Aside from my colleagues in the video department at RevZilla, few make better motorcycle videos than FortNine, out of Canada. Ryan Kluftinger has won a following on YouTube (nearly a million subscribers) with videos that have more substance and are more well researched than the usual motorcycle vlogger ranting.
Like RevZilla, FortNine is a retailer (with a capital letter stuck in the middle of its name). Digression warning: I find it interesting that the old pattern was for retailers to advertise on media sites and those media sites created the content that drew the viewers and readers that made the advertising worthwhile (arguably). Now, in the new model the retailers are providing the content directly to the consumers, as I do with the written word at RevZilla’s Common Tread or as our video team and Ryan at FortNine do.
While the FortNine videos are invariably good, the last one caught my attention for a totally personal reason. Ryan compared a 2020 Honda CB300R to a 1975 Honda CB360T. The question: In the end, who got the better deal? The kid buying the CB300R today? Or his grandfather, who bought the CB360T 45 years ago?
The sad truth is that I’m grandfatherly in age these days, if not in reality (due to lack of offspring). And my personal interest is explained by the fact that, like many of my fellow grandparent-age riders, my first-ever motorcycle was a 1976 Honda CB360T, one year off the example Ryan displays in his video but identical otherwise, including the exact same paint job.
Spoiler alert: Ryan concludes the 1975 Honda was a better deal, though naturally the 2020 model has some major advantages.
I bought my own blue 1976 CB360T in 1979 at age 18. I got it used and, looking back, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get a good deal. Not surprising, considering my lack of experience and knowledge at the time.
One of the most remarkable things about that purchase is something I’ve never really shared before. And I’m not sure if people will take it as proof of my complete and total youthful foolishness or a sign of some innate skill. But when I went to the seller’s house and bought the Honda, that was the first time I had ever operated a vehicle with a clutch. I learned to drive cars with an automatic transmission and the only motorcycle I had ridden was the old Honda 50 my parents had bought when I was a small child, and it had a centrifugal clutch. No lever to operate, no way to stall taking off from a stop.
But I understood the concept of how a clutch and gears were supposed to work, and apparently that was enough to enable me to get on this strange-to-me vehicle and ride it home that first day. And somehow I learned to ride well enough that I haven’t killed myself in the subsequent 40 years, even though my first formal education (aside from what I read in motorcycle magazine articles about riding skills) didn’t come until 20 years later.
After a couple of years I traded the Honda for a bike that was better, or at least one I thought was better. I’m not one of the many people who yearn to have their first bike back. I’m happy with the many that have followed it, I’m really glad I bought it and started this journey on it, but I can’t honestly say I miss it.
It was nice, however, to see it pop up on YouTube, something unimaginable in 1979, and also good to see it get some respect.
