1983 Honda CB650SC Nighthawk

The little 400 was just getting old and too little for all the riding I was doing, so I convinced Chris I needed something bigger. Well that turned out to be a '83 650 Nighthawk. Now, this was the first new bike I had bought since my first Yamaha 250 Twin, back in '71. Of course Chris wasn't too excited in seeing me buy a bigger bike, but she went a long with me getting it anyway.

I rode this bike for four years and put on over 74,000 miles on it. For real long hauls, like riding it up to Sacramento a couple of times, I found that the saddle, like most stock saddles just couldn't cut it. In '85, we moved to Palmdale CA and I had a 60 mile commute, plus I was still going to school. I added a rack and abused it well.  Late one night coming home from school, I was traveling next to another motorcycle and we were doing right at 85mph. The next thing I knew, I was in a high speed wobble and while trying to get it under control, at about 65mph, the handlebars went lock to lock. That was it, I was soon on the road scraping cloth and skin! I had second degree burns on my elbows and knees. Because the fairing and rack were scraped up pretty bad and the tank had a couple of dents in it, the insurance company totaled the bike. After settling with them, I bought the bike back, stripped off the fairing and rack, then sold it.  I was able to get $1,500 total which was not bad for a 4 year old bike with 74,000 miles on it.  Anyway, I took that $1,500 added $300 more and bought my first V4 Sabre.