An elderly, early model, Honda CBR400 wasn't an ideal despatch hack but it was cheap and appeared in fine fettle despite the 56000 kilometres on its clock. The exhaust was either degutted or rusted out, either way it made for a loud and therefore safe ride through the jam-packed madness of Central London.
I was soon revving it into the red and skidding through the autumn wetness of the city. It looked a bit odd, with panniers and top box lashed out back, in contrast to the racer front end. And it wasn't very comfy, too much mass on my wrists. Also the handlebar lock was restricted, making for some desperate tugging on the bars to get through the usual gaps.
After a couple of weeks I'd adapted to its rather strange ways and was doing some record cross-London times. Then the engine turned extremely sulky, didn't seem to want to rev at all. Doing 20mph on a bike that was only vaguely comfortable above 60mph wasn't much fun, neither was being cut up by manic step-thru's. After a bit of pulling and poking I took it into the nearest Honda dealer who reckoned a new cylinder head would probably sort it.
Some more pulling and poking followed, I eventually discovered that the choke cable had rusted solid, leaving the choke half on. The simple solution was to force the choke permanently open and juggle the throttle from cold, the engine screaming at about 9000 revs for a couple of minutes until it caught. Had the neighbours screaming as well.
The well wired state in which I had to ride the madly revving little four quickly led to a series of accidents. The first involved the side of a bus, should've been straight into it but I somehow tricked the yowling Honda into going sideways. Merely ruining all the plastic plus indicators and one handlebar end.
The bus driver wanted to hit me but some concerned ped's held him back - astoundingly - long enough for me to give the CBR a few kicks and roar off into the traffic. Any kind of insurance claim makes the next premium totally impossible.
The second accident, the nearly bald tyres let loose on some diesel splattered tarmac with the predictable result of bike and rider sliding down the road. The nearest cagers veered towards my prone form - I kid you not! - but I hopped, skipped and jumped out of the way.
The bike did some serious damage to a couple of expensive cages but ended up intact, flipped upright next to a black cab. The dent in his door locked the driver inside, so I gave him the finger but I don't think he saw it as he was enveloped in all the steam coming out of his ears. Another runner.
Took about ten yards before I worked out that something was seriously twisted, the handlebars trying to leap out of my hands. Curiously, it was safer at 40mph than 4mph, allowing me to flee the area. Judging by the way the bike was flagged down by a couple of cops an hour later it had become a hot number. I pretended to ignore the plod, left them talking crazily into their radio. A can of matt black paint and some mud on the numberplate were a sufficient disguise to avoid further unwanted attention.
Turned out the forks were bent. The local back street bodger managed to snap them in half rather than straighten them out! Silly old bastard. He offered me a few hundred quid for what was left of the hack, mentioning that the main bearings sounded like they were knocking. More like his brain cells but I had a BMW R100RT lined up as my next cheap despatch hack so took the easy way out - after all, there was no simple way of moving the CBR!
The BMW was cheap because it had done 160,000 miles. The CBR's gearchange had been loose and unpredictable, but the RT took things to a new level of truculence! The shaft's bearings were so worn that it churned away in a malevolent manner, threatening to kick every engagement of a gear into a very noisy false neutral that felt like the gears were stripping teeth off each other.
I felt rather like a nodding dog in the back of a car, being shaken around by a falling and rising back end whilst the original pogo-stick front end reacted with violence both to the rear end's machinations and any road bumps. The bike lurched strongly sideways whenever the gearchange or throttle were used in anger but it was all fairly predictable and kinda fun after a while.
One element of the bike that shouldn't be underestimated is its sheer width. White with flashes of red and blue, I dumped on the horn, made cagers twitch out of the way, thinking it was a police bike, though they turned quite violent when they realised it was just another DR playing silly games.
The BMW lasted all of two weeks. Nope, the huge mileage hadn't finally caught up with the engine or transmission. At the end of a very tiring ten hours despatching, I misjudged the effect of a blast of throttle on second gear progress, the bike lurching into the side of a cage rather than going through a dubious gap. The BMW twitched the other way in recompense. An amazing amount of damage was done by the two cylinder heads, the bike ended up wedged between a big Ford and a bigger VW. Big cracks in the fairing the major damage suffered by the Beemer. It did bring home to me how unsuited the bike was to the more desperate despatching manoeuvres. After patching up the fairing, sold on at a couple of hundred quid profit.
I'd already found a replacement, a relatively low mileage Kawasaki GPZ600. Felt sublimely smooth and sophisticated, as well as incredibly fast turning, after the lumbering carthorse of a BMW. I did miss the RT's superb protection, especially as the days turned wetter and colder. Just add another couple of layers of clothes.
The GPZ had a certain amount of hidden nastiness, the sixteen inch front wheel, even shod with a newish Michelin, would twitch away from the upright without the slightest warning. Similarly, the discs lacked any kind of feel or feedback, dead easy to have the front tyre howling, skidding off the tarmac.
A couple of heavy boot-down sessions soon followed, making me ride in a relatively slow and cautious manner - ie, doing no more than 50mph through densely packed cages... only kidding, officer. After a little time I became a bit critical of a drop in power at around three grand, the bike sulked for a few moments until it got going again - probably in need of a new airfilter or something.
The easy way around it was to keep the revs above five grand, which was where most of the power was at, going nicely fierce at 8000rpm. A top speed of around 135mph (on the motorway, I hasten to add) and better than 55mpg made for some relatively easy times once I'd become used to the flimsy front end handling.
Kept the bike for around six months, never actually hit anything so it must've been a good 'un! Sold it because the camchain was rattling and the cheap Japlop I'd fitted to the front defined the meaning of suicidal. Made a nice profit, too.
I was then rather taken with a classic GS750 Suzuki, not the kind of machine that comes to mind as a useful despatch hack but it was cheap, down to shabby cosmetics - pound signs lit up in my brain! The engine wasn't at all nifty by modern standards, even with only 45000 miles on the clock, giving the impression of running through sludge. It would get there eventually, putting 125mph on the clock on a long straight.
The chassis was slow turning but about five times more stable than the Kawasaki, the GS one of the better bikes I've ridden in the wet (came with nearly new Metz's). The suspension appeared original but was nowhere near as soggy as I'd expected whilst the twin front discs had plenty of feel, sufficient power, and a touch of the old wet weather lag that was removed by gently caressing the lever to make the pads clear off the water.
A quick respray, some work with the decals, and a weekend's worth of polishing had it ready for the classic nutters. Of course, Monday was filthy and the bike soon covered in muck. Still, sold it to the first guy who turned up. After the heavyweight 750, the MZ 250 replacement seemed more like a moped than a worthy despatch hack but I'll soon get used to it.
I was soon revving it into the red and skidding through the autumn wetness of the city. It looked a bit odd, with panniers and top box lashed out back, in contrast to the racer front end. And it wasn't very comfy, too much mass on my wrists. Also the handlebar lock was restricted, making for some desperate tugging on the bars to get through the usual gaps.
After a couple of weeks I'd adapted to its rather strange ways and was doing some record cross-London times. Then the engine turned extremely sulky, didn't seem to want to rev at all. Doing 20mph on a bike that was only vaguely comfortable above 60mph wasn't much fun, neither was being cut up by manic step-thru's. After a bit of pulling and poking I took it into the nearest Honda dealer who reckoned a new cylinder head would probably sort it.
Some more pulling and poking followed, I eventually discovered that the choke cable had rusted solid, leaving the choke half on. The simple solution was to force the choke permanently open and juggle the throttle from cold, the engine screaming at about 9000 revs for a couple of minutes until it caught. Had the neighbours screaming as well.
The well wired state in which I had to ride the madly revving little four quickly led to a series of accidents. The first involved the side of a bus, should've been straight into it but I somehow tricked the yowling Honda into going sideways. Merely ruining all the plastic plus indicators and one handlebar end.
The bus driver wanted to hit me but some concerned ped's held him back - astoundingly - long enough for me to give the CBR a few kicks and roar off into the traffic. Any kind of insurance claim makes the next premium totally impossible.
The second accident, the nearly bald tyres let loose on some diesel splattered tarmac with the predictable result of bike and rider sliding down the road. The nearest cagers veered towards my prone form - I kid you not! - but I hopped, skipped and jumped out of the way.
The bike did some serious damage to a couple of expensive cages but ended up intact, flipped upright next to a black cab. The dent in his door locked the driver inside, so I gave him the finger but I don't think he saw it as he was enveloped in all the steam coming out of his ears. Another runner.
Took about ten yards before I worked out that something was seriously twisted, the handlebars trying to leap out of my hands. Curiously, it was safer at 40mph than 4mph, allowing me to flee the area. Judging by the way the bike was flagged down by a couple of cops an hour later it had become a hot number. I pretended to ignore the plod, left them talking crazily into their radio. A can of matt black paint and some mud on the numberplate were a sufficient disguise to avoid further unwanted attention.
Turned out the forks were bent. The local back street bodger managed to snap them in half rather than straighten them out! Silly old bastard. He offered me a few hundred quid for what was left of the hack, mentioning that the main bearings sounded like they were knocking. More like his brain cells but I had a BMW R100RT lined up as my next cheap despatch hack so took the easy way out - after all, there was no simple way of moving the CBR!
The BMW was cheap because it had done 160,000 miles. The CBR's gearchange had been loose and unpredictable, but the RT took things to a new level of truculence! The shaft's bearings were so worn that it churned away in a malevolent manner, threatening to kick every engagement of a gear into a very noisy false neutral that felt like the gears were stripping teeth off each other.
I felt rather like a nodding dog in the back of a car, being shaken around by a falling and rising back end whilst the original pogo-stick front end reacted with violence both to the rear end's machinations and any road bumps. The bike lurched strongly sideways whenever the gearchange or throttle were used in anger but it was all fairly predictable and kinda fun after a while.
One element of the bike that shouldn't be underestimated is its sheer width. White with flashes of red and blue, I dumped on the horn, made cagers twitch out of the way, thinking it was a police bike, though they turned quite violent when they realised it was just another DR playing silly games.
The BMW lasted all of two weeks. Nope, the huge mileage hadn't finally caught up with the engine or transmission. At the end of a very tiring ten hours despatching, I misjudged the effect of a blast of throttle on second gear progress, the bike lurching into the side of a cage rather than going through a dubious gap. The BMW twitched the other way in recompense. An amazing amount of damage was done by the two cylinder heads, the bike ended up wedged between a big Ford and a bigger VW. Big cracks in the fairing the major damage suffered by the Beemer. It did bring home to me how unsuited the bike was to the more desperate despatching manoeuvres. After patching up the fairing, sold on at a couple of hundred quid profit.
I'd already found a replacement, a relatively low mileage Kawasaki GPZ600. Felt sublimely smooth and sophisticated, as well as incredibly fast turning, after the lumbering carthorse of a BMW. I did miss the RT's superb protection, especially as the days turned wetter and colder. Just add another couple of layers of clothes.
The GPZ had a certain amount of hidden nastiness, the sixteen inch front wheel, even shod with a newish Michelin, would twitch away from the upright without the slightest warning. Similarly, the discs lacked any kind of feel or feedback, dead easy to have the front tyre howling, skidding off the tarmac.
A couple of heavy boot-down sessions soon followed, making me ride in a relatively slow and cautious manner - ie, doing no more than 50mph through densely packed cages... only kidding, officer. After a little time I became a bit critical of a drop in power at around three grand, the bike sulked for a few moments until it got going again - probably in need of a new airfilter or something.
The easy way around it was to keep the revs above five grand, which was where most of the power was at, going nicely fierce at 8000rpm. A top speed of around 135mph (on the motorway, I hasten to add) and better than 55mpg made for some relatively easy times once I'd become used to the flimsy front end handling.
Kept the bike for around six months, never actually hit anything so it must've been a good 'un! Sold it because the camchain was rattling and the cheap Japlop I'd fitted to the front defined the meaning of suicidal. Made a nice profit, too.
I was then rather taken with a classic GS750 Suzuki, not the kind of machine that comes to mind as a useful despatch hack but it was cheap, down to shabby cosmetics - pound signs lit up in my brain! The engine wasn't at all nifty by modern standards, even with only 45000 miles on the clock, giving the impression of running through sludge. It would get there eventually, putting 125mph on the clock on a long straight.
The chassis was slow turning but about five times more stable than the Kawasaki, the GS one of the better bikes I've ridden in the wet (came with nearly new Metz's). The suspension appeared original but was nowhere near as soggy as I'd expected whilst the twin front discs had plenty of feel, sufficient power, and a touch of the old wet weather lag that was removed by gently caressing the lever to make the pads clear off the water.
A quick respray, some work with the decals, and a weekend's worth of polishing had it ready for the classic nutters. Of course, Monday was filthy and the bike soon covered in muck. Still, sold it to the first guy who turned up. After the heavyweight 750, the MZ 250 replacement seemed more like a moped than a worthy despatch hack but I'll soon get used to it.
Brian T.