1971 Yamaha XS650

[Michael Bishop]

I went on a ride today in southern Indiana. I stop at my normal place to take a smoke break. A young man name Nathan had his XS650 Yamaha that he had restore. His family had just open up a Apparel, Accesories, and Parts store on Bloomington, Indiana called RevSport.

[flying_hun]

Lovely, the first bike I ever bought brand new was a 1979 XS650F, the last year the standard was imported to the US. I loved that bike, and it worked fine when the national speed limit was 55mph. At a steady 80 the vibration would be a bit hard to take. Great gas mileage too - as much as 65mpg. Never lower than 50. Very solid motorcycle.

Nice photo. Please sir, may we have more?

Cheers,

Kurt

[kluts]

Originally Posted by flying_hun

.... I loved that bike, and it worked fine when the national speed limit was 55mph. At a steady 80 the vibration would be a bit hard to take. Great gas mileage too - as much as 65mpg. Never lower than 50. Very solid motorcycle....

I too rode these and learned to love/hate them. Pre-1976, they had stiff suspensions that allowed them to handle better. My buddie's 1971, identical to this picture, was actually pretty fun to ride.

For some reason the 77-78-79 standard 650 was set up soft and spongy and it was terror in the curves. The 650 LTD wasn't much fun at all...

Some buddies turned the standards into decent looking cafe racers, braced the forks, hotted up what they could, some put on a frame plate near the headstock. Better.

Super motor, really. Good forgiving transmission. Best of all, the looks of a Britbike with none of the leaks.

Very hard to break.

[whitelocust02]

He did one heck of a job restoring that! Looks awesome. Plus he painted it the fastest color :-P