FJ-09 Photo Thread

[Stew]

Post ACF50 burnoff. Smokin

 

[2and3cylinders]

SMOKIN!  🤨

I don't have any now of my 400 together but here are what it would look like if it was... 🥴

I cannot believe what a perfect stock one may be going for, I want to buy another and keep mine cafe'd!

The right side view has chambers similar to mine (my stingers are straight) and somebodies shocks but non-oem headlight bracket and no clubmans or rearsets...

[Stew]

The price of old 2 strokes here in the UK is unbelievable. Even old rusty heaps of rubbish. Apparently nostalgia is an expensive business in motorcycling, and people forget just how awful some of the older bikes actually were.

I would love an RD350LC , but I like being able to afford to feed myself, and have money left over for petrol.

[Tripletrouble]

6 hours ago, Stew said:

Thats just like it, must have been a 200.
Ah , happy memories.

They did a 250 in similar colour, and as things weren’t quite as strict then, and as we had no money, you fitted whatever came along. I had an RD 400 and fitted it with 250 panels, they looked the same to the untrained eye, so I could ride it with a 250 licence. Went through Paris and along Loire valley on a kwaka kh250 triple 2stroke two up with crap camping gear, no breakdown service, a denim jacket and a pocket full of spark plugs. . Now people seem to need a £16,000 BMW with a support vehicle, and someone to wipe their arse whilst staying in Hotels to do the same trip. (This is a dig at my mate 😁 no offence meant ) 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Tripletrouble

[Tripletrouble]

1 hour ago, Stew said:

The price of old 2 strokes here in the UK is unbelievable. Even old rusty heaps of rubbish. Apparently nostalgia is an expensive business in motorcycling, and people forget just how awful some of the older bikes actually were.

I would love an RD350LC , but I like being able to afford to feed myself, and have money left over for petrol.

Food AND petrol? Well aren’t you posh  haha. For a real laugh, look at the price of a restored yam Fsie. Emperors new clothes if you ask me, but show me an RD and then all reasoning goes out the window. So I guess we’re all suckers for nostalgia at some point. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Tripletrouble

[Stew]

18 hours ago, Tripletrouble said:

They did a 250 in similar colour, and as things weren’t quite as strict then, and as we had no money, you fitted whatever came along. I had an RD 400 and fitted it with 250 panels, they looked the same to the untrained eye, so I could ride it with a 250 licence. Went through Paris and along Loire valley on a kwaka kh250 triple 2stroke two up with crap camping gear, no breakdown service, a denim jacket and a pocket full of spark plugs. . Now people seem to need a £16,000 BMW with a support vehicle, and someone to wipe their arse whilst staying in Hotels to do the same trip. (This is a dig at my mate 😁 no offence meant ) 

Reminds me of my pal's kh250 triple. We were all heading out of Glasgow to go North, loaded up with all our camping gear. Stopped at a massive junction, and he started revving the nuts off it. So myself and my pal on our 250 4 strokes got all ready behind him for a proper blast away from the lights. Lights went to green, and we both missed hitting his rear end by inches, either side, as his bike limped forward, thanks to the wonders of a 250 triple that wanted to be a twin. When it worked well it was great, but that was pretty rare
 

[Stew]

1 minute ago, Tripletrouble said:

For a real laugh, look at the price of a restored yam Fsie. 

I know, right. I mean, why? You couldn't pay me to ride one.

[Tripletrouble]

21 minutes ago, Stew said:

I know, right. I mean, why? You couldn't pay me to ride one.

Great minds think alike. Worse was my mates expensive (to us) Honda ss50. Push chairs went faster. Bought a lambretta 200, not because they were so cool, but because it was upside down in my neighbours garden and cheap. Now they are cool, and flippin expensive. Strange world. 

[Stew]

3 minutes ago, Tripletrouble said:

Great minds think alike. Worse was my mates expensive (to us) Honda ss50. Push chairs went faster. Bought a lambretta 200, not because they were so cool, but because it was upside down in my neighbours garden and cheap. Now they are cool, and flippin expensive. Strange world. 

Remember the Honda MT50/MB50 , I used to genuinely feel sorry for the lads riding around on those.

[2and3cylinders]

You two are a stitch!

I moved to San Francisco from Chicago in the early 70s in my Renault R14.

I had everything I owned in it and the oil pressure light went on when I got to St Louis at night and the generator light went on too. Not to be deterred because I had a job in San Francisco with an architect the following Monday and it was Thursday, so I bought a case of oil because the rear main seal was leaking in the head gasket was blown and I filled up my green water 5 gallon Jerry can.  I remember crawling under the engine in the rain and draining off the oil out of the sump until it look clear, put the plug in and filled up the crankcase. Everytime I stop for gas I put oil in because of the rear main seal and I I put water in the battery because it was boiling because the voltage regulator rectifier head blown out. Every time  we stopped for gas I'd worry whether it would start or would need to find somebody with jumper cables, and we managed an average of 40 miles an hour so me and The Hitchhiker's continued West until we crossed into the Nevada state line past Wendover and camped for the night Under the Stars. In the morning again miraculously it started and we ran down the gravel road to Interstate 80 and continued West for 19 miles until the bolt that held on the pulley from the camshaft fractured off taking the indexing pin for the pulley with it and went clunk clunk clunk I looked at The Hitch-Hiker and ran to the side of the road. Before I left on the trip I replace the camshaft seal camshaft pulley drove the alternator and I think the air conditioner and so now without the pulley I was dead. The Hitch-Hiker stuck out his thumb and was gone in 15 minutes and I did the same but went the other way back into Wendover. I was going to rent a U-Haul truck and have the Renault towed back into Wendover put it in it and head West again but some hippies from San Francisco had rented the last U-Haul truck in Wendover but offered to give me a ride back East 110 MI into Salt Lake City crown of the desert and Mormonville.  I went back with the driver to tow my Renault back into Wendover where I asked him if I could leave it there until I got back. Those days Wendover was literally A1 Casino town now there's probably two dozen. We had to get a VW Microbus into the back of the 16-foot enclosed U-Haul truck and that was a real Cheech and Chong story that I'll leave for another day. Long story short and I'm really keeping it short I went back into Salt Lake altered my driver's license so I could rent a U-Haul truck, when my birthday was still 5 years away to legally at 23 rent any vehicle in Utah. I slept in a flop house on Skid Row and with my last bit of money rented a U-Haul 18-footer the guy never asked for my license. I drove back through the Great Salt Lake Desert past Bonneville for the third time in 24 hours but at least knew how to get my Renault into the 16-foot U-Haul truck which is where the Cheech and Chong story comes into play. At the California border near Donner Pass look it up that's where cannibalism got its start in the US, the agricultural checkpoint made me get in line. When I got to the very nice and attractive agent she asked me to open up the back of my truck I told her all that was in there was my Renault she said that maybe so but we have to look anyway. When I open the truck I said it's you don't see this too often her response was you'd be surprised. Again I'll finish the story and what happened when I got to San Francisco another day. 3 months later I had enough money to get the Renault running and I sold it for a BSA C15 250 scrambler which we're not very popular as Japanese bikes we're flooding the West Coast at the time. Part of my part of job was being a motorcycle Courier in San Francisco where I delivered drawings from the architect's office to the printer and two clients in picked up other documents and ran stuff out one time to one of the principles of the firm when he forgot his drawings at the San Francisco Airport that was the first time I split Lanes which I think you guys call filtering. Now you guys probably know how hard tires were and what a C15 was capable of now imagine riding one of those 60 days of straight in the rain up and down the hills of San Francisco dodging the trolley tracks and streetcar tracks and electric buses. It was the craziest year San Francisco, including but not limited to the Dirty Harry movie plot zodiac murderer, the zebra Killers who were two black guys in a black Cadillac with tinted windows who drive by and stick a shotgun out and blow away only white people I think they got 13 but never caught them, and The symbionese Liberation Army shootout in Oakland at a gun shop (look up Patty Hearst kidnapping and the food for needy program) and they were building BARTs first subway for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, which was a Monumental job due to the tide table. So I'd be come around the corner in my Olive Red Rubber lined rain suit with a helmet gloves and boots with a leather  bomber jacket underneath and find that the entire block ahead of me was one big steel plate because they had dug a cofferdam from Curb to curb and bridged it with beams and plate so they could dig a hundred foot deep hole. Can you say sphincter pucker moment. I got to know San Francisco and the surrounding counties particularly Marin County Sonoma County and Napa County over the Golden Gate Bridge, twisty Road Nirvana. This is getting way too long but I stayed with British bikes for the next 10 years but Raced 2 Strokes, mainly Yamahas td1 and 2. I got heavy into AJS and matchless when I moved the year later to San Diego and bought basket cases and sold them and had a garage full of 3 Matchless 500 single cafe racers and two AJS 600's with sidecars. My day job was an aeronautical engineer at convair so I could get all sorts of drill bits and scrapped out aluminum extrusions and hog outs to play with. Unfortunately I was a dedicated employee and didn't take advantage of the roads while I lived there for another nine years. I came back to Chicago with one of the Matchless singles and sold it for an RD 400 and  a 72 Kawasaki Mach 4 750. So it's reverse from you guys though I'm sure Old Brit bikes are expensive for you too but Parts have got to be easier to find. I'm having trouble now finding parts for my bought new 98 vtr1000f superhawk / firestorm. I'm down to three bikes now but I don't have time for them and unfortunately my body comes first but once I'm through that and I'm retired here in a year or so hopefully knock on plastic I'll be able to get everything running again the way it should and restore the Rd for the track and have another Rd stock for the street.

By the way when I said smokin!  Stew, I meant it looked like your FJ was smoking like a 2-stroke in your photo.

Sorry for the length of this post it also hasn't been proof read so I apologize also for typos and if it's confusing

 

 

[Stew]

12 minutes ago, 2and3cylinders said:

You two are a stitch!

I moved to San Francisco from Chicago in the early 70s in my Renault R14.

I had everything I owned in it and the oil pressure light went on when I got to St Louis at night and the generator light went on too. Not to be deterred because I had a job in San Francisco with an architect the following Monday and it was Thursday, so I bought a case of oil because the rear main seal was leaking in the head gasket was blown and I filled up my green water 5 gallon Jerry can.  I remember crawling under the engine in the rain and draining off the oil out of the sump until it look clear, put the plug in and filled up the crankcase. Everytime I stop for gas I put oil in because of the rear main seal and I I put water in the battery because it was boiling because the voltage regulator rectifier head blown out. Every time  we stopped for gas I'd worry whether it would start or would need to find somebody with jumper cables, and we managed an average of 40 miles an hour so me and The Hitchhiker's continued West until we crossed into the Nevada state line past Wendover and camped for the night Under the Stars. In the morning again miraculously it started and we ran down the gravel road to Interstate 80 and continued West for 19 miles until the bolt that held on the pulley from the camshaft fractured off taking the indexing pin for the pulley with it and went clunk clunk clunk I looked at The Hitch-Hiker and ran to the side of the road. Before I left on the trip I replace the camshaft seal camshaft pulley drove the alternator and I think the air conditioner and so now without the pulley I was dead. The Hitch-Hiker stuck out his thumb and was gone in 15 minutes and I did the same but went the other way back into Wendover. I was going to rent a U-Haul truck and have the Renault towed back into Wendover put it in it and head West again but some hippies from San Francisco had rented the last U-Haul truck in Wendover but offered to give me a ride back East 110 MI into Salt Lake City crown of the desert and Mormonville.  I went back with the driver to tow my Renault back into Wendover where I asked him if I could leave it there until I got back. Those days Wendover was literally A1 Casino town now there's probably two dozen. We had to get a VW Microbus into the back of the 16-foot enclosed U-Haul truck and that was a real Cheech and Chong story that I'll leave for another day. Long story short and I'm really keeping it short I went back into Salt Lake altered my driver's license so I could rent a U-Haul truck, when my birthday was still 5 years away to legally at 25 rent any vehicle in Utah. I slept in a flop house on Skid Row and with my last bit of money rented a U-Haul 18-footer the guy never asked for my license. I drove back through the Great Salt Lake Desert past Bonneville for the third time in 24 hours but at least knew how to get my renewal into the 16-foot U-Haul truck which is where the Cheech and Chong story comes into play. At the California border near Donner Pass look it up that's where cannibalism got its start in the US, the agricultural checkpoint made me get in line. When I got to the very nice and attractive agent he asked me to open up the back of my truck I told her all that was in there was my Renault she said that maybe so but we have to look anyway. When I open the truck I said it's you don't see this too often her response was you'd be surprised. Again I'll finish the story and what happened when I got to San Francisco another day. 3 months later I had enough money to get the run or running and I sold it for a BSA C15 250 scrambler which we're not very popular as Japanese bikes we're flooding the West Coast at the time. Part of my part of my job was being a motorcycle Courier in San Francisco where I delivered drawings from the architect's office to the printer and two clients in picked up other documents and ran stuff out one time to one of the principles of the firm when he forgot his drawings at the San Francisco Airport that was the first time I split Lanes which I think you guys call filtering. Now you guys probably know how hard tires were and what a C15 was capable of now imagine riding one of those 60 days of straight in the rain up and down the hills of San Francisco dodging the trolley tracks and streetcar tracks and electric buses. It was the craziest year San Francisco had with the building of Bart the Bay Area Rapid Transit systems Subway which was a Monumental job due to the tide table. So I'd come around the corner in my Olive Red Rubber lined rain suit with a helmet gloves and boots in a leather jacket underneath and find that the entire block ahead of me was one big steel plate because they had dug a cofferdam from Curb to curb and bridged it with beams and plate so they could dig a hundred foot deep hole. Can you say sphincter pucker moment. I got to know San Francisco in the surrounding counties particularly Marin County Sonoma County in Napa County over the Golden Gate Bridge, twisty Road Nirvana. This is getting way too long but I stayed with British bikes for the next 10 years but Race 2 Strokes mainly Yamahas td1 and 2. I got heavy into a j s and matchless when I move the year later to San Diego and bought basket cases and sold them and had a garage full of 3 Matchless 500 single cafe racers and two AJS 600's with sidecars. My day job was an aeronautical engineer at convair so I could get all sorts of drill bits and scrapped out aluminum extrusions and hog outs to play with. Unfortunately I was a dedicated employee and didn't take advantage of the roads while I live there for another nine years. I came back to Chicago with one of the matchless singles and sold it for an RD 400 and kept the rest to then pick up a 72 Kawasaki Mach 4 750. So it's reverse are you guys though I'm sure Old Brit bikes are expensive for you too but Parts have got to be easier to find. I'm having trouble now finding parts for my bought new 98 vtr1000f superhawk AQHA firestorm. I'm down to three bikes now but I don't have time for them and unfortunately my body comes first but once I'm through that and I'm retired here in a year or so hopefully knock on plastic I'll be able to get everything running again the way it should and restore the Rd for the track and have another Rd stock for the street.

By the way when I said smokin! Stew,  I meant it looked like your FJ was smoking like a 2-stroke in your photo.

Sorry for the length of this post it also hasn't been proof read so I apologize also for typos and if it's confusing

 

 

I love how we all have amazing stories, and it never ceases to amaze me how we survived it all.
Nowadays, with breakdown cover, mobile phones, reliable machinery, it's a different world. Still brilliant being on a bike of course.
Do you guys in the USA wave to other bikes coming the other way? Sort of keeps the 'brotherhood' going.

[texscottyd]

You must be this tall to ride the attraction:  

[2and3cylinders]

Waving or other gestures and head nods keeping both hands on the bars is a hit and miss thing.  HD riders, as universal, are smug SOB but very infallible often mistaking a Japanese cruiser for one of their own but occasionally wave to whoever depending on their mood.  Face to face at a pit stop they are more amiable but still often cliquish. 

Riders of other marques are more likely to signal acknowledgement but on high moto traffic days or with squids I often abstain and concentrate on the road.  In urban environs I'm not sure as I seldom ride there, to much craziness and along with the abismal potholes that both are hard enough to take in a cage.  You can't imagine how decrepit our roads have been for decades with no comprehensive renovation programs in sight.  Our bridges are graded from acceptable to dangerous, with the latter being all to prevalent.

All this makes trying to enjoy a ride difficult, especially during this pandemic.  So waving may make a comeback as sales continue to climb but we're all exhausted and the effort to wave seems taxing.

[Stew]

HD riders and a lot of BMW GS riders are the least likely to wave back.
Lately , I've noticed a lot of folk sticking a leg out as a wave.
I wave to everybody, especially the ones I know it will annoy

 

[betoney]

7 minutes ago, Stew said:

HD riders and a lot of BMW GS riders are the least likely to wave back.

I notice the same but personally find Harley riders much more personable than the upper echelon adventure rider. 🤷‍♀️