New to Forums and Motorcycling

[sharpmagna]

Hi all,

I've been riding for about a month now and I'm totally in love with it. I can't believe it took me 25 years to finally get my own motorcycle! I've been on mopeds before when I was younger but the bug never bit before. I went on holiday to the Philippines for a few weeks and I got a chance to ride my dads scooter around the town and I had such a blast. I got home and started looking into the MSF BRC courses. Long story short, I finally got signed up and passed the test with flying colors. After about a month of bike shopping I finally found my steed. At first I was looking at Yamaha V-Start 650 Customs, Kawasaki Vulcan 750s and Suzuki M50s. Then I remembered my coworker had a nice looking bike and he mentioned he wanted to upgrade and was looking to offload his current bike. He cut me a great deal on it and I couldn't pass it up. I bought a 1987 Honda Magna and it rocks! I've perused the forums and I guess the consensus is to buy a motorcycle with less than 50HP. Well that went out the window with the Magna as it is a complete barn stormer. I've been riding as much as possible with it to get practice time and I've already put 1000 miles in less than a month.

Well enough talk, here are the pics:





I prefer it without the fender though:


Although today was the first time I rode it in the rain and I totally regretted taking off the front fender. I had a huge "rooster tail" coming from my front wheel

Well I hope to add to the community

July

[fireguzzi]

That's a fine lookin machine ya got there. Is that rear wheel stock?

[sharpmagna]

Thanks! Yup the rear wheel is stock as well as the quad exhaust. The bike is completely stock from what I can tell. The only upgrades are the crash bars and the front pegs. I've already been bit by the upgrade bug and I've ordered VTX headlight components. From what I've read it is a direct swap for this bike and really adds character to the front end.

Also the bike is not cosmetically perfect, but I can't expect it to be for an almost 20 year old bike. The front fender has a ding and some rust and that is partially why I took it off. I want to repaint it. I've also purchased some other components already to get it back to what it looked like when new. Seems the bike has been on the ground before as there are some scratches on the turn signal and the front brake lever, but damage seems cosmetic.

I plan to do some maintenance on it very soon, but I want to enjoy riding it for a while. I've already topped off the coolant as well as bled the front brakes. The brakes were a necessity as there was goop in the master cyclinder. So now it is running with fresh fluid there. All other fluid looks good but I'll be replacing it all when 24K rolls around. With the way I'm riding, that won't be far off!

July

[KarateChick]

[Julius]

a thing of beauty, kind of reminds me of a v-max

[sharpmagna]

a thing of beauty, kind of reminds me of a v-max

The V-Max is my dream bike that I have to work my way up to

[Sev]

That Magna is a pretty bike.

[Scoutmedic]

That's a sweet looking bike. But, I'd suggest that in the future you mask your license plate. It's just a suggestion to help protect some of your personal information. I normally open my photo in Microsoft Paint and white it out or color over the plate in some way.

[sharpmagna]

They'll have a heck of a time finding anything as those aren't my plates!

[jmillheiser]

that magna is a nice bike. its a shame honda doesn't make it anymore.

Sadly honda got out of the business of making cruisers that were different than the rest (the magna and the valkyrie) and just makes cookie cutter v twin cruisers now.