One of the major advantages of borrowing a bike off a vague acquaintance is that it can't be directly traced to you. The 750cc Sabre was that rarest of oddities, a one-owner motorcycle despite dating all the way back to 1983 and showing a miraculous 69000 miles. Miraculous in the sense that it was still on all its original engine components - remember the reputation of the original VF750 series for self-destruction, especially as regards to its multitude of valves and camchain tensioners.
But this is America, boy, where bikes take second place to autos for serious transportation and laid back old girls like the Sabre tend to be ridden mildly rather than madly. Partly in deference to the whacky speed limits and partly down to the way such 500Ib brutes tend to throw riders off if they get too chancy in the bends. The other factor that kept the Sabre from instant self-immolation was a relatively mild state of tune.
Figure on about 70 horses at 9500rpm.
Matey had just bought himself an XV1100 - god knows why! - and figured I couldn't do myself, or the Honda, much harm. The 748cc V-four was still silky smooth, had that curious mix of high revving bitchiness with more than expected torque from 2500 revs onwards. Below that, the old Honda bugbear intruded yep, the bike had a slack drivetrain that made a mockery of any pretensions it might've had to sophistication, at least at low revs.
I was soon screaming the engine to beyond ten grand, trying in vain to find some vibration. Nope, the bike ran out of power before it had a chance to rumble or, god forbid, float its valves. 70 horses doesn't sound much, especially for such a heavy old monster, but these were real ponies with some meat on them thanks to the way V-four motors develop their torque. It would float up to 130mph like nobody's business, only robbed of further glory by the absolutely abysmal riding position - mired in all those dubious theories about plodding along serenely at 50-60mph.
Handling wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Flat, smooth and straight roads through the Midwest didn't leave any doubt about the way that the Honda could steam along at twice the legal limit. The rear shock was some Yank aftermarket item that was tough enough to take both the Malone mass and some big Mama I picked up en-route. The forks were more or less stock but rebuilt and re-valved at some point in the bike's history, matched the back end quite well.
I figured that all the horror stories about the breed must've been grossly exaggerated... until? Until, we were fighting our way through an 80mph curve and a minor bump hit the forks when well banked over. The huge, tiller-like, bars did a samba dance in my hands and I had to lurch the 500Ibs of dead mass upright to stop the shakes. We were far enough around the corner to survive by taking to the other side of the road. A minute later we would've smacked right into an oncoming artic!
Bumps and speed would, even on a straight piece of road, sometimes turn up a wild speed wobble that had the Honda all over the place. Bars shaking from stop to stop and the wheels way out of line. All it took to regain control was a loosening of the grip on the bars, let them settle back down without fighting them which merely caused an increase in amplitude. Once I sussed this, I barged the bike through the contretemps with nary a thought for my pillion's bowel movements; though ultimately not that surprised to find she'd disappeared in the first major town we hit.
The Sabre would cut through slow moving traffic with a loud snarl, shrieking down the road on a surfeit of torque. A few times I tried to pull a wheelie but the most I achieved was to get the front wheel a foot and a half off the ground. The gearbox clunked and ground in protest, one time the transmission snapping out a loud bang that had the peds running for cover. I almost ran a pack of ‘em down when | misjudged the lights at a crossing, went to red in a blink of an eye. I wasn't sure if the brakes would pull her up in time, instead feathered the clutch to make maximum revs and noise. Must've cured half the pedestrians of constipation, anyway.
American drivers are pretty well behaved in the Mid West. So much so they tend to go a bit mad when you speed through a traffic gap with a three figure velocity. Horns blared and if I'd been slower I would probably have been blasted away by gunshots. The usual round of sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll of an evening often left me barely able to see, let alone pilot some Jap relic. It says a lot for the Sabre that it was able to trundle home on autopilot without really intruding into my lack of consciousness. Oddly, even the nasty old gearbox became easier to work once intoxicated out of my mind!
The Japs are clever bastards, they throw together their bikes in a way where all the bolts corrode solidly, thus nothing falls off even after incredible mileages though it does mean that any minor engine work becomes a major chore of fighting against ruined threads and seized in components. The owner reckons that maintenance is a 5000 mile chore, but the valves and carbs have always been done by a local mechanic, the former absolutely crucial if you want high mileages from these old V-fours... oil changes every 1500 miles also helped longevity.
I bore all this in mind when the engine clunked to a stop at a junction. Being a big old thing, I was using the Sabre to dominate a whole lane of traffic and my inability to move with the rest of the vehicles proved only the limited vocabulary of expletives of the average American driver! With dragging discs the VF was one heavy mother to push, serious groin injury likely! The water-cooled engine was given ten minutes to cool down as I could hear coolant bubbling in the radiator! Fired up OK but the temperature gauge was going berserk!
Water pump failure. I managed to stagger back to base at moped speeds. The owner gave me some dirty looks but I found a used pump and had it sorted before he could really complain! Needed some new pipe as well as it was cracking up! I reckoned I had averted a major disaster but he wasn't impressed and that was the end of my fun and games on the Sabre. Time for LA!
These old V-fours do turn up in the UK on the grey import circuit, prices varying from the reasonable (around a grand) to the absurd (three thousand notes). Quite a buzz can be had from floating around on them but you always have to be aware of just how complicated is the V-four mill and how easy it is for something to go wrong. Nevertheless, worth a look, you may find a mildly ridden example at a good price.
Johnny Malone