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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!cae780!leadsv!msunix!jon
From: jon@msunix.UUCP (Jonathan Hue)
Newsgroups: net.cycle
Subject: Re: Need help in choosing a touring bike
Message-ID: <158@msunix.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Oct-85 02:29:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: msunix.158
Posted: Sat Oct 12 02:29:12 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 21:28:39 EDT
References: <379@eneevax.UUCP>
Organization: LMSC-Mechanisms & Servos, Sunnyvale, Ca.
Lines: 37
Summary: other suggestions...

In article <379@eneevax.UUCP>, phaedrus@eneevax.UUCP (Praveen Kumar) writes:
> I want to buy a nice comfortable (read: easy to handle) touring bike.
> 
> So far, the bike I like is the Honda 700 Shadow.  It is the only bike
> I have ridden for any length of time.  However, I have never ridden
> it for more than about an hour at a time.  So, I really don't know how
> it will do on a long tour.
> 

Isn't a Shadow one of those V-Twin cruiser-style bikes?  I wouldn't
reccommend a V-Twin cruiser for touring.  Sure, they're comfy around
town, but I would think the vibration from the V-Twin (even with
conterbalancers, if it has them) combined with the effort in holding
onto the bars from a leaned-back seating position fighting the wind
blast at 65mph would be fatiguing.

I've no experience with anything except sport bikes and motocross bikes,
but I think something along the lines of a Nighthawk would be a better
choice.  It's a better seating position and the inline-four is much
smoother.  It's got the hydralic lifters too, so it's cheaper to
maintain than the 16-valves on my miniceptor.  Of course, there was
my MSF instructor who was an ex-F1 racer, who thought a FJ1100 was
a good touring bike and thought a GS1150E was a good beginner bike
if you were over 180lbs.  A plexiglas windscreen, though not terribly
pretty, is a good addition for any unfaired bike used for touring.

By the way, were any Bay area people racing on Skyline last weekend?
I was up there and I hardly saw anyone (usually there are hundreds).
I guess all the canyon crazies finally killed themselves during the
summer, and a crop of replacements will arrive next spring.


			I want an RG500,
			Jonathan Hue @ LMSC-Mechanisms & Servos

			(..ucbvax!amdcad!cae780!leadsv!msunix!jon)
			or something like that