Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Bsa bulletin board Took The Herd For A Ride Today

I have 4 bikes, a 75 Norton Commando MkIII, 68 Triumph Bonneville, 69 BSA 441 VS and a USMC M1030M1 diesel. I took each one for a short ride today, just to exercise them. The BSA was last. As usual, I enjoyed the BSA single the most and my short ride on the 441 ended up being three hours. The weather was perfect, the BSA started on the first kick as usual, and I was having so much fun on it riding in the mountains, I couldn't return home. That is my favorite bike of all time with a close second being a B50 I had when new.

A Marine Corps diesel bike?? What is that like to ride? Never heard of these…

The bike has a lot of torque. The high compression engine makes it slow down real fast when you let up on the throttle. Some vibration. It's fun to ride and draws a lot of attention. It gets almost 100 miles per gallon. It handles pretty well. When you hear it run, there is no doubt whether it is a diesel!

I don't see a kick starter on the RH side. so it better be a button bike because a LH kick would be brutal.

Cool bike though. Where did you find such a thing?

No kick starter on the bike. It being a diesel with such high compression, there is no way anyone could start it with a kick anyway. I bought it at auction on Govdeals.com about 5 years ago. They still show up occasionally. They were developed by Hayes Diversified Technologies in California. HDT supplied the U.S. Military and some NATO and EU countries with military motorcycles for years. The bike started life as a Kawasaki KLR650, which was converted by HDT to military specs and called it an M1030B1 and was gas powered. Later, the Marines sent somewhere near 150 M1030B1 motorcycles back to HDT to retrofit the diesel engine. HDT designed and built the diesel engine at their facility in California. The gearbox is the original Kawasaki 5-speed. The Marines started the whole process to eliminate the need for gasoline fuel. Everything else is diesel. They were used by the U.S. Marines, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, the United Kingdom and several other NATO and EU countries. In Europe they were called M1030M1E. HDT is now out of business and no more are being made. Fred Hayes owned HDT and he died of a stroke a little over a year ago. Fred Hayes was developing a civilian model but health and finances got in the way. Fred Hayes still holds the land speed record for diesel powered motorcycles. My particular M1030M1 saw service in Afghanistan. It still has ISAF stickers in Pashto on the front and back. All of the blackout lights on the bike still work. There are also three RFID devices on the bike to permit identification when going through security checkpoints. I couldn't believe they left them on when it was released from military service. It also has a rifle rack mounted across the handlebars for an M16..

Any chance of some more pics of this unusual piece of equipment

I sure have never heard of one either ...... love the camo seat .

I'll try to get some more photos up tomorrow.

Gary, after reading your post, I am in your ball park. Have several Brit rides and that VS is my go to ride for just having a fun leisure ride. Or if you see a trail while riding on the pavement, it's like, "let's go!" They are so nimble and sometimes I find myself thinking, turn left and kick the rear wheel out and nail the throttle. The VS has already beat me to the move and I'm following it's lead. They are just the greatest little bikes. Loved your post. KC

As requested, here are some more photos of my M1030M1 diesel motorcycle.

excellent thanks ... now you need an Hummer to mount it on the back

And just now…
https://www.advrider.com/2000-kawasaki-kl650-a-hdt-military-rollin-coal/?ute_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-03–07-2023

yeah, theres been several threads on ADV. heres another that re-surfaced today

https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/...al-and-maintenance-instructions.1517103/


btw, I'm an old KLR guy

Strange that you are allowed to have USMC insignia on it . I know Y'ALL do things different in USA

Here you would not be allowed to have (as an example) NZ SAS etc on a piece of civilian equipment ( regardless of if the military ever owned it) . I was allowed to keep a coat BUT they cut the buttons of it because they had military insignia

But ya know it would be such a great ordinance to " go over yonder to them there hills and make a bit of SHINE" which is your inalienable right !