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Post by floridagull on Oct 21, 2018 18:55:18 GMT -5
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Post by wheelbender6 on Oct 21, 2018 23:10:12 GMT -5
Cool find. Too bad they never made the Honda Gyro with a bigger engine.
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Post by bandito2 on Oct 22, 2018 0:15:31 GMT -5
Being a young man back in those days, it was quite the trip down memory lane. I had the Riva 180 way back then. Mis-remembered having the 200 Riva, but after seeing pictures of it I see it was the 180 that I had and not the 200 like I thought I had. Used it on a newspaper motor carrier route in Ann Arbor Michigan just off the U of M college campus back then. I got chased off the sidewalk a couple times by the law... jeez, but deliveries were in the wee hours when nobody was around... No tickets, but stern warnings.
Kind of neat how smart cars now are not the amazing oddities they used to be, and most cars back then were butt ugly squared off boxy things. And the top computer memory chip was 1 megabyte... Pffft!.. we're talking gigabytes now with terabyte chips the next thing, if they aren't here already. What ever happened to acid rain? (the environmental boogeyman of the era then) After the hole in the ozone layer didn't do us in and many tobacco users decided to give up the habit, (no tobacco ads in the magazines nowadays) I guess global warming... er... scratch that... global climate change is the new calamity that supposedly will kill us all off in the near future.) With suspicious holes plugged to stop the leaking, the space station "Freedom", now the International Space Station (ISS), still floats... out there in space.
Anyway, eventually sold the Riva (scooterless for a time) then upgraded to a NOS 1987 Honda Helix in 1989 or 1990... (maybe even 1991) I had it painted gloss black after the red paint faded after a few years and sold it to get $$ for an ultralight engine... Eventually got out of ultralight flight training for lack of time to teach and fewer students after 9-11-01 and got back into scooters. That began my Honda Reflex addiction.
I actually still have a few favorite issues of Mechanix Illustrated from the early 70's, Popular Mechanics from the late 70's and Popular Science from early 80's. Some stuff is still just as cool to look at now as it was then all those years ago.
OH YEAH!! The Gyro!! I would have liked to see one of those with a bigger engine package as well. 250cc size minimum and 400cc to 600cc Silverwing FSC600 size would be even better.
A Dutch company made a 2 seater 3 wheel tilting body thing called the "Carver One" but poor sales made them go bust. I think they were going to or did bring it back as an electric 3 wheeler. Not sure if any of them ever made it over here to the states. Some British guy did a Youtube (I think) test ride review on the Carver one. Might have to look to see if that clip still exists.
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Post by floridagull on Oct 22, 2018 10:03:19 GMT -5
I was 21 in 1984. Bought my first motorcycle in 1985 - Yamaha SECA 650. Then, in 1990 (?), bought a Suzuki GS450LH. I remember asking my at-the-time wife about the new scooter-things, and she said they looked too "Devo" for her...
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