This was a few years ago when to import a bike into the UK involved lots of bureaucracy. I overcame the problem by riding it on Belgian plates. This meant I had to pay VAT on a private sale, as the numberplate stays with the owner. The only thing I could find wrong with the Laverda was the mileage on the clock - 79,067! But the big twins are made to a much higher standard than most other bikes.
It's a neat chunk of alloy, with a single overhead cam, twin 30mm carbs and a built up crank running on massive roller bearings. Laverda claimed 60 horses at 7000rpm. Much more modern than the British twins then available, although there were a few throwbacks to antique design - a belt driven dynamo and triplex primary chain.
The first ride was interesting, as I shot off on the wrong side of the road and almost caused a Belgian cager to drive up on the pavement. I had little time to watch what I was doing as I was struggling with the controls. Everything was very heavy, especially the clutch and gearchange, the latter throwing up several false neutrals. The SF weighs in at over 500lbs, which was immediately apparent in the way I had to wrench on the narrow handlebars to avoid collision with the car.
The SF has pistons that move up and down together, like all those legions of British twins, and no form of engine balancing. This was pretty obvious from the way the chassis vibrated at low revs in first through third gears. Mixed in with the vibration were the road shocks. Not even the high mileage had done much to add suppleness to the suspension, which used to come out of the factory rock hard.
Metzeler tyres were fitted, which over the Belgian cobblestones were reluctant to retain their grip, making the Laverda feel even more top heavy than normal. Brief bursts of guttural acceleration through holes in the traffic provided some more pleasurable riding.
Hitting 3000 revs in second or third would transform the nature of the beast. The engine smooths out, the weight rides better over the bumps and the forward thrust strained my wrists. I was surprised by the way the tacho would twitch around to 8000rpm without a moment's hesitation. Those revs were sufficient to cause both clocks to go berserk as they reacted to the next onslaught of vibration.
Graunching up to the next gear brought the engine back into its smooth rev range. There was enough power that a few times I felt the bike trying to get away from me. The only way to control it was to hit the drum brakes. I was a bit dubious about these lumps of alloy - a huge 9 inch TLS front and 8 inch rear. But they turned out rather powerful, if somewhat vicious. There was a point where the front end would swap gradual braking forces for a locked up, screaming tyre. Once or twice, it seemed not to want to free up and I only saved myself by putting both feet down! Decidedly not for the novice 125 graduate. Later bikes had twin discs.
The first couple of weeks I was stuck in Brussels, finding the SF a bit tedious. The clutch would also drag outrageously at traffic lights and had I stopped when gestured at by the Gendarme I would probably have been fined for having a very noisy exhaust..... the silencers looked original and had rusted out their baffles. It was a glorious racket that hid any engine noises.
It wasn't until I headed for the ferry home that the usefulness of the Laverda became more apparent. It was a fast motorway-type road all the way, the SF surpassing itself by cruising at 90 to 100mph with the kind of rock steady stability that only the most recent of Japanese race replicas could hope to emulate. With a four gallon tank and 45 to 50mpg, fuel range was reasonable.
The bloody seat wasn't, though. It may have been okay when new but most of the padding compressed down to leave my backside on the seat pan. It could have been worse, the handlebar to footrest relationship was so near perfect that most of my weight was taken off my spine. The slightest bit of rain meant I had a seat full of water for days afterwards.
A brief empty section of road put 120mph on the clock but the vibes did not encourage me to hold this for very long. Again, I was amazed by the way the SF clung tenaciously on to the road even over a closely spaced series of bumps that would send most bikes into a frenzy of wobbles.
The bike greeted its first sight of Blighty by misfiring. I'd been riding with the lights on which seemed to have drained the battery. I turned them off and the misfiring stopped. Dynamos are notoriously unreliable, so I put that at the top of my list for checking once home. The SF relies on an electric starter than gives the electrical system a thorough workout whenever it's employed. But it always seems to work.
English roads, with their often wild curves, suited the Laverda well once my body had adapted to the amount of bumps getting through. The SF loses its top heavy feel the faster it goes and the harder it's swung through the bends. Handling is amazingly neutral. The throttle can be backed off, the brakes used or the whole thing suddenly wrenched on to a new line with no traumas from the chassis when banked over.
That said, the SF responds even better to a hard dose of acceleration out of corners, holding its line tenaciously, feeding up so much information from the Metz's that I'm always aware of just how far I can take it. The faster I went the better I felt and I often rode my favourite bits of road again and again, testing my own nerve against the abilities of the SF's sublime chassis.
It was just a pity there were so many congested towns in the way. The Laverda grumbled, growled, protested at this misuse of its abilities. Everything was so much hard work that as often as not I would leave the bike at home and hike into town. In the rain it was even worse as the front brake was a real killer at low speeds and when the engine was drenched with water it would misfire below 2500rpm.
In one such tired state, some mere three months into my ownership, I managed to hit the side of a car that sped across a junction. Had I not been so annoyed with the SF's behaviour I would probably have paid more attention to the traffic. It was his fault but he didn't see it that way. The alloy rim on the front wheel was twisted but otherwise it was unscathed, the very large dent in the car having absorbed most of the shock. The cager went on for hours about how I should pay up until it emerged that he had no insurance. I decided it wasn't worth trying to claim off him as my insurers would probably load my premium next time around. I ended up paying for a rebuilt wheel.
If the Laverda was a pain in town it turned out as a useful long distance tourer. Before my first blitz of Europe could take place I had the generator rebuilt, put in a new battery (so big a car item sufficed instead of the expensive Bosch original) and had a new set of tyres fitted. Tyres worked out at 7-10,000 miles, although the chain was surprising at 12-15000 miles. My only worry was oil consumption at 250mpp.
Well, the bike did about 4000 miles in three weeks, mostly in the South of France. The battery still wasn't charging properly, fine as long as the lights weren't used.......which meant not riding at night for more than 25 miles! Another problem was a couple of rear spokes breaking up - I had a mass of camping gear and a portly pillion. The handling was a little loose with this mass and became a bit violent when the back wheel started breaking up. It was safe enough up to 50mph, sufficient to get us home where the spokes could be replaced.
A spate of breaking cables began to show up the bike's age as 90,000 miles clicked up. The finish was still good on the paint, and the alloy polished up well but needed a weekly dose of elbow grease to keep the white rash at bay. I was enamoured enough with the Laverda to expend that kind of effort without a moment's thought. I also did the valves, carbs and oil every 1000 miles.
I had a basic commuter for doing the trek to work but this usually balked at English winters, sulking in the garage. The SF would thunder into life with no sign of reluctance. After a year I was used to the muscle needed in town, had even mastered the nasty five speed gearbox (the triplex primary chain had a bit more slack than it should, which did not help the smoothness of the transmission), so the bike was slightly less troublesome through town. A new set of clutch plates eliminated most of the clutch drag, almost made the brute civilized in traffic.
Into the spring of my second year I had my second crash. Some moronic trucker had laid down a few gallons of diesel at a busy junction. Not even the Metz's could overcome that physical reality. The skid ripped off the magneto's drive and half the skin on my leg. Bloody motorcycles.
It took about three months to find the bits to repair the drive, but with a full battery charge the bike could be ridden for fifty miles at a time. Sufficient for the daily commuting chores but not much fun when the sun is shining and the empty road beckons. I did find the source of the poor charging, the voltage regulator was cutting in at 10 volts.
There's very little chrome on the SF (the guards are stainless steel) so it was perhaps typical that the largest concentration, in the silencers, should show up the whole machine by rusting through. I bought an unused pair from a private advert, still in their oily wrappers. The down-pipes were also rusty but showed no signs of leaking.
The bike sounded extremely quiet and responded much better below 3500 revs. The engine felt more reluctant to breach the ton, but this might just have been the mileage breaking through the 95000 mark. I don't know how much work had previously been done to the engine but it still responded well even at that great mileage.
For the next year I was seduced by a FZR600. Fast and furious fun, but after 25000 miles the discs were in a terrible state, I'd gone through six sets of tyres, too many chains and the clutch was so knackered I had to buy a whole unit. I was quite glad to see the back of it.
I'd used the SF occasionally, just to keep it in running order, but back in its seat for the long haul it took some getting used to it......my muscles had softened up and I kept trying to rev the engine through the 10,000rpm mark. I soon adapted to the SF's ways.
A couple of months ago I finally put the mileage into the six figure bracket. I celebrated by powder coating the frame bright red and having the brakes relined with a slightly softer grade to reduce some of the grabbing at lower speeds. The fork seals don't seem to last much more than 6000 miles, so I added a pair of gaiters.
I see Laverda have a new 650 twin out, based on the less durable 500 engine and in race replica mould. It doesn't appeal to me. I like the classic lines, sound and power delivery of my 750 so much that I will quite willingly do a rebuild when it becomes necessary. Laverda lore reckons the crankshafts never go, that the camchain, tensioner and valves are the first to give serious problems. My feeling is that it'd be the primary drive and gearbox that are the first to need refurbishment. Still, it'll be interesting to see how much longer the old girl will keep going - I'll keep you posted.
M.N.
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Ever since the mid seventies I've always wanted a big Laverda twin. I also lusted after the Jotas but they were a bit too much to take really seriously. Trouble was, the twins were always expensive beasts, reflecting their tough engineering and unusual longevity. Only three years ago did my income match up to the prevailing cost of acquiring one of these most rare big vertical twins.
Okay, so most are high milers but at least there was cheap classic insurance and the sheer credibility of owning such a beautiful device. Three grand secured a 1974 SF that had done a genuine 49000 miles in the hands of two devoted owners. Rewired, upgraded electrics and a new set of carbs. Otherwise stock if highly polished and completely oil tight. Looked well purposeful.
The engine fired up straight off with a fiery bellow that drowned out the surrounding traffic and made damn sure that the cagers knew I was coming. The clutch induced immediate wrist-ache, and the throttle would snap back if I didn't get assertive with my right hand. I had a nasty time with the controls as all the switches were worn loose.
The next big surprise was how much effort was needed on the bars to get it to go where I wanted. The mythology surrounding the bike's that of a thoroughbred Italian stallion, but it has an unerring need to carry straight on unless an excessive amount of muscle's applied to the narrow, flat bars (non-standard, I think). This frightened the stuffing out of my back end several times as I thought the steering lock had jammed on or something!
There wasn't anything really wrong with the bike it was just that it was designed in a period when good stability came from conservative steering geometry. I was used to modern bikes, where you only have to breathe a bit too hard to make the chassis veer off in the required direction. The Lav needs effort and persistence, the first few weeks even minor rides left all my muscles aching. After a couple of months, though, it had all become second nature - so much so that when I had a go on a CBR600 I wobbled violently all over the place as it seemed like a moped in comparison.
The other big difference was vibration. Don't get me wrong, the SF wasn't falling apart under me or anything. Much of its 500lbs of mass is concentrated in the sheer, excessive build quality of the engine (though it could have done without the chain primary drive, the OHC was most welcome in comparison to pushrod Brit twins). What you got wasn't so much vibration (at least below 6000 revs) as a reflection of the thumping torque created by the combustion process. You damn well knew that each ounce of power extracted was the result of a brutal, tortuous process; the kind of engine that if produced by a Jap designer would immediately be fitted with half a dozen balancers and an exhaust the size of a dustbin. It was evocative and fun but quite bewildering until I'd gotten used to the bike.
One friend, who owes a 600 Bandit, had a go, came back all shook up, demanding to know how I could justify paying so much money for such an agricultural, brutish monster that was best left in a museum. And the noise? He could barely hear my excuses even though I was angry enough at these insults to shout them at him. He went around slagging the bike off something rotten. Okay, they take some getting used to but some people have totally closed minds and should be given a good kicking between the legs.
The SF ran such tall gearing that it needed a bit of clutch slip to make spirited escapes from the traffic lights. Both the bellowing exhaust and thrumming engine meant it was a good idea to get into top gear as soon as possible, but it didn't like to run in that ratio below 40mph, preferably 50mph. It began to get into its stride at 90mph, settled down to a comfortable 100mph cruising gait with good acceleration to 120mph (I'd guess, the vibes made the speedo a bit vague at such velocities), with yet more in hand from the 65hp motor.
It was certainly on the pace in its day but now hopelessly outclassed by anything vaguely modern - a GPZ500S, for instance. High speed handling still needed effort but it offered both precision and stability even though the relative lack of suspension travel meant bumpy roads turned the ride a bit choppy. It was a bit too out of it for the tighter country lanes but the faster B roads and snaking A roads allowed the best of the bike's character to emerge. It was the kind of motorcycle that made you want to search out roads that were best suited to it.
On the other hand, serious travelling was also possible. The seat was nicely padded, the bars and pegs well coordinated and the motor easily able to hold up to 90-100mph abuse. Once used to the bike's ways, I did many a long weekend's tour, thousands of miles of pure pleasure.
Such was the bike's nature that a decent pace resulted in better economy than when trying to ride through town (50 against 40mpg). The latter causing the clutch to turn quite horrible and the motor even cutting out at low revs when it needed a good five minutes before it'd bellow into life again. Equally, it would do a couple of thousand miles over a weekend without needing a service, but 500 miles, or less, of town trawling had the carbs out of balance and the oil all gummed up. The SF was definitely trying to dictate the way it was used!
Laverda prided themselves on the quality of their engineering back in the seventies, but our wonderful acid rain over the winter managed to blitz the alloy and chrome (especially the silencers) with corrosion. It soon became evident that the concerned SF owner (and there isn't any other type - it's that kind of bike) needs a second machine for winter riding.
Something confirmed by a wicked rear wheel slide on the partly worn Pirelli on a merely damp day. I thought I was a goner but reflexes and muscles that I frankly didn't know I had saved the day. Neither were the Brembo calipers much cop in wet weather, though generally the brakes could melt the rubber when applied with some excessive muscle. The bike felt fine at speed in the wet, but slow speed work made it feel too edgy. Don't know why.
So I didn't ride the Laverda through the worst of the winter but for the rest of the year I did serious mileage, fell for the machine in a big way. After eighteen months 78000 miles were under its wheels - save for servicing, no major engine work was undertaken (as far as I know). They are tough old brutes, going around the clock relatively common.
I did feel it was getting a bit long in the tooth and maybe ready for a more leisurely lifestyle. I couldn't face the blandness of a Jap four after the rough and ready twin, ended up with a slightly used Triumph 900 Trident. Same kind of quality, but much easier going and even more fun. Don't dismiss the SF, though, they are serious meat that need a bit of time and effort to appreciate.
W.I.J.