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Highside Lowside crew, and Revzilla Team, thank you for subjecting yourselves to the war zone that is the RU-vid comment section in order to bring more quality motorcycle content to the masses! You always set a humorous and welcoming example and I’m glad we have you in our community!
Honda Hawk GT 650 from 1988 was my first sporting V twin, leading to my SV 650, to my XB9SX Buell. Those great handling naked bikes led to 30 years of crazy fun.
One That I feel never gets credit is the mid eighties Kawaskai GPZ900RR from Top Gun. For a lot of GenX it was the bike that really piqued our interest in sportbikes. And the fact that category boomed the proceeding years after 1986 I feel isnt a coincidence.
Fantastic, always great when Lance is on the show! Ah, so that's why Spurge isn't in his usual spot. Happy Birthday Lance! Best wishes for many and more years to come! I definitely see what Lance means. I was looking at getting a W800 a few years back and remember thinking "why not just get the O.G. Triumph?" I ended up not getting either but that's beside the point. It comes down to do you want an original or a copy? Rotax also produces a 1330 triple for the Can Am Spyders. Now there's a whole nother podcast for ya, motorcycles with which Lance has personal involvement! What's the saying, a bone stock 883 is the rarest bike on Earth lol! I suspect we would not have the Suzuki SV650 without the Ducati Monster. I hope they follow through with a second episode on this subject but I can not believe no one mentioned the Vincent Black Shadow. The engine sound guessing game is Revzilla's Mandatory Fun Time! Sounds small and dirt bikey but other than that no idea, and I go 0 for 10. Producer Chase produced the sound clip because that's was he does he produces lol! Enjoy the ride home Lance as I like to say blue skies and green lights! You guys are doing a great job, keep it up! See you guys in 2 weeks!
First off, shout out to Lance for visiting Jarabacoa, DR. Second, I can assure you it not a fad, when I was growing up there in the 80s-90s the Honda cub was the vehicle of choice throughout the island bc its dirt cheap and reliable transportation. Even today while there are more and more cars on the road the Honda cub is still ubiquitious.
I love the GB-500, but was a poor young person and not able to afford it. Another model I lusted after was the Yamaha SRX-6. But now I was able to find and purchase a Husqvarna Vitpilen 701. I’m a fan of the street thumpers.
I'm 62. First m/c I ever had was a Honda QA 50 in 1970, although I enjoyed riding around with my dad on his Honda Superhawk and later his CB750 in the '60s. Still riding today off and on road.
Sounds like it. But Zach sounds like he's mainly just had that KTM 990. These guys get to ride so many test bikes, they probably don't buy many personal bikes.
If natural alternatives to PFAS-containing materials can be used, let's think of others and other things than just ourselves and opt for a more friendly option. There are ways to achieve goals.
You could argue that the original Triumph Trident from the Bloor era was in essence a Retro, but their first actual retro motorcycle for the Hinckley brand would have been the Triumph Thunderbird from 1996'ish which pre-dates the W650 by three years.
Thank goodness Zack mentioned the controversy surrounding the Harley-centric rules of racing. You cannot wax eloquent on the remarkable success of Harley racing without the asterisk.
Guys awesome episode, got great collection but still lot of important bikes, like BMW boxer R models, Tomos brand that got Balkan countries mobile, ...😂😂😂 Can't wait for the next episode on historically important bikes, keep up with great work and greetings from sLOVEnia
Remember also that it was the people at Cagiva = MV Agusta who made all the decisions and designs of the Ducati Monster, as they owned Ducati at the time. And Ducati was NOT a separate entity which they only owned, the people of MV Agusta and their CRC (Cagiva Research Center) literally designed everything at that time.
Was the Monster the first naked to market? The Suzuki Bandit came out in 1989, Kawasaki had the ZR-400D Xanthus in 1992, and Honda produced the CBR-400F in 1984! The Monster was the first naked to become popular I believe.
Weren't all (or most) production road bikes 'nakeds' before the faired sports bike fad (Tupperware torpedoes) of the eighties and nineties?… As for naked sports bikes, they stretch back as far as the Rudge Ulster, Excelsior Manxman, Velocette KSS, etc., if not earlier (Clubman Scotts?) before WW2, and post war, the BSA 350 and 500 Gold Stars, the Rocket Gold Star, and Velocette's Venom Clubman and Thruxton of the fifties and sixties.
The Honda 50 scooterette was also the first bike I ever rode. 10 years old in 1970 riding around a field. They were £5 each by then for an MOT failure. By the time I was 11 we had learned how to do a wheelie on them by kicking it into gear. 😂😂
These regulations on everything is getting so out of hand. Euro5+ is going to continue to make manufacturers have to stop production on so many legendary bikes. The R1 may meet the same fate the R6 met in 2020. Now they are gonna make the helmet and gear manufacturers struggle to update materials and keep production on track. At what point does it end? 🤦🏼♂️
Poor management not unions destroyed the British motorcycle industry, we are still suffering the incompetence of the management classes here in the uk.
Came here to say the exact same thing. I think you can argue that while Turner made Triumph with the first Street Triple, he started the mismanagement that led to the death of the company. They went from record sales in one year to bankruptcy within a couple years after that. Short sighted, money grubbing, unaccountable management killed Triumph. I love ya Spurge but you’re falling for some very biased history that’s been written by stuffy old British dudes who are aligned culturally with that management class. The people who built the bikes were always the heroes of the story, not the suits who extracted every penny they could from them with no thought towards what they would need to do even a year later.
Objectively wrong, you're clearly letting your bias get the best of you. Say hypothetically KTM unionized: they can no longer manufacture parts in Asia and an (already expensive) $12,000 motorcycle becomes a $20,000 motorcycle overnight. Do you want to pay $20k for a ZX6R? That's not far off where Kawasaki would be if they stopped building shocks in Chinese factories. While poor management may have contributed, it is not nearly as responsible as unions driving prices into unsustainable territory.
Interesting point on W650. It was pretty successful in Japan, where everyone remembers Kawasaki/Meguro W1 (which Lance was referring to.) In fact, W1 is one of the legendary bikes in Japan. It probably did kick off the retro craze in Japan, which may have influenced the business model of brought back Brits, which eventually made its way in U.S..(just thinking)
Enough so that it went on to get a refresh as a W 800 and then it’s already on his second generation of W800 that’s still available to this day globally
Sadly, but typically of Americans, they're only considering success in the US market, and forgetting that bikes are ridden all over the world, in many places not only as leisure or sporting toys, but as mainstream transport.
My pal bought an X6 Hustler in the late 1960s when we were still teenagers. The X6 absolutely blew the doors off my Honda CL160. But I rode the CL160 from Wisconsin to California then to the Eastern Seaboard then back to Wisconsin -- 6,000 miles and I camped out the whole trip.😅 The X6 self destructed.😂
Before the retro/nostalgia W650 and the GB500s, were the Yamaha SR500 and SRX600, both attempts at channeling classic sporting British singles like the Manx Norton and Velocette Thruxton. I think I remember Zack’s Dad used to race an SR500 back in the day.
There's also the Suzuki Savage, or LS 650, released in 95, as an 86 model, which qas another Brit bike clone. Most advanced thobg on it was an electronic ignition system. They were still carburated in 2019, when the model was discontinued.
Good vid, but Spurge should maybe learn some history rather simply repeating right-wing propaganda. Unions didn't kill the British bike and car industry - a lack of investment, poor management decisions, and the arrogance to not believe that countries like Japan were able to make both better designs and products, were the cause of the demise of the UK vehicle industry.
This is an intensely interesting episode of HSLS, and a trip down memory lane. Back in 1971, my buddies all rode Triumphs and so I wanted a Sportster. However, I couldn't come close to affording one, and so I bought a much less expensive, brand new Honda CB750K1 and (literally) never looked back.
Zack made my day I bought a 2015 yellow fz09, it was a left over in 2017 brand new out the door $6100. I love riding it every day, it has become my bonneville Spurge.
Welllllcommmme ladies annnnnd gentlemennnnn to Lowww Side Highhhhh Side .... let's. Get. Ready. To. RAMMMBLE! Just kidding gentlepeople. Always stellar.
31:11 Zack, you're dead right about the time between the original and the new retro offerings. It's the same with cars - look at how Chrysler started offering new muscle cars, styled after the originals, even brought back some of the "Grabber" paint colours of the late '60s and early '70s...because the people who remember those things as kids but could never afford one for themselves are the market for the retro offerings of today. That said, I shudder to think what retro designs will show up once the market moves to the next generation - people who grew up with '80s malaise-era cars, 🤢🤮
bruce56 BMW Flying Brick K100. Before you kick me to the kerb, please hear me out. Modern motorcycles have liquid cooling, ABS, fuel injection and traction control. The BMW was first (ABS & traction control) or at the leading edge for water cooling (Scott Squirrel or Suzuki Water Buffalo??) or fuel injection (1978 Kawasaki ??), but it was the first to bring all four together. Also, GS BMW for ushering in the the ADV
Absolutely love this topic. I'd love to see an episode on the best moto GP engines and some history behind them. I'm not the biggest fan of moto gp. But the bikes/ motors are extremely fascinating to me.
@@westondifranco9313 They found (i think) 120 street legel version of them. brand new in the UK. there is alot of history there. and WoW what a bike. came out 2003. have fun look them up on YT 😀
Motorcycles that changed history.. The Bonneville and Honda Dream seem legit. I would add the 1969-70 Honda CB750, the 1949 Harley-Davidson FLH, the 1975 Honda Goldwing, the 1985-1987 Suzuki GSXR750.
Did Spurg get married yet? I can’t remember so at risk of embarrassment and/or being wrong, congratulations sir! May you have many years of wedded bless on two wheels or off!
I believe he was married prior to the filming of this episode, but am certain he married now. I also suspect thats why its 3 weeks instead of 2 weeks in between episodes 9 and 10. Of course nothing but the best wishes to the happy couple and may their first child be a masculine child! 😁
I was surprised how Malcolm Smith was actually a part of the greater motorcycling community. His interview saying 'the kids are sucking on the tailpipes' was quite telling on the problems he was facing in his dealerships.
This one was so much fun to relisten to .. So I may be a bit older than your dad's but in the same ball park ..I just wanted to set the stage for you guys on the bikes we could get in the late 60's and why with AMF buying Harley and the British bikes hitting the manufacturing wall how bad the options were from England and America for us to buy.. Now with saying that the Japanees wher very excited to take the English designs (And later American) and make them work .. Spurge talked on the W650 but Spurge's Dad and I were choosing between the Yammaha XS 650 twin (Retro British )and the ES750 triple (REto British) that were completley inspired by British bikes .SO before the "Retro"take on British bikes the east was working on just making them work .THAT is why we bought them .The XS650 Yamaha may have hurt Triumgh. deaply before the death nail was the Honda 750 4 and the GS1000 .. The same with the STar line for making great V Twins .. The Hardley Davidson (Star ) lasts forever ..It can not be over said how much influence Britsh designs had on what was made in the 70' 80's 90's and beyond in Japan ... THanks for the show ...
Spurge, come on the GB500? The SR500 was the real seed of the retro trend. The GB500 and SRX600 were the second wave leading to the third wave Kawasaki W650 and on to the current bikes.
I remember the Kawasaki 650's styled like Triumphs from the sixties and early seventies. Always wanted one, and now I am going to get a W800, just because of those memories. A Kawa 650 with the high scrambler pipes is the first bike I ever crashed. The owner was not impressed.
Lance: My personal opinion is... Zach: Yeah, that's great. So how does a twin work again?... Zach: that's great. So how many fish can I put into a 1 cubic foot aquari...spurge: I once caught a fish on a VFR. Lance: Amazing, but can we talk about bikes plea Zach: I once owned a goldfish. He was in a bowl.
Thank you guys so much for the effort you put into these. i hope you continue to do them, and dont ever feel like its a laborious task. the energy and enthusiasm you give carries the value of the information you present.
Sorry if I've only just seen this… it popped up on my timeline today… but aren't you missing the most obvious retro, or to give a bigger clue, the bike which draws on its manufacturer's own 'heritage'? I'm referring to the Heritage softail from your neck of the woods, from Harley Davidson. They even called it the 'Heritage'. As for parallel twins, surely it's the original which changed history, even if history took its time catching up. Peugeot had several firsts in one bike with the 500M before World War One… A parallel twin, DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder in 1913. Only the metallurgy of the time let it down a little, but it sowed the seed. It was literally half of Peugeot's pre-WW1 16 valve inline four cylinder car racing engine in a racing motorcycle. Re. the question one of you posed about whether the Honda Cub engine had a normal manual transmission variant back in its early days… Yes it did, in the C110D (renamed C114) sports version of the 50cc pushrod engined C100 (65cc and 90cc variants appeared too). Naked sports bikes… Ducati Monster and Hinkley Triumph Speed Triple?… Are you forgetting the long history of naked sports bikes? Bikes like the BSA Gold Star and Rocket Gold Star, the Velocette Thruxton and Venom Clubman, Norton International, Excelsior’s Manxman, the Rudge Ulster, and even earlier, the sports versions of Scott’s howling two stroke twins which were often barred from club race meetings for being too quick and unfair on other competitors (I was expecting Yamaha's wild 'Elsies'… the RD250LC, and RD350LC… to get a mention somewhere: they usually get compared to the Scotts of half a century earlier)… In smaller capacities, there was the 250cc original Royal Enfield Continental GT, or any one of several Italian sports lightweights of the fifties and sixties? Even Laverda’s 750 SFC and 1200 Jota pre-date the Monster and Speed Triple. Never mind… It was a fascinating podcast. Keep up the good work, lads.
‘22 was the last production year for the Evo Iron 883 and Sportster Forty-Eight. You *might* still be able to find new ones still on showrooms, but ‘22 was the year the air cooled Evo died. Side note: A ‘14 Sportster 48 was the first bike I ever owned. I bought it brand new right after I learned to ride. I traded it in 2 years later for a Softail Slim. But I always missed the 48, so I bought a brand new one in ‘21.
1:01:57 I wish that were true but unfortunately at least here in the Washington DC area, most of the cheap transportation bikes you see are shitty little Chinese scooters that don’t even qualify because they’re just horrible quality. I wish there were more HONDA cubs on the road. I’m currently on a 2023 Yamaha MT 10 which couldn’t be anything further from a Honda cub. I also learned how to ride on some of these Honda mini bikes back in the early 80s when I was 10 years old but I’ve never become the wheelie monster that Zach has become!!
I think that the RC31 Honda Hawk GT (NT650) and the Yamaha SRX before that were actually the first modern naked bikes. The Honda was much more modern though with it's twin spar aluminum frame, and Pro-Link single aided swing arm suspension from the RC30 VFR750R. These bikes were out of production by the time the Monster and Speed Triple came out. I would love to see a Daily Rider of the Honda please?!
My 1st bike was a 2002 Harley Vrod I bought in 2005 from a fella in TX with 7000 miles on it. 19 years later it has 143,000 miles on it and still in my garage next to others. Did it change things? Maybe…. History? Perhaps HD history….
I learn so much from these podcasts. I've only had 4 motorcycles in my life so I feel unqualified to really chime in. That being said my first 2 bikes feel historical looking back now. '72 Kawasaki 100 G5 and '80 Yamaha 650 xs special II. Loved them both. And hey I'm getting better at the engine sound game! Keep up the great work.
I'm old enough to remember the mid 60's Kawasaki W650 Commander; an updated and improved pre-unit BSA 650. There was no Honda 450 or 750, no Yamaha 650, Suzuki 500 Titan. It really was the beginning of Japanese big bikes.
You guys are so far off the mark with this one. Chassis aside there are just 2 bikes that changed history. Everything before was a development of auto or aero engines everything after was based on them. The MZ RD/RE 125 tripled the power of 2 strokes and won everything in the early 60’s using technology from ww2 cruise missile engines and saw blades, every 2 stroke since then uses MZ technology. The Honda RC166 250/6 was developed to beat the 2 strokes from MZ and they had to go right down to metallurgical levels to build a 4 stroke that could compete which was the genesis for every high revving multi-cylinder superbike today. All the others mentioned are just pants in comparison. The 883 is a pair of stonewashed Levi’s and the monster is a pair of skinny jeans.
Eric Buell worked for Harley Davidson before going on his own with the Buell company. While at HD he was involved with R and D, and wanted to bring the company into the future. But, as we all know, that's not the brand. So, he left to build the bikes he wanted to build.
I have the Yamaha competition to the Cub. A 1966 Yamaha U5. 2cycle 50cc. Even when I got another bike, I would use the U5 to deliver lunch to my father in the field because of no clutch.
Not the news... As far as any PFOA (and related chemicals) legislation. It wouldn't ban anything already purchased. You would not be in violation of the law by wearing any of your gear. It would ban the manufacture and sale of new products using said chemicals/processes. Would that mean that new helmets and rain gear would be illegal? No. They would use alternative materials to produce them.
Triumph parallel Twins were hard tail until the early ‘50’s. Their first rear suspension was a sprung hub rear wheel in a rigid frame. Next came the swing arm in the mid ‘50’s. UJM was the term referring to air cooled transverse four cylinder standard rider triangle no fairing general purpose motorcycles.
HI Guys, love the podcast....FYI Eric Buell was a designer for Harley Davidson for many years before starting Buell Motorcycles. Most notably he designed the FXR series which is still the best handling big twin for a LONG time..
The Honda Cub didn't have a slushbox transmission. "Slushboxes" are torque converters that don't have a mechanical connection between the motor and transmission, thus feeling "slushy"
I agree, the term "slush-box" is specifically reserved for torque-converter equipped transmissions (and even more specifically to torque-converters without a lock-up clutch). The Honda SuperCub (aka "50") had a centrifugal clutch - which does lock-up beyond a certain RPM (thereby acting like any other mechanical clutch with regards to transmission losses).
5:51 what would happen is that the helmet you have now is legally fine, but they would change how the helmets made after that law passes, as these laws arent consumer based. so when you say "your helmet" i take it you mean your preference of helmet and your choices for future purchases.
