HOW SPIKE SPIED THE CAVALCADE PROTOTYPE
by Spike Jones
I was on my way to a camping trip up along the California coast in about Feb ‘85.
I was in Monterey and a bike came up next to me and passed. It was shocking,
because I didn’t recognize it. In those days I knew eeeeevery bike there was.
This one was different from all of them, so I gave chase just to find out.
There was a man and a woman aboard, but part of the surprise was the woman was at the controls.
I chased them for a ways on my GS850. Finally, they pulled into a gas station, and I
pulled along side. There were no brand markings of any kind on the bike.
I could tell by the deep melodious exhaust note that it was a waaaay big displacement engine.
They pulled off their helmets and I recognized them as editors of one of the bike
magazines. Unfortunately, I used to get four different ones in those days and I could
not recall which mag they were from or their names, but I believe the young lady's
name was Grace something and the man was Japanese. Sorry, that’s all I recall of
them, but we got talking and they could tell I was a hard core biker but were reluctant
to tell me much about their mount, since it had not been announced.
They let me look it over. I noticed a number of things about the bike, such
as the 9 spoke wheels, the arrangement of the front brake calipers, the bar end weights, the
arrangement of the brake and clutch fluid reservoirs, etc. There were a dozen clues
that it was a Suzuki, since it had Suzuki *style* points all over it.
Now, I would have been able to figure it out even without these clues. Because at the
time Honda was making the wing, Yamaha already had a new V4 the Venture, Kawasaki had an inline 6 the Voyager, Harley never changes, and
none of the other bike companies were sophisticated enough at the time to produce anything like this.
Suzuki had the excellent GS1100G at the time, which was functionally quite competent
but lacked a certain charisma, and was a very dated design. So, I correctly surmised
it must be a pre-production Suzuki big bore... and let me assure you, I wanted one!
I chased the pair down G17 then headed home. Suzuki announced the Cavalcade
shortly after, I ordered one and had it in my grubby hands by May of that year.
So that’s my long-winded meet-the-Cavalcade story. I’ve had that bike ever
since, and its been my favorite (out of 12 total bikes owned, three currently in the garage.)
~Spike Jones
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