Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Just wondering, for those who can remember, what your thoughts were as to which bikes from the 60's, 70's and 80's were the best, and which were the worst! I guess some will be in both!

The 60's is a little beyond me, and apart from a rare ride on a restored classic, and one bucket race, I have never ridden a 60's bike, so can't comment. 70's and 80's I have some experience with though

Best bike of the 70's to me was the Honda 400 four super sport. It faught well above it's belt and always acquited itself well if not lead the pack.

Worst bike of the 70's for me was a 650 twin yammie, which had no brakes, no power and vibrated like a widows top draw! But, at least it didn't leak oil.....when it ran.!

The 80's I have even more experience with. I owned and rode some brilliant and some crappy bikes back then!

Worst of the 80's for me was my Suzuki GSX750ESD! It had no ground clearance, the 16 inch front wheel didn't work on it, the brakes were crap, the electrics always failing and the motor wouldn't pull your brother off your sister when it ran and wasn't leaking vital fluids all over your leg! I was glad to see the back of that! A GPX750R finished in Red and White followed that, and it still rates as one of the best bikes I ever owned. Not for it's outright performance in any area, as it was average in most, but just for the memories I have of the 70,000klms I did on it during the period of ownership!

Posssible the best bike I had from the 80's though, was A GSXR1100H. It was Light for the time. Had huge amounts of ground clearance. Was rock solid in the turns with amazing stability from those huge 18 inch cheese cutters and had a genuine 100hp with big dollops of grunt down low! It was also a very simple design and maintanance was a simple affair for the home mechanic!

So let's here it folks! Young and old, I am sure most have at least had an 80's bike!

I had a VF750f that was good except I realy hated the feel of the 16" front tyre.

All my other bikes were dirt bikes

The 80's was my Suzuki phase and of all the bikes I rode my fav was the '86 GSXR1100. I bought one with 8,000k's on the clock and it was an absolute pearler for it's time. The previous fav was the original 1100 Katana. Others I dreamed about before the GSXR were the GPZ900, and the old Honda CB1100R.

The late 60's and early 70's was the turning point in bikes, pommy rubbish was still the benchmark of performance and oil leaks, (because few could afford early Ducati's and SFC Laverdas and MV Agustas) "british engeneering" was about the same as "council worker" two words that should not be used together in the same sentence, but nothing said speed like a Trident T150/T160 or BSA Rocket3 or Norton 750 Commando. These bikes were unreliable and cantankerous and hard to start cold and even harder to re start hot shit boxes, if you made it home with the bike with all its pieces still attatched it was a good ride, although then a long ride was about 160k's (100 miles) and took forever to do, a standard tool kit was a heavy hammer a cold chisel and a shifter. No joke! The electrics were all Lucas Crown Prince of Darkness items with such interesting things like Zennit Diodes to baffle you.

To start one cold was a process, with ignition off crank motor through till you found TDC (Top Dead Center) of the pistons, tickle the carbs 1 1/2 pumps, ease the kick starter half way down, let in come back up , turn key on and kick all the way through the stroke. If you were lucky it didnt kick back and split your boot sole or the instep of your foot, now you know why old bikers walk funny with a limp

This was simply how it was untill the japs started dropping out things like the XS1-XS2 650 twins and the first of the mighty but evil Kwaka tripples,then Honda smashed them to hell and back with the CB750 Four (K).

What was good and what was crap was a matter of perception and how staunch you were, or ignorant, fact is they were all shit in reality,if you were a "Biker" you rode Brittish, if you were "Plastic" you rode Jap Shit...

In my early days i owned a Triumph 61? unit construction Thunderbird 650 a 500 Daytona and a 750/810 Dunstall Commando fast back, all of these bikes had an affinity with dogs and loved riding in the back of a ute. At 17 it was a new XS650B Yam, Then a Z1-900 Kwaka what i consider my comming of wisdom. Was rapped it had electric start that worked, disc brake and a huge unbelievable 83 hp, at 18 years old and bought up on pommy twins it was like the second comming of Jesus. General consensus is that the Honda CB750 was the first real superbike, but a good Trident would have its guts for garters, in my opinion the Z1 was the father of Superbikes because it took the known limits and blew them out the window overnight, the Honda was still compared back to back with british bikes.

No idea about 'best' or 'worst' of the 60's, my experience back then is limited to owning a 1969 CB125T, it was my first bike. Very reliable, light enough to be parked on the table in the Year 12 common room , but very slow.... . I have ridden a couple of pommie twins from the 60's as well over the years, but they are very uninspiring........

Best bike of the 70's - undoubtedly the Z1. No contest. There may be 'better' bikes in terms of handling etc from the same era (think GS750 or even the first Z650 of 1976), but the Z1 sat everyone on their arse and still does today, a classic style that will never be repeated.

Worst bike of the 70's ? Where does one start ?? The GT500 twin Suzuki was an overweight underpowered piece of crap, also the TX Yamaha series in both 500 and 750 capacities were very badly engineered, and cracked heads were very common with this model.

Best bike of the 80's ? Much harder to pin down. The GPZ900 of 1984 was definitely a 'watershed' model, but so was the first GSX-R750, and the FZ750......all good bikes. Eddie Lawson Replica ?? RZ500 ?? the choice in the 80's was sensational, due to the Honda v Yamaha model wars ......not so good for model longevity, but great for choice.

Worst bike of the 80's - dead easy. CX500 Plastic Maggot. What a piece of shit.

How can you say that about the Japanese Moto Guzzi Gos!! A mate of mine couriered on one of these for two years and it never missed a beat! He kept it even after ending that job as a run around hack and eventually scrapped it when the starter clutch went (engine out job). He paid $1000 for it, did brake pads n tyres when they were worn, put fuel in it and serviced it himself and never had to replace anything else for the 5 years he owned it! Personally I reckon it was a rippper! .......Ok So it wouldn't pull your brother off your sister, and the cylinders in summer would make you sweat like a pedophile at a Wiggles concert, and they didn't handle or stop. But they are reliable!!!:lol:

Strika wrote:How can you say that about the Japanese Moto Guzzi Gos!! ...

easy - they are one ugly ugly shitbox !!! In all my years of riding, I have only ever seen 2 CX's that were worth owning.

At the Apollo Rally up in the Brindabella Mountains a few years ago, there was a maniac on a CX that had been butchered into some type of feral MX'er, matt black, it appealed to me greatly !

And there is a CX500 that races with PCRA, now don't ask me how he does this, but I have seen him hose 4-cyl bikes of twice the capacity !! It is a rocket, really loud and really really ugly, but it has got some appeal about it.

Gosling1 wrote:

Strika wrote:How can you say that about the Japanese Moto Guzzi Gos!! ...

easy - they are one ugly ugly shitbox !!! In all my years of riding, I have only ever seen 2 CX's that were worth owning.

At the Apollo Rally up in the Brindabella Mountains a few years ago, there was a maniac on a CX that had been butchered into some type of feral MX'er, matt black, it appealed to me greatly !

And there is a CX500 that races with PCRA, now don't ask me how he does this, but I have seen him hose 4-cyl bikes of twice the capacity !! It is a rocket, really loud and really really ugly, but it has got some appeal about it.

Maybe it's.........reliable!

postie bikes are reliable too, but do you see them at the top of anyone's list ??

and then, THEN Honda had the *unmitigated hide* to stick a Turbo on one !!! bloody hell what were they thinking ??? You wouldn't think it was possible to turn an ugly bike into an even uglier one, but FMD they succeeded

that reminds me, the Yamaha Turbo of the mid-80's was also an ugly piece of unreliable dogshit. The Suzuki version at least had some minor saving graces by sort-of resembling a Katana (albeit a very limp one)....

of course the only manufacturer that got it right was KHI. I rode a 750Turbo quite a few times back in 1985?, it was a lot of fun in a straight line, but a handful out in the twisties........

Gosling1 wrote::

of course the only manufacturer that got it right was KHI. I rode a 750Turbo quite a few times back in 1985?, it was a lot of fun in a straight line, but a handful out in the twisties........

Pussy! I rode one of those, a neat low klm one and was dissapointed with the power! The surge was nice but not enough. Handling??? Meh! It was an 80's bike mate! They never got it right till lately!

Hah, hearing arguments about which was the worst bike is like trying to compare take that with britney spears, you don't like either of them, and if its not dead, you f*ing wish it was!!!

Gosling1 wrote::lol: postie bikes are reliable too, but do you see them at the top of anyone's list ??

and then, THEN Honda had the *unmitigated hide* to stick a Turbo on one !!! bloody hell what were they thinking ??? You wouldn't think it was possible to turn an ugly bike into an even uglier one, but FMD they succeeded

that reminds me, the Yamaha Turbo of the mid-80's was also an ugly piece of unreliable dogshit. The Suzuki version at least had some minor saving graces by sort-of resembling a Katana (albeit a very limp one)....

of course the only manufacturer that got it right was KHI. I rode a 750Turbo quite a few times back in 1985?, it was a lot of fun in a straight line, but a handful out in the twisties........

Ahh turbo bikes. A mate of mine had one of the Yamaha turbos'. Close to the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life and not that quick. I had a GS650 at the time (the not quite a Katana but close. Sensational bike though) and it kept up with Yamaha everywhere except the little blip when the turbo got it's shit together . But then it totally run out of everything.

Honda CX anythings I reckon were unmitigated pieces of shite and farken ugly to boot.

Any Ducati with Lucas electrics were probably the best thing you could get to help improve your auto electrical skills. For pure exhileration the bike I reckon I dreamt most about would have been a Duc Hailwood Rep

Never owned or ridden anything 60's, but would love a Vincent 1000 if I ever win lotto twice.

70's were a bit none descript for me

80's I grew up in, and there were bikes that created dream worlds, and those that shattered then. My mates dad had a new FRZ1000 in about 88 and that was awesome. Previous to that the GS1000 was what everybody harped on about. The GSXR750 became stuff of legends, and the GPz900 from Topgun made most dreamlists. On the smaller side the RD400/350/250LC, the late arrival of the NSR and it's rival the TZR but now were getting quite modern.

On the not so good side was the MZ125 (a USSR creation) that looked like it was carved from rough stone by a blind mason.

The 60's I was in school (13yo in 1969) no bikes.

Most of the 70's was a drug laced haze (hey it WAS the 70's) - off my face or otherwise riding dirt bikes mostly (remember camping out with mates and bikes on the magic mushies ). 2 roadies here tho .. both Kwacks .. 500 triple and a Z1R. Z1R might have been up there in the 70's but didn't ride enough other stuff to really have an opinion.

In the 80's one bike stands out for taking the previous design concepts, piffing 'em in the bin and starting again from scratch (and bringing over the counter sports motorcycles forward by one quantam leap in the process) - the first model GSX-R750.

Suzuki made everthing else old in one move.

balanse wrote:
In the 80's one bike stands out for taking the previous design concepts, piffing 'em in the bin and starting again from scratch (and bringing over the counter sports motorcycles forward by one quantam leap in the process) - the first model GSX-R750.

Suzuki made everthing else old in one move.

Yeah I rated My GSXR1100H as the best of the 80's for me too Balanse! They were just streets ahead in all respects back then.