Suzuki GT250

Thinking about buying a motorcycle one day, the next day I'm all excited by an advert in the local paper. Rushed down to the newsagent to buy a current copy of the UMG, as my memory was playing tricks about the GT250. Ah, a two stroke twin, 27hp, 85mph, 60mpg and 320lbs. Not too kind on engine reliability or handling but the last one was built in 1979 and maybe the owner had sorted it out by now. You need to be a bit of an optimist when chasing old motorcycles.

This one claimed a 1976 provenance, was basically stock and had done 19000 miles on the original engine. The clincher was the one-owner status. The chap was mature enough to be my grandfather (and I am no kid myself), had obviously spent most of the last two decades lavishing all his love and care on the bike. Why was he selling? A heart that could go pop at any moment, not that he was worried about losing it all on a motorcycle, just the mayhem that might result for other road users. Obviously from a quaint period when social responsibility carried more weight than it does these days! He hadn't been riding the Suzuki for the past three months but kept kicking it over every day to stop the crankshaft's seals drying out. The bike had pride of place in the centre of a huge garage, almost a shrine to his dedication to the machine! The only thing left in an eighty-five year existence that had any meaning for him.

Five hundred notes changed hands and I was back in the saddle after an absence of 14 years. Going from thinking about it to doing it in such a remarkably short space of time, it had to be fated! My first impressions came not from the machine, as such, for all the controls worked as expected and once learnt never forgotten... no, it was the outrageous numbers of insane car drivers who seemed to go out of their way to kill me who got my full and total, undivided, attention. My friends would never have believed the range and quantity of swear words that flowed out of my mouth - normally I'm such a quiet guy! I wasn't willing to go out quietly that first day!

It was only when I got home, a mere four miles away, that I realised just how easy the bike was to ride. Suspension and tyres had been upgraded (Girling shocks, heavier fork springs and Avon tyres) giving the bike a secure feel whilst not taking away from the instinctive ease with which it could be flicked around (doubtless helped by the phosphor-bronze swinging arm bearings that replaced the inadequate plastic stockers; proudly proclaimed by the first owner). The motor didn't intrude at all, just pulsed out the power as I moved through the gearbox. The controls were light and precise (new electrics and switches 3000 miles previously). This was no bad boy, nasty old stroker, then.

Or maybe it was. Later, using all the revs, carving a path through some wild swervery in Cumbria, the engine kicked its heels and went all powerful in the top half of the rev range. 85mph top speed? Pah, it'd scream up to 95mph without thinking about it, break through the ton if I ignored the vibes that were attacking all my extremities. I doubt if the old owner had ever taken such liberties, the GT complaining for a few miles thereafter with a dense fog of pollutants. I thought I might've done some serious damage but ten miles of mild riding cleared out its lungs and had it chortling away to itself most happily.

No expert on these things, I couldn't really complain about the handling. The only thing to upset its composure, the way the bike shook its head when confronted with a bumpy road surface during bend exits. Using a fairly loose grip let it sort itself out, a mild bit of throttle work helping to balance out the forces in the chassis. I didn't like the way the bike shook itself and tried to run wide when shutting the throttle in a bend but I soon learnt to brake before throwing the machine over, something riders of modern bikes don't have to worry about but then I only blew 500 notes.

For some reason, the engine felt happier at 80mph than it did at 60mph, a speed in top gear where the engine rattled and pinged quite alarmingly. The exhaust system looked new and was stock whereas the white crud on the outside of the carbs suggested they were original; maybe some mismatch in wear rates was ruining the fuel mixture at certain revs; or maybe they all did that from new...it was easy enough to work around, anyway. Either go faster or use a different gear.

Having bought the GT, I then found an unexpected number of old Jap strokers buzzing around the highways, despite the predictions of their untimely demise. They'd been there all the time, it was just that it needed purchase of a similar machine for them to register in my consciousness. True, there were more Yamaha RD strokers than Suzuki T's or GT's but at least we outnumbered the infamous Kawasaki triples - where have they all gone? Probably ridden off the road in a frenzy of excess speed. The owners were a mixture of youths who'd accidentally fallen for the breed and older chaps, like myself, who could remember them from the days when they were state of the art. Made a few good friends out of these highway encounters.

Most of the spare parts needed came via the cosmic exchange system rather than through the couple of dealers who stock old Suzuki stroker parts. That is, owners swapping telephone numbers - if someone you know doesn't have what you want, they will hand you on to someone else... and so on, and on. It saves time and money, as well as giving you a weird kind of social life that most wives don't appreciate!

Not that the Suzuki has needed too many bits in 4000 miles of riding. A set of points, a generator and the usual couple of sets of spark plugs. But one thing leads to another, I soon ended up with a couple of abandoned GT250's in the garage and have an aborted Dresda T500 on my hands as well, though the motor's so knackered I'm tempted to put in a GT250 mill just for the fun of it! Though I'll probably swap the Dresda for something more relevant.

Back to running the GT250. I only got 60mpg under the most mild of riding conditions. 50mpg was easily achieved, 45mpg the result of riding the bike at its limits. The chain needed daily fettling even though I'd fitted a new chain and sprocket set... the swinging arm pivot a long way from the gearbox's output shaft. It certainly wasn't the power pulses nor the gearbox shifting, both as smooth as you could hope for. Oil was burnt quite heavily, half a litre in less than 80 miles, so it paid to keep an eye on the lube's level, though the idiot light would flash in a frenzy if you forgot! It wasn't the cheapest bike to run on the planet but didn't come close to breaking the bank. Given the cheapness of purchase and used parts, it makes modern bikes look pretty silly.

Jerry O'Hannagan