bikesncats
Senior Member
I just opened my bin with all my old pictures I still have and as I started going through them to try and make some order I realized I will never find the time to actually do this right, and as I started just looking through them some nostalgic sense of missing something came over me.
True, the fact that I don't have one single ride left right now doesn't really help...but as I started thinking about what ride I miss the most, which one I would instantly buy right now if I could find one...I couldn't stop myself from trying to take an "objective look" back and start classify them by emotional attachment versus reliability.
On one hand, while the Elefant has always been the bike I was attached to the most...I mean, it brought me home over thousands of kilometers with a broken and epoxied rocker...on the other hand, it should never have broken in the first place, of all the bikes I ever had it was pretty much the most unreliable, by far, no matter how well I thought I had prepared it.
My XT500 was almost bullet proof, it was an awesome ride that could take it all...and anything that went wrong on it was easily reparable on the side of the road with a minimal amount of tools...it was a very reliable machine indeed...but...there was a better one.
I have owned an XS1100 for years, I have used it and I have abused it, changed suspension and wheels and took it through the desert, over Mont Chaberton, through the Massif de la St. Baume. Changed wheels and suspensions and rode circles around guys with (back then just new rockets) FZ1000 on weekend fun around Monza and Le Castellet.
I did just over 210,000Km on the first engine and over 270,000Km on the second one. The bike was a rowboat at higher speeds, heavy and sluggish at low speeds, , most people were complaining about the shaft momentum of the XS1100...one thing I actually loved about it...of course one had to be on the experienced side especially in judging the speed of entry into a corner and technique in handling the bike but when cranking the throttle into the apex the shaft would add those few inches in height that would give just enough clearance to let the footpegs measure the nearing limit...the only reason it went missing from my collection is because a drunk motherfucking asshole parked his car on it (then denied doing it -his daddy was THE ARCHITECT in Wohlen, nobody could possibly touch them...but that's another story)...
Yes the XS1100, it was a tractor, the Caterpillar of motorcycles...with all the use and abuse I gave it, it never broke down once, never one time that I was stranded on the side of the road (except for flat tires, ohh and once a busted oil pan, a rock went through it, fixed in minutes with epoxy, added oil and off I was)...
No other motorcycle in the world can say that it did half a million kilometers and never once broke down, the Yamaha XS1100 is the most reliable bike I ever had and in my opinion the most reliable motorcycle ever built. Just my experience and my opinion of course...what is yours?
True, the fact that I don't have one single ride left right now doesn't really help...but as I started thinking about what ride I miss the most, which one I would instantly buy right now if I could find one...I couldn't stop myself from trying to take an "objective look" back and start classify them by emotional attachment versus reliability.
On one hand, while the Elefant has always been the bike I was attached to the most...I mean, it brought me home over thousands of kilometers with a broken and epoxied rocker...on the other hand, it should never have broken in the first place, of all the bikes I ever had it was pretty much the most unreliable, by far, no matter how well I thought I had prepared it.
My XT500 was almost bullet proof, it was an awesome ride that could take it all...and anything that went wrong on it was easily reparable on the side of the road with a minimal amount of tools...it was a very reliable machine indeed...but...there was a better one.
I have owned an XS1100 for years, I have used it and I have abused it, changed suspension and wheels and took it through the desert, over Mont Chaberton, through the Massif de la St. Baume. Changed wheels and suspensions and rode circles around guys with (back then just new rockets) FZ1000 on weekend fun around Monza and Le Castellet.
I did just over 210,000Km on the first engine and over 270,000Km on the second one. The bike was a rowboat at higher speeds, heavy and sluggish at low speeds, , most people were complaining about the shaft momentum of the XS1100...one thing I actually loved about it...of course one had to be on the experienced side especially in judging the speed of entry into a corner and technique in handling the bike but when cranking the throttle into the apex the shaft would add those few inches in height that would give just enough clearance to let the footpegs measure the nearing limit...the only reason it went missing from my collection is because a drunk motherfucking asshole parked his car on it (then denied doing it -his daddy was THE ARCHITECT in Wohlen, nobody could possibly touch them...but that's another story)...
Yes the XS1100, it was a tractor, the Caterpillar of motorcycles...with all the use and abuse I gave it, it never broke down once, never one time that I was stranded on the side of the road (except for flat tires, ohh and once a busted oil pan, a rock went through it, fixed in minutes with epoxy, added oil and off I was)...
No other motorcycle in the world can say that it did half a million kilometers and never once broke down, the Yamaha XS1100 is the most reliable bike I ever had and in my opinion the most reliable motorcycle ever built. Just my experience and my opinion of course...what is yours?
to that ...
