Monster drinking sessions followed by similar hangovers are one of the primary memories of my life in Aberdeen. Another recurring flashback is to my first motorcycle, a Suzuki GT185. What a little beauty, all turquoise blue and acres of chrome. It shot out diamond sparkles of light like a gemstone; I adored that two stroke twin.
It had chromed wheels, chromed exhausts, chromed mudguards and chromed chain guard. Just about everything was chromed and if it wasn't chromed it was highly polished alloy. I never worked out why they had overlooked chroming the single hydraulic front disc. Instead it was a very shiny type of stainless steel which, on contact with water, developed an instant teflon coating - I'm sure I would have had better luck with the women in the subsequent years if it had been fitted with the earlier model's TLS drum. I now look 80 when in fact I'm 40, and I've got completely white hair. The joys of motorcycling, eh?
A promotional feature was the Ram Air cooling. This was pure ad man goes to engineering school fantasy, and meant that the cylinder head was designed in such a way that it might appear to make better use of any passing airstream. Perhaps to compensate, the bike had an electric starter on the end of the crankshaft that when the engine was running turned itself into a dynamo. Magic! I rarely had to use the kickstart.
Without crossing my fingers behind my back I can tell you that I was truly impressed with this bike. I had driven masses of cars and not one of them had had even 10% of the technical wizardry that was built into this mechanical jewel.
I had some epic rides. Not particularly long or even fast but very high in grin factor. Usually, I went alone because my pal, on a CB200 was the only other person enthusiastic enough to ride purely for the fun of it, worked opposite shifts. I doubt that the coast roads from Rattray Head in Arbroath in the south can be surpassed for elemental splendour when viewed at dawn on a summer's day. Earth, sea, sky, raw nature....no cars, no people and few houses.
I had no proper riding gear, just an open faced helmet and gloves. I must have been a little mad because it was very cold on the coast. A more comfortable ride was up the verdant Dee Valley to Braemar, for tea and oakcakes with her at the big house. Most of these day trips totalled less than 120 miles but still seemed like full sized adventures. There was always lots to stop to look at. Scotland is littered with derelict castles like Oz is with beer tinnies.
I also got a lot of pleasure from maintaining, cleaning and tinkering with the GT. I would reset the ignition far more often than was necessary. It was a pleasant job for when the sun was shining and, anyway, I still had the dial test indicator and points meter from karting days. Accurate ignition timing was necessary to avoid turning the engine into an aluminium smelter.
The lubrication system consisted of an oil pump which was regulated by both rpm and engine load. The oil was pressure fed through two lines to the left and centre main bearings and from there to the big-ends. Another two lines fed the skirts of the pistons. The right main bearing was supplied from the separate gearbox oil supply. This engineering finesse was at odds with the usual awful crossheaded screws which held the engine covers on.
Although I adored the 185, there were some things that pissed me off. My only real hate was directed towards the gearchange lever which was shaped like a dog's hind leg. This was necessary to clear the extended left-hand engine cover which housed the points and the starter/dynamo. Two bad things resulted from this - one was that you had to ride with your left foot sticking out like a duck, and the other was that the toe-bar of the lever gave me painful blisters on the big toe of my left foot.
The first week that I rode the bike I began to think that I had unwittingly bought one with optional extra neutrals in the gearbox. I learned that I couldn't get away with the practice of pulling in the clutch lever and then dabbing down through the gears; you had to release the clutch between each gear selection, at least enough to brush the clutch plates together. In town traffic this became downright tiresome.
The handlebars were set very low, almost at clip-on level, and were cranked well forwards which threw most of one's weight on to one's wrists until this was counterbalanced by the slipstream above 80mph. Unfortunately, the bike had a top speed of 80mph, so I had to wait a year or two before experiencing the joys of riding without sore wrists.
The handling was okay but had a dead feel to it. I was never confident of knowing what was happening at road level. The feedback from the road surface was somehow lost on the way to the handlebars. Having set up the required angle of lean into a constant radius corner you had to keep strong countersteer pressure on the bars all the time. It always wanted to run wide. After riding for a while my fingers would go numb, not from the cold but from the ultra high frequency vibes. They were the sort of frequency that is so high that you can hardly feel that it is happening. The onset of numbness could be delayed by holding the grips more loosely, but this was made difficult by the weight on one's wrists.
My final grumble must be against the chainguard which may have done an excellent job of guarding the chain (although from what I can't imagine) but allowed any chain lube to be flicked all over the bike.
The exhausts had removable baffles which allowed the wise to clean them and the brainless to deafen the population whilst restricting the power output. This was quoted at 21hp, and equates to 114hp per litre. If these gee gees truly were genuine thoroughbreds then the Jap two strokes deserve more credit. Surprisingly, the motor was totally lacking in temperament and would pull, with ever increasing power, from very low revs right up to the red line - and this without the benefit of reed valves.
The gearbox had started off with five gears and three or more neutrals. After I had learnt to change gear properly the neutrals disappeared - all of them! Thus it was worth searching for the one between first and second before coming to a halt. Up any gradient or into a head wind (and those sorts of winds were invented in Scotland) it would go faster in fourth than in top. On some journeys I never got into top and petrol consumption degenerated to a level where my wallet would cringe into the darkest corner of my pocket. Really slow riding could return 80mpg but the usual average was 60mpg; the worst was 43mpg.
I really can't give a good excuse for selling this bike. It did everything that I wanted excepting the sore wrists which I could have fixed with different handlebars and the blisters on the toe. I think that either the excessive drinking parties or the extreme cold had killed off too many of my brain cells.
I recall that on returning from one of my final trips I was so cold that I would have cried but my tear ducts were frozen over. I must have looked like a gnarled old cowboy because I was all stooped over and couldn't move my hands or get my legs together. In order to thaw out I somehow managed to run a warm bath (molegrips on the taps). At least I had retained my sense of self preservation, for I deliberately avoided mixing in too much hot water. I would have scalded myself and being so numb would not have felt it until too late. After that experience I lost interest in the GT185. Motorcycles, winter and Scotland do not mix at all well.
Marc Sivrac
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A blue, P reg Suzuki GT185 was a rare and wonderful sight in 1992. With just two owners and 18000 miles it was in pretty good nick. I was taken for a ride on the pillion which scared me silly. The owner kept the throttle fully open and the front wheel off the ground for most of the time. I was reassured that most of the mileage had been done in the first owner's hands. The vendor reckoned the GT was a little slow and boring for his taste.
I was still willing to part with 200 notes. Riding home I was a bit surprised with the amount of effort needed on the gearbox, explaining the previous full throttle antics. There was very little bottle below 6000 revs. The OE front light gave a very murky view through the country lanes. It was like looking through dirt encrusted sunglasses. I had the bike doing no more than 30mph in second gear for a dozen miles, as it seemed to need revs to stop the back light flickering - it almost went out at tickover at junctions; cagers need hardly any excuse to back-end bikers under normal circumstances. A very strong tingle factor!
The next day I found a few splotches of rust hidden under the cycle parts. I always whip the tank off to check that the frame is straight. The front fork seals were leaking despite a month old MOT certificate. And, the chain had a couple of tight spots, but still had plenty of adjustment left. Not a good sign. After I fixed those minor things, although the hours involved were out of all proportion to the work done, I was all set to enjoy a summer of contentment.
Scooting around on a lightweight two stroke twin took some getting used to; my more normal means of transport were worthy but essentially dull four stroke twin commuters. As well as the power band, there was also the skittish handling. The worn Michelin tyres reacted to each minor road imperfection. The slightest body movement sent us flying off all over the road. The GT weighed only 260lbs, a lack of mass immediately evident in the minimal muscle needed to throw it through the bends and around cages.
The bike was surprisingly fast, quite happy to put 80mph on the clock in neutral conditions. Against a strong wind it was time to go crazy on the gearbox, with a maximum speed of not much more than 70mph. Motorway work was possible but there was no acceleration left in hand for any avoidance actions that might arise. Still, the way the GT laid down the power was much more attractive than a CD175.
The suspension didn't work very well over bumpy country roads. It was often impossible to keep within a foot of my desired line! The lack of damping at both ends meant I was given a real battering when the roads turned chronically bumpy. The low mass meant I was always able to keep it under control, even if at times it didn't quite feel that way.
The OE rear shocks were the kind of suspension that might just make it on a modern push-bike. There was so much back wheel movement that within a 1000 miles the swinging arm bearings were worn out. They were not the toughest bearings in the world, even in a brand new bike they had trouble lasting out the guarantee. The swinging arm itself was a slim refugee that wouldn't have looked out of place on an NSU Quickly. It was nigh on impossible to line up the rear wheel and the spindle was already scored. Newish bits and secondhand Girling shocks, that were a lot stiffer and two inches longer than Suzuki intended, helped stability but it was still a quirky, sensitive beast even at the best of times.
The front brake was another item that varied greatly in the way it worked. It was an old fashioned type of hydraulic disc that incorporated all the usual traits of the seventies. An underwear wetting delay in the wet was combined with fade when it was used hard a couple of times from 70mph and above. To be fair, for a lot of the time it was quite adequate, though it wasn't the kind of device that would be any good for stoppies. It was much more impressive than a CD175 drum. Calipers needed a stripdown every three or four months, more from dust off the pads than from road crud. The rear drum was largely ineffectual except when it'd lock on when the brake lever was given a hefty stamp, but never required any attention.
With fuel averaging 60mpg, for the first 6000 miles it was quite a cheap bike to ride. Then the motor started to rattle and performance decreased dramatically. I'd been doing the ignition timing with a strobe every 1000 miles just to be on the safe side. It was a good moment to put in a new set of plugs - it'd start easily on the electric boot or kickstart, although for slow speed riding the charging system couldn't keep up with the battery drain if the electric boot was often employed. Once or twice a day was the most it'd take.
After the rattles occurred, I checked the points but they were alright. The more the motor was revved the louder the rattles and the denser the smokescreen. Sometimes the wind whipped the smog in front of the bike making it impossibe to see where I was going. I decided to whip the cylinders off. It was an easy enough job with none of the camchain troubles of a four stroke. The small-ends were breaking up. New bearings, gudgeon pins and piston rings were fitted, there are still a couple of shops specializing in old Suzuki parts. The bores were slightly marked but still smooth under the pressure of my finger. The crankshaft felt solid enough.
This repair solved the worst of the rattles but took the edge off the performance, there was no longer any chance of cracking 80mph. In the quest for more speed I did a carb jet upgrade after fitting a pair of Allspeed expansion chambers. They made a wonderful racket, helped push the bike to 85mph. A wildly wobbly and vividly vibratory event. The minimal low rev torque did a runner, though, which with the noise at high revs made town riding not a lot of fun, not even from the saddle let alone the pavement.
The motor lasted for 3400 miles in this state, partly down to old age and partly down to some intemperate throttle abuse. The huge smokescreen came back with a vengeance. Only this time it wasn't just the rings but the major expense of a floppy crankshaft. It went so quickly that there were chunks missing out of the primary drive gears. The gearbox was the only part of the engine not in need of remedial attention.
It was cheaper to pick up a crashed bike with a running engine than go through all that hassle. £75 brought me a banana shaped GT185 with a clean sounding motor. Rumour holds that a GT250 engine can be shoe-horned in, but that was a bit of excess in which I didn't want to become involved. The chassis was already on the edge of its abilities with its existing performance. I went back to stock carbs and exhaust in the hope that it'd extend engine life.
Whilst the new motor went as well as the old 'un, there was also a lot more vibration. Rather than coming in at particular revs, as of old, it was a constant companion. The engine's mounting holes were elongated, which allowed some movement however hard I tightened up the bolts. A friend had the bright idea of filling up the gaps with mastic but that just left a coating of melted gunge over the frame.
I could live with the vibration much better than the electrics. There was no way to stop the bulbs blowing and the horn, a puny item at the best of times, just disintegrated. It took all of six weeks for the vibes to suddenly increase to an intolerable level and the handling go all wonky. The constant buzzing had cracked up one of the frame tubes!
That seemed like a fitting moment to end the GT's life. Once a bike has gone that far it's not worth trying to do any renovation work. I stripped down the GT and sold off all the decent bits for a grand total of £250. It was a cheap and generally cheerful experience.
Jim Thompson
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So it came to pass that a spotty oik had been given a nice clean, full motorcycle licence. An MTX80 was a perfectly capable learner bike and great fun off-road but somehow didn't quite fit in with my new image. No, what was needed was a non-learner bike. Something to prove to the world that for me L-plates were a thing of the past. A GT185 fulfils this role? Well, at age eighteen I was convinced it would, and having already sold the MTX was in desperate need of transport. Oh, and it was the only thing I could afford.
I found it lurking in the back shed of a local dealer. He claimed there wasn't enough space in the showroom but I think he was just embarrassed. Anyway, it looked okay, had only done 13k and it ran. That was good enough for me. It was also reassuring to find out that the previous owner was the head mechanic at said dealers. So, it couldn't be that bad, could it?
£495 later I was on the road. I immediately felt at home on the bike. In hindsight, I think it's a very good choice for a newly qualified rider. It has sufficient power to be exciting whilst still allowing full control. Having ridden such bikes as a VFR400 and GSXR750 since buying the GT, I feel my life expectancy would've been considerably lower if these had been on my shopping list as a first bike.
So what's it like? Well, it's no rocketship. In warp speed mode (hurricane tail wind and 1 in 5 gradient) you can just about nudge up to an indicated 95mph. Believe me, with a bike of this design 95mph is very, very frightening, indeed. Sixty is its preferred speed, purring along at just under 6000 revs. Any speed above that has to be worked at and after three years of ownership I've given up bothering. It's equally happy plodding along in top at thirty and has a surprising amount of torque that lets you accelerate from 30 to 60mph without any hassle.
Being a 185cc two stroke twin of the seventies you'd expect a peaky engine and you'd be right. For serious motoring at least 6500 revs is needed, and the fun's all over by 8000rpm. Unlike many of the modern two strokes, though, the GT's still usable out of the powerband.
The handling is perfectly adequate if a little unpredictable. Some days you can happily scrape pegs and exhaust, some days you end up in a ditch. I can't work it out, myself. I changed the tyres to a set of Conti's (£64). This was a milestone in my life, my first ever set of matching tyres. Brilliant they were, too, used in conjunction with the Sebac shocks eliminating most of the little slides. The steering is quite heavy for such a small bike and tends to understeer but you get used to it. Likewise, the front forks. You don't so much as get used to them as put up with their total inability to damp out any bumps larger than a pregnant ant.
If you so much as think of putting on the brakes they wave the white flag, and go up to meet their best friend the bottom yoke. The front end handles all right, so it's just a matter of comfort and taking sea-sickness pills as you pogo down a three mile traffic jam. No complaints with the rest of the running gear.
The switches work faultlessly and the smoothness of the gearbox would have a lot of BMW riders gnashing their teeth in envy. Reliability is crucial if you are as reluctant to spend money as I am. The GT can't really be faulted in this respect, unlike its owner.
The first little niggle occurred about three weeks after buying it. I knew two strokes weren't the most economical form of transport but 22mpg is taking the piss. I investigated and found nothing wrong but did wonder why my friends at college kept blaming each other for the odour of petrol in the room. I soon realised that the lovely smell was coming from myself and thought I had better solve this before the drug squad started taking an interest in my recreational habits. It didn't take much thought, a quick inspection of the tank revealed more holes than in a Bangkok brothel (terrible place - Ed). I tried everything to fix it, all to no avail so I resorted to a new tank.
Being T-reg, new parts were unavailable and being a GT185 used ones weren't that easy to find. I eventually found a breaker who'd heard of one and he duly sent a tank. It wasn't what I'd expected, though, looked like the lads had been playing football with it! Ten minutes later the tank was in place and supported by a piece of old carpet carefully glued on to the top of the frame.
It still leaked! Aaarrgh! I took it to the spray shop who welded, filled and sprayed it in Ford Red for £25. They even gave the bottom a tar like layer to stop it rusting in the future. Good value, at last!
Whilst the tank was being fixed I decided to throw a bit of cash at the bike, give it a good going over. Whilst putting on a new Roadrunner, I changed the rear brake shoes - 13 years old and, to be honest, still really not that worn. Unlike the front brake hose, which was replaced with stainless steel for £16. The feel didn't improve but the stopping power was transformed. That front disc didn't work in the wet unless you were doing more than 60mph!
During this boredom induced bit of maintenance I changed the fork oil which didn't help with the lack of damping but was such an easy job that all you need to do is remove the fork tops and two little screws on the side of each fork leg.
I also replaced all the casing screws with allen bolts and checked the timing. I even replaced all of the gaskets when I found out my tank would be yet another week and made a mental note never to remove the barrels again - how can Suzuki justify making barrels with nuts that are impossible to get a spanner to? The logic defeats me, particularly as a lot of the routine maintenance tasks have been made so simple.
Consumable wear, with the exception of rear tyres is negligible. I bought it with a new chain and sprocket set, which I doubt in the three years of ownership has needed adjustment more than five times. I replaced the front tyre solely so it would match the rear. The same front tyre has outlived three rears and still shows hardly any signs of wear. Front brake pads were changed recently but the 15 year old original items still had a lot of life left in them. If I had known how seized in they were I would have left them for another 15 years. They were only half worn, after all.
I can't honestly say that this bike has never let me down. The only time it ever gave me cause for concern was on a journey from Leeds back home to Grimsby, where it holed a piston a mile from my destination. Even then I got home on one piston and it was running as sweet as ever the next day, admittedly with a little more metal in the crankcase than it would have liked.
It always starts second kick or first prod of the generator/starter thingy, that the Japanese were so fond of in the seventies. There are no twists in its character that mar it in any way. It provides economical transport most of the year and doesn't disgrace itself on the twisties against many bigger bikes on lovely summer days.
It has obvious benefits with regards to insurance, costing the same as a 125. However, it should be mentioned that if there was a choice between a Caviga Mito or GT185, I'd taken the Mito if I were you. Then again, if you could work out the price/fun ratio I think the bikes would be more evenly matched. At least if you crash a GT, a skill at which I'm particularly adept, it doesn't matter quite as much.
If your finances don't stretch to the flash 125 sector but are looking at a 250 Superdream or X7 then don't - the GT185 doesn't lose out much on performance but is as cheap to run and insure as most 125s. The GT kills the four stroke twins dead in every department. Given the opportunity, though, I quite happily upgraded to something bigger, flasher, faster, etc., but the little stroker has its own character and odd enough looks to attract attention when it's parked up.
Simon Bishop
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My best mate, Mark, is a well known nutter in Leeds. He likes nothing more than a fast set of wheels, a full tank of petrol and a free week or two. Wheelies, donuts, wheelspins and full on engine explosions are his natural element. It was probably a bit daft to buy a GT185 off him, but he assured me that the tuned engine was the business and it'd last long enough to re-acquaint me with two wheels. Having deserted the game for a couple of years.
The GT's a small, compact and light machine with a stroker twin engine that was state of the art in 1973. 20hp, 80mph and 270lbs, according to the UMG. That's on a stock bike. Mine had spannies, had dumped non-important ancillaries, had the ports opened up and the compression upped. So figure 25hp, 90mph and 250lbs.
Anyone who knows strokers of this era will know that every extra horsepower gained at the top end removes two from the bottom of the rev range. Not that the GT was ever the most torque filled motorcycle on the planet earth. I bore all this in mind when I flicked the light throttle and let out the equally light clutch. Despite 5000 revs, the motor balked at the thought of forward progress, whilst Mark screamed give it some stick! So I did. The exhaust whine turned into an ear-splitting wail and when the clutch connected home the front wheel shot upwards as fast as the bike bolted forwards.
It was just as well that I'd emptied my bowels half an hour earlier! After the initial moment of panic and shock I'd remembered what I was supposed to do, shut the throttle. Like hitting a brick wall. The front end collapsed and the exhaust backfired like a shotgun going off. I pulled over, stalled the motor and turned round to mouth off a curse at my so-called friend. He didn't notice as he was rolling around the pavement in hysterics, later telling me the look of sheer fright and fear on my face was worth framing.
It took quite a lot of practice to get a handle on starting off the GT185. I resorted to combining clutch slip, about 6000 revs and using the front brake to keep it under control. Part of the wheelie problem (it might not be a problem for you but it was for me) was the non-standard forks which were about two inches longer than stock. Fitted after Mark had been viciously attacked by a reversing bus - that was his story, the reality was more like he rode into the back of the bus whilst eye-balling the young girls in the town. Suffice to say, it was a bit embarrassing having young kids laughing at the bike and calling it a toy-town chopper!
I felt much happier once I was in third or fourth when the power still flowed in hard but the feeling of being out of control on one wheel was thankfully absent. Handling was a bit odd, again thanks to the strange forks, with the thing falling into corners and going into a massive wobble if I even thought about touching the brakes. At least there was only 250lbs to fight and I didn't actually fall off.
My life with the bike was much improved when a standard front end was secured for £30 (the bike had cost £350). Much more controllable and I could actually move off without trying to fry the front brake. I whizzed around in a frenzy of noise and fumes, reliving my early days on bikes and boring the stuffing out of everyone I knew with tales of highway madness.
Three months after buying the bike performance became most subdued. All I did to the motor, up to that point, was make sure there was oil in the tank! Mark was called, who subdued my panic by saying it was probably the ignition timing. Two sets of points to adjust, have to use a strobe light to set it up properly. Get it out a little bit and holed pistons might well result. I should've been checking it every week. Now he tells me.
It all seemed pretty complex to me, as I watched Mark set it up in about three minutes. Took me nearly an hour when I tried! Get it dead on, it makes the motor run very smooth and churn out the power like a hot 250 rather than a 185! I once saw 95mph on the clock on a long downhill stretch but the poor old chassis was all over the place. Luckily, the road was very smooth and the damping didn't have a chance to play up. Damping was a vague concept on the GT, as there didn't seem to be any at either end.
With all the harsh riding it was given, it wasn't that much of a surprise when I had the chassis bearings go down. The swinging arm bearings are by far the most short-lived, crap that shouldn't have been fitted to a moped. Figure 4000 to 5000 miles a set! The steering head bearings aren't much better...
Riding the GT with shot bearings is a quick way to an early grave. Basically, the chassis, in perfect nick, is barely adequate, so when anything goes down - be it worn tyres or shagged bearings - then the thing gets completely out of hand. Anyway, this is my excuse for falling off after about four months of abuse, when I was probably a bit overconfident.
A 70mph corner that turned into a high speed slide. I parted company with the bike, had loads of gravel rash before I was thrown into our splendid (well, at least it's soft) countryside. I wasn't knocked out, nor did I suffer any broken bones, but had a large patch of skin torn off and some horrible bruises. An ambulance job, thanks to a passing motorist with a mobile phone - god knows what he thought of the ragged creature swaying in the middle of the road!
Some time later, the GT and I were reunited. It was in a worse state than myself, with a broken frame and smashed everything, including the engine covers. I didn't think much of the bike after it had thrown me off for no reason I could think of. Mark reckoned it was an occupational hazard with GT's and I should just get used to it!
He must've felt sorry for me because he gave me another GT185 for free. A rather tired thing he'd bought for spares about a decade back but which had turned out to run reasonably once the ignition timing was set and some oil put in the gearbox! It'd been used by various people as a runabout - just ridden and neglected.
The engine was stock and worn, which meant it was much easier to ride but rather slow - 70mph top end. That was okay with me as I'd lost most of my confidence and doddered around like some pensioner on his last legs. Basically, plodding around town and the odd 50mph trawl around the countryside. I wore full leathers all the time and had kids laughing at me again when I got off the bike to wander around the town. At least I was too fat to be of interest to the bum bandits!
Meanwhile, I dissected the crashed GT and tried to match it up with the spares in Mark's garage. Not because I wanted to relive those heady 90mph days but because I hoped to put something together that I could sell, get some of my £350 back!
The only good thing about the mess was that the crankshaft hadn't been damaged and was still in good nick. After much bodging I had the motor together, this time with a stock top end rather than the huge ported job of the old one. No sooner had this great achievement been attained than the rat expired with total engine seizure.
I swapped the motors over and much to my surprise it ran quite well. After sorting out the chassis parts, using the best of everything that was available, I had a half decent GT185, worth about £300. Unfortunately, the handling was dire above 70mph - even Mark came back white faced and shaking after a bit of speed testing. Get shot of it, mate, was his advice.
In fact, we sold the running GT plus a huge cache of worn out spares for 500 notes. We split the money, which meant I lost a little on the deal but I'd had plenty of riding out of the original bike. Old bikes like these are deathtraps - beware!
John Davies