There’s a unique kind of quiet in a motorcycle shed when you’re deciding what to ride. Yesterday, I walked past my 2012 Honda NC700X a brilliant, modern, sensible machine and reached for the key to my 1974 Honda CB550.
I didn’t buy this bike brand new off the showroom floor. Over 51 years ago, I traded my 1962 Chevy II drag car to get it. I was getting ready to marry my high school sweetheart, and at the time, I figured trading a drag racer for a sensible road bike meant my racing days were officially behind me.
Life, as it turns out, had other plans.
Think about how much changes in half a century. Tech advances, styles fade, life shifts. But as I pulled out of the shed, clicked into first gear, and started home yesterday, the reaction was instant. A massive, unstoppable grin.
Some bikes are just transportation; this one is a time machine, a living journal, and currently, an absolute backroad riot.
The “Goldilocks” Bike
When Honda released the CB550 in the mid-1970s, the motorcycle press quickly dubbed it the “Goldilocks” bike.
Slotted right between the lightweight urban twins and the heavy, muscle-bound CB750, the 550 hit the ultimate sweet spot. It wasn’t too big, it wasn’t too small it was just right. It delivered the velvety smoothness of an inline-four engine without the top-heavy mass that made larger bikes a chore on tight roads.
Decades later, that “just right” balance is precisely why it has survived every bike trade, upgrade, and garage clean-out I’ve ever done.
A Lifetime of Miles and Memories
Fifty-one years creates a heavy stack of memories attached to a single piece of steel and chrome.
This CB550 and I have done almost everything together. I’ve lined it up on the starting grid and raced it. My late wife and I spent countless weekends on its bench seat, taking day trips through the countryside, feeling the rumble beneath us with nowhere to be and no rush to get there.
Every tiny mark, every bit of honest patina tells a story of a trip we took, a race we ran, or a day spent soaking up the open air. You can’t buy that kind of history off a showroom floor you can only earn it, one mile at a time.
The Evolution into a Backroad Hooligan
A 50-year-old bike doesn’t have to act like a museum piece behind a velvet rope. Over time, this 550 has evolved into what I can only describe as a pure backroad hooligan machine.
I’ve leaned into a scrambler build, wrapping the wheels in rugged Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires. Out here on the winding, pitted, and sometimes gravel-dusted back roads of rural Ohio, it is in its absolute element. It doesn’t care about pristine pavement it just wants to run.
What makes it so much fun today is precisely what it lacks:
- No electronic gadgets cluttering the handlebars
- No rider modes telling you how much power you’re allowed to have
- No traction control stepping in to spoil the feel
- No ABS pulling back on your brake lever
It’s just a cable, four carburetors, four cylinders, and your right wrist.
Pure Motorcycling
Modern bikes like my NC700X are engineering marvels. They start every time, shield you from the wind, compute traction algorithms in milliseconds, and get great gas mileage. But they don’t make you laugh out loud inside your helmet quite like an analog inline-four barking through the trees on scrambler rubber.
That original “Goldilocks” sizing still holds up today. It’s light enough to flick around potted rural twisties, but substantial enough to feel planted and confident. You are entirely responsible for the motorcycle, and the motorcycle is entirely honest with you.
I’ve owned a lot of iron over the years, but this one isn’t going anywhere. It carries my past, grounds my present, and still gives me the biggest thrill on a Tuesday afternoon.
It’s my forever bike.