The weirdest, wildest wheelie the massive Z1100 managed was the one where it flipped right over and landed on top of me. I was rushed to hospital with multiple injuries, some of which I am still afflicted with today... the falsetto voice being the most obvious! The only good thing to come out of this terrible misadventure was that I so totally cushioned the Kawasaki’s fall from grace that it emerged completely intact, not even scratched.
It was not until seven months later that I was able to exact revenge. A Transit did a sharp left turn just as I was piloting the beast along the gutter on his inside. This accident took place so slowly that I was able to step up on to the pavement, leaving the Z totally merged with the Transit. Both vehicles were rendered totally immobile and a huge traffic queue formed whilst the police tried to separate the two.
About the only bits not mangled on the Kawasaki were the engine and frame, everything else was either bent or crushed. The insurance, fortuitously comprehensive, paid up exactly what I'd originally shelled out for the brute and threatened to dump the remnants on my door free of charge... No thanks, after eight months I had had more than enough of the bloody thing. In retrospect, I feel sure the machine was possessed of some malign spirit.
Right from the outset the bike had been a bugger. Only two miles after purchase of the 1982 machine, the fuel ran dry. I switched to reserve only to find that it did not work. Pushing 550lbs of recalcitrant metal two miles to the nearest petrol pump did nothing for my mind set. Twelve miles later, back home, I noted that there didn’t seem to be any oil in the engine. Further examination revealed that it was pouring out behind the final drive sprocket.
It needed about a gallon of oil every ten miles until I put in a new seal. Whilst doing this I noticed that the sprockets and chains were shagged, so replaced them with a cheap pattern set that were worn out in a record 1750 miles... mind you, I did wheelie start the brute on every possible occasion. This might be why the clutch went with a huge bang that startled the pedestrians and car drivers in the High Street as much as it did myself. Another long push home revealed a large amount of alloy debris from a shattered clutch.
The motor had already done 83500 miles, so having alloy fillings running around for a few seconds could not have helped its health. Still, there was quite a large proportion of the original 100 horses available, judging by the way she went through tyres and pads. The former from the searing acceleration, the latter caused by the desperate need to lose massive amounts of speed to get the wobbling, waltzing rubber framed hippo in some kind of shape for anything that vaguely resembled a corner.
It was possible to get as much as 130mph on the clock when | was willing to kiss the tank with a mind set on a serious death wish... even on the long, straight, smooth motorways that abound locally, the machine bore more resemblance to a water buffalo on heat than a motor bicycle with a steel frame. Most of this down to the suspension which was what the machine came with from the manufacturer and in a seriously decayed state - soggy springs and next to no damping.
There was a certain art to hanging on to the handlebars and damning the consequences. At least most other vehicles gave us a wide berth, the striking resemblance to an accident looking for somewhere to happen convincing all but the most foolish or merely blind to keep a safe distance. The leaping about was so bad as to often chaff my inner thighs as I was thrown about in the seat rather violently.
Things became even worse if I took a pillion, even a petite one. The shocks sagging down on to their stops and the wheelies becoming all but uncontrollable. Young women were not impressed, most leapt off the back at the first opportunity, tore off their helmet and threw it as well as a stream of abuse at myself. I was not too worried, as it happens, riding the Kawasaki was such a mental and physical strain that I had no energy left for sex, not to mention previous injuries to my private parts.
Falling off was merely a matter of a moment's inattention. Especially in the wet. Whatever virtues the Z1100 mill might have as an adrenalin inducing, mind warping means of rapid acceleration in the dry were totally lost at the first signs of dampness. The back end’s tendency to try to overtake the front’s at the merest hint of throttle made damn sure of that.
What kept me riding the Z was the way the engine would lay down the power, more and more grunt streaming out of the mill every fraction the throttle was opened. It was exhilarating, exciting and damn frightening at the same time. My mates mostly had middleweight plastic reptiles that needed the balls revved off them to keep the Kawasaki in sight up to 120mph, at least on a straight road. I didn't have to try to outdistance them until we hit the curves, when they still couldn’t get past because the Kawasaki was taking up most of the road, leaping all over the place. When in such company I usually overdid it. I once cocked up my line for a tight country corner so completely, that I had no choice but to flick the bike up straight, stand on the brakes and ride straight through a two yard thick hedge. The bloody bike didn’t even seem to slow down and we ended up skidding through a herd of bovines, until the bike went into a particularly frenzied wobble, threw me off and all but cut this bloody great cow right in half before finally coming to a halt.
Apart from being covered from head to toe in cow shit I was fine and the Kawasaki started first prod of the button, after myself and two mates had managed to pull it out of the hole in the ground it had managed to dig for itself. The bovines were fussing around their dead mate, glaring at us in a most malevolent manner. Luckily, there were no bulls around and the farmer was must've been busy humping sheep, not even my screams of fear alerted him to our presence.
The big brute was ridden back out through the huge gap in the hedge and we rode like shit to get out of the area before anyone got wise to my misdemeanours. At the first petrol station, my mates jet-washed all the muck off me and the machine, keeping a great distance before the shit was cleared away. The next two weeks I was off work with pneumonia!
After about three months the engine acquired a very healthy top end rattle which turned out to be soft cams, shot camchain and a couple of broken piston rings which had, of course, taken out the bores. Rebore, new pistons, new cams, new tensioner, new camchain and new gasket set added up to nearly five hundred notes.
I didn’t really run the engine in. I'm not the kind of chap who can potter around at C90 speeds all day long. This perhaps explains why top speed never bettered 120mph and why acceleration had lost a distinct edge. Fuel also became worse, going from 38 to 34mpg - the bike was taking every penny I managed to scrape together in running costs. The gearbox was also making funny noises as I continued to boot it up through the box with the throttle wound on and no clutch - the change was never good, now it had become downright BMW-like agricultural in nature. Sure enough, a screwdriver between engine case and ear revealed some rumbling gearbox bearings. Best ignore it, I consoled myself.
A gang of us used to hit the motorway (I better not say which one) early Sunday morning for high speed races. Much to my annoyance, the Z1100 kept getting left behind, however much I screwed the motor through the lower gears. Talk was not of doing 150mph by the cognoscenti but 175mph! Talk about being outclassed - I started thinking in terms of bolting on a turbo charger and stripping off all the unnecessary bits.
But I never did get around to that. The Transit van did me a great favour by writing off the bike. The way the engine was rumbling I would never have got half what I'd originally paid. I used the money as deposit on new GSXR1100 - with a race kit, naturally...
Smithy