Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

Back in 1989 Honda had a crazy idea to import their home market retro 500cc single to the US. No one really had much success with these types of bikes in the past so it was a bit of a gamble and by 1990 Honda had had enough of the bloodshed and cut the US off. The GB500 Tourist Trophy was a British styled bike with a green so dark it looked black, gold pin striping, single seat (US only), low bars and a long Norton Manx like tank. To me, it has always looked like sex on wheels (my bike today after a washing)

For tons more embarrassing photos check this out

When I went to my first SF International Motorcycle show in 1990 with my good friend Garth Hurd, I sat on one of these and thought I was in heaven (pictured above). I had to have one but at $3200 there was no way that this collage student was going to afford it. Even as Honda blew these out for an eventual $2100 it was still a King's ransom. So I appreciated them from afar and kept ridding my awful 1984 Suzuki GS550ES (POS!)

Several years went by and I was sharing an apartment in SF with little Matty Goff and a friend of his, Josh Morong, was in town and getting ready for his wedding back in Maine (pictured together above).
We got to talking and drinking (I think that was the night they covered my head in duct tape) and we started talking motorcycles and it turned out that Josh had a GB500 and was looking at selling due to his impending marriage. I was working seasonally on a fishing trawler at the time in Alaska so I had a few months to kill and some cash. He made me a great deal but the catch was I had to pick it up in Boston.

That was a no-brainer. I bought a one way ticket, attended the wedding and threw my sleeping bag and tent on the back and took off on my first cross country motorcycle trip. The route was little back roads from Boston to Toronto, Chicago, Madison, Denver and then home to SF. I spent about a week at each major stop with relatives or hanging out in the local hostel getting to know the town. The bike is only a 500c single so it was a bit of a challenge going up and down the Rockies and I did have the throttle pinned most of the time as the top speed is about 75 MPH.


The highlight of the trip was the week I spent sleeping on my Grandparent's (pictured above) couch in Friendship, Wisconsin. I spent most of the time fishing with my Uncle Clark(pictured below), watching TV with my Grandfather and playing cards with my Grandmother. As it turns out this was the last time I was going to see Clark as I was getting back on the boat in Jan for a 5 month stretch and he passed away while I was out at sea. Clark was a real character (to put it nicely) but to hear him talk with such pride about his nephew from California riding across the US on the "old one lunger" still makes me tear up.


I eventually made it back to SF and the GB was my primary transportation for 7 years. I put about 30,000 miles on it for a total of 37k and it never gave me any problems save for the occasional battery replacement (but it has a kick starter) My brother bought me the 2 person seat kit which worked well and looked great but never really fit in with the character of the bike. I had always dreamed of putting an old style British fairing on, polishing the aluminum engine, having the wheels re-spoked, boring it out to 600cc, putting the XR650 5 valve head on it… The old GB has really turned into a collectors bike since they came out and a really good example goes for about $5000 and a no mileage model $8000. I regularly troll eBay to see what people have done with them.

I'll justify selling it by saying that I have 5 motorcycles and it is getting a bit crowded in the garage or that I haven't ridden it in 5 years and it needs a frame up total restoration. Or that now with the amazing, sweet Triumph Tiger in my garage, it’s time to stop pretending to have a British bike since I now own the real thing.

So in order to get it road worthy again, I finished rebuilding the front brake caliper as it was frozen up and rebuilt the leaky carb this weekend. To make sure everything was working well I took it for a spin around the block. The thing still hauls ass off the line and handles like a dream. It is so SMALL and twitchy that you just think about a turn, smash the handlebar and it just corners. And it is a real attention getter as well. Just taking it around the block today I had 4 people stop to look and comment on it. It is such a pretty bike and always will be, sigh...


I guess this is the part where I accept selling the bike and pass it on to a new owner for a good price like how I got it. And where I am grateful that I got to own it for as long as I did, that it treated me so well for so many years and where I go back to admiring it from afar like I used to do. Honestly, this has been so hard on me and I have to tell myself that this is a lesson about owning things. That I don't need to own them but that I can appreciate and not have to posses them. I know the new owner and he is just learning to ride so hopefully we’ll get to spend some time buzzing around the City and up to Grizzly Peak together.

For tons more embarrassing photos check this out