1975 Suzuki T500M Torture Test

And so it was to be. All the arrangements had been made. US Suzuki Corp. was to release to BIG BIKE Magazine one of their 1975 Suzuki T-500/M Titans for testing. At first we had planned to run a standard road test on the T500 and then return it to Suzuki after a couple of weeks. But we decided that a straight road test couldn’t possibly evaluate the Titan’s reputation properly. Reputation for what? The main word has always been reliability. More accurately, words like simplicity, maintenance-free, bulletproof, and forever have also been hurled at the largest of The Two-Stroke Twins. We had even heard stories of Titan owners that had gone for three or four years without any maintenance, still using the ORIGINAL spark plugs.

Aside from the stories about reliability, we had also received more than a few reports on long-range touring comfort, handling, and ease of maintenance (even if it does look like its big brother the Titanic). With input like that, we had to bump a few heads together to come up with a less-than-kind test procedure for the 500. So it was decided that what the Titan needed was some serious torture. Say about 3000 miles worth of torture… loaded down with every conceivable touring item, which is exactly what we set out to do, and I was to be somewhere in the middle. We started out by running the bike down to Bates Industries, where we put on two of their largest saddlebags, a large tote box and luggage rack, highway pegs, safety bars and & Ride-Off Stand. In  addition to the Bates items, we had a number of touring items that needed to go through tests of their own – goodies like Vetter Hippo Hands, a DB touring fairing, a Suzuki Tank Bag, a Chameleon Adjustable Backrest, GDH Rain-suit, and so on.

By late that afternoon, the Titan began looking a lot like an Electra Glide (it was even blue). Into the saddlebags and tote box all of my worldly possessions were crammed — clothes, tools, inner tubes, oil and Chain lube, camera equipment and film to the point where motion was almost a questionable subject. At this point, the bike was roadworthy. A last-minute conference
brought up the idea of providing the bike with absolutely no maintenance for the duration of the test. We decided that the bike
was to be totally neglected with the exception of gas and oil. That was to include neglecting the timing, injection adjustments,
chain adjustment, transmission maintenance, bolt tightening and, heaven forbid, the spark plugs, for as long as they would
continue, or until they no longer resembled the original part.

Everything was ready for me to set out on this barbaric mission. All that was needed was a name for the operation. Since the
object was one of mileage rather than destination, and since I had no particular destination, the trip was to become known as “Journey To The Centre of Nowhere,” with all due apologies to Jules Verne and Rick Wakeman.

THE JOURNEY: Journey on through the ages gone, to the centre of the earth, Past rocks of quartz and granite, which gave mother nature birth. Burial ground of ancient man, his life no more is seen, A journey through his time unknown, I wonder where he’s been —From “The Forest” by Rick Wakeman.

And so I was off – eight or ten days of mechanical abuse, totalling around 3000 miles, was about to start on my doorstep that
morning. If was a Friday, as I recall, when I first walked out to that Titan in front of the house. I struggled into all of my touring
gear – boots and gloves and jacket and helmet and all. Swung my right leg over the saddle, bent down and inserted the ignition
key, turned it on, and engaged the choke lever. I prepared to swing out the kick lever with my right foot, when I remembered that nasty feature of the Titan – left side kick starter. I climbed off again, since I’m as inept with my left foot as I am with my left hand, and proceeded to boot the lever right-footed. About halfway through the stroke of the lever, the big twin grumbled. The instructions say to let it idle with the choke engaged until the engine is warm. Fine, I sat and I waited. After a moment or two, I found that suddenly I was losing my eyesight – objects started to fade out of view – was I coming down with a strange disease or something? – soon all sight had left me – was I about to die? As I was about to give myself up as a basket case. I realized that I had no sight problem at all – I had been swallowed up in billowing, CCI-metered, triple-thick two-stroke oil fumes. I reached down and released the choke lever, and the billowing began to subside. Even though some of the smoke was dispersing, I could still hear the angry voices of neighbours and howling of irate canines. I wouldn’t have been too surprised to hear fire engines enroute. but it seemed that nobody cared if a magazine editor was smouldering in his front yard.

Must be warm enough by now. A neighbour started running toward me with rolling pin in hand. Yup -it’s plenty warm. Pull in the
clutch, boot the shifter and it’s away, off the curb and out into the streets. Look around for freeway on ramp – lessee, eeny, meeny, miney – this one looks good: State Hwy No. 10/Eastbound. Up onto the freeway and point the Titan out of Los Angeles,
toward the desert. Let the revs climb as I go through the gears. letting the little white pointer of the speedo rest around the 80
mark Lean on back behind the shelter of the fairing and relax. Cruise on past the factories and junkyards, the smog, suburbia,
and the ugly greyness of LA. About an hour out. I couldn’t help but notice that I was just as comfortable at this point as I was some 70-some miles ago. Indeed this bike is proving to be quite nice to live with. Good, soft seat – rubber-mounted bars and
foot pegs – quiet exhaust note, and the engine turning a leisurely four-or-so grand. Looking around before me – check out the gauges and controls’- very well laid out. All of the thumb switches were in just the right places, and the gauges are relatively uncluttered and well marked.

I was out in the very border reaches of civilization when it was time for a quick pit stop for gas. First station I came to turned out to be some cheap independent, that looked like it made more from the egg, beer and cigarette sales than it did by pumping gas. Pulled into the station and headed for the pump that appeared to have their best stuff in it, but then decided to use their cheapest, lowest octane, low lead sub-regular instead. After all, this was an exercise in organized abuse and torture, wasn’t ‘it? Filled up and started the Suzi. Fired first kick. For that matter – it always fired first kick. Back on the road after going through five crisp, positive shifts and settled down for some more rolling comfort. Continued on for an hour or so, till I reached Blythe. Ah. yes – Blythe – the city of dreams – if you happen to be a cow, a cowboy. a trucker, redneck, right-winger or a combination of all five. Felt as though I’d just leave the dream city behind, but I did need gas and a bite to eat. Head down the offramp and on through the center of town. People stare, turn around, make funny faces; continue down the main street, stop and get required food and gas, and make way for the road again.

Putting through town through their “Makes Crawling Look Good” speed limits, had taken a small toll on the Suzi and gotten both plugs a bit loaded up. Down the ramp, I ran both first and second cogs up to the redline. Clouds of blue smoke piled up
behind me, and the bike cleared out just fine. The highway patrolman behind me felt that the bike had cleared out just fine, too. He even pulled me over to have a friendly chat. “Goin’ jest a wee bit fast there, huh, son?” “Well, uh, you see now – uh, – I mean – you know – two stroke and all that – would you believe that the throttle stuck?” Funny, he didn’t seem to believe me. He rattled on about how I should be conserving energy and that I was a threat to the public, and so on. He was also a bit curious as to why the bike had no license plate, paper plate or registration. Cops get curious about little detail’s, you know. Then the gent informed me that I was estimated to be traveling at about 70 per when pulled me over. I knew that this was impossible, because you can’t reach 70 in second gear on a Titan. Signed the ticket anyway, and demanded to see the judge right away. He “escorted” me to the town court/jail/post office/country store, where I convinced the judge that he should reduce the fine from 94 bucks to a more acceptable 25. He something about having his town badmouthed in a national publication – and now I don’t have to say that if California was given an enema. they’d stick the hose in Blythe. Hi America!

Out of Blythe and back to the desert. SIT AND daydream about The Journey To The Centre Of Nowhere. Would I ever find it?
what. do I look for? Nothing? And could I manage to do any sort of damage to the Titan, or would it keep on running? With a question like that staring me in the’ face, I couldn’t help but start some of the Suzi torturing right away. Let’s see – what shall I dish out first? it wasn’t long before my sadistic mind had come up with a great idea: at 80 per – maybe more – I dropped the gearbox down from fifth to third, popped the clutch, watched the engine border on over revving, and opened the throttle all the way: the miles per rose up to the 100 mark, and then I just held it there – third gear, seven or eight grand – for 30 minutes straight. Hmm, this isn’t doing anything bad to the dam thing; in fact, I was beginning to think the bike was enjoying it.

Looking up the road a piece, I saw a car over on the shoulder of the road. with a rather attractive woofie standing nearby. How
could I resist being a good Samaritan at this point? Simple – why resist? Pulled over and asked what was wrong, and she said that it just wouldn’t go. It was a Fiat 850 Spyder, and since I’d had a little experience with Fiats, I had a look. It appeared as though she had overheated the poor thing to the point where it completely seized up solid. One thing was for sure, though, that car wasn’t going anywhere – at least not under its own power. This was my golden opportunity. No, not THAT, you filthy-minded perverts. The opportunity in question was one of perfect torture for the Titan. I latched onto a piece of rope that she had with her, tied one end to the front of her car and the other to the back of the Suzuki. What the hell – I’d seen a Yammie 250 pull a fully-laden NSU before, so why couldn’t I tow a Fiat with a Suzi? I was right – the Suzi did pull the car, and at a pretty decent pace as well. Within about 40 seconds, I had the both of us rolling along at about 40, and the darn bike continued to haul the car up to almost 50 or 55 per. And it did it for some 60 miles. She gave me a nice big thank you, and I left, feeling half defeated and half victorious, the Suzuki’s show of strength being the victorious half of the feeling.

And so the Journey continued on into the night. until I reached some little town in Arizona. It was ‘here, in that town, whatever
town it was, that I decided to end that day’s travel, and get food and a room for the night. “Say, mister, you can tell me where a man might find a bed?” He just smiled and shook my hand. “No” was all he said. A bit further down the road l did find a bed, and even a place to eat. TWO hamburgers. an order of fries and an hour of Johnny Carson were all I could stand. Sleep.

Waking up in a strange place isn’t any fun, especially when it’s at six in the a.m. and to the sound of garbage trucks outside my window. Should have gotten a different room. Well, now that I’m up, I may as well hit the road. The weather was warm, the sky
was blue, and the Suzuki was covered with dew from the night before. Darn thing fired up first kick once again. There’s got to be some way that I can slow this machine down… with a little effort, maybe I can cause a blinker bulb to bum out or something.

Out on the road I gave it my worst, by winding out the gears to set the motor into the deepest reaches of the Red Zone, banging shifts, and generally being nasty. For several hundred miles this went on, into the night and until I was almost out of
Arizona and into Nevada.

Throughout all of this torture, the bike (and I) had been going through several seasons of varied weather. From 40 to 80 to 90 to close to zero the temperatures rose and fell. The Suzi handled them all easily. On to Nevada, Las Vegas, some sleep, and the next day it was off to Utah, more highways, and more searching for The Centre of Nowhere. For several hundred miles I sat, searching, and getting tired. It seemed sure that my fate was to never find No place, not to mention the Centre of the darn
place. I felt positive that if I was to find the Centre of Nowhere, I wasn’t going to find it in Utah. Apparently, the only thing there
is in Utah are pickup trucks and Sheriff’s cars. Sadly, the pickup trucks are grossly outnumbered. There is, though, at least one
other thing in that state – snow – and quite a bit of it at that. It has never been claimed by anyone, that riding ·a motorcycle is fun when the fairing’s windscreen is clouded with frost and ice, or when snow and muck start blowing up under your chin and into a full-coverage helmet, Nor is it a jovial experience to be Frozen all over until every nerve is flashing pain instead of cold. I
was in the kind of weather that was severe enough to render Hippo Hands helpless. Weather that had the power to turn heavy-duty touring apparel into a defense-less babe in the woods. To make the picture perfectly dear – I was freezing my butt off.

A beacon in the snowy sky, reading: “Astro Motel” was signifying heavily. Sleep came easily. but when I was ready to depart in the morning, I found the weather to be just as bad as it was an evening ago. Great, Back into the cold I went, and battled it back into Nevada, hoping to find warmer weather and, eventually, The Centre Of Nowhere. On one stretch of road I thought
that maybe I might be getting close to the ultimate goal. I had found a road, a small road, in the middle of the desert, that looked as if it might led me to Nowhere. There was even a sign saying that there were no place’s to get gas for the next 100 miles or so. I flipped up the gas cap and peered down into the tank. Looked like plenty.

Headed out in search of Nowhere. Travelled on for a way and, being still within the bounds of “Somewhere,” decided to take
time out for a torture-break. My timing must have been right (about the torture session), because directly to my left I could see a beautiful. straight, narrow set of railroad tracks. Perfect – what better abuse could I find in the middle of the desert? I bumped the bike over one of the tracks .and pointed the Titan down the centre of the two tracks… and ran first gear up as far as it would go… say to about the end of the tachometer dial…and held it there for some 15 minutes. The “test” would have lasted longer, but my body was about to become a giant mass of jello. I bumped on down from the tracks and onto the road again.

As I motored on down the highway, I thought back on what the tracks must have been doing to the bike. I could picture the
crank as the bike went over each railroad tie… a sudden jolt as it went up… a micro-second of slack, and then another jolt…and having it happen about 350,000 times in first gear… and in the Red Zone. Gawd, it made me cringe just to think about it, but the Suzuki just kept on humming along never giving any sign of snivelling…..

A few more miles and another day had gone by… eat, refuel, sleep, and then another day of torture – and another – and still searching for The Centre Of Nowhere through it all. A couple of times I thought that perhaps I had seen a fleeting glance of Nowhere, but I was mistaken. ” It wasn’t until I’ had been in several different states that l realized what I was looking for was back in Nevada. At least I thought it was, because there were a few times that I could remember when a strange feeling came over me. It was ..a feeling of nearness, as if I wore close to my goal – so I went back into the middle of Nevada, to try to track down that same feeling. and possibly even find The Centre Of Nowhere.

It happened a couple of hours after I had crossed the border – that feeling of nearness returned again. It drew both me and the
Suzuki away from the main highway, onto a smaller road, and from there we were led to an even smaller road, then to a dirt
road, then finally to a small cow trail. The Suzi carried us along the trail, which grew smaller as the feeling of nearness to Nowhere grew larger. Eventually, the trail could become no smaller, and the feeling could become no larger.

It was at this point that both the Titan and I were sure – yes, very sure, that we had at long last completed the Journey To The
Centre Of Nowhere. All around us, there was nothing. No sight of civilization in any direction was detectable by the naked eye. Or even naked sealed beam. Before us there was a huge rock-like formation that was to mark the Centre. Along the upper portion of the Great Rock there were smaller rocks, both small and large variety rocks, some short, some long. And these small
stones were laid out in a most peculiar pattern. Looking more closely, it was madly apparent that the rocks had been strewn
about in a makeshift type of Morse Code. It was hard to see exactly what the stones were spelling out, due to the diminishing light of the dusk time hours. But then it was clear – the rocks spelled out the words: “WHERE AM I?” At that moment there was
no longer any doubt as to our exact location. We were. indeed, in the Centre Of Nowhere. A quick salute  to The Great Rock, and away we went, the Titan and myself, off to bring the news of our Journey to the people . . . and to further continue the torturing of each and every component of the Suzuki.

Once out on the open road, I felt that travel was more important than torture, and headed out into the darkness towards Las Vegas once again, and a place to rest for the night. Riding through the desert was altogether effortless, and I settled the bike into a steady 70 mph hum. Usually the desert is pretty much void of through traffic at night, but this particular night was a slight exception to the rule – I had company. A BMW. Not the BMW bike, but a Bee Emm automobile. A 2002 to be precise. Now, in case you didn’t know, the 2002 has a very heavy reputation for being one of the few true Grand Touring Coupes around. The reputation that the car is built upon deals with claims of being able to cruise al 100 mph all day long. Not being one to let a chance or a reputation slip by, I decided to play a few games with the Bee Emm. After he went wooshing by me at his leisurly century mark I chose to wind out the Suzi a wee bit and cruise along with him at his set pace. The Titan did the job in a very respectable manner. Not really straining at all, it was as solid on the road at 100 as it was at 50. We continued on like this, at the same steady hum for all of two hours, which put us a few miles short of Vegas. In memory of the Nevada Highway Patrol, or whatever they call themselves, I cut down on the ol’ sped limit until I approached what could be described as a sane rate. The Bee Emm kept up his pace, and I waved him adieu.

Into Las Vegas – a few beers, a little TV, and Off to sleep. The following morning marked the last day of “testing,’° and the day would be spent going back into LA. That morning also marked the day of the First Annual BIG BIKE/Suzuki Vegas to Barstow Run. The planning of this year’s run had had been done a bit haphazardly, but it didn’t really matter because I was the only contestant in the race.

I set up the ground rules anyway. Actually, they were quite simple. All a rider had to do to qualify for the race was: ride a minimum of 2700 miles prior to the race, without maintaining the bike at all during that period, have had no more than four hours sleep before the race, and be nursing a sickly headache and hangover at the start of the race. To help keep with the spirit of competition, none of the riders would be able to bring along any took or supplies for the race and all repairs that must be performed enroute must be made by hand. The last prerequisite for entering the race is that each bike must have at least 95 kilograms (209.5 pounds) of excess weight on the rear 50 percent of the machine (rider not included). Since I had already taken care of all the prerequisite for The First Annual BIG BIKE/Suzuki Vegas To Barstow Run there was nothing holding me back. I fueled up the bike and was ready to rum, hangover and all.

I left the border of Vegas at precisely 9:37 am., and set out to make history on the First of all B.B./Suzuki Runs. Surprisingly, I
was faced with very little in the way of traffic along the way. My speed average was up to par, nothing broke, and my one gas
stop in Baker, California was very quick indeed. All the way into Barstow the bike held high average speeds, and I came across the border of Barstow with flying colours. I forgot to check my watch to see what my total elapsed time was, but it didn’t really matter, though. because I KNEW that I had won. Hell, the competition never even showed up. Next year it will be held on February 25, 1976, and everyone will depart at 6:00 a.m. from the Las Vegas Suzuki Shop on Fremont Blvd. You can’t miss it, it’s the only Suzuki shop in L.V.

All that was left to do to complete the Journey To The Center Of Nowhere was to get back from Barstow into North Hollywood
and still keep the record of no breakdowns with no maintenance. You could have guessed the rest – no breakdowns all the way
into LA., and the bike had undergone 3000 miles of sadistic abuse with not even the tiniest of wrenches coming close to a
single nut or bolt. I must admit that I was still a bit disappointed that i couldn’t make something start running amuck. After all, I
had even been heralded as The Only Living Person to Almost Completely Overheat a Suzuki Water Cooled 750, so why was I unable to render the Titan defunct?

Throughout our testing period of over 3000 miles. we subjected the Suzuki T500 to the worst possible conditions and abuses –
without maintenance of any kind. The bike functioned flawlessly without any mishaps whatsoever. We at BIG BIKE Magazine are thoroughly convinced that the Suzuki Titan is the most reliable twin-cylinder motorcycle available. It can handle anything that any cyclist could conceivably dish out. And to top it off – the Titan is also the lowest priced 500 on the market. What more
could you want?