What is the worst bike you ever owned?

My sexy good looking black & gold Yamaha 550 Vision. I put money into a custom exhaust using disc technology.... never could get it dialed in. Hot, this was one HOT motorcycle to ride! No where for the hot air from the engine heat to move AWAY from the rider!?!

http://www.triumphrat.net/photogall...FattRat-2004-RS/Bikes-of-my-past/aac.jpg.html

Bought a mid-60's Ducati 250 in 1974. I'd been lusting after a 450 RT, but never could find one. Rode that POS 250 home and realized the error of my ways. Sold it the next day. Went and bought a Honda CL450.
The Ducati's new owner called me two days later and begged me to buy it back. I declined.

I had saved and scrimped and bought a "77ish Husky 390. It was a rocketship between the corners but the frame was rubber and it absolutely would not turn. I did not race it for the whole season, I sold it and moved on...

Chiming in with a vote for Triumph. I bought this one used in 1979, only 3000 miles. Tank was freshly repainted blue metalic, and the seat was certainly _not_ Triumph with it's large tractor-like butt pan. Seemed to ride OK compared to the Can Am 175 I was riding.

The bike had a tendency to leak a little. OK, a lot. Later I began to suspect that the frame had been previously bent and possibly straightened. Some of the leak was from the automatic chain oiler. My then girlfriend helped me discover that the chain threw a little oil when we were under way - she got off the bike and had a stripe of black dots on the back left side of her jacket.

The handling was a little ... strange? It spat me off on a sweeping left when the non-folding peg hit the pavement and lifted the back wheel off the ground. I had sand-burrs everywhere, and little pieces of gravel worked their way through my skin for months. Riding gear was a T shirt, blue jeans, boots, and a helmet. They looked at me mighty strange at the grocery store as I dripped form my elbow... and mama wasn't happy when I got home with her loaf of bread.

Aver trip over 5 miles resulted in turning back to retrieve a part that fell off. After-market mufflers broke their rivets and spat out their guts multiple times.

Sold it in February 1982 here in MN and have not seen it since. The bike had some personality, and I didn't hate it. The Honda CB-550F was dead reliable, never a problem, but had no personality at all.

2006 Kawasaki ZX-10R - I have a love/hate relationship with sport bikes. I love the look and "technological beauty" of a modern sport bike. But as a forty something year old with a growing front porch, the riding position leaves me with "monkey" everything - monkey butt, monkey back, monkey knees, monkey wrists, monkey palms and monkey neck - everything hurts. The ZX-10R was the baddest sport bike I could find in '06 and we just didn't get along. Too tiny, too light, too flimsy, too squirrely. Ended up throwing it away under power on a tight right hander when the tires were cold. Every single piece on the bike was so under-built and flimsy I finally realized, this isn't a bike I should be riding on the street. My priority now is comfort!

Daymn, worst bike? I have had a number of bikes, I really loved them all, at least at first. The only ones I really soured on were then ones that broke so often I could no longer trust them on long trips….…I had two of those, both Oil Heads.

The one I truly loved the most that went south on me was a 99 R1100S, the 9th one off the production line. Besides a whole list of constant problems from different leaking gaskets and a transmission that went belly up and TB’s that could not be kept in sync, it had a propensity for devouring its own output splines, resulting in being towed two times. It did the same for the next owner. I traded the bike into the shop where I bought it, they also did both repairs. I met the new owner who purchased the bike from the shop and told him of the problems; the bike, on schedule about 12,000 miles later, ate them again for him.

The worst bike I ever owned was a '68 BSA Lightning. I bought it in October, 1969. In November, it threw a rod while cruising down the highway at 55 MPH. I got it back in March. In April, it needed valves. In May, while sitting at a traffic light, it quit running on one cylinder. The next day, I traded it for a '65 Mustang. Between October and May, I managed to accumulate 700 miles.
The bike I hated most was a '69 Honda CB 750 K0. I bought it after my Moto Guzzi V7 Sport was stolen. It was the wrong bike for me.

Kawasaki 175 cc street legal dirt bike. (197???? something.)
It had problems running. Because forgot to check the oil. Piston seized up BAD!! Who knew? Second bike i ever owned and i was only 12 years old. (I mowed alot of yards for that one) Just to damn excited to ride the damn thing!

Live and Learn (I hope).


04 Busa rider

...could have done without the Z6 Kawasaki. Out of fairness, nothing wrong with the bike. Just wasn't my thing ...4 cylinders, high rpm, crouched forward ... yeah, not my thing

1980 (?) Suzuki RM250.

That bike was quick. Got it off of a friend because I wanted it so bad I could taste it.

I took it to lake Elsinore one day and was getting some air off of the tabeltops when..

It seemed as if every launch ended up in a head-first plunge! I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. It got worse and worse (And my adrenaline pumped harder and harder!) and finally I pulled off of the track to find the meaning of rear "Suicide" shocks..

Both had ruptured and now where little more than unhampered springs, bouncing the entire bike like some sort of retarded rocket, plunging the front end off a jump in true "endo" style.

One day I noticed a Toyota pickup had shocks that were quite similar..

I went to Autozone and asked for some Toyota shocks. I didn't know the year, so I looked through the boxes until I found them.

I cut the ends off of the shocks, and off of the stock Suzuki shocks, submerged (partially) in water, and welded the Suzuki shock ends to the Toyota shocks. It actually worked out very well.

I was riding the thing near a friends house when it died and refused to start again. My friend talked me out of shooting it with my .45. I was that close to doing it.

He managed to get it running somehow.

He ended up taking the bike and trading it for some duct work for his house, behind my back. He was on drugs at the time. I was upset, but now that I remember what the bike was like, I'm a bit more calm.

Must have been like that blue POS I pawned on WildMan? Damn old 2-strokes anyway.

I never got along with my 1980 Kawasaki 440 LTD. It did not fit well, and the gearing was too low for the highway. This was my first bike, so I did not know any better until my friend let me ride his new bike. That is when I realized what motorcycles could and should do.

Just stumbled upon this thread and was thinking about my experiences with bad bikes...

When it comes to dirt bikes, it must have been my early-'80s Kawasaki KDX175. Bought it with a bum engine, rebuilt it with a new sleeve and piston and all new bearings and seals etc. On our first outing I actually towed two other bikes back our camp with this Kawasaki. That was the last time this bike was at the front end of the tow rope, after that it assumed its natural position at the end of the rope. After about 14hrs of actual riding, I was into this bike for well over $1000 (not counting the original purchase price) and I figured for $90/hr I can rent an airplane or a cheap hooker and have more fun.

And I had a late '70s/early '80s streetlegal Kawasaki 400cc two-stroke enduro. When it was hot and dry, there were no brakes. When it was wet or cold, there was only two brake positions: not applied, or both wheels fully locked. Made for interesting riding, to say the least. And it had a unique way to let you know that you had to switch your petcock to reserve: the engine seized up every time before it started to cough. At least it always started back up again after waiting for a few minutes to unseize.

But the worst street bikes I ever had were my two AMF-era Harleys.I bought them used (strike one) when I was still a poor apprentice (strike two) while living in Germany (strike three, you are out!). Those were the biggest POS I have ever laid my eyes on before or after. Stuff broke that was never meant to come apart, such as frame welds or rocker arms or axles. Every single fastener rusted, even the ones the engine oil was dripping on. Electrics were made by the same guy who build the brakes, because you could never rely on either to be there for you when you needed them. And the engines were just as pitiful as the transmissions: lots of noise, but not working well.
Thank God I also had a Honda XL 185 at the same time: I must have put 10000km on that little thing just by running to he H-D dealer for another load of parts....

my first bike... a sixties something 175 Bridgestone... I decided at the ripe old age of 15 or 16 I could build my own expansion chambers, shave the heads, cut the rotory valves... and then strip the bike down to be a dirt racer... I think everything I made for two years I poured into this usually not running POS... I was so happy to sell it for $50 bucks to some other kid and finally bought a decent bike... a sixites something Suzuki X6 250 (first anything that I drove that went over 100 MPH... barely)

An RD 350 back in 1978. The fucking thing was possessed! Even in my wild years (16) I was able to recognize that if I kept it I would die. So I traded it to my friend Joe for a Base Guitar, amp and speaker box...

When Joe got out of the hospital 6 weeks later he had us push the bike out into a field he then poured gas on it and torched it... hobbled off on his crutches mumbling something about Satan.


An RD 350 back in 1978. The fucking thing was possessed! Even in my wild years (16) I was able to recognize that if I kept it I would die. So I traded it to my friend Joe for a Base Guitar, amp and speaker box...
When Joe got out of the hospital 6 weeks later he poured gas on it and torched it... hobbled off on his crutches mumbling something about Satan.

Now I want to own one again in the worst way.

My current 1993 Concours 1000.

Part flawed design, part dumbshit PO, part just me--turns out I really don't like bigass fairings. Who knew?

Around about '93 I desperately wanted an RZ350, so I bought the first one I came across in the Cycle Trader. The guy was willing to meet me 1/2 way at a freeway rest area to see the bike, which should have been a warning, but I was consumed with lust.

The first time I rode the bike I made it a few miles before it started running on only one cylinder. I took it to the local shop and a tear down revealed severe detonation and a broken piston which also fouled the crank. It was also discovered that one cylinder had been ported by extrude honing, but the other one had just had the ports hogged out by an idiot with a die-grinder.

After a new crank, cylinder, gaskets, seals, and a month or so in the shop, I got it back, Unfortunately, it had been sitting out in the rain and the tank had a dent in the top which allowed water to pool around the cap, seep into the tank, and turn into carb-clogging sludge. The next ride was slightly longer than the first, but the results were a siezed engine from a lean condition caused by the clogged carbs.

A new (used) tank, a cylinder hone, new rings, and another month in the shop, and it was mine again. It looked ratty, but the sound from the Toomey pipes was awesome. I took my first longer ride on it, over 100 miles, the bike ran great, roll on power wheelies, it was better than I could've imagined. Until I was just about home and I held it wide open on an on ramp nearing my apartment. I felt the now familiar loss of power and I coasted down the next ramp and walked home to get my truck. I didn't know anything about 2-strokes and jetting, and it was way too lean and had blown up again.

My spirit finally broken, I gave up on that bike and eventually sold it in boxes to some other poor misguided soul, but the next spring I came across a clean, yellow and black, mostly stock, except for pipes and jets, and was swept away again. That bike never gave me the problems the first one did, but it wasn't as fast either. In '96 I traded it for a CBR 600f2, which I hated. Now, I'd love to have another RZ to play with again...

Hands down: 85 K100
I was excited to get it and happy to watch it leave.
And, I've owned a pretty good string of bikes over the last 20 years, including all the ones people think are massive piles of dung. This includes my first bike, a CS650 Kawi, 76 CB750, and a 92? Ducati 900 SS.
The K bike beat them all in the POS category. Never ever again will I own a BMW product after owning that pile and working on a whole lot of the roundel plastered product at shops.

The K caught fire with me on the interstate while doing about 70. One of the wheels leaked air, so I'd be riding along and then stop to find a flat tire. The engine was impossible to keep synched. The trans was full of false neutrals. etc ad nauseum.

Good lookin' bike. Rode nice. Massive pile. Turned me into a Honda guy, so that worked out well.

Mine had a rubber band for a frame, front wheel never saw the ground which meant lots of lost fork seals, Fouled plugs left and right. Charging system kept failing and I pushed it more then I drove it. BUT it sounded awesome and never lost a stoplight race (except for the races it couldn't manage to finish)

I never really had a terrible bike but the two worst ones were bad because I was trying to ride them in ways they were not designed for.

First was a 1972 BMW R90/6. Beautiful bike but when pushed hard on winding roads it would get into bad speed wobbles. I had way too many moments where I was sure I was going off.

Second was my 2008 KLR 650. I tried to ride it like a dirt bike and had this feeling that it was going to hurt me real bad eventually. Heavy weight and marginal suspension(even with upgrades) were a bad combo. I sold it and got my KTM 690r enduro and now I am happy because I have a bike designed for how I like to ride.