Back in Play: 1985 Yamaha FZ750

The fast guys at Motorcyclist magazine—Jeff Karr, Brent Ross, and Editor Art Friedman—were mad at the new guy. It was a Monday morning in 1985 and I was in trouble. The all-new Yamaha FZ750 was due to be track-tested at Willow Springs Raceway in two days and the tires were worn out. Yours truly had taken it home the previous Friday and, well, we didn't spend much time at home. The FZ and I strafed canyons all weekend. The tires were shagged.

“What are you, stupid?” I paraphrase this frequent and not-illogical question, but no, it wasn’t my general and accepted stupidity. It was the addictive riding enjoyment of this new five-valve Genesis-chassied 750. We started on Angeles Crest and ended in Malibu, and the two tires showed the hundreds of miles we traveled. I remember the canyons to this day, because this bike was a revelation to me and it was one of the most enjoyable weekends I had ever had.

I was in trouble…but I had fallen in love, too.

We can all point to different bikes that we feel started the "sportbike revolution." Machines like the Ducati SS, Yamaha RD350, Kawi KZ900, Suzuki GS750, Honda Interceptor, Kawi GPz900, Yamaha FJ1100, the list goes on. And an argument can be made for each. But the 1985 Yamaha FZ750 (remember, the GSX-R750 was only in Europe in '85) was a revelation to this journalist; tiny, revvy, fast, and hooked up. I wanted one.

Fast-forward a few months and I am slated to race a Cycle Tune FZ750 in the WERA Willow Springs 24-Hour, as I described last week in this column. Dennis Smith owned Cycle Tune and this accomplished racer headed our team.

Dennis remembers: "At the time, the FZ750 was the best sportbike you could buy in California, so I bought two of them just for that 24-hour race. We put 250 break-in miles on it and then changed oil, put a Supertrapp exhaust on it, Dyno Jet carb parts in it, a pair of Michelin slicks, and a Fox shock. Hauled that sucker up to Willow Springs the Friday before the race and it ran like a Striped-Ass-Mag-Pie! I was very tickled with how it ran and went around a corner. It was like it was on rails!"

The team solved a high-speed front-straight wobble by fitting a Michelin treaded front tire to the slick rear and the bike was a weapon.

While Dennis and the real racers sorted the handling before the race weekend, I was quivering with nerves, mostly because I was not a racer and could imagine very bad things happening to the Cycle Tune entry and my body in the boulder-strewn desert surrounding Willow’s high-speed asphalt.

Arriving at Willow for practice did nothing to calm me. The bike was beyond immaculate. Bill and Ron Foster would become household names in this industry, but back then they were just twin brothers who built trick pieces. The FZ gleamed, snarled, and was easily the best bike in the race. Despite Kevin Schwantz lapping me twice in the same hour on a beaten and abused FJ600, Cycle Tune won the race. I hugged the champagne-covered FZ in the winner’s circle, thanking God and gravity and furthering my appreciation for this bike.

And then Eddie Lawson won the Daytona 200 on a 1986 Yamaha FZ750. "Get an FZ750," was written into my mental notebook.

That brings me to where we are today, with the Haul Bikes Daily Direct transporter parked in the road and driver Bob folding down the ramp to expose my 11,455-mile 1985 FZ750. As you can guess, this isn’t the first FZ750 I looked at purchasing; I’ve been on the prowl for a long time, but I had never examined an FZ within my budget that wasn’t “pretty tired.”

I found this FZ on superbikeuniverse.com after a friend sent me a link about "one of the coolest collections I've ever seen, and they're all for sale." Indeed. I drooled over all the bikes, reading the descriptions while remembering many of the machines as they had been raced.

Superbike Universe has former race bikes with amazing pedigrees. And some clean street bikes too, like an almost-stock 1985 FZ750. I poured over the pictures, examining the Fox shock reservoir and steel-braided brake lines—the only two apparent modifications, and two modifications that I liked.

What does it hurt to ask?

I wrote a note and soon met a soulmate: Pete Boccarossa. This 50-something insurance agent was a hard-core roadracer who lived in Connecticut, racing all through the ‘90s and snapping up old race bikes for bargain-basement prices. But he didn’t just buy them, he restored them and got them running. His collection grew to dozens of bikes, and while most of the prices were beyond my reach, the clean FZ was something I could afford.

Boccarossa told me the bike would need a bit of work, as it'd been sitting in the New England Motorcycle Museum. While Pete fettles a lot of his bikes himself, he wanted to send the FZ to Kaplan Cycles in Vernon, Connecticut, because this gang is practiced and professional at getting older iron running like it was new. In fact, the FZ spent time on Mark Olsen’s bench.

This, my friends, was an entirely different experience for me—a used bike entering my garage in perfect condition! You will remember the 1986 GSX-R1100 that launched this column a few years ago? That is the norm for me: buy a used bike and spend a few weeks tearing it apart and fixing the multiple issues. New battery. Flush all fluids. Wheel bearings. Clutch cable. Carb synch. You get the idea.

Three hours after the FZ arrived, we were up in the canyons. A quick tire-pressure check, coolant check, oil-level check, and we were rolling. My wife Judy couldn’t believe that I was going to actually ride a purchase within the same month of making that purchase. Thanks, Mark Olsen!

The FZ is as good as I remembered, and even smaller than I remembered. I haven’t run much cornering speed on it because the Bridgestones are about six years old, but that will soon be remedied as Bridgestone, Avon, and Continental (and probably others) make the 120-16 front and 130-18 rear in sport compounds. The bike is stable, calm, and comfortable in the way a mid-80’s sportbike was. Yes, it has clip-ons and rearsets, but they are placed in humane positions that seemed cutting-edge-racey decades ago, but are actually kind of forgiving now.

At 7000 rpm in top gear, the bike runs about 80 mph, and there is literally no sensation of the engine running; The (stock) handgrips are dead smooth, as if the engine is turned off. Amazing, and a testament to the work done at Kaplan Cycles. Really, this thing runs and feels like brand new, making me want to send most of my garage to Olsen at Kaplan Cycles...

There are a few minor cosmetic issues that I’ll clean up over the next few years, but right now the bike is good-to-go. In fact, I think a few of my other bikes are going up on the auction block this spring, because the FZ brings so much to the table: comfort, sportiness, retro looks with modern-ish handling, and stock reliability (while not being so trick and perfect that it becomes a garage queen).

It’s as if Boccarossa and the New England Motorcycle Museum saved it and Kaplan Cycles prepped it so I can put this ‘85 back in play on the entertaining roads of Colorado. This bike means a lot to me. I’m writing about it because I bet you’ve got a bike in your memory that can be found and returned to rider status to not just carry you around corners, but along memory lane just like it did when it was new. Yes, I love the modern stuff, but the Yamaha FZ750 affected my young life in big ways and now it’s back forever. Thanks specifically to Pete Boccarrossa, Ken Kaplan at Kaplan Cycles, and the wrench work of Mark Olsen!

More Next Tuesday!

In the meantime, here are some more pics of some really cool motorcycles, with an equally neat story.