Bikes That I Love And You Apparently Hate

by Thomas Day
twday@usa.com
Issue #94—June 2007

At the end a workday this summer, I was surprised to see a new bike in our tiny area reserved for motorcycle parking. Even more surprising was that the bike was a 1988 Honda Pacific Coast PC800, one of the most unloved motorcycles ever imported to the United States. Honda tried to hustle us with this bike, off-and-on, between 1988 and 1998. We weren’t going for it. Too quiet, too practical, too comfortable, too durable. Too something. As you have already probably figured out, I like the PC800.

I hung out waiting to meet the PC owner for a while. Two other bikers came by while I waited. They both had one or two nasty things to say about the “plastic glob” in our parking lot. When the owner arrived, he was suited (Aerostitch), helmeted, and had his keys in hand. He walked purposefully toward his bike, avoiding looking at me, leaning against my bike and evidently looking to make a comment on his ride. I said, “Nice bike.” He flinched and quickly swung a leg over, fired up the bike, and rode off. Obviously, he’d had an earful of the kind of comments the other riders make about the PC. 

I managed to catch him a few days later in a better mood. He said he’d made it to the freeway before he realized I’d complimented his bike instead of insulted it. We had a short conversation about his experience with the Pacific Coast, and he confirmed my expectations of reliability, mileage, convenience, and comfort. He even said the PC was “a lot of fun to ride, especially long rides.” His wife even liked taking trips with him on the PC.

I can’t figure the reasoning behind all kinds of human decisions, from politics to music to motorcycles and everything between and outside of those brackets. And I’m at a loss to understand why the average motorcycle commuter wouldn’t love the PC800. Unlike most of you, I’ve wanted a Pacific Coast, as a second bike, from the moment I saw one. Unfortunately, I never seem to own two bikes for long enough to consider multiple motorcycle ownership a practical concept. I have had the opportunity to ride the Honda Pacific Coast a few times and I found a lot to like about the bike. About a decade ago, a friend asked me to transport a PC800 from northern Iowa to central Kansas; and I loved every mile of the trip. It’s like a comfortable car without the extraneous wheels. Great storage, smooth and quiet engine, cushy suspension, and it feels much lighter on the highway than you might expect. What’s not to like? All that plastic, probably. No noise? The damn comfortable seating and predictable handling? The built-in storage?

A while back, I really pissed off one of our readers and earned a long, heated, rambling, saliva-spraying complaint letter to the editor. (Like that never happened before. Right, Victor?) Most of the reader’s complaints were expected and more than a little funny. One of his claims, however, struck on a pet peeve of mine. He claimed that he didn’t ride a motorcycle regularly because “a quality, fuel-efficient bike is not cheap.” It’s probably a taste thing. That reader’s tastes are similar to thieves’ tastes, since he claimed that his bike “within a month it would certainly by [sic] stolen or vandalized” if he rode it to work. Maybe he works at the wrong kind of drinking establishment? Maybe all that chrome attracts the wrong kind of attention?

I’m obviously out-of-sync with the kind of bikes that scumbags love to steal. For example, in 1994, I bought a nearly-new 1992 Yamaha 850 TDM; reviewers hated that bike, called it “bug eyed” and “gawky.” I rode a TDM at a Yamaha Round-Up in 1992 and fell in love. At least as close as I get to loving a bike, anyway. Ok, I fell in “like.” As in, “I think I’d like you in my garage.” 

I cared for that big red bike like it was the coolest guitar I ever owned. I waxed it, put road bags on it, installed new bars, crash rails, hand guards, a tall windshield, and dinky LED turn signals. (That’s as tricked out as any street bike I’ve ever owned. Pitiful, I know.) A few months after buying the bike, my wife and I rode to an Aerosmith concert in Denver. We parked the TDM in the midst of Harleys and other chrome-laden cruisers, in our usual state of turmoil. My wife is not a willing bike passenger and any ride longer than a few hundred feet often turns her into an angry motorcycle protestor. In that state of marital discord, I managed to walk away from the bike with the key not only in the ignition, but with the ignition still on and the headlights blazing and turn signals flashing. Aerosmith audiences are on the far fringes from politically incorrect and, after the concert, there was a rash of stolen stereos, keyed bike paint jobs, snapped antennas. In the motorcycle parking area, bikes were tipped over and a few Harleys had vanished from the lot. The key was still in the TDM’s ignition, the battery was drained, but the bike was untouched. I push-started it, came back for my grumpy wife, suffered a little mockery from the rent-a-cops, and rode home. Obviously, my TDM was not on the vandals’ or the thieves’ radar. I think that’s a good thing. 

The fact is, there is a plethora of reasonably priced, low-mileage, high efficiency, comfortable, practical motorcycles available. (Yes, El Guappo, I do know what “plethora” means.) Personally, I think the trick is to avoid ownership of things that others covet. I especially try to avoid owning things that professional thieves go out of their way to steal. Here are a few of the machines that I think meet the high standard of “a quality, fuel-efficient bike” that are reasonably priced, if “not cheap”:

Back in the '80s, I owned both the 1982 and the 1983 versions of the Yamaha XTZ550 Vision. How can you not love a water-cooled, drive-shafted bike that gets nearly 60mpg and has a heating system (in the faired 1983 version)? Americans did not love this bike and it was another dealer-discounted bike that took almost three years for Yamaha to move from show rooms. Other than a couple of minor maintenance problems, I rode the hell out of my Visions and got most of my money back when I sold them.

I still like the 1988 Honda NT650 Hawk GT. A great experiment in a mid-sized high-tech motorcycle that failed miserably. Clubman racers learned to love the Hawk GT until it was made obsolete by the Suzuki SV in that class, but Honda practically gave them away as door prizes at the dealerships. In Denver, several Honda dealers were still trying to unload brand new 1988 Hawks in 1993. Since the Suzuki SV arrived, used Hawk prices have, again, fallen.

I have lusted after the 1988-to-today’s Honda XRV 650/750 Africa Twin and the 1989-1996 Yamaha XTZ750 Super Ténéré since the moment they were announced. These beauties are a pair of super-sized dual purpose bikes that never came to the U.S., but I’ve seen them in bike shows and at the old Steamboat Springs Vintage Bike Days. Once I’d sat on the real thing, my US-wimp Ténéré replica (the TDM) seemed tame and incomplete.  

1986-today’s Honda Transalp 600/650 versions, but the newest Transalp 650 is unbelievably cool. We don’t get many cool bikes in the States, so this bike is just a dream that will probably go unfulfilled. It doesn’t come here because Honda thinks we wouldn’t buy it in sufficient numbers to justify the EPA qualification process.

The 1983(US and the world)-2000(Europe and Japan only) Honda NX650. This bike just kept getting cooler, but we didn’t get a second chance at it after the US market imploded and dumbed-down in the mid-80s. For a commuter, this bike is close to perfect: electric-start, extreme suspension, ultra-reliable single-cylinder engine, big enough to travel at highway speeds, small enough to easily find parking anywhere. 

How can you not love the 1984 Yamaha RZ350 Kenny Roberts Replica? Bumblebee cool, quicker than snot, smells like teenage Castrol (at least what Castrol smelled like when I was young). Kenny was still playing with this little guy, to whip the bootie out of liter bikes and lesser riders on Spain’s mountain roads, as recently as five years ago. 

The original Honda Reflex, the 1986 Honda Reflex, looked like a trials bike, rode like a twitchy dual-purpose bike, got about a zillion miles-per-gallon and could leap medium-sized culverts, climb mountains, and was as reliable as a brick. As usual, Honda couldn’t give them away at the dealerships. 

1982-83 Honda 500/650 Silverwing, fully loaded with fairing and bags. Whenever some BRC student tells me he/she needs a hippo-bike because he/she might want to “tour,” I let ‘em know that I crossed the country a few times on my 1981 Honda CX500, which is the undeveloped version of the Silverwing. I froze my ass off, in March moving from Nebraska to California, and put more than 100,000 miles on the bike before I sold it to a friend. We’re still friends, too. No surprise, Honda couldn’t find many buyers for this bike either. 

1988-2005 Honda VTR250, especially the last European VTR250 version that looks like a mini-Ducati Monstro. Look it up, it’s an incredibly cool bike, but we don’t get it because we’re . . . not that smart. The 1988 VTR was Ninja-like and a slow mover for dealers, so Honda quit bringing it here about the time they started getting the cosmetics right. I’ve owned the 1988 VTRs and I can’t say anything bad about it. The mileage was incredible. Sold that one to my brother and he wore it out.

Personally, I think the weirdest bike I love is the 1987 Kawasaki 250 Ninja with the white wheels and grasshopper-looking exposed suspension bits and the macho red seat and black body work. I don’t like the look, feel, or seating position of the newer 250, but I was really jazzed about the original bike. 

Economically, it makes more sense for manufacturers to join the pack and follow fashion down the drain of human conformity. Technically, whatever is happening today is already past-tense. Many of the bikes listed above sell for more today than they did when they were on dealers' floors. Some were so far ahead of their time that their time hasn't, apparently, come yet. Your mileage, apparently, varies.

M.M.M.