I bought the Kat in the midst of the last recession. Some Hurray Henry had bought a new one with the aim of selling it as an immaculate classic some time in the future. The clock read a mere 900 miles! He was short of money, obviously not too amused to have to deal with scruffy bikers. It was plain from the pillion test ride that he didn't have a clue how to ride a big bike. After some haggling the bike was mine for a bargain price!
Riding home, without insurance or an MOT, I kept the big four in check - it wanted to hurtle forwards, break the ton barrier in the blink of an eye, but the consequences of police attention didn't bear thinking about. There was plenty of power at the bottom end but slightly annoying secondary vibration around 3000rpm gave the hint that the motor wanted more throttle. A brief sortie to seven grand gave a glimpse of the massive kicks that were in store!
The legal side sorted, I headed for the nearest stretch of speed testing highway - a narrow B road that had an extremely long straight and no hedgerows for cagers or plod to hide behind. There's so much power that there's no real need to work the gearbox, just use the throttle and wave after wave of power flows out.
Brilliant, it shot through the ton, just kept going up to 130mph before it slowed a little. I hung on until a ton-fifty, then backed off rapidly. At that point the smooth road turned very bumpy, just before a hairpin bend! The sides of the road lined by a minor river and a ditch! This is a test of both a machine's handling and the rider's balls.
As soon as the Suzuki hit the rough stuff, at about 125mph, the chassis gave up, turned liquid - as did my bowels! I was thrown around in the seat like on some mad horse ride whilst the bike turned into a high speed kangaroo. The only reaction was to grab all the brakes, triple discs that howled away but seemed to take ages to lose speed.
50mph on the clock, the bike all over the shop, I then had to hurl it right over to get around the hairpin! On a bike I had only the vaguest idea of how it would react to highway madness. Tyres were OE junk that twitched in protest as I ear'oled the monster. The undercarriage sparked away but around the bend it went.
Still shaking (the both of us), I hit the throttle in anger in third as the bend straightened out. Screamed with the sheer thrill of it all, the front end rearing up and the back tyre twitching like it was disintegrating. The bike growled down the next straight, the chassis finally sorting itself out. This was repeated many times, the Katana behaving like all the chassis bearings were falling out but give it some manly input and it would sort itself out. Most of the time.
Still, as soon as I had some money I fitted some EBC pads, Michelin tyres and a pair of heavy-duty shocks from the breakers. The bike was still as edgy as hell but would take some of the faster bends without trying to run off the road. Its stability was in direct relationship to the smoothness of the road...
On which, it should be noted that this was not a comfortable long distance tourer, though the huge tank and 50mpg suggested possibilities of long distance Continental riding. The seat was crap, the tank splayed me out as if on the rack and the stretch to the bars did in my arms and shoulders. The only solution, officer, was to ride very fast, blitz my mind with images of the tarmac and scenery screaming past. The ton-fifty blues soon totally addictive.
The Hurray Henry had forgotten to fill in the transfer slip on the registration doc so he probably ended up with a large pile of summonses. I can recall blasting past one cop car on the motorway just as he was pulling a cage over. Throttle to the stop, 160mph on the clock, I was a master of the universe!
The madness was muted by the winter. All that power on relatively thin tyres had the Katana skating and sliding in a highly dangerous manner. Had to keep the revs below five grand and the bike relatively upright, otherwise I'd be doing the tarmac dance. All that mass waiting to let loose in a retributive manner.
Winter also did for the calipers and exhaust, both rotting away at an amazing rate. The engine was immune to all levels of abuse and neglect, would even start first press of the button when the bike was covered in ice and snow!
After replacing the caliper's seals, doing a full rebuild and adding Goodridge hose, a few hundred miles later the drive chain was shagged (with 5600 miles on the clock). Even the sprockets looked dodgy. An expensive O-ring chain and sprocket conversion increased chain life by a factor of three! The silencers were ready to fall off come the spring, but a couple of universal cans were knocked on without doing in the carburation. The engine was so large in capacity that despite the power it wasn't particularly finicky.
With these mod's another riding season was enjoyed. I never came close to becoming bored with the power output and the chassis machinations always kept me awake. A unique combination of massive power and nervous if ultimately safe chassis. I let a few mates have a go - used to modern replicas they came back all shook up and white-faced, congratulating me on my riding ability - I used to beat them in the corners by blasting through on the power and ignoring the feeling of chassis disintegration. Especially amusing at night, the spark show from the undercarriage and tarmac interface mind bending for those behind.
The second winter, I hustled around on a GN250 and left the Katana glowing beautifully in the garage. Another year on the road, had a few more hassles. The chassis bearings gave up at 16000 miles and the forks went all soggy. Nothing a bit of money and effort couldn't sort, though the handling was totally suicidal in both instances. As it was when I ran the bike on nearly bald tyres. At the end of the year I treated the bike to a newish 4-1 and re-upholstered seat, the latter the best thing I ever did for the bike. Not that it was up to huge mileages, the strange riding position still intruding.
The bike was used quite a bit through the next winter, the GN had blown its top end - it was too slow after the Kat, thrashed everywhere! My speeds were up but the top end of the rev range completely ignored unless it was one of those rare, sunny, dry winter days. The Kat's alloy went off rapidly but the paint was okay. Consumables were too horrendous to work out but fuel was still good at 50mpg.
The next spring, a long distance Continental tour was on the cards. It was hell on earth until I got down to Spain, all the way through France there were these fantastical hailstorms! When my visor cracked and flew off I was deep in the manure. Doing more than 300 miles in a day left me barely able to see, that riding position really was torture. Nothing that could be done about it!
The engine lived a charmed life until 54000 miles when the exhaust smoked heavily and the valves made an alarming noise. I was just getting ready to return to Blighty - from Rome! The bike was obviously giving me a hint! There are still plenty of back street mechanics in the Italian capital but most of them don't want to work on Jap iron. Neither do they speak much English. I found some old chap who would take the head off (not something I fancied doing in the gutter) and see what was what.
A week later I had a bill for about 150 quid, three replacement (used) valves and an engine tune-up. Sounded really quiet and revved with renewed vigour. I blitzed through Italy, the speedo above the ton for most of the time. The Italian drivers tried, in their macho mad way, to knock me off but the Kat's actually quite easy to swerve around things at speed.
160mph on the clock was the most I ever saw, fast enough to leave some pig in a big Fiat way behind. I had to hit the first turn-off, to make sure they didn't radio ahead. As long as you don't actually stop, riding on Brit plates abroad is a ball. If they actually pull you, it's prison or a massive fine, or both. Bail bonds and green cards weren't something I ever bothered with!
Once off the autostradas the roads degenerate alarmingly. Made to upset the Kat in the maximum way possible! A bloody big pot-hole on one bend's exit had the Suzuki going sideways. I was wise enough to wear full leathers, got away with a bit of a bruising. The 1100 ran to crash-bars that were broken up by the tarmac but saved the bike from terminal damage.
Dazed and confused, I had no idea where I had come from or which way to ride down the road. The Kat coughed and spluttered before catching, shook all over the place until the body shakes died down. Eventually, made it back on to the main route out of the country.
About fifty miles down the road, the motor coughed, stuttered and died! Fuel starvation? Nope there was plenty there. I managed to get to the side of the road, soon found that I was suffering from total electrical failure. A spanner over the battery's contacts revealed that it was dead. A very slight incline meant I could push the bike off and leap aboard. Did about 10mph all the way to the next exit. Lucky, as recovery charges are mega-expensive.
That got me on a minor road, where I hitchhiked to the nearest town, battery in hand. This proved optimistic as the best the auto shop could do was sell me a big car battery and set of bungee cords to attach it to the pillion seat. Had to walk most of the way back to the bike, relieved to find it still there and in one piece (thievery a second occupation for many Wops).
The bike fired up okay, ran strongly, but as I swung into the first set of curves there was a slamming noise as the battery bounced off the seat and hit the back of the bike. It still hung on by the connecting wires! Some more work on the bungee cords, I was set for the border!
France was a welcome sight, even if I still had a long way to go to reach home. It soon became apparent that the alternator wasn't charging, a fully charged car battery would do about 200 miles - as long as I didn't use the horn or lights. A battery charger was purchased, we cantered through France doing less than 200 miles every day, the battery charged overnight.
When Blighty was reached I bought a rectifier/regulator out of a GSX750 but that didn't help at all! The crash must've hit the alternator casing hard enough to displace something. The coils were charred beyond help. An exchange alternator and another rectifier/regulator plus new battery and some rewiring finally had the bike working properly. An expensive accident but less so than pulling over for the Italian cops.
Or maybe the bike was just showing its age. Put me off doing any more long distance riding, wasn't quite sure what was going to happen next. Typically, the Kat ran fine for the next eleven thousand miles, just the usual consumables.
At this point I had to find better wheels and discs (cracking up!), do all the chassis bearings and fit a used 4-1 (before the old exhaust fell to bits). A couple of weeks later the crankshaft started to knock! I'd been doing the oil changes every 2000 miles but the filter very rarely! That's my excuse anyway!
As the chassis was in reasonable nick I looked around for a replacement motor. The only one I could find was a GS550 for 300 notes. Half the capacity and only 54 horses (somewhat reduced by wear), it didn't fit straight in but after making some engine plates and a spacer for the final drive sprocket, I had a running machine.
The stock GS550 needs to lose about a 100lbs not gain them. Initial impressions of the performance was ghastly, just didn't want to motor. Partly down to the gearing being much too tall. Once that was sorted there was a bit more acceleration and a 110mph top speed. Changes in weight distribution made it easier to throw around and more stable - or maybe it was just the lack of power not twisting the frame or swinging arm any more.
I soon grew to like this strange concoction but it didn't stop me from stripping down the Katana's engine. Not a pretty sight but after scavenging various breakers I was able to put together a motor with a reasonable degree of sureness as to its mechanical integrity.
The bugger didn't want to start until some mates gave me a half mile push! She burped into life with a roar and took off like a scalded cat. The throttle cable had snagged, it wouldn't run below six grand, which meant that it was always in the maximum power band! Nearly killed myself several times in the mile before I realised what was going down!
That sorted, the Kat ran better than ever for the next few months. Unfortunately, various mates had upgraded to high spec replicas and to keep up I had to ride the Kat like a total maniac! As in off the edge of its tyres. The only surprising thing was that it took months rather than days to actually fall off.
The tubular steel frame seems quite tough - I never managed to bend it. But the forks were savagely bent after a roll down the road, from overcooking it in a tight corner. I had concussion and a broken wrist. I took this as a strong hint to find something a little bit more modern. The breaker supplied yet another front end and the NHS did the honours for the bodily pains!
I started out with a low mileage classic, ended up replacing most of it over the next seven years, had loads of fun and did a massive amount of mileage, and very reluctantly traded in for a newish CBR900 - a total culture shock but I still miss the Katana. Oh, I also made a nice profit on the sale, it had finally attained classic status!
John Phillips