25 Years Ago May, 1979
25 YEARS AGO MAY, 1979
ROUNDUP
Packed hardly describes this issue, which was the meatiest CW to date. At a whopping 216 pages, there was literally something for everyone. • Editor Allan Girdler’s Up Front column, penned in response to a father who was concerned his young son’s next bike purchase would lead to him becoming a vegetable, is worth digging up and reading even now.
• If you wanted to know what made Wes Cooley’s Yoshimura Suzuki Superbike tick, back then they let us take it apart. An added bonus was a story about Pops Yoshimura and a thrilling ride on the GS1000-based machine, as told by Executive Editor John Ulrich.
• This issue was overflowing with road tests. With the HarleyDavidson XLS-1000 and CCM 600, emerging trends of Harley loyalists and aficionados of boutique/oddball dirtbikes were evident. Can-Am finally released its Open-class off-roader, while the Yamaha 750SF Triple and Honda CX500 were targeted for long-term testing, and everybody loved the Kawasaki KX250.
• Advertising content revealed a strong interest in the off-road market, with both Honda and Goodyear hawking knobby tires. Other blasts from the past? Kawasaki’s “Don’t let the good times pass you by" campaign, in which KZs, KDXs and SRs made their owners do strange things, while other makers touted their CBs, GSs and XSs, and dualpurpose DTs, XLs and XTs.
-Jimmy Lewis
