Well, I sold off my 400F last week after almost 8 years of ownership. I've kind of been drifting away from street riding over the last year, so the 400 turned into more of a track day bike. After hundreds of hours spent working on every little detail it was hard to really flog it at the track without that little voice telling me not to wad it up. I had a couple of "moments" when I started to really explore the limits of the bike. The bike was definitely capable of more than I threw at it but I'm not good enough to get much more out of it without crashing first. With so many of the parts being pretty much unavailable, I thought it was time for a change while the bike was still intact. The 400F is a little jewel, and in a perfect world I'd keep it around for a short street ride once in a while. Unfortunately I needed to sell it to make room and fund another purchase.
Can't help but feel the sting of seller's remorse.
Anyway, this should get a rousing "what the hell???" from the crowd but here's what's replaced it in my garage:
2003 Honda XR100. It's kind of like a 1 cylinder slice of the 400/4 engine. It's been modified a bit -- most obvious is the wheel setup. It's running 17" wheels and roadracing slicks front and rear. I plan on racing in a "Formula 7" class down here on some shorter road courses. It's also got some suspension work, a Yamaha front end with disk brake, some head work and a big bore kit that takes it from 99ccs to a fire breathing 108ccs.
They made about a billion of these things, so parts are all over the place and cheap. I'm going to run a track day next Friday and for once I'll be able to really push myself without fear of crashing. If or when it does hit the ground I'll be able to dust it off, think about what I did wrong and get right back on it. These things are great training tools - it weighs right at 160 lbs and puts out 8 HP on a good day.
So there you go. I've really appreciated all the tech help and entertainment from everybody here over the years. I'd still have a non running heap of crap in the garage if it wasn't for this place. Seeing all these great old bikes here really kept me motivated to work on mine. I'll still be around once in a while, and will try to contribute when I can. Thanks.
