I bought my '75 750 30 years ago today, on the 4th of July, 1977. Sort of boggles my mind to think of it.
Well now it has been 35 years and my mind is still a little boggled how fast time goes by. I remember starting this thread 5 years ago (seems like last week), searched for it and here it is. The bike continues on, hauling my butt back and forth to work 10 months out of the year. Temperatures in the teens or in the one hundred and teens, it is all the same to it. In the last year it has completed 3 lengthy legs of the 2011 and 2012 SOHC4 relays, and is ready to start another one tomorrow to deliver Lefty to tlbranth in eastern Washington.
I looked at and rode two '75 CB750Fs back on 7/4/77. I had sold my '64 DuoGlide I had bought from my dad. The HD was a nice bike, but constantly needed work and I just got tired of always having to dink with it. I had been considering buying a new '77F but decided to see what was on the used market. There were two in the classified ads, one out in Burien, WA and the other a few miles down the road from me in south King County. A call to the closer one resulted in no answer, but the guy in Burien was home, so off I went. When I got there, I discovered he kept the bike in his living room as he had no garage. He had made a ramp he laid over his steps to get the bike off the porch. The bike was spotless, with 3500 miles, and the orange color. It looked like new except for a dent on the points cover where he had dropped it at a stop. I helped him get it off the porch to the driveway. It had been a couple of years since I'd had the opportunity to ride a 750, and after the Duo-Glide it seemed amazingly smooth and responsive. The bike was perfect. The owner was asking $1450 and didn't want to accept less.
The asking price in the ad for the other one was $1400 and I knew it had some extras, so I decided to wait until I could see the other one. I thanked him and went to find a phone booth to try calling the other owner. This time he answered, so I went to see it. This one was blue with a Vetter fairing. It wasn't as clean as the orange one, but it was in fine shape. It turned out the guy I met was selling the bike for his sister. It had belonged to her husband who unfortunately had recently died in an accident in his Corvette. Well, kind of a bummer, but I took the bike for a ride. About 2 or 3 miles down the road the bike quit just like the key had been turned off. No juice anywhere. I suspected a blown fuse but had no idea where the fuse box was and was disinclined to start taking apart someone else's bike. I didn't want to leave it so I started pushing it back - uphill. There were no houses around. It was in the 80's and humid. I had to push the damn thing about a 1/2 a mile back to a fire station.
I went in and saw 4 guys sitting at a table playing cards. I told them about the test ride gone bad and asked to use their phone. One of them who maybe thought he was the boss said the phone wasn't for public use. I was already kind of pissed about having to push a bike that didn't belong to me on a hot day, so that didn't sit with me very well. I think I mentioned I was worried the owner might think I had made off with his bike. One of the other guys said let him use the phone fer chrissakes. Anyway, I got the owner on the phone, and he told me oh yeah, there is a small electrical problem. Just reach between the fairing and the instruments and wiggle the gob of wires around until the lights come back on. I did that, the power came back on, and I took it back. I was just a little bit unhappy. The guy asked me if I'd make an offer, and I said I wasn't interested. He persisted and I realized I could have gotten him to come down on the $1400 asking price under the circumstances but all I could think about was getting to a phone booth to call the first guy and tell him I wanted the orange bike. The first guy had mentioned he had gotten other calls that day, and I was worried the bike would be sold.
But to my relief he still had it and the rest is history. Jeez, 35 years ago.
