I had bought bar-end mirrors for the R5 and installed them when I put on the clubman bars. While I love the clubmans, the mirrors really got on my nerves... No matter how much tightening and adjusting, they just never stayed put. The one thing I could count on was a good view of the ground behind me - not good when you actually need to check your background for a quick lane change.
So, this past weekend, while polishing the stinker to a high shine, I decided to remove the bar-ends, replace the caps in their stead, and mount the original dental mirror. While it's only on one side, I really like the look of it. Plus, due to the lower speeds of the bike while cruising, I'm usually in the right hand lane anyways. I may keep an eye out for a NOS mirror for the other side too... might not look bad...
Now I'll have to change the header image, as the bike has had some changes since...
Had a bit of trouble with the battery this weekend - it had gone totally dead... after two days on the charger it came back to life, but while riding, if I used the turnsignals, the bike would stall. Don't know what that's all about. Either the battery is bad, or the voltage regulator and/or rectifier units are bad...
Anyways, that's it for now... bike is due for inspection soon, so hopefully all this can get sorted out.
This is a site dedicated to the 1970-72 Yamaha 350 R5 two-strokes. These bikes are surprisingly fast for their size and age, lifting the front wheel in the first two gears and keeping up with modern bikes twice their size. It's also extremely flickable and great fun around the city or carving up canyon roads. It was the direct descendant of the Yamaha factory TR production racers. Dirty, loud, crazy quick and relatively affordable when new (and more so now!), it was, and still is, a giant-killer.
I picked up an R5C for my first motorcycle a few years ago, and was frustrated with the lack of information on these bikes available on the web. The original purpose of this site was to document the process of bringing the R5 back to life. But as I spent time gathering as much relevant and entertaining information as possible into one place for my own reference, I thought it would be helpful to share it with people who are also interested in these bikes, as well as other Yamahas, vintage bikes, and cool motorcycles in general.