I learned to ride a motorcycle when I was 12, when I traded a box of bicycle parts for a non-working '70s DT80 that my parents never thought I'd be able to make run. It was summertime and I was mechanical, and lo and behold, I got it started and rode it all that summer. Had two wrecks. One broken bone, a pipe burn, brake lever stuck in my leg, that kinda thing. But that summer we rode that little motorcycle into the ground. I never rode one again until 30+ years later. My dad retired and my mom let him get a motorcycle as a retirement gift. He'd call me every once in a while and tell me about some ride he went on, and he'd always end with, "you know, Josh, if you had a motorcycle we could go ride together". And after a year of hearing about that, I finally got one. Again, I think my wife was shocked I ever got it running.
The old GS500 was a project from the start, a lot more than I was hoping for. One day when I finally got the carburetors sorted enough to make it run, my dad and I had planned our first real ride. I had ridden my GS around the block in the neighborhood a few times practicing after doing the MSF class, but never more than a mile or two mostly because it wouldn't run. I was riding the short route from my house in Cedar Park to my parents' place in Leander and the bike just died when going to shift gears and wouldn't start back up. I called my dad and he brought his trailer to come pick it up, but then it started! So I tried to ride it to his house, got within a block, it would only run if you kept it above about 6k rpm. We had to haul it home on the trailer. I finally found my wits' end and took it to a shop that I hoped to build a relationship with. We were planning to ride together to the Harvest Classic in October, and this was in August when I brought the bike to the shop in hopes it would be ready to take to Luckenbach. No such luck. Turns out it had bent valves and I went all in for a top end rebuild which ended up costing nearly 2x what they estimated and probably 3x what the bike was worth, and it was about three months overdue. Finally picked up the bike when it was "fixed" and it died on the ride home, less than two miles. Turns out the geniuses left the petcock vacuum line unhooked. I made it home on PRI, fixed this, also discovered they had one carb pilot screw in all the way and the other one out four turns so once I got the carbs straightened out, and then found the cam chain cover was only on finger tight, and whatever other stuff they failed to do right, the bike was actually kind of OK.
I rode the old GS a whole lot, rode as much as possible. Couldn't get enough of riding a motorcycle. Then I realized, hey I am a reasonably successful guy in my middle 40s, why am I riding a $900 motorcycle? Every time I got off of it I felt like I should be delivering a pizza. Right about then we actually made it riding to the next year's Harvest Classic and the bike died while in Luckenbach. Dead battery, or so I thought. Jump pack got me home and then I replaced the battery, which wasn't the issue, finally rebuilt the starter, and then it was sort of reliable. One day my dad came over to meet me for a ride, and while I was running the bike and getting my gloves and helmet on, we noticed the tail light flickering, and when I got the seat off the wires from the regulator/rectifier were on fire. Awesome. So we didn't do that ride, and I learned a lot about this bike's electrics over the next days.
Finally I got fed up and bought myself a decent motorcycle, my Bonneville. So that next year my dad and I decided we were not only riding to the Harvest Classic, but we were going to camp. Well, sort of. We were going to set up a tent as a sort of home base, and rent a hotel in Fredricksburg because, well, who wants to camp? Not me. So we loaded up my Bonneville and his Honda Shadow and headed out. It was super cold. We were thankful for a traffic stoppage on 29 near Burnet because the wind stopped freezing us and we could put our hands on the sides of the cylinders to warm them. Once we got rolling again I noticed gobs of fuel leaking from my dad's bike and we stopped to find a burst fuel hose. We made a duct tape repair on the shoulder of 29 then limped into Burnet and got a piece of fuel hose and some hose clamps at Autozone and fixed it "right" in the parking lot, a fix that's holding to this day over two years later.
Just a few months ago I wrecked the Bonneville and in the time between when I healed up and when the Triumph's tank came back from the paint shop, I dusted off the old GS and tried to ride it a bit more. Now the bike won't idle, dies at stop lights. I did one ride with my dad with it this way, nursing the throttle at stops. Second ride we went out it was just like old times. Bike died at Cypress Creek Rd. and 183 stop light, I pushed it onto the sidewalk, it wouldn't start back up, and then we managed to jump it and get it running again and I rode it home trying to keep the revs up all the way. It will barely run. Who knows why. I decided not to ride again until the Triumph was back together, which was thankfully soon.
In all of this I have learned that Triumph makes a very reliable motorcycle but I don't have a ton of faith in Honda and Suzuki. I also learned that I enjoy tinkering with motorcycles but not when I have to rely on them to get me from one place to another. I have unfortunately become quite an expert on these CV carbs and I still can't seem to make my old Suzuki run right.
The old GS500 was a project from the start, a lot more than I was hoping for. One day when I finally got the carburetors sorted enough to make it run, my dad and I had planned our first real ride. I had ridden my GS around the block in the neighborhood a few times practicing after doing the MSF class, but never more than a mile or two mostly because it wouldn't run. I was riding the short route from my house in Cedar Park to my parents' place in Leander and the bike just died when going to shift gears and wouldn't start back up. I called my dad and he brought his trailer to come pick it up, but then it started! So I tried to ride it to his house, got within a block, it would only run if you kept it above about 6k rpm. We had to haul it home on the trailer. I finally found my wits' end and took it to a shop that I hoped to build a relationship with. We were planning to ride together to the Harvest Classic in October, and this was in August when I brought the bike to the shop in hopes it would be ready to take to Luckenbach. No such luck. Turns out it had bent valves and I went all in for a top end rebuild which ended up costing nearly 2x what they estimated and probably 3x what the bike was worth, and it was about three months overdue. Finally picked up the bike when it was "fixed" and it died on the ride home, less than two miles. Turns out the geniuses left the petcock vacuum line unhooked. I made it home on PRI, fixed this, also discovered they had one carb pilot screw in all the way and the other one out four turns so once I got the carbs straightened out, and then found the cam chain cover was only on finger tight, and whatever other stuff they failed to do right, the bike was actually kind of OK.
I rode the old GS a whole lot, rode as much as possible. Couldn't get enough of riding a motorcycle. Then I realized, hey I am a reasonably successful guy in my middle 40s, why am I riding a $900 motorcycle? Every time I got off of it I felt like I should be delivering a pizza. Right about then we actually made it riding to the next year's Harvest Classic and the bike died while in Luckenbach. Dead battery, or so I thought. Jump pack got me home and then I replaced the battery, which wasn't the issue, finally rebuilt the starter, and then it was sort of reliable. One day my dad came over to meet me for a ride, and while I was running the bike and getting my gloves and helmet on, we noticed the tail light flickering, and when I got the seat off the wires from the regulator/rectifier were on fire. Awesome. So we didn't do that ride, and I learned a lot about this bike's electrics over the next days.
Finally I got fed up and bought myself a decent motorcycle, my Bonneville. So that next year my dad and I decided we were not only riding to the Harvest Classic, but we were going to camp. Well, sort of. We were going to set up a tent as a sort of home base, and rent a hotel in Fredricksburg because, well, who wants to camp? Not me. So we loaded up my Bonneville and his Honda Shadow and headed out. It was super cold. We were thankful for a traffic stoppage on 29 near Burnet because the wind stopped freezing us and we could put our hands on the sides of the cylinders to warm them. Once we got rolling again I noticed gobs of fuel leaking from my dad's bike and we stopped to find a burst fuel hose. We made a duct tape repair on the shoulder of 29 then limped into Burnet and got a piece of fuel hose and some hose clamps at Autozone and fixed it "right" in the parking lot, a fix that's holding to this day over two years later.
Just a few months ago I wrecked the Bonneville and in the time between when I healed up and when the Triumph's tank came back from the paint shop, I dusted off the old GS and tried to ride it a bit more. Now the bike won't idle, dies at stop lights. I did one ride with my dad with it this way, nursing the throttle at stops. Second ride we went out it was just like old times. Bike died at Cypress Creek Rd. and 183 stop light, I pushed it onto the sidewalk, it wouldn't start back up, and then we managed to jump it and get it running again and I rode it home trying to keep the revs up all the way. It will barely run. Who knows why. I decided not to ride again until the Triumph was back together, which was thankfully soon.
In all of this I have learned that Triumph makes a very reliable motorcycle but I don't have a ton of faith in Honda and Suzuki. I also learned that I enjoy tinkering with motorcycles but not when I have to rely on them to get me from one place to another. I have unfortunately become quite an expert on these CV carbs and I still can't seem to make my old Suzuki run right.