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BRIDGES

A COMMENTARY BY DOUG MEYER

Sunday October 16th, 2005
The Green Bike
My favorite motorcycle - It's not what you think. When I think about the bikes I've owned or had at my disposal for long enough to get to really know them, there is a bike that is the one I would give up last. It's the bike I'll have until the day that either it or I burn to the ground. It surpasses for me all the fours, the threes, the twins. I have more fun on it than I had on the Duke or the Ducati or the H-2, or the H-1, or the Plethora of ZX-'s. It's a go anywhere, go anytime bike. It's the bike I want when "the big one" in whatever form it takes, hits. It is my 1984 KL-600-A1.

This is the first year of what has become the KLR-650/KLX family, for the most part an acknowledged slug of a bike. They're too heavy to ride in the dirt, too uncomfortable to go very far on, too slow to thrill, and so hard to start that the second year they went electric. But mine, which has become known by me and my riding friends as "The Green Bike" has risen above all that so much so that every time I ride it I say to myself "I'll never sell this thing."

Actually I should say I'll never sell this thing again, because I did sell it once and missed it so much I bought it back. I took this bike in on trade in 1985 one year after it was first sold. It was kind of a (literally) white elephant. It would frustrate me with it's reluctance to start and it was pretty ugly and no one wanted to buy it, but it was always around and I found my self jumping on it whenever I had to just run someplace. I found that it was just the thing to split lanes in San Francisco area traffic and in general just to get somewhere with a minimum of fuss.

The starting thing needed to be addressed though, and the key was simply a better coil and plug wire. To this day if it takes more than three kicks to fire, it's out of gas. Next, it needed more power (I think everything needs more power) so the stock CV carb was replaced with a 36mm round slide Mikuni and that heavy muffler got tossed for a Supertrapp. By this time the bike had my interest and attention - kind of like the plain girl you've been taking for granted that all of a sudden gives you that look.

One Sunday I took it on "The Sunday Morning Ride", well known as THE Sunday morning ride up Highway 1 north of San Francisco. This was an eye opener. I learned that a 21" front wheel with a universal tire can stick really well and that unlimited ground clearance can yield quite a cornering speed. Thereafter, on went the flat handlebars and the good pads with the braided brake line.

I found that KLRs in Canada were sold in the familiar Kawasaki Lime green, so I secured from our friends at Burnaby a complete set of green bodywork and it became "The Green Bike". By this time it was 1987 and I, along with a few other crazies, decided that we needed to race in the La Carrera Classic road race in Mexico. This race is (was) probably the first of what have become known as "open road" top speed races, it being run from Ensenada to San Filipe, across Baja on Mexico Highway 1, as fast as you can go-flat out something like 115 miles. This race was restricted to singles, twins, and vintage race bikes and The Green Bike was going to run it.

Time for more power. The cylinder was cut, the head ported and clipped and the cams were re-timed. I found that in Germany, Metzler sold a 21" laser front tire and put one on along with a ME99 sport rear. The Green Bike would now go somewhere north of 110 mph in a full tuck with some fairly tall gearing.

Nick Ienatch was entered on a bumblebee black and yellow GS BMW and we diced for tens of miles I was faster on the straights, he in the corners. The speedometer broke coming down the long hill into the pit stop at Independencia indicating 125 mph with the tach needle hard in the red at over 8 grand. That speedometer still sits at 6700 miles, as it was on that day 18 years ago. I finished, I think, 11th in the singles class, averaging something like 90 mph, but it didn't matter. That race, that day, was one of the most fun days on a bike I've ever had- and on that slug of a 600 single.

The Green Bike continued to go out on many Sunday mornings and became a regular sight as my pit bike on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I fell off the bike only once, that during a heated engines-off coasting race down from the top of Mount Tamalpais one Easter Sunday morning (It was a coasting, after all, and you just can't afford touch the brake). When I moved to Oregon in 1995 I sold The Green Bike to Jamie Wiliams, the local Kawasaki District Manager. I think he saw how much I liked her and wanted to see why for himself.

Shortly thereafter I bought a KTM Duke which was cool, but just didn't fit like the KLR, so I called Jamie and, even though he had had her for about 4 years, I offered him what he had paid me to sell it back. We met at a race and the KLR was back in my hands. And still is, which is why, when I wanted to go for a ride today, this beautiful fall afternoon in October 2005, about 20 years after I got it, I jumped on The Green Bike.




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THE AUTHOR


Doug Meyer has been working with race engines professionally and as a hobby for the past 45 years. He has built engines for everything from dragbikes and cars to outboard race boats, from the famous Can-Am sports cars and an F-1 car to motorcycle streamliners. He spent many years as a professional race team member and engine builder. Everything from nitrous to nitro, Doug's had his hands in it. He has set 16 Bonneville speed records...
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