BEAUTIFUL - I have to commend you on your attention to not only detail -but also originality & authenticity.
The TIRES blew me away. GORGEOUS. If I had one of these things at home, good GAWD man - throw the Bube-Toob out the damn window, SCTV style - Kick the woman to the curb - I wouldn't need anything else to look at.
Never mind whether it's in my possession, heck if I even simply had ACCESS to such a bike - Even if there were no PRIVACY, wtf man, I could literally cuddle up with a bike that beautiful, fondle it all over with my fingertips, I'd want to stretch out over top of it naked, so I could FEEL as much of the bike at one time as I could. Well if nothing else I'd be up on top of it going through the motions, testing out all of the standard positions - YOU know 'em, the lean off the side of the bike to throw one's body weight further to the side off-setting the lesser lean angle inherent to the "skinny" rims & tires - or the tuck & crouch, or imagining one's self balanced up over the top yoke feet swiveled forward on the pegs, rolling out that extended cat-walk wheelie - then how to brace one's self against the bars while popping and "endo" stoppie. The net effect as this rowing-machine type cross-trainer calisthenics would look like an enormous exaggerated slow-motion humping or grinding & wiping one's butt all over the seat. One had better hope nobody ever got their hands on the "tapes" from any nearby closed-caption monitoring or surveillance cameras, Speed that #$%* up, it's gonna go VIRAL VIDEO - you're gonna be the new Meme Of The Week! No question about one thing though, is that I'd probably even wanna lick the Candy-Paint - just to verify that it DOESN'T taste like actual candy! I mean, seriously though. Ha-ha. This is the most essential top-coat layer to protect paint like that - not U.V. resistance but rather, some of that bitter orange nail-polish they used to give to kids to stop 'em from chewing their nails off. (Maybe turning off the Cold-War era news reports would've had a greater effect?)
No question, if I found my way to the Honda Collection Hall, the museum docents would take one look at me, that look in my eyes, and they'd follow me around very closely. Un-snap the holsters on their Walkie-Talkies. "Come In, Soichiro! We've got ANOTHER one...."
You get my POINT though: That this bike is so beautiful, well - If it were any more beautiful I'd have to be restrained from doing something truly obscene with it! Better be careful to check that there aren't any "SNUFF-R-NOT" flappers in the mufflers, that could give you one nasty pinch. Ha-ha.
Okay so that might be a really bad metaphor to some of you. (While others get where I'm coming from.) Some might say I'm taking it a bit too far. (Others, not far enough!) But it's just THAT attractive! OR, well ... maybe I've been staring at and downloading these Sand-Cast pictures a bit too much for a bit too long! Did I mention that I had my first ride on a Sand-Cast during my "Formative Years"? Maybe it twisted something up in my head, maybe a father's supposed to give a kid a dirty magazine at that age, rather than turn the kid on to hot classic motorcycles??? What would I know? How would I know any different? Is this NORMAL??? Ha-ha.
No - Okay so maybe that's extending the metaphor a little too far. How to put it better? Hmmm.....
I'd like to cut the whole bike apart and EAT it. I picture it slicing up and having crumbly orange carrot-cake under the surface, cream-cheese icing under the chrome, and pure syrup hard-candy lacquered all over the bodywork. Lemon-Orange Butterscotch, Cherry-Strawberry, or Blueberry. Mmmmm....
OKAY OKAY. But did I mention that the TIRES are Black Licorice?
Well enough of that - But truly, the tires ARE some of the juiciest bike-porn details on a good restoration like this. It's an area most lacking in the street-racer & competition-spec vintage-bike porn and especially as relates to the CB750's.
I wish to heck they made these tires you used, in a size like 110/80-18 front with 140/70-18 rear, or 130/70-16 & 160/60-18 for that matter. For my two "retro-fried" DOHC-4 projects, the first set for a featherweight 750 hopefully dustbin and the 2nd set for the "CB900K0 Bol Bomber" ('82 CB900F Bol D'Or based homage to the '65 CB450K0 Black Bomber) These are wire-spoke alloy rims in both cases, using Borrani, Super-Akront, Super-Akront, & Akront rims respectively. So of course after going to the trouble of sourcing all of these old's-cool, retro-fried, vintage go-fast, "re-invent the wheel", boutique catalogue type of wheel parts, it only makes sense to wrap 'em up in some equally beautiful PERIOD CORRECT TIRES! Argh. Guess I've been too greedy with the odd-ball sizes. Truly though, with the popularity of vintage & retro-fried bikes these days? WTF people, we need something to bridge the gap between the huge BALLOON type Firestone tires/tyres from the likes of COKER, and the Michelin Pilot Classics which were fitted to the first generation Ducati Sport Classics, Paul Smart Replica, etc. Cheeses me off, in that those Duck Sport-Classic tires actually CAME in the 110/80ZR18 & 160/60ZR18 sizes. But I took too long and then lost the whole project to a house-fire, finally get back on track took too long again, and yeah ALL of that stuff has not only been discontinued it's been past their date of expiry for some time now. ARGH.
Honestly though - why don't we all put together a "plebiscite" of some sort, expressing how we're all interested in period-correct aesthetics for our tires - and then send a version of it out to each and every tire manufacturer, the writing of which being tailored to twist their #$%*ing arms - We should put it across ALL of the vintage bike forums 'F-orums and Four-ums, the different classic Honda models from SOHCs to DOHCs to 'Wings & CX's Hawks & SuperHawks etc etc - plus the other "Big Four" marques and classic DUCK & Brit-Bike sites - Get together enough signatures of those expressing an interest in an accurate replica of a given tire. You'd think that maybe BRIDGESTONE might be interested in a SOHC-4 original tire replica with some carry-over market share for the bigger sizes etc. I don't just mean for street-bike restorations however, I'm talking about wider sizes for the racers as well!
I want to put together a list like that of folks expressing an interest in the Akront "NERVI" rims, so we can all rebuild our COMSTAR rims to some decent RCB/RS1000 specs or better - Such that the Comstar wheels could have the same flexibility as a wire-spoke wheel does. We need to put the motion forward to the MORAD rim company, ask 'em nicely whether they could bring the old tooling out of moth-balls. Whip us up at least one batch of rolled extruded Aluminum in each of the given profiles for best rim widths on these particular bikes - I'm thinking 3.50x18" for a good start - But maybe the profiles/widths are the big deal, and rolling 'em into HOOPS isn't the difficult part. THAT way, each profile might make for several sizes - that way the Ducati F1 Montjuich/SantaMonica/LagunaSeca owners could get some new 16" hoops on their MARVIC hubs/cores. A good way to garner support from the other marques, if we cater to THEIR common interests.
But either way on wire-spoke OR Comstar rims - It ain't got that proper vintage aesthetic if it ain't got them TIRES!
-Sigh.
