XL175 - "Gladys"

I bought this 1975 Honda XL175 at the end of 2017. It was on Craigslist, somewhere out by San Juan Capistrano, so me and Brody picked it up when I was down there for Thanksgiving. I coerced the guy into doing $500 since he didn't have a street title for it and I could only get a green sticker. It was disassembled when I got it, and I was on the fence about it at the time (the thought of passing up a $500 bike seems absurd to me now), but once I saw the side covers, I was convinced.

 

Loading it up after we got it running. There was a dent in the bed of the Tacoma forever after this. 

 

 

I brought it back to Wyoming with me in 2018 and traveled with it for a few years, keeping it around my cabin as a ranch bike and doing some light day trips with it. I did some absolutely insane trail riding with this thing, taking it on rocky horse trails that were 6 inches wide on the sides of waterfalls and all sorts of western shit. I also gathered horses with it one time. Wish I had photos of that. 

I crashed it pretty good when I sailed over a gravel berm and went flipping face first through sage and cactus, dented the tank on both sides from fork slap but other than that it didn't show much hurt, thankfully. Now it's mostly retired in California but I've taken it out for desert runs here and there. This is a short entry, because there isn't much to report with this bike. I've done some mild mods to it, but mostly I've kept it original. I removed the turn signals, added new grips, taped and visored the headlight and did a few new decals, and that's about it. Sometimes, you just get along.