That's about it for riding gear for many riding in the providences ... They just don't have the money to spend on gear (and the real gear is about the same cost or even higher in cost than what we buy online) ... As bad as that sounds, the speeds of these bikes are low enough that the danger is reduced and these guys have a very good time just riding the bike ...
I can't disagree with that because I know that when I was a young dude all the high tech gear I ride with today was not available. We rode and survived it back then. I'm just thankful they have a lot of good stuff today to protect me when i ride now.
Our TS 185s in the UK were not rotary disc valved !!! Were your models different to ours? The TS100 was disc valved but the 125 and 185 were definatly not over this side of the pond.
You're right, we rode and survived ... I was just thinking, even back when I had my 02 CR250 Husky, I did not wear anything but a helmet and boots ... Go back to my teenage yrs in the 70s, on my '76 CR250 Husky, and I had an open face helmet and gloves maybe and some sort of engineer boots. Maybe a long sleeve shirt? And things were always good riding the Huskies ... Funny how times have changed ... But here, like I have said, it is the 70s here. I liked the 70s and I highly doubt this place will advance to the 80s in my lifetime ..
Thought I was going mad (er) Got a little story about a TS 100-- Many years back I was asked if I could have a quick look at one that ran but not well at all, After going through the normal things and finding nothing amiss I pulled the pipe ect and found the exhaust port had a hole not much bigger than a pencil, Pulled it apart and cleaned all the carbon out and set off for a road test, The little TS now ran just about fine but still a little on the slow side but I just kept on thrashing the poor little thing when all of a sudden the exhaust note went silent then back to normal then silent then normal ! Looked behind to see a huge shower of burning carbon shooting from the tail pipe, This thing did this for about a hour blowing burning lumps of carbon out the rear end. Me well I couldnt stop lauging and just kept on going till the little thing finally stopped thinking it was a two wheeled volcano and rode it back home, Put it on its side stand and had a look at the pipe, The thing had turned white where it had got so hot and burnt the paint off so removed it to give it a coat of heatproof, Gave it a few good beats with a hammer and a small mountain of solid burnt carbon STILL came out. Turns out the bike had one previous carefull lady owner and had never in 6 odd years ever had a good long ride or anything like a good thrashing.
Same here. Thing is the speeds were a LOT slower for me back then making it safer. You can only go so fast on a SL125 with drum brakes. :>) It was more about getting there than it was about being faster than your friends. I know a lot of guys my age are thinking back about how fun it was to just do EZ trail rides on a bike that is not built for SX but more of just a simple trail bike. I think this is in part why you see the freeride movement and vintage racing sop popular right now.
Funny. The one I had seemed really fast for what it was back in the day. I remember liking the motor a lot.
That's what we had and that's what we rode. The first real competition bike I ever owned was a Yamaha IT 175. But by that time, I rode in the better riding gear of the day.
