The cost of insurance meant I was stuck with bikes around the 250cc mark. For once I wanted something nearly new, having spent too much time up to my elbows in grease and oil in the past. Flipping through MCN I spied a 3000 mile old EL250. It was only down the road so I thought I might as well take a look, even though I wasn’t too sure what I was looking at.
The bike was long, low and lean. Pull-back bars, a seat only just over two feet off the ground and a watercooled, twin cylinder DOHC engine. The overall appearance was a bit ruined by a massive radiator and some misconceived panelling around the headstock. I sat aboard the beast, with a meaty throb out of the slash cut mufflers, and somehow felt right at home. A brief wobble around the streets had me sold!
New they are just under £3000, I was quite happy to pay £2100 for a mere five month old bike. Riding home my thighs felt a bit cramped but the seat was jolly comfortable and the suspension was amazingly compliant after the string of old hacks I’d owned in the past.
The motor needed revs to move. With 27hp at 12000 and 13ftlb at 10,000 revs, Kawasaki obviously didn’t design the motor with low end grunt in mind. It had an extremely short stroke which didn’t help with low speed running. Below 3000 revs there was naff all power and the chain seemed to whip around in the taller gears. Extravagant use of the clutch, throttle and six speed gearbox would make it flow ahead of the traffic, helped by a minimal mass of 310lbs. Surprisingly low given its looks.
I actually found myself stalling the bike a couple of times when I used insufficient revs on take-off. It would have been very embarrassing had not the starter put it back into life first press of the button. It would run quite happily between 3000 and 8000 revs with sufficient power for town work, but only really came in hard between 8 and 12000rpm.
Because the suspension was good, the riding position laid back, town riding was a joy despite the need to play games on the gearbox. Great big pot-holes would wobble the front end a little but most of the shock was absorbed by the forks. The rear suspension was good old twin shocks. I say good because my last bike had a mono-shock arrangement which ruined its bearings every six months. No fear of that with the resilient shocks out back and not a linkage bearing in sight.
I had a 15 mile commute each way to do every day. I thought the EL was ideal, rolling up to work in record time with a big grin on my face. With a 59 inch wheelbase, the Kawasaki was a bit long to swing around the narrower gaps but its easy manoeuvrability and light weight meant that for most of the time I could flick, brake and accelerate with the best of them.
The brakes were perfectly matched to the chassis and performance. A sensible rear drum that was able to provide sensitive braking just up to the point where the wheel was about to lock up. A single front disc brake that needed more power than most but at least was unlikely to lock up the wheel unless a desperate need for stoppies was in the rider’s mind. In fact, it was very hard to get either the front or back wheel off the ground.
The first month of ownership was miraculously dry, so I was used to the bike by the time the first showers hit our great country. My infatuation quickly did a runner. The Dunlops were quite worn but I had not expected them to skate all over the road. And the sit up and beg riding position meant that it was the quickest way known to man to become completely soaked in even the mildest of downpours.
Arriving at work I was shaking from the combination of cold and damp. Cursing the bike like I used to an old vibratory CB125 I once owned. After recovering, returning to the bike at night I was even more annoyed to find that some of the fastenings had a bit of surface rust on them. I’d been quite fastidious about cleaning the EL, there seemed little excuse for such degradation.
The next day was a Saturday, so I headed for the tyre shop, not too happy to find that the rear 140/90x15 wheel was an extremely rare size. I ended up with a 150/90x15 Pirelli that was meant for a bloody great Goldwing. This was so expensive I had to live on beans for the next week, but along with the new front tyre, made it safe on the wet roads and doesn’t seem to have worn at all. It seems a bit strange to have a 15 inch wheel when even Harleys have 16 inchers!
I had to resort to some really heavy nylon waterproofs during the winter. It was the only way to stop the water getting in. I ended up looking like the Michelin Man, making a nonsense of the stylish silhouette of the Kawasaki. I liked the reassuring growl of the twin and the relentless way the EL ran through the worst weather the winter could summon up. Its only foible was reluctant starting, needing the throttle juggled to keep the engine from cutting out until it’d had ten minutes to warm up. The engine was very cold running, the coolant rarely getting hot and bothered.
I gave a few mates in work a pillion ride, trying to educate their cage trained minds. One fell right off the back when I gave her a bit of throttle. Poor guy was still sitting on the ground mouth agape when I came back to see what the hell he was doing. Another got off after a mere ten minutes, with a John Wayne stagger, complaining about the damage done to his wedding tackle. The EL has a pretty minimal pad for pillions to perch upon, which even the frailest of women have problems accommodating. But it’s all part of the style of its cut down rear end!
Two up riding also put some stress on the suspension. It didn’t take much weight to get the shocks so far compressed that the footrests started scraping in bends, although solo it seemed to bank over far enough to start me worrying about going off the edges of the tyres!
Fuel was another downer, coming in at about 50mpg. With just over two gallons that doesn’t give much of a range for a machine, solo, that would probably be capable of doing 200 miles in a session. The back end was so shaped that it made anything bigger than a lunch box very difficult to tie down. As someone used to carrying bags of cement on the back of ancient hacks this was a very real limitation to the EL’s practicality.
The clock now reads 13000 miles. All I’ve done to the motor is add oil and change the filter. I can’t afford dealer services and the valvegear needs a hell of a lot of stripping off of bits to access, but it still runs as well as ever. It seems that modern, watercooled motors, especially when they are mildly tuned like the EL (Honda were making the same power in 1968 from their CB250K1 twin), run on regardless of neglectful maintenance. It does seem strange that such a mild motor has such poor economy, but that’s probably down to its high revving nature and lack of aerodynamic efficiency. It doesn’t consume or leak oil, which is nice after some of the bikes I’ve owned.
With the spring, the bike’s getting back into its element again. Warm weather, dry days and a bit of spirited riding are much more to the taste of the EL. Just before writing this I took it for a run down some favourite country lanes, 70 to 80mph on the clock for most of the time and lots of throwing from side to side. Came back as high as a glue sniffer and with a smile as wide as a comedian in the middle of a hit run.
The EL250 obviously won’t be to everyone’s taste. I’m a bit on the short side so it’s a great relief to find a bike on which I can firmly plant both feet on the ground. I’ve seen a couple advertised around the £2000 mark, so £1750 in used fifties will probably buy a low mileage one. Can’t be bad!
Richard Trellis