198? Kawasaki GZ750 LTD
My first bike.
I bought it in the late 80s from a neighbor. I was 18. I crashed it the very same day.
That didn’t go as planned.
I rebuilt the bike and rode it for over a year.
Then I had 3 days of insanity.
- I tried to race a Chevy Camaro on my way home from work. I almost hit a pickup at 70+. Not bright. I arrived home white as a ghost.
- When riding over to a friends house, a different pickup aimed for me while crossing a bridge. He swerved fully into my lane. I had to move to the narrow shoulder. There was no other traffic on the bridge and the bastard was grinning at me when he did it. Motherfucker.
- The final straw came when a elderly driver pulled out of a parking lot in front of me so that he could turn left on the main street. He pulled out and stopped. At no time did he ever see me. Not even when I slide up to his window and glared at him. I wasn’t 2’ from his car and I was very lucky to have made the panic stop. <sigh>
It may not have been three days in a row, but it felt like it. No sooner had I sorted out my headspace from the last event when another event would arise. I had had enough. I knew I wasn’t in control of my teenage fits of angst. I also realized some people don’t like motorcyclists and were more than happy to try and kill me through action, inaction, and plain stupidity. I hung it up and sold the bike the following spring.
So ended my motorcycling as a teenager.
I don’t have any pictures of the bike, but here is one that looks like what I started with. I had a sissy bar and crash guards on mine.
