Top 10 worst handling bikes of all time...

www.classicmotorcycles.about.com/od/hist...=zergnet-test-559393

Interesting the Honda c50 and cx500 included - hardly sports bikes.

Probably the worst handling bikes were not by design but when faults had slipped through, like shock top mounts out of place as on some early CB's.

I really chafe at reviews like that one. The author characterizes the H1 and H2 as having brakes and handling were amongst the worst ever designed.
What a bunch of HogWash! The brakes and frames were par for the day.

Am I really to take his condemnation seriously just because Ma Kaw developed a series of motors that were huge advancements for the time. I've owned an H1 and never found fault with the bike's handling. Excussee Me! if Ma Kaw was not able to improve the brakes and frames along with the engines.

Every reference that I ever heard or read calling the H2 a "WidowMaker" had everything to do with and inexperienced, poorly skilled, right wrist.
Bill

I have H2 calipers on my front end. Takes the same pads as the Z1 and beefier. Plus I like the cooling fins. :lol: Went with drilled rotors to make up the difference in unsprung weight. I can lock my front wheel at speed. :evil:
Steve






The stock KZ rotors are 10mm. The LTD rotors are 4.5mm.

It's not fair to penalize a bike's handling because it's motor was really just too powerful. Put a cb200 motor in the H1 frame. It would probably be fine.

Let's call the list "Top 10 bikes with motors that were just too outrageously powerful for their frames and owners". It would probably be all 2-strokes, topped by Kaws. :laugh:

Those RD 250/350's were like bees in the tight twisties. Damn fast too. Once the road opened up it was "SEE YA".
Steve

My Honda CB 900 F2B was a crap handler - wobble city. Brakes were very poor as well.

I distinctly remember a contemporary road test of an early H1 saying that its twin-leading shoe front drum brake would do justice to a locomotive! I don't recall any of the magazines being particularly harsh in their assessment of the handlng and brakes of those old bikes.
Modern bikes are better in every measurable way. A model T Ford would be considered a huge failure compared to any modern car, but in 1915 it was brilliant.

Tough too.
Steve

swest wrote: I have H2 calipers on my front end. Takes the same pads as the Z1 and beefier. Plus I like the cooling fins. :lol: Went with drilled rotors to make up the difference in unsprung weight. I can lock my front wheel at speed. :evil:
Steve

The stock KZ rotors are 10mm. The LTD rotors are 4.5mm.

Correction; the stock measure out to 7mm and the LTD at 4.83
That's what I get for talking out of turn. :blush:

Yup the RD's were fun bikes. Never owned a Kaw triple, but I rode a 500 and a 750. Not enough to have an opinion an the handling though.

The 750 frame, wheels, and brakes almost looked to me like they were a bit pedestrian. Like Kawasaki dropped that fantastic 2 stroke on a moped frame. Some engineer must have said, "Hey bet you can't do this" and some else replied "Oh yeah! Just watch watch me!"

The little time I've spent on one was fun as hell, I'd own one if they weren't more valuable than gold and diamonds....

The Yamaha RD350 was a great one. All added up between my dad, cousins, uncles I can think of at least eight R5 and RD350s we all owned, and they were plenty powerful even with a passenger. I've also had my H2 Kawasaki for 36 yrs now and owned a few other H2s. I never found fault with the handling of a H2, but the rear brake will hit the exhaust if not kept in adjustment and kill the rear brake. Otherwise the front disc works just like any brakes, handling is on par with any 1973 era motorcycle.