A Lifetime of Experience - First Dance With the Devil

[UberGoober]

My assignment to Kingston, Jamaica was most unexpected. It seemed foolish at the time that my employer would send someone with a lot of Asia experience to the Caribbean, but in the end it was one of those things where some personnel officer needed a warm body in a certain seat and I had drawn the short straw. I suppose I can’t complain too much, after all I had foolishly checked the Jamaica box on my assignment wish list – OK the 15th box out of the required 20 on a wish list that had come from a master list filled with pitiful choices – but I had checked it all the same. There was no use crying about it after the fact, I had made my own bed and now I would lie in it.

The funny thing is that, for all its difficulties, Jamaica turned out to be a great assignment. I made a lot of wonderful friends and got to live in a part of the world I had never even imagined visiting. Still, my heart lay elsewhere and I knew that if I did not keep my nose to the grindstone, the time I spent in Jamaica would pass miserably while I waited for my departure date. I took life one day at a time and sure enough, the time did pass quickly. Before I knew it I was bidding for my onward assignment and making preparations for my departure. This time I bid more wisely – on a much shorter list that offered a lot better choices – and drew my number one choice, Osaka Japan.

In the final days before I left Jamaica, I stopped keeping my head down and allowed myself to dream a little. There was a lot to look forward to. My last Japan experience had been one of the best times in my life and my return to that country would be a return to normalcy, a return to low crime rates, a return to smooth, well marked roads and orderly traffic - a return to motorcycles. What would I choose?

To a sportbiker, Japan is the land of plenty. During my first stay in Japan I had been determined to get something that was not sold in the United States and had succeeded when I chose the small, but sporty CBR250R. This time, coming from a position of more experience and more wealth, the field was wide open and I was seriously leaning towards the much hotter RVF400 (aka the RC34). Of course my wife weighed in on the subject, declaring that she planned on ridding pillion, and my hopes of a small, light weight racer were dashed. Small and racy is fun, but carrying a passenger meant more CCs and I had to step back and study my options. Fortunately I knew just the website.

“Goo Bike,” a name that makes no sense in English, is the go to publication for used bikes in Japan. Their website, ????????????????????GooBike(?????) lists thousands of bikes at dealerships all over Japan and so it was to this site that I turned. With all of motorcycledom laid bare before me, I started clicking around and soon narrowed my choices down to just a few - foremost among them the mighty Kawasaki ZRX-1200. I liked the look of this bike and had read enough reviews to know it was a capable bike for almost all street riding, some sport riding included. It was the perfect compromise, but then I started thinking.

Thinking is almost always a mistake when it comes to selecting a vehicle. It leads you away from the obvious choices that are “good enough” compromises of form and function and takes you to that dangerous place where daydreams meet reality. In my case it led me away from the obvious good choice, to a choice that, if I twisted the thought around in my head enough, could just barely make sense - the GSXR1100. I had always wanted one and now might just be my chance.

Goobike.com has everything, so of course I knew I could find exactly what I wanted. Of all the old GSXRs, the one that had always drawn my attention was the 91/92 models. With their rounded edges and plexiglass covered dual headlights, these bikes’ form had clearly followed function as, over the years since their introduction, Suzuki had worked to perfect the big GSXRs as endurance racers at the 8 hours of Suzuka. To me, earlier models had always seemed rougher and more untamed, while later models had moved away from their racy roots and gotten heavier. I wanted as little as possible of the former and none of the latter, only the right combination would do. The perfect bikes, I decided, were the last of the oil coolers and, with just a minimal amount of research, soon found the chance to own what may have been one of the best examples in the world.

In the photos, the bike looked like a gem. Resplendent in its racing livery, the old GSXR appeared flawless. It was not stock, but looked to have all the right modifications. Best of all, the ad said the bike had only 9,000 kilometers on the clock. That’s right, a 15 year old bike with just 9,000 KILOMETERS –not even miles. At the very least I knew it was a must see, and the best part was it was close to where I would be going.

(Photo - The devil itself. Taken in my back yard in Okinawa, this is also the photo for the GSXR1100 on Wikipedia; an article I helped write. )

[UberGoober]

I arrived in Osaka in mid-August. The summer had been a good one that included my departure from Jamaica, a reunion with the classic Olds Cutlass I had paid to keep in storage in Hagerstown, VA and a cross country drive with my wife that hit most of the sites in the Northern half of our great country. Once back in the Seattle area, my wife’s parents had flown over for a short visit and a Seattle Mariners game and after a wonderful time we had all returned to Japan.

During that time, thoughts of the GSXR circulated somewhere in the back of my mind, never quite sinking away into the depths. Once on the ground, they jumped to the fore and it was less than a week before I began cranking my plan slowly into action. The first step started like so many others I have made, a call to the dealer, where much to my disappointment I found the bike had been sold. What a letdown.

I recovered quickly and headed back to goobike.com. I soon found a black and silver 91 at another shop in the same area and made my wife call down and set up a viewing. It took a couple weeks before i was able to get out there, but one cool morning in late September, my father in law loaded me up in his tiny Mitsubishi 4X4 and took me down to see it.

The bike shop, like so many others in Japan, was tiny. Out front, two rows of scooters jutted out onto the sidewalk while in the back a few rows of larger motorcycles were packed in so tight that they touched one another. The black and silver GSXR was in there among them and, unexpectedly so was a red and black yoshimura colored bike. I had them pull them both bikes out to the sidewalk where I found, to my surprise, that the red and black seemed to have the same modifications as the bike I had been lusting after. One look at the odometer clinched it – it was the same bike.

Despite the early fall chill in the air, the old bike started and seemed to run fine. A test ride was not possible, but I spent a few minutes on the seat playing around with the clutch, engaging the shifter and rolling the bike back and forth under its own power at the curb. The throttle response was instant and the bike looked good. I struck the deal and made arrangements to come and get it once the licensing issues were sorted out.

Time dragged, but I eventually got the call that everything was in order and that I was able to go out and get it. It looked good sitting there in the October sun but fired up unwillingly and ran unevenly. Then, as it warmed a cloud of grey smoke began pouring from the exhaust. I suppose I should have taken that as a bad sign, but love sometimes lets us overlook things and I was so smitten that I barely even batted at eye at this odd setback. After a short conversation I found out that somehow the bike had been overfilled with oil during the final dealer prep.

Oh well, I had the dealership drain the oil down to the right mark and then replace the plugs. While I waited, I looked around the shop with an eye I had not used during my earlier visits; it was not the most inspiring sight. Small, dark, dirty and filled with old machines, it reminded me of nothing less than the robot bay that C3PO and R2D2 end up when they are captured by the Jawas after the crash land on Tatooine. Despite my doubts about the reputability of the shop, once the repairs were completed, the bike ran well and I was soon on my way.

Out on the road the bike handled rough, juddering over every bump, and despite the steering damper seemed twitchy. My thoughts went back to the way the shop looked and I briefly wondered about the wisdom of my purchase. Still, the engine was running well now and as it warmed up felt strong – stronger than I expected. To get home quickly I paid the toll and jumped on the expressway. Up there, several stories above the street, the bike ran out well, slicing through the Osaka traffic with an aggressive purpose and the sound of real malice coming from the pipe. It was good to be on two wheels again.

In the weeks that followed I found that my new bike was a temperamental beast of a machine that required a great deal of sorting out. Within days of my purchase, I took the bike to another shop with a better reputation where I had them go over everything and rebuild the carbs. The mechanic shook his head when he returned it, “Its fine now, but that thing is seriously built.” he said, “I didn’t look at the camshafts, but I can tell you that the carbs have the right jets in it to fit the full race pipe and that it has probably been tuned on a dyno. It looks like professional work too”

On my own, I spent weeks getting the suspension, which had tuned for aggressive track riding by a much lighter rider, set to a softer street setting for a man of my own bulk. Suspension tuning, it turns out, is an art and, with all the different possible settings, it took me a while to found the ones I liked. I can’t tell you today whether or not they were the best possible but in the end, they were good enough to give me confidence for the riding I would do.

All told, it made for a dangerous combination. Tons of power just the slightest twist of the wrist away connected to the ground by a suspension that felt "just good enough." In all the time I owned it, I was ever able to boss this bike around the way I have others. Instead, each ride was a dance of man and machine in which small nuances affected the overall performance - dances with the devil I think.

How I enjoyed those dances...

[not2slow]

I truley enjoy your writing, please continue to do so.

[rockertom]

Good write up. I see your in Buffalo. How's it going there? I still have friends up there. So if your looking for something. Let me know and I'll ask to find out for you.

[UberGoober]

Thanks for the nice comments. I was wondering if anyone had found this article yet.

Things are good in Buffalo, there's not much we haven't been able to find yet. I'm thinking I might try to turn this assignment into a permanent job, but I want to live through at least one winter before I make that decision. Also, I have some bids in for another Japan assignment - we'll see if I have any luck at all.

[Alawicious]

I hear winters up north are a so brace yourself