“Chasing Sprockets”
by Dan K. aka sprbeast

As I left in my last column, I was struggling with playing catch up to my brother and his new 1996 GSXR750. Well if I thought there was a stretch in performance to his 1100, boy was I in for it with this machine. Superb. that is all I can say....superb. Everything, well except in the looks department. (I mean what in the hell was Suzuki thinking in the 96-99 series bikes?).

So time moves on and I walk in the shop this one day, and.....I see my next upgrade. A bike that was able to take me on the path to goodness. My favorite sportbike I ever owned. It seems the owner had the itch to upgrade his hardware to the fancy new GSXR too. So he traded his 92 GSXR600 in on one. I saw it sitting there in the showroom staring at me with it’s beautiful round eyes and handsome white and red graphics and his YOSHIMURA stainless duplex system. Mmmmmmmmm boy! “What’s that Jason?” I asked “a 750 motor?.......in this 600?” decisions, decisions. After doing the math and seeing that things could work I put a deposit on it (thanks to the pre-wifey) and move on to sell the FZ. Originally I picked up the Fizzy for $1500 bucks and sold it for $2100. So far I can’t complain too much in the resale of the bikes I have had.

I now have a nice new real “Sportbike” in my hands. What a rocket, with brakes, power, and OH! So sweet handling. During the love that I shared with that bike I had two experiences that I will never forget. One good/bad in a good way and one not so good. The first involved one of our Sunday rides over our usual route into the heart of Perry county (the mountain roads we ride). Up and over we go back and forth thru the twisties. Banging up thru the gears and down again (one of the traits that I grew to dislike about inlines), to the left and too the right. Man I was having a good time, everything was perfect that day. I was screaming up this straight and leaned into this long right hand sweeper. “Oh shit, what was that?” I thought.

I felt this weird pulling on the outside of my knee. Damn! I thing I just did it!! I did. I friggin had my knee on the ground railing around that sweeper! Woot, Woot! I’m now one of those guys! “Ok, calm down and collect your thoughts” I said. I was no street racer and am still not, just one of those highlights that for some reason gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. After this point I did deemed it necessary to wear full leathers and pucks. After a while of wearing full gear I realized how idiotic it was to ride like that on the street asking for attention from the wrong people and the conditions just aren’t made for that.

You would have thought I learned....anyway. Which this leads me to my second experience that I will never forget. My first oops on the street. My buddy Jim calls me up and asks if I wanted to go riding this afternoon. “Sure, but I need to be back in time we have the bachelor party for Dave tonight” I said. I was Dave’s best man and still had some things to tend to prior to the evenings events. Well, Jim and I decided to ride around without a care in the world. We headed down to the limited access road for a little stoppie and wheelie practice. Which too no avail, there wasn’t anything good or bad that came out of that mess. But a few bruised gonads and spirits (mostly due to the fact neither of us were good at them). Well it was getting late and we should be heading back now.

“How about we take that road past the Coke plant into Mechanicsburg? I heard they just repaved it.” I yelled to Jim at the light.

“OK” he replied.

So I took off and headed for this fairly short road which is all of a few miles with a couple sharp turns. All is good, I thought, I start bending into this sharp blind right hander and like a nudnik I was trailing a little front brake and then it was too late. I was on the ground and slid to the outside of the corner. After further review of the incident. It seems that when they repaved the road, there was a large rock close to the inside of the corner that was not removed prior to paving. This caused a sharp rise in the pavement that followed with a “lull” that would be the culprit for my front end locking and instantly tucking. Landing my bike on my ankle and pushing me to the outside of the corner. I was extremely lucky there were no cars coming since I would have been pushed into the car by my bike. So Jim pulled over and helped me get the bike back upright.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Yup, I think I might have twisted my ankle or something and I have some rash on my knee. But lets get back to the house so I can get cleaned up for the party”.

After returning to the apartment. Under further direction from the wifey, we thought it wise to get checked out at the hospital. The end result was an ankle broken in 3 places and some rash on the leg. I missed one day of work to go to the orthopedic surgeons so they could tell me it might need pinned if I don’t take it easy. I did make it to the bachelor party and needed to use crutches to get down the isle for my buddies wedding and gave them something to remember other than their wedding night.

I recovered and fixed the bike. There wasn’t much wrong with it so I figured I would pretty it up a bit while at it. I decided to polish my frame twice (the first time and the last time) I ruined my Milwaukee drill but got a nice shiny frame out of it.

As much as I loved that bike. It needed more. Or at least I did. I was getting tired of shifting and ringing the neck of it and making the motor scream to get where I needed to go. Oh wait, that is what I noticed I didn’t like when I got to ride my brother’s new 1998 TL1000R.

By now you are getting the idea behind my column’s title “Chasing Sprockets”. It is just a way that I have found through my experiences that it doesn’t matter. You will never be content until you decide enough is enough and there is no reason to have the latest & greatest. Because there will always be another latest and greatest around the corner. You can thank the manufacturers for that. Hey you can’t blame them. They need to win races, sell bikes, and make money to stay around.

And you can probably tell next month will begin the evolution of SUPERBEAST.