1975 KAWASAKI H1-F
Steve Cooper rides an iconic Seventies stroker!
It’s purportedly one of classic motorcycling’s most apposite maxims that you should never meet your heroes. The logic runs that by doing so you are almost certainly guaranteed to be cruelly disillusioned. And if the hero in question comes with a reputation for being the double hardest, meanest, son of bitch on two wheels then there’s potentially a big disappointment in waiting. Today’s ride is on a Kawasaki H1 so surely I should feel a degree of awe or possibly some trepidation? The plain and simple fact is that the H1 Mach III has never been one of my personal heroes which might seem odd for a lad growing up in the early part of the 1970s but at the time my sights had always been set on Suzuki’s triples not Kawasaki’s and the local dealer had them in droves. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to sample the infamous H2 Mach IV 750s so in my mind at least the H1 should be less potentially threatening than the bigger bike. Yes I know the earliest examples had an even more evil reputation but this is the last of the H series I’ll be riding and supposedly it’s semi-civilised and supposedly house-trained too. Both the Rolling Stones and the Kawasaki H1 were stars of the period. While the former were still playing fast and loose in ’75 the latter had somehow lost its edge or so we’re told. The Mach III was less Jumping Jack Flash and more You Can’t Always Get What You Want… or was it? Back in the day, the H1-F wasn’t really up against too much opposition to be honest. Suzuki’s T500 twin was beginning to show its age; produced as a serious Japanese threat to lusty British twins the Suzuki had been down-tuned and slightly sanitised by 1975. Even Suzuki was aware that its erstwhile Titan nee Cobra had morphed from feisty Brit
beater to steady all-rounder. Honda’s mini multi-jewel the CB500/4 was pitched at an entirely different market and was effectively the thinking man’s Four. Honda’s other offering, the CB450/500 twin was, by ’75, a design a decade old and strangely also initially drawn up as a Brit twin beater. In comparable capacity all Yamaha could come back with was the slightly jaundiced XS500 which had proved to be substantially less involving than the sublime RD350 from the same fold. Set alongside this panoply of half litre machinery the H1-F was still, in relative terms, something of a fire-breather. Even if year-on-year revisions had tempered its bite a little it was still perceived as being the king of the heap. The aura, mystique and cachet surrounding the H1 was still very real despite the diminution of its performance. The truth was that all four main players had been obliged to reduce the power output of their larger machines in order to comply with ever-tightening emission and noise regulations. Depending on where you look, the H1-F is variously said to have between 57-59bhp against the original’s 60bhp. In truth the power output had been reined in with each successive model even if Kawasaki was reluctant to say so for fear of blighting potential sales. However, with the launch of the H1’s replacement in ’76 the new KH500 was quoted at a supposedly honest 52 horses. Many suspected the annual drop in power had been a linear process and not the 5-7bhp axing it appeared to be on paper. Whatever the arguments, the power outputs and the bar room bravado, the bike in camera is the last generation of the H1s so perhaps we’d best quit pontificating, analysing and ruminating and get on with the job in hand.
The ride
The first reaction to seeing Nick Jefferies’ triple is that it wears a suit of an altogether different hue to anything most of us would anticipate. Forget Candy Green or Candy Sky Blue, this H1-F is in the much rarer brown/yellow ensemble and as such is a paint scheme many shunned back in the day. Times change and apparently, according to the triples experts, this is now the one to have. Whatever there’s no arguing it does look rather cool in the late summer light. Whatever negativity has been carried out in the name of environmental preservation within the motor by the engine guys there’s no denying the styling team have been given free rein. In point of fact the H1-F differs little from the earlier H1-E, leading to identification issues for many. By the time commercial Kawasaki had got to the penultimate half litre triple it had morphed from flagship to back-room anachronism: apologies if that offends owners but that’s the reality. The once antisocial maverick had been toned down to fit within a corporate identity. Unquestionably its power had been neutered; Cycle Guide ran an H1-F on a dyno and noted a shameful 43bhp at the rear wheel. On the positive side however, the evolutionary process had delivered a few bonuses. Perhaps the most significant from a logistics perspective is the relocation of the choke lever from the right to left bar. Finally in 1975 it was potentially possible to be able to catch the throttle as the engine fired and not have to do two things at the same time with the right hand. But of course just like every triple Kawasaki made there’s a paradox to the revised set-up. The choke lever remained spring-loaded so the rider still needed to hold the choke down until the engine
has some heat in it. And of course our test bike is supremely cold-blooded which necessitates some juggling sitting holding the throttle, blipping it while holding on to the choke until the bike will run without it. Every single operation of the switchgear and instrument panel has been clearly and loudly identified in yellow paint and/or white decals. This was the dumbing down of bikes by various government agencies stateside that found themselves attached to the coat-tails of crusading politicians and safety campaigners. Truth be told such unnecessary fripperies had been foisted onto the world of motorcycling some two or three years earlier but they just look plain wrong on machines such as this. You’d like to think that back in the day anyone capable of riding a machine such as this would have known that a kill switch stopped the engine, that forward was high beam and left turned on the left indicator? The one warning caveat that arguably was needed was better signalling of the H1’s gear pattern. Running with neutral at the bottom you can’t help wondering just how many new to the brand got wrong-footed (sic) by this strange set-up. Of course such errant, individualist, behaviour from a motorcycle manufacturer would be utterly stamped out come 1976 when the KH500 subscribed to the norm of 1-N-2 etc. In reality this was simply what was happening at the time to all manufacturers; two-strokes were getting a bad name and apparently needed to be tamed. Yet at the same time the manufacturers were also knocking off the rough edges of their earlier designs. Nick’s bike sports the single steering damper introduced with the D model; handling had apparently been tamed and riders only needed one way of replicating tight steering head bearings not two! Under the seat the obligatory spare plugs sit in a nice little box but more importantly Kawasaki had made a concerted effort to get components earthed properly for once. At least five key devices are plainly grounded to a purpose-made bracket on the right hand seat rail. Despite all these foibles and much more the H1-F remains a breathtakingly stunning machine and four decades on still stands out in a crowd like little else: the asymmetric tail end profile, the close fitting front guard (there is no rear, being a Us-spec bike), that sinuously curved dual-seat, lashings of alloy, acres of chrome, the unique rear light and of course that tail piece. Yes others had copied it but Kawasaki had been the first company to give serious thought to the rear end of a motorcycle in terms of styling. And naturally there’s that distinctive paint scheme. Candy brown and mustard yellow really shouldn’t work but, from a 2016 perspective, they actually do. Even if the informative Z-power website states “the blue was very popular while the brown was avoided like the plague!” the fact remains it now looks cracking. In the classic vehicle world attitudes change over time and perhaps no more so than where colours are concerned. Walking away from the nit-picking and moving on to the detail – what’s the bike like to ride? Once warm the motor pulls away happily enough and it’ll fly up to 20mph in first gear if you let it. Hook up second, twist the throttle and the power builds ready for the next gear and so on. Gear changes on this example are, despite the various linkages used, simply lush. In fact I’ll go on record saying Nick Jefferies’ H1-F has the best ’box of any triple I’ve ever ridden. Where it’s happiest is around the 6000-7000rpm region; keep it around the sweet spot and the rubber-mounted motor will simply do its thing until the tank empties. It may not have quite the manic edge of the earlier iterations but there’s more than
enough happening to keep old codgers engaged. Where it turns a little sour is as the revs drop when you then ask the bike to run on a neutral throttle. There’s some hunting going on in the fuelling department and despite everything legislation had thrown at the H1-F, it still wants to take off again like a scalded cat. Which of course anyone with any soul will be happy to do and when that occurs you’re making smoke like a Second World War battle cruiser. And you’ll be wanting to know what the handling is like. Is it the widow-maker of yore? Well yes and no to varying degrees. The very first thing you notice about the bike is how well-proportioned the seat is… for the rider at least. The pillion, should they be brave enough, gets the bum’s rush (sic) as they’re constantly sliding forward due to the sloping base. From the rider’s perspective it’s the bars that initially occupy your consciousness; high and wide as per US spec, they offer far too much leverage at low speeds then hang you out like a spinnaker at speed. The chassis and suspension may have been tweaked from the earliest H1s, but the basic flawed design remains. The weight distribution feels wrong and there’s a nervousness that never quite dissipates no matter how long you occupy the saddle. Owner Nick and I agree the feedback from the front can be vague at times and is, on the wrong surfaces, almost wilfully nonexistent. Much of this is probably due the ribbed front tyre which is of dubious age. We both agree a set of modern, matched rubber, would unquestionably up the bike’s potential immensely but at the time of our ride Nick had only owned the bike a few months and was working his way through it. That seat becomes hard after a while but you have no opportunity to lean forward or move back due to those bars. With the gift of hindsight you might very well suggest that modern suspension systems would improve the H1-F’S manners but by doing this you’d be destroying the bike’s originality which as classics go is pretty damn good. Possibly some internal fork upgrades that wouldn’t be seen and maybe a set of custom-built Hagon or Ikon shocks along with that modern rubber; much beyond that and a really authentic bike is being seriously mucked around with. The bottom line here is that the engine of all the H1s is too far back in the frame leading to adverse weight distribution and little can really counteract that, this side of a new frame.
Conclusion
The H1-F is of its time and forever remains a classic icon. The later models handle a little better than the early ones but not so much as to say they’re a vast improvement. No modern road test is ever going to push someone else’s pride and joy to the limit in order to find if a ’71 handles worse that a ’72 etc. Will the H1-F make you smile? Unquestionably! Is the engine fierce? No, by ’76 the worst excesses of the power delivery had been dialled out but it still retains a visceral edge. The H1-F is effectively a refined analogue of the original widow-maker but don’t take that as carte blanche to abuse its apparent good nature. It’ll still scare you when it feels like it and probably seconds after it’s just put a huge grin across your chops. It may be old but don’t let that fool you… even an elderly Doberman can give you a damn good savaging!