Hi all,
I landed here Friday and so with some time to spare I went to the CB750 speciality shop here in Nagoya -
http://www.yamiya750.com/bike.htm. First of all I got lost trying to find the place and had to ask the old woman owner of a local bar/resteraunt (very small - maybe 8 seats). She of course spoke no English and I little Japanese and yet I had a printout of the shops address and I knew it had to be close. She understood from the printout what I wanted and called them up! Then she took me outside and jumped on her bicycle and motioned for me to follow her as she led me through the narrow back streets to the shop!! Amazing!
So I climb the fire escape to go the second floor shop and whenI walk in there are 3 people - 2 guys working on prisitine KO or K1 bikes and a girl who it seems is in charge of the orders. They look at me in surprise and disbelief as if to say "what do YOU want?". I explain in my brken Japanese that I am Andy from Boston and have 3 CB750s and I found their website through
www.sohc4.us (which I show them later and they were vry impressed!). Only the girl speaks a little English so I explain Im here just to look and see what cool stuff they have...shes wary but I persuade her to take me to see the complete motorcycles (downstairs) -there are 5 or 6 prisitne CB750s (all pre72) looking like brand new. There are 10 new original color tanks hanging from the wall! The bikes themselves all have the smooth coloured airbox (some white, some blue, some yellow etc). One bike has green blinkers and when I ask she says this is from a driving school!! Looks really cool as well. I go back upstairs and see the 2 mechanics, one working on a white ducktail seat CB750 with white airbox, headlightshell, fork ears and clear blinkers with orange bulbs! Very cool so I buy 2 for myself :-) See pics below. There were multiple sets of 4-4 pipes hanging from the walls and really this shop was like a CB750 aladdins cave. Yes its expensive for some of the stuff - I showed them David Silvers Spares web site and they were impressed and asked if they could order stuff from it! She told me that all parts they used were either original or replicas (like the coloured blinkers).
Anyway here are the pics from last night.
Next adventure will be renting a CB400SB (super Bol d`or) from a Honda dealer in a few weeks to go riding with Yuri the Tokyo biker chic.
http://www.honda.co.jp/news/2005/2050318-cb400sf.htmlcheers
Andy in Nagoya