I don't know. Whatever floats one's boat, I suppose. I mean, I'm not angry that the guy put modern stuff on his bike or anything. It doesn't offend me. I just wouldn't -- with a few, mostly electrical, exceptions -- do it myself.
I think old bikes are cool in large part because they're old bikes. They're simple, they look -- or can be made to look -- cool, and for the most part, they're cheap.
But the plain fact is that compared to modern sportbikes, they're lousy performers, at least by any measurable standard. We can do plenty to improve that performance, especially where suspension and tires are concerned, but at some point I start to lose the thread. You can put on some stickier Avons, maybe have Works go over your forks and send out some rear shocks, but when you start thinking about bolting on an Ohlins inverted front setup with Dymags and 190 Pilot Powers, or grafting on the rear end from a ZRX1100, well, why? You could just buy a CBR600RR and be done with it.
I have to wonder what the owner of the "CR750" in the title photo was thinking. I mean, it's a 30 year old SOHC bike. It's not EVER going to perform to the level of a modern sportbike, regardless of how much money you throw at it. It's ungodly expensive, it's going to have questionable reliability, it looks -- to me, anyway -- a bit silly, and it's STILL not going to go as well as a $7,000 street bike from the local dealer.
Like I said, each to his own, but I still don't get it.
But then, I don't "get" $70,000 custom choppers either, and they sell like hotcakes, so I'm apparently not the guy who should be dictating what's cool and what's not!
