Leo Kempf checked in to share his bike story and also a little about our somewhat similar careers:
lawrence,
i came across your site a few months back when i was looking for a vintage bike to get going and possibly turn into a mild cafe project. this was after i already acquired a Yamaha 200 Electric (mine's blue) that was siezed up. my dad had an R5 and i was sort of looking for one. so, i thought your site was pretty awesome.
anyway...then i went to your root site and found that you basically have the career i'd love to have in a few years. i'm a 5th year industrial design student studying at KU in lawrence, ks. yes, the city i live in is your first name! a business associate of mine and i just started a web dev. business at deepthoughtdesign.com specializing in dynamic sites.
so, i gave up on the yamaha and bought this 1972 honda 350 for $300 and i've been tinkering away....it's great fun.
anyway, i just wanted to let you know that i enjoy your website
Leo Kempf
Excellent! Thanks Leo!
First off, the Yamaha 200 Electric looks rather similar to the R5 (in fact, very similar to the later RD), cosmetically differing only in the tank, seat and sidecovers... seized up though? Have you gotten it going yet?
That Honda is sweet! Love those high, single-sided pipes! Looks good with those low bars, too. As a matter of fact, my girlfriend and I were driving home last night and we passed one almost like yours (although not in as nice condition, and yellow) and we were talking about how cool it was (well, could be, if it were fixed up a bit)...
The Deepthought site is rather nice. Looking good. Funny, if I had the chance to rewind and do this whole messy design thing over again, I think I would have liked to study industrial design. Always been fascinated with the discipline, and I've had the chance to design some products while I've been working here at scünci. Definitely would have loved to work in the automotive design field...
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.