I had been despatching on an old Honda CG125 for a month or so, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. The bike went along well until I had important deliveries which had to be there yesterday, then it would play up, the throttle sticking, the brakes jamming on, refusing to start; always something. Then one day I had an exceptionally important package to deliver and it seized up for good. A fellow courier mentioned that he had just bought a new machine and wanted to get rid of his old hack, a GSX250 for £150.
My first impression was that it was one of those bloody sewing machines. It started up straight away and sounded good even though it had 40,000 miles on the clock. It had obviously been well cared for. I spent the next few months speeding around the West End, and actually enjoyed work for a change.
In this time I replaced the tyres, chain, sprockets, clutch (which was very easy to do) and also sprayed the whole thing matt black to try to hide the fact that it was Jap crap and to increase the pose value.
It was a cold and miserable January, so the girlfriend and I decided to head for the sun on the bike. The bike was so loaded it could hardly pull 60mph and the brakes had trouble slowing it down, never mind actually stopping. Low speed manoeuvring was very hairy as my homemade tank bag slid from one side to the other.
We eventually arrived at Portsmouth, bitterly cold and hungry, brought our tickets then took over a couple of radiators to thaw out over. As soon as we were on board we found a suitable place and climbed into our sleeping bags. We were first off the ferry next day, and after customs went through a cold, frosty ghost town called La Harve (well it was at six in the morning).
We travelled an hour on the bike, then two hours warming up, all day, and found that strapping newspapers and magazines to exposed parts keeps you much warmer much longer, though it does look strange. At dusk we turned off the main road and found a nice secluded spot by a river to camp. It felt good being out of England and we celebrated with a bottle of fortified wine.
We awoke with half an inch of ground frost over the tent and bike, spent the rest of the morning jumping up and down trying to get our circulation going. The sun struggled through and we made good progress that afternoon.
At Toulouse there was a traffic jam caused by a Golf GTi that had its length reduced to about a foot. We pushed on that evening and finally reached the Med, the weather was noticeably warmer so we stayed for a couple of weeks sampling wine and touring locally. We went on into Spain, following the coast, the people were very friendly and we had camping sites, swimming pools and bars to ourselves at low prices.
As we travelled inland to Granada, I noticed the engine becoming noisier, the sewing machine sound turned into a healthy burble and then a terrible din. The exhaust balance chamber had rotted through - I took off the exhaust and hammered flat what was left of the balance chamber into each side of the exhaust so that I had a normal 2-2. This worked well except for a mild midrange flat spot.
We pushed on to Seville then Portugal. The Portugese love bikers, people stopped what they were doing to wave. Whenever we stopped a crowd gathered - it was funny watching them trying to recognise the bike under the luggage. You don't see much Japanese machinery over there, lots of small Brits and BMWs.
We stayed for a few weeks until our funds ran out then started home. Back in Spain it rained all the 600 miles to France, we camped at Biaritze to dry out. Half the electrics had burnt out, so I replaced them and found a puncture on the test ride. Then the electric starter gave up.
Rain, rain and more rain for the next two days of the trip homewards. We arrived at the ferry port in the middle of a strike and there were lots of bickering tourists shoving to the front of various queues. We sat to one side to wait. A women who worked for the ferry came out and said she could fit us on board, so on we went much to the annoyance of the car drivers.
All in all, we had a great time, the bike coped well considering we covered 4000 miles in three months, and it had only cost £350 each. I now have a ratty XJ550 and as soon as we have the money we will be off again, I fancy North Africa this time.
D.Dykes