Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Racing GS Sighting

This weekend I went to a benefit show/party for the Cretins M.C. here in LA. It was a good time, the beer & barbeque were flowing and the bands were loud. Some cool bikes there, including my friend Rick's CB450 vintage racer that's really close to being done. Check out the pictures at my Picasa site here.

Anyway, this one really caught my attention - it's a GS1000E vintage race bike called "The Ratzuki" by it's owner, Scott Fabbro.

The patina is intentional - he was tired of the attitude of the vintage racing establishment and wanted to prove a point with a bike that was really, really stock and really, really fast. Apparently they didn't take kindly to his other bike, a GS750 with a GS1000 motor and 17-inch wheels. While the 750 was a true vintage race bike with history, the vintage racers didn't like that it was so modified.

The Ratzuki has Lester 18-inch mags to run better tires (and because the stockers are heavy as anchors), drilled brake rotors, a Yoshimura pipe (a RARE piece) and 29mm Mikuni smoothbores. Otherwise it's stock, as amazing as that sounds. It may look like a refugee from the barn, but it sure sounds great.

2 comments:

Justin Caise said...

"Apparently they didn't take kindly to his other bike, a GS750 with a GS1000 motor and 17-inch wheels..." Tee-hee, that's exactly what I'm doing with my well patina-ed 79 GS1000. "...the vintage racers didn't like that it was so modified." And that's another reason to proceed with my 7-ten.
Nice write up.

robertwrites said...

Glad you liked it. It's a cool bike run by an interesting guy.

I'll see if I can get some pics of his 7-10 sometime, since now I know where his shop is.