Pinckneyville report

On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 17:21:49 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:



Sounds like a real buy. That brings back memories of my youth. The Honda
750 was king, for quite a long time, as I recall.

The first "superbike" I rode (around '78 ?) was a Kawasaki 900. It belonged
to a buddy of mine, that was home on leave from the Airforce. All I can
remember is taking it around the block to get used to it's larger weight,
size and power, then stopping to do a "simulated" quarter mile.

I wound it up in first gear, close to redline, pulled the clutch in, shifted
to second, and popped the clutch out, while pulling the throttle back out to
full throttle.

That (at least at that point in my life) was one of the most stupid, and
scariest things I had ever done. The damn thing almost left me, back there,
sitting on the pavement. Somehow, I managed to get the throttle closed
(which was hard, since I was sliding off the back, pulling on the
handlebars, which only wanted to cause pulling the throttle further open)
and got slowed down, and repositioned by ass on the seat in a more
appropriate, and dignified position. ;-)

I found it hard to believe that ANYTHING had that much power. Of course, at
the time, my car was a '68 Corvair. g

Back to the Hondamatic. Did it have an automatic clutch, or something?
What is the meaning of the "matic" in Hondamatic?

I had a '70 Honda 750. That was before they were detuned. Stage:
Sunday at the car wash. I've washed and dried the bike. With the wet
street and the residual water on the tire, it was easy to do a reeeal
good burnout.

It seems I got some water under the grips because when I hit dry
pavement and the tire hooked up, the left grip came off in my hand
just as the front tire lifted. All I could do was let go and bear
down on the tank with my knees.

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