from Beaumont, Texas back and forth to the Sam Rayburn Reservoir lakes area. Parts of the roadway are elevated over the swamps of east Texas. Burned into my memory is an episode of running through a swarm of thousands of dragonflies. Not the little ones, but the jumbo ones that really thump ya good. I couldn't slow down because of cars behind me so I just had to take it. It only lasted a thousand yards but I must have killed a few hundred with my chest, neck and hands. It hurt plenty and I remember being kinda proud that I didn't fall off!

Thats riding an XS650 with bug smashing potential.

 

[jd750ace]

I know what you're saying! One of my buddies is a fanatical bass fisherman, and they do a couple of large tournaments he fishes in at Sam Rayburn every year. I gave him my old Bell Star 1 when I got my Symax helmet. Said he specifically wanted it for Sam Rayburn! He says the dragonfies "nest" there. Always bad appartently. I plan on going the other way with this bike. Race Tech suspension in front, and Progressive in the rear, probably graft a dual disk setup onto the front. I plan to drill the piss out of the rotors the get some weight off the front axle, and get rid of those damn points!
Bridgestone S-11 tires with raised white letters, not sure if I'm gonna leave the paint and badges, or debadge it and get a lighter color on it. Black bikes sure do get hot in Texas summer heat!

 

[jd750ace]

Hey jd750ace...I agree with what you are saying, some of these bikes get modified to the point that they are a way too impractical for my taste. I see a lot of ingenuity across the board but some are chopped to the point that all performance and rideability (and safety) is gone. You may be onto something here.

My Rant.....Go ahead and chop it up but don't make it into a two-wheeled tractor. Hell, even tractors have front brakes! And what is the deal with having no suspension, whitewalls and max altitude ape hangers? What's next..curb feelers? Chop em up all you want but please build in some BSP bug smashin potential.
......Okay..I am done now.

I see you are in Texas. On weekends in summer 1979 I rode from Beaumont, Texas back and forth to the Sam Rayburn Reservoir lakes area. Parts of the roadway are elevated over the swamps of east Texas. Burned into my memory is an episode of running through a swarm of thousands of dragonflies. Not the little ones, but the jumbo ones that really thump ya good. I couldn't slow down because of cars behind me so I just had to take it. It only lasted a thousand yards but I must have killed a few hundred with my chest, neck and hands. It hurt plenty and I remember being kinda proud that I didn't fall off!

Thats riding an XS650 with bug smashing potential.

Also, what model is your Kawi 125? Seems like everybody had a KE100 when I was growing up. Except me. KV-75 transitioned to a home made KZ400 hill climber!

 

[XStretchified650]

My 1976 Kawi 125 was a KS 125 Enduro. It was a 6-speed street and trail. It would do a bit over 70 mph on the road and was a ton of fun.