Honda CB200

I had seen the Honda 200 wafting around Bath almost every day. The rider's commuting route crossed my own - I sat fuming in the cage whilst he gave the old Honda twin some welly through the traffic gaps. When I saw a CB200 for sale in a local newsagent's, I guessed whose bike it was and I was right. The clock read 56000 miles, the bike sporting a rebuilt top end and the ability to come to life first kick. Still had plenty of go and didn't leak any oil. Pretty amazing for a bike over twenty years old. 300 notes was all it cost.

I rode home, happily exploring the bike's limits, and feeling good about my new purchase. My last bike had been ten years ago - a GS550 - and I was soon revelling in the freedom of the road. Note that the bike had a TLS front drum off a CB175 rather than the notorious standard disc and a newish set of Michelins. That added up to safe riding even in the drizzle that had set in the moment that I bought the bike. Wouldn't like to think about riding such a bike on plastic Jap OE tyres and a nasty disc brake.

The previous owner had the bike in his care for twelve years, only selling up due to retirement and his moving down to the Costa. He recommended new spark plugs every 2500 miles and an oil change every 750 miles. Ignoring the latter resulted in a gearbox with an excess of false neutrals, and not doing the former meant that the bike would need ten to twenty kicks before it came to life rather than the normal first kick (the electric boot was long gone). The valves and carbs had worn into themselves, whilst tweaking the camchain tensioner seemed to make no difference whatsoever.

The one area where its age was shown up was the electrics. Not only were the lights and horn at best described as pathetic, but the wiring was shedding its insulation at a stunning rate. Fearing the bike going up in flames I hastily made with the insulation tape, which got me out of immediate trouble. Later, the headlamp stopped operating halfway home from work and when I tugged and pulled on the wiring inside the shell all I got for my pains was a fistful of wires. Some fun was had sorting it out.

One time the bike didn't want to start. Being an old hand at this game, I shook the petrol tank, sniffed the air and kicked the engine. It still didn't want to start. Out with the plugs. I'd forgotten that it wasn't a good idea to hold the spark plug cap when testing for a spark; the shock made my hair stand to attention! I cleaned the plugs, which got me back home. New coils, points, HT leads, caps and plugs followed, which brought back the first kick starting. Any degradation in any one element mucked the bike up, marginal electrics or what?

During this period I'd played around with the fuel tap, the whole caboodle pulling out of the tank with a bang! Rust and brute forced added up to a knackered petrol tank! The back pages of MCN were consulted; the result a brand new petrol tank for twenty quid, some old dealer selling off ancient stock. Admittedly, the bike looked a bit odd - covered in road grime with the exception of the petrol tank. I decided it deserved a good clean.

Silly boy. Gunking the frame and making with the brillo-pad revealed great scabs of paint falling off, leaving a frame that was half rust. Foolishly, I left it like that overnight in the open - the next day the whole frame was covered in rust! My ninety year old neighbour came out of his bout of senility long enough to rant on about the things the Japanese had done in the war, got so wound up that he gave the shining new petrol tank a few taps with his walking stick. The dented tank bleeded paint and rapidly began to rust, so at least it didn't look out of place.

I was quoted more than I paid for the machine for a complete respray! Down to Do-It-All for a couple of cans of Smoothrite in deepest black, whilst I managed to knock the dents out of the tank and patch up its paint. Meanwhile, the rust had spread like cancer, ruining the wheels, forks and shock springs. I eyed the neighbour's skip but reminded myself of the horrors of public transport.

Surprisingly, for the next three months the little twin whirred away through the cold and wet of winter without any real problems. The need to get a boot down when the roads went slippery was just a test of character and the odd scrape with a cage was shrugged off thanks to the large pair of crash-bars I'd fitted. They also shinned a couple of ped's who thought they were masters of the universe.

Compared to taking a couple of buses, the nine mile journey time was cut from nearly an hour to less than 15 minutes whilst a cage would take two to three times that depending on the density of the traffic. Unlike modern bikes, the CB was miserly in nature, not doing much damage to the consumables and turning in around 75mpg. Combine savings in running costs with extra overtime done, the bike paid for itself in less than a month!

I also had something to bop around on in the evenings and of a weekend. The Honda thrived on revs, seemed to smooth out when accelerated through the gears at maximum throttle. It wasn't quite fast enough to cause black-outs but it got the adrenaline going and was quick enough to get into trouble on. Handling was okay rather than inspiring, the stands digging in before the tyres lost their grip, although the way the bike leapt around didn't quite make this a safety feature. Overall, I found the experience highly enjoyable.

So much so that I was soon looking for a larger set of wheels. A new XJ600N at £3300 seemed like bargain basement time, though the guy wouldn't take the CB200 in part-ex. The XJ600N isn't very fashionable but I liked its lines and didn't want the complexity of watercooling. Light of weight, it made the best use of its 60 horses and had a ride/handling combination that was, fittingly, a couple of decades ahead of the CB200.

However, such was the chaos of traffic that commuting speeds were actually slightly slower, as I didn't really mind scraping the CB along the gutter whereas the slightest mark on the XJ would've thrown me into a rage. The Honda got the short straw of daily commuting stress whereas the XJ was kept for serious riding. The CB200 didn't seem to mind, kept running for the next eighteen months and 12000 miles. It needed lots of minor attention to the chassis and electrics - the dreaded rot setting in but the engine just whirred away as if it had come straight out of the crate.

At this point I was foolish enough to teach the other neighbour's daughter how to ride a motorcycle. Her clutch control consisted of screaming the engine to max revs then slamming on the brakes when the bike tried to get away from her. It didn't take long for the engine to turn molten! At this point I'd realised that I'd been quite tender handed towards the Honda. Not riding slowly, as such, but easing it up the rev range, giving it time to warm up and generally not trying to take the piss. I do the same with the Yamaha, but this is because it cost lots of money and I want it to last for at least 20 years!

After being blasted by the neighbour, the Honda didn't really want to know any more. Leaking oil, smoking heavily and losing half the power through the knackered clutch. As the chassis was bursting with the need to rust back to nature, I figured the bike had come to the end of its life. That didn't stop me advertising it. I didn't put a price on the bike, thinking I would be lucky if someone took it away for free. I was quite amused when two fanatics turned up at the same time and insisted on talking the price up. 250 notes, thank you very much. CB200's are going classic, don't you know. And if any bike deserved such a fate, the little Honda twin is right there with the best of them.

T.H.