About the Site Owner:

I am Rose Lacy, the proud third owner of a red and black 1986 GSXR750R. First owner was Don of Scuderia West who raced it, second owner did mainly pleasure rides but also took it to Sears Point Superbike School. I’ve pretty much babied it, just pleasure riding and commuting, to keep it running and looking good. It’s got 40000 miles, 18000 of which are mine. The only after-market piece is a Yoshimura pipe and matching jet kit.

Recently my gixer started burning oil and leaking at a quart a month. This is more consumption than had ever happened before, so I naturally was very concerned. I don’t normally do my own work on the bike, but we’re in a bit of a money crunch right now and my favorite mechanic, Ben Scoble from Cycle Gear, had retired to drive a Snap-On Tools truck. I decided to change the oil, clean the engine off, and replace the valve cover gasket. Everything went well until I was tightening the valve cover bolts and snapped one of the bolts heads clean off. Ben had told me they only torque to 8 ft/lbs. Having no idea how little pressure that is I kept thinking, “it’s still moving I guess I should tighten it some more”. Obviously a big mistake. I now know this is a common problem owners and even professional mechanics run into when first working on the gixer. That wonderful lightness in the bike that makes it so easy to ride also makes it a bit delicate to work on. The previous owner’s mechanic had so badly stripped the valve cover bolt holes that Ben had to heli-coil every one at the first tune up. A very good thing to do, because they’ll never strip again, just the bolts themselves can break. Now I had to not only take the bike to a new mechanic, but also expose my inexperience to the world.

I was able to get some great advice about the oil consumption from Don Lemelin at Scuderia West, San Francisco. Basically it’s an old bike problem and adding the oil every month is way cheaper than rebuilding the engine. Engines for this bike are easier to come by than complete bikes, so at some point I can replace the engine. As gixer enthusiasts know, my 80% perfect fairing is worth way more than a low mileage engine. As for the rest of the ordeal, it’s easy for a shop to remove the beheaded bolt. Scuderia is doing the next tune up for me and will remove the bolt as well as replace all the other valve cover bolts in case I screwed up all of them (my poor attempt at a pun intended).

I haven’t done much long distance touring on the gixer. One 275-mile run with the Women on Wheels just about killed my wrists and shoulders, so I stick to the short rides now. I like to keep the pleasure in “pleasure riding”. Thankfully I live in one of the most scenic riding areas in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area. There are many beautiful clean twisty roads to choose from less than an hour away. Twin Peaks, San Francisco; Highway 1 on the Pacific Ocean; Skyline Highway along the Coastal Range; Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz mountains, to name just a few. The really great thing about loving this bike is any ride is a pleasure. I enjoy the appreciative looks we get on city streets, open throttle on a quiet freeway, clean twisty roads anywhere, and the great sound of the engine as it revs. I especially love how 160 mph feels so close to flying, I wonder if I’m riding it or is it just taking me along. I had a cool “Top Gun” moment a few years ago with a Blue Angel* plane. The Blue Angels give an air show here once a year for the Navy’s Fleet Week in San Francisco. They practice over the city for a week up to the performance. One time I was on an elevated freeway in the middle of town and I heard this huge engine close by. I look over and there’s a Blue Angel flying so low it looks like he’s right next to me! What else could I do? I revved my engine and raced to keep up! It’s a gixer moment I’ll remember forever.

*Blue Angels are like the Red Arrows, fighter jet acrobatic team.