Not that great, but comparable to most other bikes around at the time, and no barrier to selling an awful lot of bikes in the US!

This is getting fun with charcoal, which I'm beginning to suspect has two addresses and ID's on this forum.
Someone from another list posted an article on the 12 meanest posters on gear head lists that made some comment that offended the others sense honor or experience for volumes of rants that and gut tearing word wars.

I'm sorta neutral on this handling character of new vs old as every variety of cycle is a freaking dangerous corner cripple compared to a tri-linked isolastic Combat. The tired iron things as too flexy a character and the composites 'puter chipped newbie's to rigid in their behavior. Each of the above has advantages in their own element committing on wet cobble stones and unpaved lanes to committing on freeways and zinging straights between traffic lights. Truth is there's gold and silver in both era's of craft and well as rust and 'puter grimlins.

Counter steering points front tire out of the turn and twists forks to push bike down into curve while rear is trying to lift bike up and direct it into the turn so frame twists up. Go harsh enough and low enough the front will skip out or the rear skip a bit, either of which releases the frame energy for spring back that can build up to a tank slapper or simply lo or hi side crash. Olden rig tend to wobble slower bigger which limits their cornering while the newbies can take this conflicts around faster till they vibe so fast they just buzz tires out of traction or give instant frame whiplash down and out.

There's is another way around all that hidden in the isolastic two part horse and buggy Commando on tall wagon rims.

I recently had the opportunity to ride a '77 KZ1000. All I have to say is "no thanks". You couldn't give me one.

Cheers!
Russ

rvich wrote:I recently had the opportunity to ride a '77 KZ1000. All I have to say is "no thanks". You couldn't give me one.

70s KZs and 80s KZs are two different animals.

Something that seems to get forgotten when discussing handling is that motors without much power mounted in a relatively flexible and cheaply made chassis, fitted with budget suspension parts, is always going to handle better than bikes with much more powerful motors, with the same type of cheap frame and suspension parts.

My 1975 XS 650 handles like crap. When pushed a little the front end wallows. My 1984 LTD 1100 was another story. Not perfect by any means, but at least it felt like the front end was trying. I know twice the bike and more than twice the power, but the front end was not twice as big. It actually seemed a little small for a bike of 550+ lbs dry.
As with anything improvments over time almost always win.

My first bike 78 750 twin cam CB honda, top heavy, dropped into corners, bad brakes, wallowed badly when pushed in to hard corners, front end sledged badly, tried to stand up when braked hard into a corner,real evil handling machine, but done about 30000k in 9 monthsand only need fuel ,oil,and lots of chains and tyres.
Next bike T160 pissed all over the honda , nice centre of gravity , rock solid on corners , resonable brakes, never used as much fuel,oil chains or tyres because it never stayed going long enough, common fault young and dumb and tried to rev it like the honda