Which bikes have you owned that puts the biggest SMILE on your face ?
For me its ....
Yamaha t 700
Yamaha xt 600
:

All bikes that I ride bring a smile to my face and I have had many bikes but three were very special. The one that I miss the most is the BSA chopper that I build years ago and I am very very sorry I sold it when my second son was born and we had to buy a car.

Here are the three bikes that made me smile the most:

Harley Davidson KH900


BSA A10 chopper that I build in my garage, many many years ago :-)


Harley Davidson FLH 1200 Electra Glide

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Jan Krijtenburg

My bikes are a Honda GoldWing GL1200 and a Harley-Davidson FXD Dyna Super Glide

My personal homepage with trip reports: https://www.krijtenburg.nl/
YouTube channel (that I do together with one of my sons): motormobilist.nl

I had a Kawasaki KH100ES, 100 cc twostroke beast when I was 16 years old. We cut a huge piece out of the rotary valve to get more power out of it - and it worked! Rode circles around my friends VW Beetle 1600....

Nowadays I have to say riding my Honda Crf250 always brings a smile on my face.

Had a Triumph Tiger 955i that also brought some serious smiles on my face, except from when fuel bill came...

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

After spending years on dual sports and big BMW's I have just bought myself a 1998 VFR800FI. It cost me £500 as it needed work.

Having a light bike that actually propels you at speed and goes around corners has put a massive smile on my face.

And it's still pretty comfortable. When the borders open, I think I'm going to take it to the Alps.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

My Kawasaki Triple H2.
Ported according to Denco Specs.
With Denco expansion chambers and Mikuni TMX 38 Flat Side carburators

120 wild Hores power in that frame.....

Smiles and heart attacks....

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nice one !

Two smokes - always put a smile on my face Even if they are crude, awkward and antisocial devices. Mine can't quite match Erik's Denco H2 but here's my entry into the blotting out the local roads on a Sunday morning competition:

A motorcycle I owned that brought a smile to my face:-

My '71 Kawasaki H1 500cc triple. Candy Blue, drum braked, a ton of two stroke power. Not a great handling bike as it had a light frame.

I never rode it anywhere near its potential. Bought it at a very good price and kept it for quite a few years.

That made me smile, so what did you do and what was its potential?

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Holbrook Hall

Allways ride within your limit ! ( and the bike ! )
They were a great bike , but if i remember the middle pot used to overheat ?

It seems strange, here on the HUBB, only 9 members have had bikes that made them smile.
Shurely shome mishtake!!

In a time of, errr, lockdown, here goes...

For me, the prize for bringing the biggest smile goes to the CB750 I purchased in April 1970. They were the biggest news since the invention of the wheel...

And it gave me some brilliant trips.

It took a while - just recently - to find these photos.



Arriving at a member's home, prob 1970, the Wimbledon club (WDMCC) going on an outing.






And heading on out shortly after.
(It was deep metallic red, not orangey like in these faded photos)






1971, outside a campsite in Belgium or Holland, the WDMCC summer trip.
There's another CB750 there, green tank, being looked after by the campsite owner.
(All these were taken by the same member who had a colour transparency 35mm camera, probably the only one in the club).






In 1972 the bike became dual-purpose. I think this is Snetterton. Trackside photographer.







By 1973 it was more set up for racing, long fibreglass tank, short seat and other stuff. At Cadwell Park I think.





I'd noticed that the races I entered were generally won by Norton Commandos. So in a fit of madness, I sold the Honda. Even though it had finished every race except one.








Norton Commando, Cadwell Park, 1974.


I had consolation for selling the 'Best Superbike Ever'. The Commando was indeed far more competitive and gave me a best place of 3rd. When it went well it was like an express train on rails. The best with the Honda had been, I think, 6th.


Still plenty of smiles. But many fewer than for the Honda.


Commandos had a record of winning, but I didn't check what bikes featured under 'Did not finish'.
They were Commandos too. And mine 'did not finish' far too often.


But the 3rd place was enough for another big smile!

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Yes I can imagine a CB750 in 1970 would put a smile on your face. The Lambretta I'd been riding around on up till certainly didn't do that. In fact the only thing out of my entire scooter experience that put a smile on my face was a sentence in the troubleshooting part of the manual that described how to push start the thing. It first covered turning the petrol on, choke, putting it in gear, getting it moving etc and then said "release the clutch and continue to push until either the engine starts or you reach your destination".

Most of the time with my scooter it was the latter.

So, I found another old photo, which I think qualifies for 'Bikes owned by other people that have brought a smile to my face'.





1200cc supercharged JAP sprinter.


I went to see Alf Hagon at many sprints at old Essex and Cambridge airfields, and Santa Pod, late 60s. My bike in those early days was a Honda CB160. Which, really, hooked me to Hondas for a long long time.

Don't know what year this is, nor where (prob Santa Pod), which is a pity, because he was the first Brit to beat 10 seconds for the standing-start quarter-mile. In 1967 at Duxford. I was lucky enough to be there.

I took this photo with my Dad's Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex. I was a little surprised to be allowed to carry it around on my motorbike outings, and it felt very strange using it for motorbike events. My Dad used it for weddings.

Hagon kept the rear wheel spinning for the whole quarter-mile. He had to, there was no gearbox. The elimination of gear changes helped him break the 10-second record.





And this is 1968 or 69. (The smile occurs in the hotel bar later in the day).



Early morning towards the end of the Lands End Trial.
Somewhere near Perranporth, about 8 or 10 hours overnight from west London by way of lots of off-road tracks.
My Greeves 'bitsa', mainly Greeves Scottish, with silver-soldered home-made exhaust and plasticine-waterproofed electrics, was always brilliant fun.

But biggest smiles were on the Isle of Man in 1971 when the ISDT was there. Four or five Wimbledon Club members took our trials bikes over, including my Greeves for spectating.


We decided, spur of the moment, to ride off-road to the top of Snaefell from somewhere around Laxey.

All was going well as we zipped along towards a steep expanse of thick dense green grass, over halfway up. It all seemed easy...
Very suddenly we were all stationary, sunk in fairly deep bog on the hillside.
The bikes remained upright, our feet deep in the bog.
It was easy to get our feet out, and the bikes stayed upright without support.
But for most of us, that's all we could extract, our feet. Boots remained fiercely sucked into the mud.


It was so funny we were overcome with roars of laughter for quite a while. Lying on our backs in the sunshine, bikes vertical with no riders visible, who were hidden in the long boggy grass.


A camera there would have produced much better smiley pictures than the final stages of The Lands End Trial.
We had no camera... But the hot tea at the top was sublime!

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Smile again ............... its just "a thing " your on a great road on your fave bike
and just smile
Doesnt happen every time but i does happen most of the time !!

Ok so here are a few photos of the bikes that I have enjoyed the most up through my riding career....

1. Triumph Tiger 955i
2. Royal Enfield Bullet 500
3. Honda Crf250L

Very different bikes but they all put a smile on my face...

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....