Now, if I said that it was tatty, it would mean me being "rather economical with the truth," as some muddled politician once said. When I parked it next to my five year old GS750, it made my bike look almost brand new. But youth being what it is...
It was black, it was big, 1100cc for christ sakes; and it was loud, thanks to a home made 4-1 which growled like four vexed Rottweilers. So what if the handlebars were bent, a side panel was missing and its final drive chain looked like a skipping rope. Oh yes, the seat was ripped and knackered, too.
Anyway, off I went around the famous 37 miles at a fair old get I’d thought my 750 was fast, but the GSX was something else indeed, definitely a case of all meat and no potatoes. I arrived back at the boarding house with a huge grin on my face. I deliberately parked the bike next to my GS750 and asked the owner if he wanted a swap.
He said yes, he also wanted £300. Well, as always happens, I was totally blinded by the old rose tinted glasses as we sorted out the details - he was from Manchester but working in Bournemouth and I live in the wilds of Northumbria, so we decided to swap papers and money in Manchester, at his parents home, a 200 mile journey for the two of us.
The journey down to Manchester was pretty routine - set off in sunshine then it rained for about 150 miles without a let up. My lass and I were soaked through even though we wore waterproofs. We stayed the night at the vendors, exchanged papers and money: I couldn’t wait to get away on my new bike.
Once on our way on our return journey back up north, my enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by being followed as far as the M6 by a patrol car, who must have been laughing at my attempts to keep such a big bike down to 30mph, although the Suzi burbled along happily enough. It paid off, though, I wasn’t stopped, which when I look back on it was just as well because I didn’t have a cover note for it.
On the motorway the bike came into its own, there was masses and masses of apparently endless power even two up. I soon fell in love with the bike. Over the next few months I got it sorted out cosmetically, the seat was a £25 recover job, a new tacho cable, a friend who’s a coppersmith put an alloy can on the end of the stubby exhaust and gave me some Ducati handlebars.
A new side panel was a sick joke, £55 - I told them where they could stick it. £5 from a breaker sorted that. The raised GSX lettering for the side panel cost £6 - I keep wondering what dealers do with their profits. Never mind, life’s one big bitch, then you die. The mismatched tyres were junked for Michelin M48s which were brilliant in the dry but gave me one or two scares in the wet...
Despite the massive weight of the thing, it could still be muscled through the twisties. It needed lots of muscle to bung it through a series of curves but that was no real problem. More importantly, the twin front discs were powerful enough to somersault the unwary over the bars and saved me from eating tarmac on many occasions when I'd misjudged my approach to corners.
Last moment braking hardly disturbed the chassis in the bends, probably because the great hulk is so heavy that it sits implacably on the ground. The difference between the quite heavy GS750 and the very heavy GSX1100 in the curves was not that great, the excessive power of the bigger machine would certainly make up for any lack of cornering agility.
In the summer of the first year of ownership, the bike took my girlfriend and I all over the Lake District and Scottish borders. It ate up motorways, hustled around the curves and was loads of fun to string out on an excess of torque. Sometimes I hardly needed to touch the gear lever, other times I whizzed up and down the slick box and had a real ball.
The second year was equally enjoyable except that the right hand side of the cylinder head gasket blew, letting quite a bit of oil leak out when the engine was running. This was to be the cause of one memorable occasion when the bastard almost spat me off.
Five of us went for a steady tun over the Hartside Pass and onto the Lakes, which is pure biking country. Needless to say our steady run developed into something else and as the bike ran hotter, more oil seeped out until it started tracking down onto the right-hand footrest. Well banked over, my foot slipped off and I had to do a grass tracker impression with my poor old leg dragged behind. Later, both a Ninja and a NSR ran out of road and ended up on the grass.
The only other things to cause trouble were blowing fuses and shocks on the way out that used to cause the thing to ground the exhaust over bumps. In '86 I wanted a GSXR750, so traded in the GSX (I got a grand for it). On the last burn it’d still clock up a reasonable 135mph. I missed the mid-range grunt but not the mass, the 750 is a whole new ballgame and it’s not really fair to compare them.
Stephen Ashford