Some mothers do have them. The chap off whom I bought the 1976 Suzuki B120 was one of those types who live with their mothers all their life. His devotion to her was only equalled by his devotion to the little commuter. For 15 years he had used it to reliably plod back and forth between home and work. At the end of each and every day he had cleaned and polished the bike until it looked like new. In 1991 it had to be the best condition Suzuki B120 in the country. An amazing feat considering the mileometer read 59867 miles!
He was only selling the bike because he had retired and had no further use for the B120. I handed over £200 happily enough. There were few other machines in that price range available locally that were not old hacks in a terminal state of decay. I had spent months visiting dealers, running around on public transport in reply to private adverts and even taken to knocking on the doors of houses with motorcycles outside them. Finally, it looked like my luck had turned.
I had taken a test ride around the block and my ride home confirmed my generally favourable impressions. The gearbox action was the reverse of what I'd expected but easy enough to handle with its C90 style pedal that you could stamp on whether going up or down the box. The action of the change was surprisingly accurate, like a knife through butter, to throw in a cliche. It put to shame many a new bike.
Power was never going to be arm wrenching from a mild 120cc two stroke single. Even when new only 10hp was claimed. The bike had been designed with long life, economy and ease of use in mind, not. startling performance. Top speed worked out at 60mph, a speed that could be held under most conditions, though not with the added mass of a pillion, which punched a hole in the performance to the extent that only 45mph was possible.
The smoothness of the engine was as surprising as that of the gearbox, but then the motor made power in a way that made revving hard through the gears a pointless exercise in premature engine destruction. Some might find the engine somewhat remote but that has to be better than being blitzed by vibes all day long. The only real sign of the machine's age was the suspension, both forks and shocks were very basic to start with and time had reduced them to a very spongy state that didn’t so much as absorb bumps as flop around all over the place.
Even on a straight, smooth road, if you were lucky enough to come across one of the few that were left, the bike produced horrible weaves once above 35mph. The springs at both ends appeared to have sagged badly, the mere weight of the rider sufficient to put them down on the stops. Thus, on the more usual bumpy roads not only did the bike twitch about something awful, every damn bump in the road was fed directly into my arms, legs, backside and spine. Ouch!
Doing, say, 45mph under these conditions would cause approaching vehicles to flash their headlamps in alarm and the odd, daring motorist to stick his head out of his car window, screaming that my motorcycle was falling apart under me. I tended to agree with them but it sure made every ride an adventure. The B120 must be one of the worst styled bikes on the market. With a pressed steel frame, huge guards, full chain enclosure and malignantly shaped petrol tank and side panels it is so bad it’s almost in a class of its own. By comparison, a CD175 looks almost modern and an MZ 125 full of street cred!
There was no easy way to improve the appearance of the machine, something like sporty mudguards would just look damn silly. The frame was also rusting slightly where the shock studs were welded in, so I half expected them to fail at any moment. The only problem with these types of frames is that they tend to rust from the inside out, looking OK until the moment some important part fails when the corrosion breaks through.
I scrounged around the local breakers, picking up a pair of slightly longer shocks and some springs for the forks that looked about right. I had no idea what they came from, anything was bound to be better than what they were replacing. A mate applied a welding torch to the frame, putting in some additional metal and enough support around the studs to make sure they would last the distance.
This new suspension must've been off something appreciably heavier for they hardly moved when I bounced on the seat. They only reacted to the most vicious of bumps but their tautness helped hold the motorcycle on line. I was soon scraping the stands and pissing about on the Suzuki through town like it was a GP machine, the baffles falling out of the exhaust producing a nice stroker wail and not doing any discernible harm to the carburation.
As most of my riding was through heavy traffic the paucity of top end performance did not worry me. The drum brakes did, though. The shoes and linings looked OK to me when I took a look, but the amount of muscle needed to pull up was astonishing. There was no way to tell if the shoes were OE or some inferior pattern items. This was a pretty big defect given the way cars deemed the bike so puny as to be easily cut up. I felt like wearing a large sign stating that in the event of a collision I could fix my bike for a few quid whilst the auto owner would need thousands. Somehow, I managed to haul the bike around offending cars. The B120 was very narrow and very light, a useful combination to have to hand in difficult circumstances.
The horn was no help at all, it could barely be heard above the engine rattles. The nearest miss came when some person in a Sierra) turned left without warning. I had to twist the bike viciously and leap over a bit of pavement to avoid wrecking his pristine auto. Not that he stayed around to thank me.
Other than the brakes, the B120 was well suited to town work. The clutch and gearbox were a delight to use, there was just enough power to keep ahead of the pack at the traffic lights and with just over 200lbs to haul around riding never became tiresome. I never stalled the engine in traffic and had I done so starting would just have been a gentle prod on the lever, which was also all that was needed for starting a cold engine.
Appearance gradually went off, as my idea of cleaning motorcycles is to throw a hot bucket of water over them every couple of months. Japanese chrome, alloy and paint is not up to much, apparently needing daily applications of tender loving care to keep the corrosion blight at bay. The wheels were particularly virulent in their need to turn back to mother nature, although the engine alloy was not that far behind. The bike's styling was so awful that I felt no need to imitate its previous owner’s perverse need to keep the Suzuki immaculate.
In the last 13 months I have done 10500 miles at hardly any cost.
Tyres, chain, brake shoes, etc have not shown much sign of wear. All the engine has needed is the addition of engine oil and the transmission oil changed twice when the gearbox became notchy. I haven’t bothered to check the points or even change the spark plug. Fuel has averaged out at about 75mpg, with a low of 60mpg when thrashed into a strong head wind and high of 95mpg when gently pottering. Given its age that is a very impressive record and the motor shows no sign of giving up yet.
I suppose, after such valiant service, that I should feel remorse in letting the appearance slip, but it’s not the kind of motorcycle | can feel any real affection for. I appreciate the engine’s toughness and durability, but the rest of the bike is really crap. Most of them have decayed to death by now, it’s only the rare one, with a strange owner, that has avoided the endemic rot that attacks the chassis and cycle parts. Still, these are tough times and we all have to make sacrifices.
Bruce Gartmore