Touring on a Kawasaki Triple


by Craig Bahr

Every few months I rummage through my city library's magazine exchange area. Here, people donate their old magazines, and other people pay a dime to take a magazine of interest home. For 10 cents, I found a December 1972 issue of Supercycle. I wasn't that interested in building a VW-trike or buying an 8-track tape player (featured in a full-page ad), but I did like reading Cliff Gromer's article about his touring Long Island on a Kawasaki Mach III 500. I had owned a Mach III but never did any touring. I mostly drove it a quarter-mile at a time. With expansion chambers and rejetted carbs, it was a respectable street racer. I may not have been the best rider, but I only weighed 120 pounds which made for a great power to weight ratio. My Mach III was a pretty good bike although it didn't look like much when I found it at a junkyard with a bent front end. Later, I found the frame was also bent. Being young and enthusiastic if not smart, I was able to scrounge parts easily. Parts were so easy to find back then, I even put a dual disk front end on it. The rotors were heavy, but it was nice to stop quickly. I had that Kawasaki a couple years and sold it to another young guy who was filled with enthusiasm.

After reading the magazine a few dozen times, I put it in my stack of oldies but goodies. Frankly, I completely forgot about it. As I get older, I forget a lot of things. One day almost two years ago, I got a letter from an old, high school buddy. He said he had been offered $200 for his 400 triple. I beat that offer by $50 and put the bike in the back of my van two weeks later. I parked it next to my Norton and Ninja. Under a lot of dust was a good, original S3 with 6700 miles. It had a small ding here and there. Of course, it needed new tires, tubes, and battery. This model came with rather high handlebars, so I changed those too. Naturally, the tank was a little nasty, so I treated it with Kreem. After squirting a little oil through the carbs onto the crank, I kicked it over. It fired right up. The sound from those three exhaust pipes is sweet if you love two-strokes. At this point, I only had $400 in a good running motorcycle including title and insurance.

It has been 25 years since I had my 500, so it is hard for me to compare these two motorcycles. The 400 seems much smoother. The 500 seemed much faster. The 400 seems to handle better. The 500 seemed much faster. The 400 has pretty good low-end torque. The 500 seemed much faster. Yeah, I loved that speed. I remember pulling wheelies in third gear. I remember racing Sportsters and Triumphs and Buicks and bicycles. I'd race anything. I only remember losing once. Even then, I beat the guy in a rematch the next day after putting in some fresh plugs. 

Looking for magazines to read, I came across that issue of Supercycle. If Gromer can tour on a 500, I can do it on a 400. After all, 400's have a good reputation for reliability. So, I made plans to take off for a week. I know that isn't much of a tour, but I have limited vacation time and a very limited expense account. Besides, I hate to leave my wife with our 3 teenage sons. There is too much guilt. 

I chose my most easy going friend and his BMW for this trip. We decided to head north and probably east. Our rules were simple. No big plans. No big highways. Camp where available. Avoid crowds. Traveling through Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin made it possible to meet these goals. 

We left on a Saturday morning in August 2001. The weather had been very hot (mid-90's) the week before. However, this day was sunny but cooler. The forecast was nice. No rain and cooler temps for several days. My 400 was loaded. I didn't help matters. I was packing a little too much personal weight around the middle. Yet, the triple ran really well. We cruised through little town after little town. We had breakfast here, and we had gas there. We had gas everywhere. Those Kawasaki triples use a lot of gas. I only got about 25 miles to the gallon.

I won't bore you with the details of our trip. Frankly, we didn't go to exciting places or see amazing sites. The roads were flat and mostly straight. Many times we saw no other vehicles on the road. Farmers would wave. Quick stop attendants were friendly and often asked a question or two about our trip. At lunchtime, we would get stares from guys eating sandwiches outside a grain elevator or machine shop. To give you an idea of our pace, we drove 300 miles the first day. We started from a town on the Mississippi River, drove towards the center of Iowa, and had lunch back on the Mississippi River although 100 miles upstream from our start.

We camped 100 feet from the Mississippi River in a several hundred-unit campground run by the state of Wisconsin. However, there were only a couple dozen campers. Half of those looked like they were there for the entire summer. We canoed on the river, had a beer by a campfire, and relaxed. The roads in Wisconsin were a little more exciting - up and down with lots of curves. 

My friend was really catching on to riding his BMW. It was new to him, and he didn't have many miles under his belt. It ran like a watch. Those two big cylinders made a very big ticking sound. Other than a hard bag falling out of its bracket and careening down the road, he had no trouble. When you are traveling roads with no traffic, this is really no trouble. I was following him, and I simply kicked it to the side of the road and waited for him to notice. My friend always has a bunch of bungee cords along. One of these looked like it would keep the bag in place. On the other hand, I had big trouble as you will soon see.

Going up a hill in Wisconsin, I kicked the 400 down two gears. The tach spun up to 7000. It was pulling hard. Then it died. I pulled over thinking I was out of gas. I wasn't. I let it sit a few minutes. Another dozen kicks produced nothing. So, I coasted the half mile to the bottom of the hill and off onto a dirt side road.

I checked gas - again. I checked spark. I checked oil. I didn't see anything. I tried to do a simple timing check. I regapped the plugs and points. Being tired from sleeping in a tent didn't help. The guy in the truck who stopped to tell us about his Honda with straight pipes didn't really help either. I really didn't want to turn my triple over to an unknown, small town mechanic. So, I called my wife to bring the truck. My friend and I went to a bar/restaurant to wait. 

I can't tell you how much I hated loading that 400 into the truck. I left on two wheels but returned on four. I hated it. I felt I had abandoned my friend as well as facing unknown expense and time fixing my 400.

Once home, I decided to spend my money on parts rather than a mechanic. First, I bought an electronic ignition made by Boyer Bransden. Second, I made up new plug wires with Accel 8mm wires. Third, I had my carbs sonic cleaned. For those of you unfamiliar with sonic cleaning, the parts are submerged in a cleaning solution. Then, the solution is vibrated by sound waves. It works a whole lot better than squirting cleaner through the carb while standing in your driveway. Sonic cleaning gets everything - even passages you don't see. 

Since I did all three of these fixes at once. I have no idea which worked. It was probably the sonic cleaning, but I don't really care. I did spend another $200, including a gasket set. My triple runs better than ever.

Now that Spring is here. I am planning another road trip. I am tempted to take the Norton, but I have something to prove with the 400. Over the winter, I put on a master cylinder from a 600 Ninja. I also have a four-piston Nissin caliper waiting to go on. However, I might wait for next winter to fabricate the bracket for this. I don't want to have my bike apart when someone calls to go riding. 

I have attached the original article from 1972. I hope you find it interesting. You will notice I didn't spend anytime looking for girls unlike Cliff. 

If I never ride, it will never break. I also wouldn't have the memory of riding through a moonless night in Iowa. The stars were shining almost as bright as my 35 watt high beam. Unforgettable.


Now read the original article that inspired Craig:


Supercycle Tour
Sun, Sea, Sand
Those are the three staples that make a tour
of Long Island via Kawasaki
Mach III very worthwhile

By Cliff Gromer


Long Island, famous for its clogged highways, mazes of look-alike houses, the Long Island Railroad, and Saturday morning at the local shopping center along with ten thousand friendly neighbors - one of whom is guaranteed to rap up your car in the parking lot.
To most Long Island residents, there is the daily ordeal of commuting and plastic living. But there's another Long Island. One of quiet farmland, sunny beaches, colorful villages, museums, mansions, windmills and tasty seafood.

Like most people, we tend to overlook what's in our own backyard. I thought it would be appropriate then, to continue our 5000 mile evaluation of the Kawasaki Mach III with a tour of our neglected home turf. Long Island isn't huge, being 110 miles long and 20 miles wide. But the riding opportunities vary from fast major highways, to pleasant winding byways, dirt roads, sandy trails, beach riding and some heavy challenges for the high powered scrambles buff.
An example of the latter is "The Sand Pits" on Route 110 about 1.5 miles south of the Long Island Expressway. Here are the training grounds for such notables as Sonny DeFeo and Barry Higgins. If you're not into the sliding, jumping and wheelie scene, it's a gas to park and just watch. You'll see a mix of expert and amateur, with skills ranging from unbelievable to beginners' putting around.

There's a lot happening on the Island. More than you could cover in a day. A museum out in Baldwin is devoted exclusively to firefighting equipment dating back to 1837. Whaling museums are found in Cold Spring Harbor and Sag Harbor. The Long Island Lighting Company offers a tour of their facilities in Hicksville, and you can watch the ponies at Belmont and Roosevelt Race Tracks. There's also the old car museum in Southampton.

But if you dig more action, take your pick of drag racing and motorcycle motocross at Suffolk County Raceway in Westhampton, stock car racing in Freeport and Islip, and drag racing in N.Y. National Speedway in Center Moriches. Bridgehampton Race Track famous for sports car and formula racing is starting to break into the bike scene with scrambles slated for October 1 and 29, and bike road racing on September 23, 24, and October 14 and 15. My tour of the Island had to be postponed a couple of days because of minor mechanical difficulties. Most serious was an exhaust baffle that fell out of the pipe and got run over by a truck. None of the local dealers had the part and the Kawasaki Distributor in Avenel, N.J. was closed. When I was finally able to locate a baffle, I couldn't get the screw to hold it in place, so some wire and boy scout knots were substituted. Other troubles were plug fouling and a faulty spark plug lead cap. I replaced the cap and switched to a hotter NGK B8HC plug. Spark plug fouling was one trouble I never had with last year's capacitor discharge ignition system, but on the other hand, troubleshooting a conventional battery-coil setup is a lot easier. I was set to go.

The morning skies were slightly cloudy as I kicked life into the Mach III. A few jabs at the handlebar choke lever had the idle percolating strongly. I sliced through the early traffic and onto the Long Island Expressway. 
Riding the LIE is a game of "kidney roulette" over the potholes and generally crummy pavement up to Douglaston. Then there are fabulous pavement heaves near the Grand Central Parkway where, with enough speed, you can practice flying on your motorcycle. The Kawasaki took them all and laughed.

Traffic thinned around Huntington, and the bike was whooshing along at an easy 70 mph when a mild roar and a simultaneous loss of power told me that the Kawasaki has spit out its exhaust baffle once again. I pulled over and walked back a quarter mile to find the baffle lying lifeless on the road, the small front end mashed flat by a car. I also found a rusty but hefty wrench to bash the baffle back into shape, in addition to all the heavy wire I would ever need. Back at the bike, I smashed the end of the baffle into a semblance of roundness and then hammered it back into the muffler. I wired it in place, and was back in business.

Out around Ronkonkoma, traffic was very light and I moved along on good straight pavement. I turned the wick up for a solid 80 mph and screwed down the steering damper and twist grip friction screw. The grip stayed in place and secure as on other bikes until later, after a couple of forced throttle shutdowns, it didn't work. The bike was running on automatic and I leaned back in the seat and draped my wrists lightly over the handlebars. It was great. The juice was locked on and the bike was tracking dead ahead. I looked around at the scenery. It was like riding the railroad. No effort at all.

I decided not to hit Montauk Point (the most easterly point on the south shore) directly, but to follow Route 25 on the north shore to Greenport. Then ferry over to Shelter Island, and take a second ferry to the south shore. The ferries are tiny and open - a refreshing break from riding.
First stop on the south shore was the whaling museum at Sag Harbor. If you're a harpoon freak, you can certainly get off here. The next attraction was Westhampton Beach, the summer replacement of Manhattan's East Side bar scene, complete with pickups putdowns and assorted ego games. Hitting Westhampton was backtracking towards the City, but it allowed me to turn onto a groovy, seldom used road running from North Haven to Shinnecock Hills. It was too early for the discos on Dune Road (the happening place in Westhampton Beach) to be warmed up, but the summer courtship and sex games were in full swing on the beaches. I was busy taking in the local sights, particularly the bikinied flesh cooking in the sun, but the heavily enforced 30 mph speed limit on Dune Road was not the Kawasaki's cup of tea. I could feel its restlessness, waiting to blow some doors off or cut loose on the highway. I wheeled around and headed back east.

The next stop was Southampton and the Long Island Automotive Museum. The collection of cars is not enormous but there are some nice pieces. A Stutz Bearcat was impressive, but before my time. I had better luck relating to an old double-decker Fifth Avenue which had survived in New York City until 1953. It didn't take long to go through the museum. Maybe because I wasn't crazy about the guy following me around to make sure I didn't break off any brass headlamps as souvenirs. The museum is commercially oriented, selling everything from toy model cars and picture postcards of cars to old hubcaps. I also got the feeling that the cars would have been much happier parked out in the grass than crowded in the museum.

At Bridgehampton a real treat was in store, Bridgehampton Race Track is the home of the Fred Opert Racing School, and for about $500 you can get an excellent course in driving a Formula Ford. With arrangements made by editor Joe Oldham, I was going to get a couple of laps around the track on the house. And a couple of laps in a single seat racer is like getting plugged into a Con Edison power station. Just sitting in the car is something else. You can't see your feet and the petals are tiny and close together. You have to pull yourself out of the car and peek under the dash just to see where to put your feet. The gearbox lever is also tiny and it's mounted all the way over to the right next to the body shell. The tranny is a non-synchro 4-speed with very short throws between gears. You have to bang it into first gear and then shifts tend to get a little mixed up in the excitement. I got some brief instruction on heel-and-toe shifting and driving techniques, and then was off for two fantastic laps around the course. Steering is supertight and handling is phenomenal. The car is forgiving within limts and my confidence built quickly. Sliding through turns inches off the pavement, surrounded by four fat tires has to be experienced to be believed. The two laps were gone much too fast, and when it was over, my arms felt like they were going to drop off at the elbow. I guess I'd been holding on a little too tightly.

It was well into the afternoon when I started again for Montauk Point. My route was the Old Montauk Highway - three or so miles of violent hills, blind curves and a little washboard thrown in for spice. At a slow pace it's a delightful ride up and down the hills, rolling into the tight turns and digging sand dunes and water. Push it some and you're on your own private roller coaster. Will you still be on the road when you come flying over the hill? You may have veered off. Your senses are on full when you let it hang out on Old Montauk Highway. You're riding by instinct as the road tries to seduce you past that deadly point called your limit.

After the park, just before Montauk, the old road joins the main one. A short ride through the town, then on to a fast stretch of road to the Point. The road was clear, and after kissing my Supercycle magic talisman to ward off evil spirits and police cars, I slid back in the seat, turned down the steering damper and cranked it on. The Mach III pulled strongly, and keeping the revs up high, I whooshed through the wide turns at close to 100. The bike felt good. Not as good as some of the heavier superbikes around, but still good.

It didn't take long to reach the Point, and I checked out the lighthouse and rocky beach. It was peaceful. Quite a change from the swinging beaches at Westhampton. After getting my fill of the fresh sea air, I fired up the Saki and headed west. I stopped off at one of the seafood restaurants overlooking Montauk Harbor, and stuffed on fried clams and shrimp, After, I rode around Montauk a bit, I stopped by one of the motels to adjust the slapping chain.

I was into it a couple of minutes when I saw her. She was walking towards me. Five foot one, long dark hair, bikini. She was total dynamite. I stared. She caught my stare and said, "Hi," more as a goof than anything else. I got over my initial embarrassment of having gotten caught staring and started rapping. Her name was Beverly and she had the poise and confidence of an actress. She also had the most fantastic brown eyes in the world. She complimented me on the Kawasaki's looks and after some more rapping, agreed to go for a short ride. But first she had to change. I finally adjusted the chain while she went back into her motel, where she was staying for a week.
She returned in 15 minutes, having traded her bathing suit for something a little warmer. "What do I do?" she asked in a tone of put-on helplessness motioning towards the bike. "Just relax and ride with it," I replied with cool assurance. She swung on behind me, her tiny fingers closing over my stomach. I secretly wished that my gut wasn't as soft as it was as I kicked the Saki into first and eased away from the sandy motel entrance. Her fingers clutched a little tighter, and a soft sound escaped her lips. I hit solid tarmac and accelerated in second. Again, a squeeze in my ribs. I stopped the bike.

"Try relaxing a little, you'll really enjoy it." She nodded. We rode around a bit and she started to loosen up. I stopped the bike again and looked around at her.

"Are you ready to go for a real ride?" A slight smile crossed her lips, but she answered with her eyes. Her fingers locked tight as I moved toward Old Montauk Highway. There was no one in front of me as I kicked down two gears and snapped up the wick. The Mach III stood up and hurled itself at the first hill. We flashed over it and immediately heeled all the way over a tight washboard turn, scraping all hell out of the kickstand. There wasn't a peep from Beverly. She was wrapped around me like flypaper and was really getting into it. I was getting vibes from her like waves of energy which served to spur me on even more.

We stormed over another hill and a sudden dip caused the bike to drop from under us leaving us weightless for a split second. My foot hammered out a fast tattoo on the gearshift pedal keeping the revs wound tight. We ground through another turn and came up on a slow moving station wagon. The front fork dipped as the disk brake hauled the bike down in time. I lay back for a second, dropped down two gears and redlined the tach. The station wagon disappeared. 
It was a total energy trip now, eyes bulging reading the road, throwing the bike at the turns. At the height of it, the road was like a wild horse trying to shake us off by bucking and twisting.
We stuck on it and slammed up to the stop sign signaling the climax of our brief interlude. I kicked the stand down, got off the machine and pulled my helmet feeling completely drained. I looked at Beverly trying to salvage her tangled hair. She was glowing. She smiled and said "That was great. You hit 80 in a couple spots." Wisps of fog were rolling across Old Montauk Highway as we retraced the road at a comfortable 35 mph. Beverly swung off the bike easily in front of her motel.

"Thanks again," she said. I watched her make her way to the door. She turned, threw a brief wave and was gone.

The fog was thicker now as I pushed on back to the City, but it cleared as I moved away from the water. Snatches of the day's events played around my mind. The museums, the racecar, and Old Montauk Highway. I gunned the Saki onto the Long Island Expressway. It had been quite a day.
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