homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall Motorcycle starter question....

Umm It's a Suzuki triple 2stroke they were not quite as peaky as the Kwakers, in fact the Suzuki GT380 was a very smooth bike to ride with no real powerband like the Kawassakis or Yamahas. But yeah I rode summer and winter.

One year I was coming back from work in Glasgow heading north to Wick, about a 300mile/500km trip, the weather was bad and I had a Suzuki GS650 Katana then, it had a big tank and I could do most of the journey in one fill but thought it wise to break the journey at Ballinluig where the have a very good truck stop, bacon butties for me and a splash of regular for the Kat and off we go again. It was cold and the snow had been falling for a while which meant I had to be careful on where I placed the bike, as I climbed the Drumochter pass towards Dalwhinnie the snow got heavier and heavier, the road was lost under a blanket of white, when I got up to Dalwhinnie, there was a policeman on the gates over the road and he said I was the last one through, they had closed the road behind me at Blair Atholl due to the amount of snow on the pass.

I have rode the bike in worse, and had to dig my way through snow drifts to get home before but then after a group of people lost their lives on the A9 road when their cars got buried in the snow they put up gates to stop people driving in bad weather, you can go via the coastal route but it is a very long way to go, I had to do that once in a Toyota Landcruiser, it was fun getting from Blair Atholl to the coast trying to find the shortest rout that had not been closed off

Drumochter Pass:



There is not much up there, even the railroad has to go through the pass to get up to Inverness, and they do keep big snowplough trains in both Inverness and in Perth to keep the route open. The rail tracks are just to the left of the cycle path on the left of the picture.

I was a London despatch rider during the 80's early 90's. Rode everyday 52 weeks of the year through all weathers. Used to kill bikes with the mileage, run them right into the ground. Weapons of choice were Kawasaki GT550/750's, Honda CX500/VT500 bought cheap. Shafties were great for despatch work. But I did have some exotica too, ran a GPZ900R one summer, had 120,000 miles on the clock when I sold it on and 650 Katana, that was a beautiful looking bike for the time.

These days I'm fairweather all the way, if it rains I'm not riding unless I can not avoid it.

My daily rider


And for Sunday best

Nice bikes Steve

A friend, Tim, had a CX500 (Plastic Maggot ) he used it to commute from Wick to Aberdeen to catch the helicopter out to the oil rigs, he was on the opposite shift to my younger brother, sadly he lost his life when the rig went on fire. Tim, like my brother, was a radio operator and he stayed at his post coordinating the rescue until it was too late for him to leave.

That is the memory I have when anyone mentions the CX500.

oh those kickstart bikes. my father had a yamaha we called a hardley davidson because except for the engine, it practically was a harley. looked like, sounded like, rode like a hardtail harley of 70's or so vintage.

did that bike ever kick back. i think i prefer electric starters these days, even though usually i am completely against batteries in any form (the damn things always go flat when i want to use them).

'It ain't a Hog if it ain't got a KICKER!' Seen on a tee-shirt at a rally.
Nice bikes Steve, not the most comfortable of rides, the rigid with a seat pad I warrant.

The CX500 was a fantastic bike in my opinion. Maintenance-wise it was a doddle. Shaft drive,access to valve adjusters in minutes.Just so easy to maintain.

However in its early years it suffered from cam chain problems that required a recall. I did dozens of them,requiring engine out,however even that was such a simple task.

And then they ruined it IMO by going to that horrible 'Eurosport' design.

No it isn't, but it's not too bad.
I can do a few hundred miles, but wouldn't dream of touring Europe on it

You're right it's a steel pan, with minimum padding. Nice tooling on it though, has Indian Larry design on it, can't confirm if it's one of his though. Unknown origin.

Totally agree, proper fugly looking beast. But ate up the miles without complaining, real work horse of a bike.

EDIT, seen a few survivors lately that have been turned in to Café Racers, look a lot nicer like that

Oops Ali, next time I will put on my reading glasses. :blush

Nice Steve.:

Now that's some info. I'd never bothered to think about this (too seriously anyway) either until this thread.

Double the cylinders, and double the "firing" (during startup, obviously completely true once running...). So that's going to SOUND (and feel) like the action is 4x as fast, but maybe the crankshaft is actually spinning the same speed! (roughly speaking)

As for a twin having a larger bore - I don't think that'd be the case in my most recent comparison. Last bike was an '83 Suzuki GS1100E - inline four. Current bike is a 2004 Ninja 500r - "inline" twin. I'd wager that 1100 had a longer stroke than this 500, and even if not the bore sizes would be similar. Except there's FOUR of them.

So I'm not sure of any generic concept that "A twin has a larger bore and needs a higher torque starter"........ there'd have to be a direct comparison between bike engines to begin making that statement.......

I would think that since a V Twin has an uneven firing sequence that a lower RPM would be easier "dial in" for starting, or perhaps is easier to start just to begin with.

1100 - 72mm x 66mm

500 - 74 mm × 58 mm