New Motorcycle...

So I found a great deal on a motorcycle this past weekend. It was exactly the type of bike that I had been looking for. It met all of my criteria that I had set myself for a different bike:
1. It is very basic so there's not a ton of maintenance
2. It is older so that insurance doesn't kill me
3. It's bigger and more powerful for easier two up and highway riding
4. It's inexpensive but a good buy

So this bike is a 1980 Suzuki GS-1000 G. It fits the requirements to a "T."
1. It's an air cooled bike with a shaft drive. No liquid cooling system to worry about, no chain and sprockets to dink around with.
2. It's 29 years old. Insurance will add about $10 to my current policy per month.
3. It's a 1000cc bike, that puts about 90 horses to the wheels. That's 3 times my current bikes power, and about 2 times the most powerful bike I've ever owned. It's also got a big comfy seat and a giant ugly fairing on it. Highway riding should be a breeze.
4. The price was perfect and the thing is in GREAT shape.

The bike is really nice. It needs some TLC, but you should expect that out of a vehicle that is going on 30 years old. I don't particularly like the color, so I will more than likely change the color to just straight up black. I also am not a big fan of the giant ugly saddle bags. I will probably take those off and replace them with some soft bags of some type.

The fairing...I am up in the air on that. If it makes a huge difference on the highway I might keep it, but I don't really like the way it looks. Same with the seat. It looks comfy, but I don't know if I like the way it looks.

One nice thing about the GS is that it's what would be considered a UJM...or Universal Japanese Motorcycle. These bikes became popular in the 70s as just basic standards. But the thing about them is that if you put some parts on them to lean them one way or another, you can easily end up with a chopper/bobber style bike or a sporty style bike. So right now, even though the bike is setup as a highway touring bike, it wouldn't be very difficult to change it to a bit more sporty of a standard.

Examples are here. If I were to work on the looks of the bike, I would PROBABLY go for something like this...stock looking, clean, muscley, mean...

However, if you wanted to go for more of a chopper look, you could always hook it up with parts that would make it end up looking like this...
And of course if you wanted to go cafe racer or sportbike style, you could always get the parts together to make it look like this...

As you can see...the UJM truly is a wonder of the motorcycle world. It can be anything to anyone. I will more than likely go for a stock-ish look to mine. Probably a combination of the first picture at the very top and the picture of the red bike just above. I don't know if I'll use all original parts to make it an actual restore, or just go with universal parts that work.

The ONLY issue with the bike is that it has a dent in it's gas tank. I'll be trying to fill that in and paint it myself. I've never done any filling work, so that might end up being a bit of an adventure. But like with my Ninja, I plan on doing everything to it that I possibly can all by myself.

Currently, my plan is to more than likely get this bike to a point where I really want it, and then sell the Ninja. Of course, things could change slightly. I love the Ninja, but it's too small for both of us to ride any great distances. With this bigger bike, that won't be an issue. Ideally, I would like to end up just keeping both of them around, but I don't know if I'll be able to do that. I will more than likely end up having to sell the Ninja, but I'll see if there are any other options when that time comes.

When it gets here, I'll post some more pictures...and I'll keep regular updates going when I do anything to the bike.