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Post by rikroc on Jul 10, 2009 23:58:54 GMT -5
Age 49... Bought my '81SH with 2300 miles in '82 from a friend of a friend. He was getting married and the future wife said the bike had to go... I felt sorry for the guy. Getting henpecked before the wedding is just wrong. The marriage lasted 4 years. The bike is still running strong 27 years and 50,000 miles later.
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Post by marlboroman on Jul 13, 2009 1:38:14 GMT -5
age 24... Bought my first xs last year. I actually got mine from a guy that ran out of cash on a paint job I was doing for him and said "I know i owe 300 bones but do you think you would be interested in this old clunker for a trade it's in a barn over here?" I looked it over, heard it run and said "why not?" I usually have or had sportbikes (Katana 750, gsxr 1000, TL1000r, Hayabusa 1300R and one custom my father and I built but had to sell to make my down payment on my home) I putted back and forth to work on it expecting to catch hell from everybody because they were used to seeing me on a sportbike but to my amazement had 3 times as many "older guys" surronding it when I would come out from work telling stories about the 60's 70's etc. The funny part was when a 20 something year old guy puts the key in the igntion and they say "wait...is that yours!? some of the looks I got were priceless! most smiling ear to ear and even a few "what would you take for it" I have come to love this bike because I can get MY hands dirty on it and not have to worry about "is the ECU ok? what does the computer say about the fuel pressure? i sure wish this computer wasn't so freakin annoying" It's a ridin mans bike, something I can play with and not worrying about killing $3000.00 worth of parts if a computer is set wrong. In short I Have been introduced to MY KIND OF BIKE FINALLY!
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Post by skidro on Jul 13, 2009 17:50:17 GMT -5
I'll be 50 later this year. I bought my bike last August - it was a rat bike. Took me 8 months to make it the way I wanted it to look. Been riding on and off since teh late 70s. Had an XS400 Special, 650 Maxim, Z1 900 (bad a$$ bike) and then took a break. Saw a picture of a Brat style 650 in Japan last July or so and decided to buy and build one myself. Wow, have I learned a lot. People love these bikes. I love mine. Can't wait to build another one.
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Post by shifty on Jul 13, 2009 18:57:29 GMT -5
The question was ... the average age of 650ers ... has never definitively been answered. So here ya go ... Of all these posts so far, 101 people have stated their age. The total is 4241 years of experience. That works out to 42
So far ... the oldest is 72 ... the youngest is 16.
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Post by leethal on Jul 15, 2009 7:02:50 GMT -5
...actually I pointed that out back on page 8...interesting though that 20 odd extra people joined in and the average age is the same.......................
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Post by shifty on Jul 15, 2009 16:36:46 GMT -5
.... and indeed you did .... I didn't see it, sorry ... and we both posted the total years ... cool. We both must have been bored to figure that out  |
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Post by marlboroman on Jul 15, 2009 21:23:06 GMT -5
does that mean I'm to YOUNG for my 650!  |
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fastfranky
Junior Member
1982xs650, 1978xs1100, 2005ducatiMonsterS4r, 2011 BMW 1200GSA
Posts: 53
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Post by fastfranky on Aug 5, 2009 8:04:57 GMT -5
I haven't been here very long, yet I never read this thread before as I tend to read technical stuff more than anything because ALL the answers are here if you search, great site you guys have built up, congratulations.
So to the point, I'm closing rapidly on 60, but like so many have said, my wife knows that mentally I'm still 16!
Why an XS650? Well I grew up in Liverpool, on a main road that lead to the docks. Every June I would see all these bikes going past to get the ferry to the Isle of Man. Oh the noise! yup, there's nothing like the sound of a British 4 stroke twin giving it some stick and that is basically why I had to have an XS650. "But it's not British" you shout, ah yes but it doesn't self destroy I reply!
I grew up to be a mechanical engineer and during my studies realised that the good 'ol British bike builders got it all wrong. A crankcase split vertically is never going to be rigid. It took the Japanese 5 minutes to see that the bikes that everyone wanted in the late '50s early '60s where BSA's Triumphs Norton's and so on, but all had the same design flaw. So they built the same bike with a horizontally split crankcase, just to prove that they were smarter than the British. No doubt there were British engineers that knew that also but hey, why spend money when you have a world monopoly? Well an XS650 is the answer, those noises from my childhood without all the problems associated with "old British banger" maintenance. Simplicity with intelligence, a bike that can be repaired in your shed without a laptop to re-programme the "brain" because you let the battery run low! Who needs more than two cylinders anyway? Well I did once, because I bought the XS11, but that was at the time ('78) when I had to have the fastest bike on the road, and it had to have shaft drive because I'm a lazy bugger and hate cleaning all that chain lube off the back wheel! Never sold it because by 1985 nobody wanted them! and with only 25,000 kms it was like new but had no value. It's still only done 25,000 kms and is next to go on the bench when I finish the 650 street tracker project. Times have moved on, I now run my own business and shed time is limited, so the project advances slowly but I have accumulated nearly everything I need, the powder coating is done, the siwng arm is ordered and an alloy tank promised for the end of September.
Sorry about the rambling on like this but yup, it's that time of the year when work is quiet and I have office time on my hands which is why I'm reading/writing this stuff.
I really love this board, you guys are so full of engineering experience, it's my instant reaction to search the solution on here whenever I have a problem with the bike.
Thanks a million, keep up the good work
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Post by bluebikerblan on Oct 14, 2009 9:59:32 GMT -5
I'm concerned that the average age is drifting too low for my personal comfort. I am 70 yrs.old and have 4 XS 650's at present. So shifty... please enter 280 for you averaging. Blue
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Post by retiredgentleman on Oct 14, 2009 10:44:49 GMT -5
Blue; well, 4 XS650s and 70 years old, is really only 17.5 years per bike. I'd say you're just a youngster. ;D
I'm 62 and just one XS650, and I sure do love to ride it. With luck I hope to ride it well into my 80's and maybe even my 90's. By then, oil will be $700 a barrel and all bikes will have electric motors.
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angus67
Full Member
'80 chop- now called the 'slap chop'
Posts: 106
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Post by angus67 on Dec 5, 2009 0:54:22 GMT -5
im 37.
I had no idea about the 650. I had a couple dirt bikes when I was a kid. In o4 I bought a 03 suzuki marauder 800. In 05, I went back to voctech for welding degree. A student in class had a lead on a couple 650 basket cases for 50$ each. I talked to the prof. about maybe using it for extra credit in class. he said yeah so I bought it, hard tailed it, and earned me the credit to get through the frustrating stick welding part of my curriculum. when I got out of college, fully degreed,(crowd goes wild)I started looking for parts, and started stumbling apon a few web sites here and there about the 650, and as I started rebuilding it, it was like the world had started re-discovering to 650 as I was biulding mine. No knock on the oldergents there. you already knew what us young guns were discovering.
I probably would have shitcanned it right after college if it wernt for the internet.
I can tell you older gents that I would never cut up a bike that had a potential for restoration. I think most of the chopped up, hard-tailed barely recognizable 650s were basketcases, and didnt have a chance of being restored to its former glory.
Didnt I read somewhere that the bike steve mcqueen used to jump the fence in the great xscape was a 650?
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angus67
Full Member
'80 chop- now called the 'slap chop'
Posts: 106
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Post by angus67 on Dec 5, 2009 0:57:05 GMT -5
and, no my hard tail isnt sticked.
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Post by tonyc2me on Dec 5, 2009 11:01:53 GMT -5
59 I am and will be 60 03-17-2010. I have been riding 49 years and this is my first XS 650. I always wanted one since I saw one new in 1971. When a 92 year old lady made an illegal turn in front of me I lost my KLR and joined the XS ranks. I bought two Standards non runners, a 1978 and a 1976. I have been working on the 78 and will complete wiring soon. Attachments:
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Post by beekay on Dec 6, 2009 6:20:51 GMT -5
I've had a few Brit bikes, a couple Harleys, some Jap bikes... Just turned 55 a few wks ago. The XS has most of what I like about the Brit bikes, plus the OHC, no primary chain, 4 bearings on the crank 5sp tranny all make for a superior engine design at the cost of adding a few lbs... Worth it IMO. It's rebuildable, unlike many other Jap engines that you have no choice but to throw out when it's worn. And Shucks.. A crank for $25, a head $40, a good clutch basket $25.. The list of affordable parts goes on. I bought all the replacement engine parts I'll ever need back when they were cheap. Plenty of other spares as well. Sounds nice running too with good pipes! Time to buy a fresh battery and fire it up for the first time in 3 yrs to find out if it still runs. |
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Post by dagored on Dec 7, 2009 9:58:04 GMT -5
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