One of the best ways of getting high has always been to ride an interesting motorcycle as fast as possible. This is, these days, not as easy as it used to be. High insurance rates, the rarity of decent, cheap motorcycles and the huge excess of cagers ruining even mildly fast A-roads, all combine to make it difficult to derive sufficient kicks, unless taken early in the morning or late at night. Both of which cause as many problems as they solve.
Living in Wales I am at least lucky in having an excess of deserted minor roads to play with. Usually, where there are long straights the road surface does not allow speeds in excess of 100mph - cruel changes in road textures can be so traumatic that they wreck stability, not to mention my back!
Still, because I have such an intimate knowledge of the area, I can take quite interesting routes, turning what would've been a boring motorway trawl into an exciting outing. Local councils go to extreme lengths to make sure all the road signs direct people on to the main A-road or motorway route, making it absurdly easy to become completely lost when off the beaten track in unknown areas.
The back road route is often shorter in pure distance, running along old Roman roads that their builders made as straight as possible - which doesn't mean they were always direct, as the topography of the British countryside enforced much swervery upon their planners. However, the time it takes to ride along these routes is out of all proportion to the mileage covered; as is the grin factor.
Choice of machine is obviously important. The self-evident things like cheapness of running costs can be left unsaid... what's needed is about 70hp and 350lbs, with a low centre of gravity for chuckability and the kind of torque delivery that would make an 850 Commando owner green with envy rather than merely white with terror. That such a machine does not exist says rather too much about the state of the motorcycle market.
The nearest in power characteristics is the Yam TDM850 but this massive slug is so overweight and so horrendous on the running costs that its marvellous power delivery can't justify its existence. Readers who believe I demand too much, should just look at the specs of an old 850 Norton and a new Honda CBR900, which will reveal that the better traits of the two machines could be easily (well, probably not easily...) combined to produce the machine that the TDM should've been. My comments on its hideous half fairing could fill the rest of this article, but take it as read.
The nearest I've got to the ideal back road hustler is a Kawasaki GPz500. For too many years this bike has received no more development than a change of colour, which was pretty pointless after they had achieved their best effect in 1989 with the pearl white job. These bikes have managed to sell well despite the lack of development, because they are relatively fast, cheap to run and fun to ride.
The 60 horses feels more like 50 on the road. Whilst they will do 125mph (more like 130mph on the clock) the power to weight ratio is just short of the real body trembling acceleration that machines of twice their capacity can induce. A program whereby the power was increased by 30% and the mass reduced by 20% would transform the nature of the beast.
The former would probably need a 600cc motor, whilst the latter would be a generally simple matter of going over all the components, reducing mass wherever it was possible. I can't see that either option would need very much effort, nor would any price increase be justified - due to its startling characteristics it really ought to drop in price as it would doubtless sell in even greater quantities.
I am naturally aware that owners of more mundane machinery would be only too happy to swing a leg over such a relatively sophisticated device, even if it would be laughed at by the race replica crowd as entirely inadequate. At the lower end of the price range they can be picked up for less than £1500, which whilst a lot of dosh could be money neatly spent as they are basically well built, reliable and easy to sell on. Their cosmetics do suffer, so there's even some room for a cheapo renovation job.
Obvious modifications consist of dumping the rear shock for something with better springing and damping, fitting heftier fork springs and using thicker oil, and replacing the quick rust exhaust for a neat if expensive stainless steel Motad. The latter does more for losing mass than enhancing performance but at least it polishes up nicely with a minimal expenditure on Solvol. The OE tyres are dangerous after wearing a little, Michelins or Avons are a safer alternative.
Even if these mods are needed on most bikes more than a couple of years old, it doesn't say much for the overall design of the GPz... more serious mods would involve dumping just about everything except the engine and electrics (the headlamp is rather good, although a careful watch on the battery water has to be kept). The actual need to make major mods says rather a lot about modern machinery - would that sensible design made such effort unnecessary, but progress over the past decades has mostly been in the area of elimination of vibration and early mechanical demise, for both of which we should all be profoundly thankful.
Were not these constraints present to such an alarming degree in British big twins of the sixties they would prove ideal for my back road excursions. In fact, so good could be their on the road fun when they were running well, that many an owner has opted for a full mechanical update, so that a hassle free ride becomes the norm rather than the exception. Such an upgrade consists of improving on the puny main bearings, dynamically balancing the crank and extremely careful assembly of better than new components. Complete replacement of all the ancient electrics and use of electronic ignition are also compulsory.
Admittedly, rock solid reliability is only achieved at the expense of de-tuning the engine to an extent that limits overall fun, single carb and low compression pistons being necessary fare if 5000 mile engine rebuilds are to be avoided. Neither can the engines be neglected like modern or even old Japs - these days, valves of the former rarely need adjusting and carbs stay in balance for ridiculously long periods, except on the really wildly tuned race reptiles, where the running costs are, anyway, so horrendous that they do not bear thinking about.
Whilst there are still quite a few old Bonnies and Dommies on the road, some of which have gone around the clock more than once, close interrogation of their owners will reveal that a hell of a lot of work and tender loving care has been put into rebuilding and maintaining them along the way. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as everyone is aware of the amount of effort needed and not taken in by the classic myths.
I have been tempted by the British option several times but earlier experiences with the breed have always been recalled in time to save me from such foolish indulgence. Whilst I can recall many a happy moment on old Jap iron, that these days would be dismissed as utterly mundane, I can think of not one ride on British stuff that managed to dispel the paranoia and cause a grin to form. I had better, if certainly more dangerous, times on a rotten old NSU Quickly.
Other European machines have great things going for them on the back roads, but most of the Wo... er, Italian stuff is too idiosyncratic, although tougher than old British twins, and just as likely to intrude upon my peace of mind. Older BMW twins have a lot going for them, save that I've never been able to take them seriously after seeing experienced police riders come to grief in heavy traffic due to the massive width of their cylinders; newer boxers are afflicted with too much mass and too little power.
Admittedly, most motorcycles have to compromise their designs in order to appeal to sufficient people to justify their development and production costs; something that suited my needs down to the ground might prove difficult to sell to other punters. But I see no reason why, using modern design and manufacturing methods, that power can't be added and mass reduced on something like Kawasaki's GPz500; it's difficult to see who could lose out from such a deal, so improved would the beast become.
I expect that in ten years time this will all be history and that modern bikes will be rather more thoughtfully put together; that the engineering effort put into stunning devices like Honda's CBR900 will become the norm in all categories of motorcycle transport rather than the exception.
Bill Fowler
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