Loose Lines [Issue 15]

A funny thing happened to me the other day. Well, OK, it was actually a few months ago that it first occurred, but what the hell, when you actually survive for thirty odd years a few months seem to be just like yesterday. I was playing at being a pedestrian at the time. You know the kind of thing, dodging rabid Dobermans, crazed ex-mental patients and the odd acquaintance who assumes that ownership of a motorcycle magazine equals loadsamoney equals an easy touch, when I saw the damn thing. The whole experience really threw me. There I was considering firebombing a rival out of business (this is what comes out of hanging out in Bangkok for too long, where the odd grenade tossed into a rival’s emporium is merely a matter of course and a large bribe to the pigs if things go seriously wrong), when I was stopped in my tracks by a Honda CB360G5. It was in pretty good condition and painted in a shade of green not that dissimilar to the cover of issue 11 (still available for a trifling amount of dosh if you turn to the back issue page).

I’d actually owned one of these devices for a few months, £50 and a deal of white smoke out of the engine breather. It was a pleasant enough machine to chuck through traffic; but one, dogged by a reputation for eating camshaft bearings in a manner that would have made the British motorcycle industry envious had it not been produced at a time when that once great engineering empire was all but extinct - if you were lucky and had a mild right hand the camshaft bearings might just make it through to the end of the warranty; if you thrashed it, it’d just start playing games after a few thousand miles. But for fifty notes I wasn’t going to complain and dumped the bike at a mild profit on some car owner once I’d become bored with it. At the time, my main machine was a Yamaha XS650 that kept me amused with unpredictable speed wobbles and wondering just when a 50,000 mile engine was going to blow (it never did), so I gave the little Honda hardly a second thought as it came and went.

So how come it caught my attention in that damp and wet Cardiff street? I can only surmise that I was suffering from a surfeit of high tech imagery and the plain simplicity of the little Honda caught my eye. You understand, it didn’t quite match the impression made by a beautiful sixteen year old Thai girl, but I was unable to dismiss it with my normal contempt reserved for such bland machinery. I mean, hell, the engineering was inferior to an early sixties CB77 and the street cred of the thing only a little ahead of an ancient CZ, but I had to admit it, I actually dug its looks.

Although I will be the first person to admit to the possession of some very strange tastes, I thought that this didn't fully explain the GS effect. For a while I thought I was turning into a boring old fart, would have to sell the UMG and seek employment with one of the other publishers of motorcycle magazines (such bitchiness, huh?) but further investigation revealed that these mid- seventies twins are taking over the role that British twins used to take before they became classic fodder and very expensive. Just like when you own a particular machine, I began to notice all sorts of odd machinery chugging (or, more usually, roaring on open, rusted zorsts) around. This is nothing new, of course, because I was well aware of it when I started the UMG, but what was different was the type of motorcyclist riding them. These were serious guys; you can always tell serious motorcyclists by the ten year old leather jacket. So, I wasn't alone.

In fact, despite my abhorrence of its lack of functional integrity, I also quite liked the looks of the new Honda CD250, formed in that early seventies mould of plain and straightforward engineering but what a thing to happen to the poor old CD name, so long representing sheer functionality that it’s now lumbered with a silly disc front brake (wonder if it’ll seize up before the disc wears out) and what looks suspiciously like twin carbs. Like the CB400/4 and XBR500 these bikes can only be considered as concept bikes in which an old idea has been greatly corrupted by a bunch of stylists. Those with long memories will recall that I reckoned that they would sell a lot if priced under a grand well, that’s optimism for you, you might just get one discounted down to £1600 if you’re lucky. Only one word for it - pathetic. Japan Inc must be finished if this is the best they can do!

Things began to get rapidly worse. I almost bought a Honda CB500T (it was a dark brown one and had a decent looking 2-1 exhaust.....) and then there was the temptation of a Kawasaki Z750 twin, a motorcycle of such awful engineering (yes, I know, they are wonderfully torquey and laid back to muscle around city streets) that I would have had to move to another part of the country had I succumbed. I suddenly found that the Honda CBR600, a machine I’d previously lusted after, appeared tacky and already looked out of date; alongside an old Suzuki 450 twin it began to look less and less convincing.

Deciding that a dose of sea air would clear the mind I relocated to an obscure seaside town where the local thugs apparently take a great delight in beating up people from Cardiff (but a 14 year old leather jacket provides a degree of anonymity) and the edge of poverty is apparent in the number of youths who roar around on old Jap twins. There was no getting away from them!

I was particularly taken by a Honda 400 Dream. Do you remember them? That dumpy tank and a seat line even more obscure than a CB500T (which was bad enough, a sort of Velo cast off gone tragically wrong). And an engine with all the sexiness of a lump of blancmange. I can remember that my initial reaction to it when it was launched was one of near hysterical laughter, it just looked so silly compared to their earlier twins, with all the integrity of a motorcycle magazine ad rep. Then. This one was missing one silencer, the pipe end welded up, the fumes exiting via the balance pipe to the remaining silencer, but even this seemed to have a certain quaintness.

Salvation almost came in the form of a Harley Sportster. For some reason, as obscure as the house across the road that intermittently has a red light in the window and an open door (very strange places these Welsh towns), I’ve seen two of these devices chugging happily through the centre of town on a number of occasions - and I want one. Unfortunately, that would mean a visit to the Big Apple, a prospect about as thrilling as finding out the roof’s just fallen off, as one Yank for one minute sets my teeth on edge and I have enough problems with my dentist as it is. For all its engineering backwardness, at least the damn thing has some street cred. But such an easy escape wasn't to be.

I knew things were becoming seriously desperate when I fell for a Yamaha XS500 twin with aluminium so corroded that the white oxide had turned a dirty brown. It looked so bad that had someone tried to undo a spark plug the cylinder head would have probably snapped off before it moved. Much to my dismay the owner wasn’t interested in selling it, despite what seemed an inordinate amount of dosh on offer. I was so dejected that even the smile of the Thai girl who worked in the local Chinese (you can work the logic of that one out for yourself) hardly had any effect.

I couldn’t even get seriously drunk as I’ve taken the step of boycotting all bars where the ratio of girls to men isn’t greater than 1:1 (yet another reason for avoiding Shit City), which leaves Merthyr Tydfil and the like where there are girls in abundance who insist on wearing very short skirts, most of the men having got on their bikes to look for work, but I didn’t figure that turning up on some old hack would greatly impress them.

Well, by the time you read this I will have removed myself safely out of temptation and will be spending as much of the winter as possible in a warm climate where rain is as rare as truth in glossy motorcycle magazines (is that two or three digs?) By the time I return I hope to have removed such obsessions from my mind and look forward to the odd bank raid or dubious financial speculation in order to raise the finance for some nearly new, high tech piece of madness - I mean, I’m sure a few sorties up to 150mph will help re-educate me... Jesus, no, I mean yes, you only want £250 for that ’73 CD175, yes it does look rather like an early BSA A65 from a certain angle, yes it does sound rather rorty with those open pipes, yes...

Bill Fowler