Ever since I bought a Suzuki 50 moped my friends and enemies started calling me Gonzo. I suppose this is fair enough as on the first day of proud ownership of a slightly used example I crashed three times, the third heavily enough to need remedial attention at the local hospital - I still walk with a slight limp. On the second day I crashed five times, which I put down to the bruised and bandaged leg being still stiff.
The next few days were not much better. Most of the crashes were down to me screaming the little stroker up to its indicated top speed of 35mph, suddenly finding myself in a terminal situation and then grabbing hold of the brake lever, bringing on the single front disc with a terrifying screech that locked up the front wheel, causing the crap Jap tyre to let loose. Eating tarmac became such a regular occurrence in the first month that I borrowed my brother’s motocross gear; togged out I had enough body armour to survive the worst of the tumbles.
For a moped the ZR had a certain amount of class... in 1987 it rated as a small, well styled motorcycle, there was just enough of a bike there to stop older bikers dismissing it out of hand. With slightly raised bars, minimal mass and a decent seat the Suzuki was dead easy to ride around town but out of the urban chaos the ZR was obviously limited by its lack of speed - on any decent road it was relegated to the gutter as the hordes of cars forced their way past with a combination of naked aggression and disregard for my existence.
I occasionally held my ground, flat out at 35mph with a slightly weaving back wheel, but I was often frightened out of my diapers by the way some gringo would haul his front bumper to within a millimetre of my back end. The generally good mirrors seemed to vastly magnify the size of the car as it got within striking distance. I often thought some kind of missile launcher attached to the rear rack and fired by the proximity of other traffic would be a very good idea.
Still, when you're only 16 there's not that much choice in wheels.
The bike had 4000 miles on its one year old clock, was in spiffing condition and responded first prod of the kickstart even under my inept foot... I could actually bend down and start a hot engine with just hand pressure on the kickstart! Controls were light and lacked anything resembling jerkiness; I succeeded in moving off first time and was subsequently never to stall the motor.
Wheelies were hard work but not impossible, requiring a throttle to the stop and a rapidly dropped clutch with the rider sitting on the tailpiece jerking the bars off the ground with all his might. I looked so ridiculous that I soon gave up on saving front tyre wear, reserving my efforts for wheelspin on the gravel in the school playground.
The only problem was the way my right wrist twitched when it came within a foot of the throttle. For a novice like me the fifty’s acceleration was startling and I kept getting into trouble before | knew what had hit me. Some of the slower revving four strokes might be better for the complete novice and, indeed, I was to learn that a popular modification with the ZR was to fit a bigger gearbox sprocket to produce taller gearing and a top speed in the 35-40mph range. (Strictly illegal until you're 17, by the way, and a bit embarrassing if you get speed trapped at 16 as I managed.)
My first long ride was 100 miles to Birmingham from London. There was no way that I could stick with the main routes where we would have been an accident looking for somewhere to happen, so had to content myself with the back roads - it took over six hours to get there and |Iwas knackered. Even at the limited speeds the Suzi could manage, there were several times when I messed up my line in the bends and ended up on the wrong side of the road searching for a suitably soft spot to test the quality of the body armour.
Coming home was worse. Much worse, because it was the first time I'd ridden the ZR out of town at night. In town, the cute rectangular headlamp had seemed adequate at warning potential killers of my whereabouts but I just couldn’t believe the puny main and dip beams where there was no assistance from street lighting. The only way progress above 5mph could be maintained was by tagging on to the back of some auto... difficult even on back roads with only 35mph in hand. When I finally turned up home at near midnight my eyes were bloodshot and bloated, ever after my eyesight seemed to deteriorate or it might just have been down to other uses of my right hand involving a pile of porno magazines.
It wasn’t always possible to plan my riding to avoid night riding, although I usually found another rider with better lights to accompany my nocturnal forays.
L-plates were often junked in favour of taking a juvenile woman on the back... I had to make sure they weighed less than 35kg not to upset the performance and handling! I once took a 80kg mammoth on the pillion who clamped her arms rigidly around my 34" chest. The front wheel was airborne for the next two miles until I dumped her outside of a pub and did a runner.
The ZR did 23000 miles in seven months under my eager hands until problems started to appear. Which may have been down to the fact that the only maintenance I ever did was to occasionally pour some oil into the tank. The first problem was a cracked exhaust which promptly fell apart, leaving me four miles from home with flames leaping out of the exhaust port... the holed piston a week later may be down to riding the machine in this condition. The bore and crankshaft bearings were all in nice shape, which has to be good going for a tiny stroker with 27000 miles under its wheels. The engine was given a decoke whilst apart and treated to a brand new exhaust system, the old matt black having gone very rusty before it cracked up.
Finish on wheels, tank, frame and guards showed the bike up as being made down to a price by the way various bits of paint disappeared or just faded away... the bike demanded and got a full respray whilst the engine was out. The wheels were easy to clean but needed attention every other day. By that mileage the rear shocks, always a bit on the soft side, had turned totally soggy; the back tyre often threatening to burst through the underside of the seat. New springs were installed and the bike felt much tauter but rumbled about over rough, back road going.
By then my crashes were down to about one a month rather than one a day, although it would have been tempting fate to dispense with the enduro gear. None of the consumables wore out so quickly that I had any inclination to work out how long they lasted; similarly, fuel consumption must have been in the 80-110mpg range, but I find it impossible to pin an exact figure on it.
Once back on the road, the bike seemed a bit faster than before, with 40mph coming up on the clock on a few occasions when conditions were favourable. I was bored out of my head with the lack of speed and eyed adverts for big bore kits with something approaching lust. An old copy of MCN to hand with an article on Bantam tuning, I took a file to the ports, dumped the air filter and exhumed the exhaust baffle. A terrible din resulted and a lack of power at the lower end of the rev range; screaming through the still precise gearbox produced a horrible racket and an all time best of 43mph. The chassis felt on the edge of wanting to throw me off at that kind of speed.
Two weeks of this abuse led the engine to seize solid, the machine throwing me off into the path of a Volvo driver who didn’t even slow down as his wheels ran over my legs. I was left writhing in agony until the police and ambulance men turned up and stuck some big needles in what was left of my body. Any thought of resurrecting the Suzuki was forgotten when a sadistic mate brought in a photo from the paper showing a frame and engine that had merged into one. I can just about walk now but I think I will stick to reading rather than riding bikes!
Sean