Honda GL1100

Deciding on a new, or should I say replacement, motorcycle is an adventure in itself, for browsing through the weekly motorcycling comics, the monthly qualities, the local rags and, of course, the UMG, gives unlimited reign to unlikely fancies and acquisitions from the sturdy workhouse MZ to a FJ1100, from the new Indian Enfield to a lightly used - whatever that means - Hesketh. But sanity prevails: sell the house and wife for a BMW K1100LT or sell only the house and buy a GPz1100. Strange how priorities become recognisably distorted but incredibly enjoyable.

However, in the cold light of dawn, along with the final demands, bank statements with the clerk’s initials alongside the totals (who is this OD chap, anyway”), rose tinted dreams come crashing down and perhaps a tenth hand MZ might not be so bad after all.

Reading all the motorcycle road tests and reviews I could lay my hands on, I came across Peter Rae’s excellent book on the Honda Gold Wing. Why, I thought, hadn’t I thought of it before, here was the perfect mount. With a GL1100 I’d have not only a powerful, sophisticated and proven reliable bike, but the absolute epitome of the Japanese long distance tourer. So I went out and bought one.

A nearby dealer, advertising a good - what else - 1980, unfaired, GL1100 just over four years old, was a refreshingly familiar figure changed hardly at all from the universal salesman when I first started riding 25 years ago. Smartly dressed in a shiny blue Oxfam suit, he was the master of the non-specific. Was the recorded mileage genuine at 25000? 'Well,’ he though, ‘it might be, looking at the general condition of the machine,’ but he’d forgotten to ask the previous owner. Was there a service record with the bike? 'Well, possibly if I can find it in my desk.’ He never did. It was obviously useless to go on in this vein because at any moment I would get the little old lady riding it to church once a week treatment.

Looking at my Suzi GT185 for a trade-in against the Wing, he predictably sucked his breath through his teeth and uttered that immortal phrase so loved by second-hand dealers throughout the land, "Not a lot of demand for these, market’s dead, best I can do is eighty quid.’

The GL1100 had the start of a two inch crack in the dummy GRP petrol tank and a bald rear tyre, but otherwise looked reasonable. I accepted the £80 for the GT (which was just about to break its piston rings), agreed to go fifty-fifty on the rear tyre and handed over a cheque for £1200.

The 60 mile journey home was, to put it mildly, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I'd arrived at the dealers riding a 16hp, 340lb air-cooled two stroke and departed on a 83hp, 650lb four cylinder liquid cooled four stroke. Apart from the vast amount of effortless, almost silent, urge available at the twist grip and the feeling that I was driving something the size of a house, the Wing was not such a handful that its bulky appearance might suggest.

Predictably, there was only an egg-cup of petrol in the tank, but the ever helpful salesman pointed out an Esso garage at the bottom of the street that with a bit of a tail wind I could coast down to.

The first 1000 miles of Gold Wing ownership were interesting. The engine was so smooth that any comparison with my previous single and twin cylinder bikes was impossible. From 2000rpm up there was smooth power available. However, combining a high gear with too few revs resulted in a horrible chatter and snatch between the morse chain drive from the engine and the shock absorber unit in the gearbox - drop a cog and all was well.

Whilst the gear change lever movement was commendably short and precise, I was never able to achieve a silent change, there was a clunk and a little grinding noise. Changing into bottom while stationary was even worse, for even with the engine idling at minimal revs the clutch drag was sufficient to cause a loud thunk, causing me to cringe when surprised car drivers gave superior glares in my direction. Talking with other GL owners, this appears a universal problem.

Starting from cold with full choke was another traumatic event, for as soon as the engine caught the revs shot up to the 3000rpm cold idling speed, which to my mind always appeared far too fast for all the bits whizzing around inside. Another traumatic occurrence is whitelining. The first time this happened I was trying to negotiate a fast bend that suddenly tightened up, causing me to run wide - I was favoured by the full tactile treatment from the double white lines by being nominally in control of the Wing yet unable to effectively alter the direction of progress. It was rather like the old story of the cyclist who having got his front wheel stuck in the tram lines had to carry on until he came to the tram depot; so with myself and the white-lining, for it was not until the continuous double white lines ended that I was again able to assume full control.

Tyres were both almost new, and if a slightly strange combination of front Roadrunner and rear Bridgestone, were not to prove the source of the problem as they were eventually replaced with a set of Dunlop Arrowmaxes to no avail. Changing tyres pressures and suspension settings also had no effect. The rear Bridgestone lasted for 4500 miles and the front Avon was good for twice that, whilst a rear Dunlop lasted for 4000 miles.

With five days to go before my ninety day guarantee expired, I noticed that my right boot was covered with warm oil. Not from the engine, fortunately, but from the fork seal (the oil warmed as it passed through the radiator). "No problem,’ said the dealer when I took it back to complain, 'Just a morning's job.’ A week later he finally let me have the bike back. Six weeks later the problem came back. Haynes in one hand and adjustable spanner in the other, I set to work. The stanchion indicated prior treatment from someone intent on gouging a map of the Clapham junction railway interchange into the chrome.

My local Honda dealer could obtain a new one for a mere £105, but it worked out a lot cheaper to send the stanchion off for re-chroming and grinding back to size. Dragonfly Motorcycles did the job for less than half the price of a new one, including postage, and the end product was so accurately ground that it was better than new. Incidentally, if you are ever unfortunate enough to lose the air pressure and damping from one fork of a GL, and are not one of those fortunate few with a double supply of adrenalin, consider walking home or at the very least ride home at less than the 30mph speed limit the handling is very strange under these circumstances, all the mass that is normally well disguised by the GL’s quite effective running gear, becomes all too apparent, the whole plot leaps and bounces all over the road. I considered this not so funny.

The bike has a large stepped King & Queen seat which while very comfortable leaves my wife, who had decided that she liked motorcycles after her initial opposition to my taking up with them again when I’d bought the GT185, sat right in the turbulent wake produced by the wind blasting over my head. The seat actually has three inches of fore and aft movement, which is a great help in achieving a good relationship between footrests and bars.

For a heavy, four cylinder motorcycle the fuel economy was good. Driven hard with two up it would return 43mpg and just pottering along at 50 to 60mph gave a figure in the lowish fifties, on two star petrol. Oil it never used, the level in the sight glass never varying between oil changes and the whole power unit was commendably free from any kind of leak or misting.

But everything was not as full of happiness and contentment as it should have been and I ended up selling the machine. Why? Firstly, because of the tremendous weight and, secondly, because of the incredible cost of new parts.

To put a GL1100 on its centre stand is, to put it mildly, something approaching a double hernia job. Unless you’re on a good level surface with the wheels dead in line you'll never do it no matter how much you struggle and swear and sweat. I’m no weakling at six feet and 170lbs, but given a slight slope or camber on the road, it had to be the side stand every time. Honda were obviously aware of the problem for the later GL1200 is a vast improvement, almost a one hand job.

On the second MOT, the tester quite correctly drew my attention to the rear brake disc - despite changing the pads well before they were down to the metal, the stainless steel disc was becoming deeply grooved and due for replacement.” A heart stopping enquiry to my local Honda dealer revealed the horrendous information that a new disc would cost £180. This, I thought, was beyond a joke - the Wing would have to go, and it did.

To be fair, in retrospect the GL did fulfil the role that Honda had intended, but with qualifications. True, it was a comfortable long distance tourer, but only if you were on long straight roads. On winding back roads the rider was working hard coping with the weight and the deficiencies in chassis design to take full advantage of the flexible engine power and indulge in enjoyable bend swinging.

Due to its excess mass the Wing was a real pig to handle in any situation where you couldn’t merely stick it in gear and ride straight off. Pushing, or rather more accurately straining and sweating, to remove it backwards from the garage each morning and get her turned around on a slightly uphill path was far from the best way to start the day. It is not for nothing that the latest incarnation of the Gold Wing, the six cylinder 1500, has been fitted with a reverse gear, even if it is driven by the starter motor rather than the engine (I shudder to think of the cost of a replacement starter which surely won't last long given that kind of treatment).

The engine gave the impression of being absolutely bullet proof, a beautiful piece of flat four engineering that in 10000 miles and two years never gave much cause for complaint. My only real worry was keeping an eye on the engine temperature. In heavy traffic or very hot weather, the coolant temperature increased rapidly causing the fan to cut in with a roar. This would have been fine, save that the fan fuse could blow and let the engine get dangerously hot; if you don’t notice the gauge in the red zone you'll hear the engine making some odd crackling noises. I suspect that the size of the radiator may be marginal for the power of the engine, so it pays to keep a constant check on engine temperature.

As I’ve already mentioned, I hated the clunkiness of the gearbox but it was otherwise faultless with ratios well matched to power (not difficult with such a large spread). Shaft drive is obviously worth its extra mass in savings in chains, maintenance and overall cleanliness. But the mass and power do mean rear tyres can last as little as 3500 miles, which is both expensive and inconvenient if you take the Wing on a really long tour. I had to take the bike off the road only twice, both times due to the failure of the fork seal - as I’ve heard of two other failures this may be an intrinsic fault, so it may be worth fitting gaiters straight away if you buy one with stanchions in good condition. If the suspension is in reasonable condition the bike is very safe, and the ride comfortable, up to the legal limit, more weaves and wobbles intruding the more you break the speed limits.

Prices of spares are ridiculously high, although since selling the bike I’ve seen a couple of adverts selling new bits at substantially reduced prices. The bike has been out of production for four years now, so I suppose they will soon start finding their way into breakers which may alleviate the spares situation. If all of this has not put you off the Gold Wing as your next acquisition, do, please, have a try at getting the beast on and off its centre stand before you hand over your money, otherwise you may find yourself making an unscheduled visit to your friendly truss maker!

Peter Wells.

Kawasaki Z1300: Maximum Muscle

From the sublime to the ridiculous, I muttered to myself, struggling with near on 700lbs of water-cooled, six cylinder motorcycle, trying to turn the beast around in a road that whilst wide enough for two cars to pass required a three point turn on the Z1300. Oh sure, I just know you readers out there would have flicked it around, feet up, like some dinky little trail bike, but I was in the depths of paranoia about dropping my new beast on the road and being unable to pick the damn thing up. In fact, I was in the depths of paranoia, full stop.

Having off-loaded my BMW R100/7 for a rewardingly large amount of dosh before I fell asleep out of boredom and fell off, I was caught in the usual trap of wanting to ride a motorcycle and waiting for a bargain priced bike to turn up. I had about £1500 to play with, not quite enough to buy some high tech joy rider, but quite sufficient to pick up some older tech Jap multi with plenty of miles left before it chewed up its cam bearings or dropped valves on pistons. I rather fancied a Z1000, one of the older ones with the teardrop tank and it was whilst flicking through the smalls in the World’s Largest Selling Motorcycle Paper that I came across the Z1300. The usual line, immac condt, low mileage, must sell, getting married, etc., etc. I'd wandered along, been taken for a terrifying blast up the road and after I’d admitted to having the money on me, been allowed to disturb the tranquillity of surburban Hayes for a couple of minutes.

Everything seemed just fine, but somewhere at the back of my mind was a nagging doubt that stopped me making an offer. Three weeks later there was still nothing decent on offer, so I phoned up, offering £1250 for the 1984 Z1300. He accepted and in about an hour I was the proud owner of the kind of motorcycle that I really should have been trying to avoid at my age, but what the hell.

I’d had the thing for fifty minutes, running up and down the A1 just to get used to the beast when I thought I heard a funny ringing noise from the engine. Naturally, I whacked open the throttle to see if 120 horses would clear out the motor, it certainly nearly cleaned out my body, what kind of a lunatic puts the bars and footrests in the kind of relationship that might suit Fantic chop owners on a device with enough go to rip the arms off inexperienced wimps?

Unfortunately, the noise was still there. It was whilst stuffing my earhole as near as possible to the engine while doing about 40mph that the pig mobile gave me a blast of its siren sufficient to scare me out of my skin and provoke the kind of wobble that would make Vincent owners go all misty eyed.

Either it was something I’d eaten, or the officers of the law actually looked rather porcine. I don’t know about cops making you feel old, these made me feel positively handsome. These characters really tore into the old Quack, trying to rip off the forks, tank, seat, swinging arm and anything else they could grab hold of without dirtying their fingers too much. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had started wielding crowbars on the bike. After checking my name against their computer, they let me go with the usual warnings and demand to take my documents to the local cop shop.

At idle there was just a quiet burble, the ringing noise came in around four grand and disappeared after 6500rpm. There were also rumblings from the clutch/gearbox area and the clutch lever was as heavy as a Norton Commando item. Just for the fun of it, I took the Z1300 to the local Kawasaki dealer who ummed and arred for about ten minutes then tried to persuade me to trade it in for a new 900, finally letting one of the mechanics have a listen who reassuringly admitted that they all did that, mate. Oh well.

Wading through Cockroach City traffic I was constantly aware of two things that were not in the least surprising. The bulk and width of the bike made hustling through gaps in traffic fraught with the kind of kicks reserved for Charles Atlas proteges, whilst hitting one of the many bumps in our rotting roads led to the tiniest of throttle movements and the sudden application of a frightening dose of horsepower to the rear wheel; combine these two factors and it’s very easy to end up bucking and bouncing along like your trying to train some wild horse.

Things aren’t helped any by the directness of the shaft drive (but just think about the kind of chain wear it’d have if it wasn’t a shaftie) and the amusing way the front brakes grabbed on and off with all the predictability, of kick starting a Gold Star into life. Furthermore, kids, when the front brake did bite, the twin discs locked up the wheel with a great squeal that had the softly, softly, forks down on their stops. It was only because I’ve ridden much worse bikes that have combined the above traits with a brutal delivery of power that I’m still sitting here writing this.

There are a couple of things that stop the Kawa being a dismal failure. For a start hit 75mph in fourth, wind open the throttle and the six cylinders come on cam and the bike shifts with a delightful growl and enough arm wrenching to satisfy the most perverse amongst us. It'll cruise at an indicated 120mph with no trouble and no vibes, even if the snakey little weave rather inhibits higher speeds, although top speed is more limited by the inability to hang on than the latter constraint. But the most important aspect of my ownership of the Z1300 is that in six months and 12000 miles (I commute between London and Belgium every week) all that I did to the bike was change the rear tyre twice and the brake pads three times.

The latter was necessitated by the need for constantly losing 30 or 40mph off speed when diverging from the straight and narrow. Just knocking off speed can get a little frightening if you're doing, say, 110mph in the mild weave mode, then brake down to seventy because if the road is merely mildly bumpy the chassis will get all crossed up. Try entering a bend in this mode and it’s dirty knicker time. At the best of times, going into a bend on the right line at the right speed the Kawa often flies around as if on rails defying expectations of the breed, but if it hits a bump in a certain way or some clot in a car gets in the way then it’s party time again - the steering head will shake, the back wheel weaves and... and if you whack open the throttle, hold on for dear life, it’ll all straighten out by the time you hit the exit line - on a good day.

Somewhere in there, amidst the excess mass, spongy suspension and laughable riding position there are the basics of a decent handler I think. At least the steel duplex frame is hefty and the steering geometry somewhere near right. I know it goes against the grain to say it, but I found the combination of frightening handling that never turned fatally terminal, with the immense grunt of the motor and the echo of. the six cylinder exhaust note, all quite thrilling.

Where my last bike, a R100/7, positively demanded that the rider behave in a civilised manner, no such constraint was evident in the Z1300, although if you really insisted on being perverse you could lope along at anywhere between thirty and seventy in top gear without any hint of displeasure from either the engine or the drive train.

Let’s be quite honest about this, the Z1300 was never conceived as an all out sportster, it was more the natural climax of a line of reliable if stodgy tourers in the GT550/750 mould, but as a tourer the bike is so ridiculously overweight and so heavy on consumables for high mileage use that it’s just one big laugh as that kind of serious motorcycle. OK I suppose, if you need to tow a caravan, but why buy a Z1300 to travel at 70mph (which is as fast as most tourers could manage without frightening themselves) when a machine half its size will do just as well?

I see the Z1300, instead, as the last in line of basic, raunchy devices like the Z1 and old 500 triple. It has the same mismatch between power and chassis that many perverse people actually enjoy in these days of sophisticated multis.

Despite the wonderful reliability that I enjoyed during my ownership, this was probably more a result of the beast having a mere eight thousand miles of mild usage before I got my greedy digits on it, than any particular comment on the nature of Kawasaki engineering, which is more a myth resulting from their older fours than yer actual ownership of their more modern tackle - just mention valve gear to a GPz600 or 900 owner after he’s got twenty or so thousand miles on the clock if they start sniggering at your seventies runabout.

The Z1300 has a few trouble spots that should be examined with a modicum of care. Start with the electrics. Both the ignition and alternator can give problems. The former causes total failure so is easy to suss, whilst riding with the lights on should quickly highlight failures in power generation.

Transmission also causes the odd problem - clutches that burn out and some of the bearings in the shaft drive start clunking - neither fault is cheap to fix. If the motor’s been stripped down and carelessly rebuilt, it’s quite easy to warp the cylinder head, and the inaccessibility of the spark plugs in dodgy Jap alloy also lead to stripped threads. Best to avoid an engine that has been stripped. If the five speed gearbox is very clunky it’s likely the selector’s on the way out, but even new the box isn’t particularly smooth. Expect to replace the camchain around 30-35000 miles and do a rebore at 55-60000 miles. Cranks do go at around 40000 on hard ridden bikes, but this is rare.

Maintenance could be very complex but as I never did any I can’t really comment. I just changed the oil every 3000 miles, checked the water level and occasionally polished the alloy of the fuel injection units in reverence to their complexity and the mortgage needed to buy replacements if they went wrong. As the kind of chap who used to rebuild his Commando engine every other weekend, this is rather surprising behaviour, but then why bother playing around with engine internals if you can get away with neglecting them... after its 12000 miles of neglect the engine sounded no worse and appeared to run just as smooth and produce just as much power. I even sold it for a couple of hundred quid more than I paid for it.

If in all it was a pleasant enough experience, not one that will linger in my mind for a long time, unlike certain Nortons. I’m happy to say that my next bike will have a chassis to match its power and my kicks will be from speed rather than dire handling and if you think that’s going to make for boring reading then you couldn’t be more wrong.

Johnny Malone

Norton 650SS

Let’s try to be straight about this from the start. I like my Norton because I’ve had it for eight years and about 75000 miles, and I’ve enjoyed the experience enough to look forward to the next 75000, which it'll undoubtedly do. However, at the £1500 plus that I’ve recently seen these "blue-chip" classics being offered I wouldn’t give one garage space. £1500 buys an awful lot more of a much better motorcycle, these days.

A couple of years ago a drunken deadhead stole my bike, and after the awful shock of seeing the empty space where it should have been parked and the horrible feeling of losing an old and familiar travelling companion, I began thinking about its replacement when the insurance coughed up. Another Norton did not appear on the shortlist - too much, too slow, too many antiquated design faults, too labour intensive and, anyway, another one would never be quite the same.

That indefinable zest and bitchiness that gets labelled as character in a motorcycle is in fact the product of a relationship that particular riders develop with particular machines, not a commodity that can be packaged and sold to anybody. The character that gets pedalled in the classic rags is usually down to having made allowances for pre-historic and sometimes rank bad design, inferior technology and subsequent owners lame brained bodges and let’s face it, in 25 years a bike can have a lot of imbecile owners.

If you want to own and, more importantly, run a bike like this, do it, and at the end of the process you'll have a machine that is uniquely yours, full of character and very possibly a joy to ride, but be prepared towork very hard and to suffer greatly on route.

Paying a great deal less than £1500 will be a good start, as will ridding your mind of any thoughts of concours finish and original specification - if the bikes had been that good in the first place, Norton wouldn’t have gone bust for thinking the same and carrying on producing them.

The money you’ve saved so far will help pay for the modifications you need to make the bike reliable enough to ride anywhere and thus discover if it has your kind of character. If it doesn’t you’re up shit creek, because classic buffs don’t buy modified bikes, at least not for the £1500 it'll have cost you by now, so the only way you're going to get your money’s worth is by riding the thing, so you'll have to persevere.

After all the heartbreak involved in rebuilding and uprating it you'll be very, very good at persevering, so all in all it shouldn’t be a problem. You might even become an addict, in which case I wish you the joy of it... when the police rang up to say they'd recovered mine undamaged and caught the toe-rag who’d nicked it, I immediately forgot all about possible replacements in a big warm rush of sweet relief. I’m not sure it’s too good that a mere motorcycle can get to you like that, but this one definitely has that potential.

Potential is what it’s all about with these beasts. 120mph top end, taut but forgiving handling, 55 plus mpg and savagely functional styling... that was the kind of specification the makers bullshitted the press with in 1962, and justified by stomping the opposition in production races for the next few years. That was OK, given that it had the best mass produced frame of its time and everyone had lousy brakes, but it’s 25 years on now and the roads are a very different place.

The spanking new magneto that never missed a spark is now a clapped out collection of overheated shellac, brass and bakelite that tracks out at the first hint of salt spray. The valves have been reground so many times that they’ve disappeared up the ports, the tops are beginning to come off the pistons, the crank has been lubricated with neat sludge for the last ten years, the carbs have been grit-blasted internally and some pillock’s had the barrel off with a jemmy and removed a few fins in the process. The clutch is full of oily rubber, the gearbox full of sawdust, the front forks half full of water and the rear shocks full of nothing whatsoever.

Our specification now reads 85mph if you're lucky, stiff but occasionally hair raising handling, 100 miles per pint of oil and a distinctly flabby looking after market exhaust system and seat. The previous owner hadn’t really noted the decay because it occurred gradually and neither the speedo nor rev counter worked. Now it might be that the example you have your eye on is still in everyday use, sports a rebuilt engine or GPz1100 front end, has an exhaust note that brings tears to your eyes and is regularly seen negotiating roundabouts at 70mph, at about 60° of lean - but don’t be deceived. Whatever you do, you will end up having to rebuild it, if only for your own peace of mind - the cost of doing so will defy all economic logic unless you do it yourself.

There have recently been letters and articles in the UMG by people who are more than happy to know nothing about what goes on inside their favourite steed, and there are times when I wish I could rejoin that happy throng. I could not own an old bike if I did, however, because their potential for unreliability is higher than their potential for fun, and it takes a certain degree of application to cure the faults that make them unreliable. As I get a lot of satisfaction from solving such problems, and the bike has been reliable enough to take me all over Western Europe without serious mishap, I can enjoy owning it, but realise that this is a very personal thing.

The basic design is good enough to work on, and improve for use in the 80s, but requires a particular class of enthusiast (read obsessive) to realise that potential, so for most people it’s a bit of a non-starter, and I recommend borrowing rather than owning one if you want to experience the curious fascination for ruff, tuff 60s biking that currently afflicts these isles. If the heavy high speed vibration and sat-on-top-of-it riding position doesn’t deter then this could be the bike for you.

There are certain modifications that are essential if you want the bike to go and stop without constant maintenance and/or worry, and continue to do so until it wears out or gets rebuilt again, which depends on how hard you treat it in the interim.

The frame is the simplest item to fix. It'll handle 120mph but not massive surges of horsepower, so sticking in the old CBX motor isn’t really on. The swinging arm is carried on Silentbloc bushes that last for ever unless you stove it, in which case you need a press and a prayer book. Dedicated speed freaks can fit brass bushes and box section swinging arms, but for everyday use the bike doesn’t need them. I run Koni shocks with old Girling springs (and covers to protect the damper rods) to suit my ten stone mass.

The forks are short and stiff, which keeps everything going where you point it, but tends to be hard work over the average, ill-repaired modern road - using softer springs shows up the woefully crude damping and allows the forks to top over bumps and bottom with a resounding crunch in the ruts, though there are cunning ways to compensate for this. The fact that the forks don’t flap about is their best feature and most people learn to live with their other inadequacies, although changing the oil takes hours.

Head races as supplied are diabolical and usually replaced with taper rollers which have to be greased yearly (very tedious) and it’s cheaper and less effort to use sealed ball races, readily available from bearing factors. Any round 7" headlamp fits (CX500 units are cheap from breakers, Cibies more expensive but very wonderful) provided the electrics are upgraded to 12 volts. I’ve fitted chrono clocks as they last long enough to justify the enormous expense.

The brakes. The back one is fine, a heavy but sturdy SLS drum cum sprocket that can lock up the wheel if abused, sensitive and maintenance free if you look after the bearing seals (they’re felt, so it’s a bit of a game). The front is truly pathetic in stock SLS form, even with trick linings it fades away to nothing after a few hard stops. The much vaunted Commando TLS job is little better, despite looking very butch, as it distorts when hot and fades because the shoes don’t hit the drum squarely, and grabs when cold. The big air-scoop makes sure plenty of rain gets in to rust the drum and make it grab viciously in the wet, as evidenced by the white face of a seasoned rider I once had on the back after a particularly spectacular front wheel slide.

Blanking off the air-scoop, fitting sensible linings and a complex spindle stiffening arrangement gets them reasonably smooth, progressive and fade free, but never entirely eliminates the tendency to grab in the wet. Getting both shoes to hit the drum simultaneously requires a doctorate in physics and takes rather longer to achieve, but the whole ghastly business is no worse than de-crudding and bleeding discs every winter, so I persevere.

The engine is quite a tough lump which likes to rev despite its long stroke and very narrow bores. It’s basically a Commando bottom end without the top end strain, so main bearings last well (especially Superblends, though these are not essential and tend to let the crank whip rather than shuffle, which increases vibration). The big-ends will go for 50000 miles provided you clean all the crap out of the crank when it’s rebuilt and fit a Commando type oil filter - not forgetting to use decent oil and change it every 3000 miles.

The standard cam is quite sporty and will put a step in the power delivery if the ignition advance isn’t reasonably smooth. Which rules out civilised running if any of Joe Lucas’s pathetic mechanical auto-advance units are fitted, so electronic ignition is the answer if you want the engine to pull from low down. Any of you superstitious of black boxes can carry a points plate in your pocket, as I confess to have done in the past, but the Boyer I have fitted has run trouble free for over 60000 miles now and earned its keep in lack of maintenance - the thought of fitting and perpetually adjusting points makes me feel tired.

Early con-rods were weak and broke, but there can’t be many of them left now and later ones are up to the job. The valve gear is a bit Micky Mouse and wears out quickly, besides being very finicky to set up right, but the besetting sin of the engine is its utterly inadequate breathing, which requires major crankcase surgery to cure and entails the fitting of great horrible pipes, breather boxes, trick oil control rings and the like, all the result of the engine being bored and stroked from 500cc with no bottom end redesign. Yet another case of the punter having to do the manufacturer’s development for him.

Properly set up and run in, the engine will pull to the 7000rpm redline in top on stock gearing, which gives 120mph, but as the engine shakes like a shitting dog above 6000rpm. I can’t find much use for speeds over 100mph. I played with the cam timing a little to get her to pull from 1800 up to 6000rpm in top - which equates to a range of 40 to 105mph, perfect for cruising.

The gearbox is pleasant and positive in action until a rather pathetic spring breaks without any warning - but it’s easy to replace. The box lasts forever as long as you replace a ball bearing with a taper job (that the factory dropped out of meanness); if the ball fails (as it does if you cane the box) it writes off the cases.

The clutch is a beefed up 500 job with a gorilla grip action and a tendency to drag if abused, but the box is sweet enough not to need it except for setting off and finding neutral, so it lasts well. The internal shock absorber rubbers dissolve every year but are cheap and easy to replace. The primary drive and alternator set up is a ghastly lash up and  prone to premature disintegration if run without oil or with shot main bearings, but if you change the chain every 15000 miles you'll avoid any serious disasters. Everyone ridicules Norton tin chain cases, but they can be made oil tight with perseverance and do make the transmission very easy to get at.

The rear chain is a slim quarter inch job that lasts far better than heavy duty items because it doesn’t tear itself to pieces under its own inertia. The addition of a Scott chain oiler has meant that 20000 plus mileages are possible from a £14 chain, with pleasantly arcane adjustment. The stock chain adjusters must qualify as the worst engineered part of the bike (and there’s plenty of competition) and should be thrown away with a suitably blood curdling oath. Beefing up the bolts helps, but I opted for snail cams and can now adjust the chain in about 40 seconds. I also fitted alloy rims because they're light and look good, but standard steel rims are robust and trouble free.

Electrics are the other nasty, never a strong point on British machinery, although the later Lucas stuff isn’t too bad. Alternator stators burn out or shed their wires with age, but can usually manage 50000 miles, as can the rotors provided they aren’t allowed to work loose on the crankshaft. At £30 a piece they aren’t cheap to replace but nowhere near as expensive as Jap stuff. Rectifiers, voltage control diodes and emergency start capacitors run at £5 to £10 each, but I’ve not had one go yet, and with a little intelligent mounting and wiring don’t have to be a source of problems. On/off toggle switches are cheap and easy to replace (they have to be as they dislike vibration) and I have fitted Jap switches throughout, as well as a Honda rear light unit.

Despite the fierce vibes, in eight years, I have only burst one rear bulb (when the head steady bolt sheared and the whole plot really shook) and one front filament due to a dodgy earth wire. Speedo bulbs last a month if you re lucky,

My bike was built up out of bits after I saw the engine/gearbox/transmission unit in my favourite local dealer who only wanted £100 for it. It has the wrong frame, tank, forks, brakes, etc because I had an idea of what I wanted and picked up bits as I went along with only three criteria - is it light, cheap and can it be made to fit? It cost about £400 to put on the road in a fairly scabby state. I ran it for a year and 10000 miles to see if I liked it. It was fairly obvious that the engine needed serious attention, so the following winter I stripped it and picked up another complete engine requiring a rebuild, rebore, electronic ignition, ete. The rebuild proved a bit of a disaster because one of the new pistons collapsed after running in. I had to rebore it again and used a pair of high compression pistons I had lying around.

In this form it was a real flyer, though a bit tetchy about fuel, and I ran it for about 40000 miles until the pistons were completely worn out. By this time I'd picked up some oversize pistons, so treated it to a rebore and had a quick look. at the bottom end... everything OK. A long thrash to Spain the following summer started to get the bottom end rattling a bit, so at 60000 miles I had the engine out again and replaced the big-end shells and mains, though the latter seemed fine... it’s just I’d never changed them before. I also fitted a "reconditioned" camshaft that exploded after 2500 miles.

I decided that the bike had done rather well, so treated it to a stoving and spraying job, stainless steel exhaust system and a general polish up that left no change from £400. At this stage, with 75000 miles of wear out of it, I’ve spent about £1500 in total, and after running in the new shells and mains (it took 10000 miles until it fully loosened up) the bike has never been in better condition.

All these bits and modifications have produced a bike that weighs a mere 380lbs and is dwarfed by most Jap 250s, although the Featherbed frame makes the seat high, which suits me fine as I have long legs. The bike cruises at up to 85mph and then requires a definite effort, discouraging more speed by producing a wall of vibration, but shut off the throttle and the engine will drop back to 5000rpm and then hum along quite smoothly.

It will hold this speed for hours regardless of gradients with the minimum of throttle, return at least 50mpg and not fall to bits or leak oil. If the need arises, there’s a nice kick to 95mph, but back off the throttle cos those vibes are a killer. Stay there for quite a long time and things like cylinder base nuts will work loose, allowing the barrels to leap up and down, dumping most of the oil. On the twisty stuff it is completely surefooted and eggs you on to try a bit harder, so I always find it an exhilarating bike to ride. I guess that’s what really makes me like it.

I’ve had bikes that are faster and bikes that are more competent, but never one that has made the mere process of travelling so entertaining... after 500 miles you know you’ve done it, but you feel good too. I find it nimble and effortless around town but I’m used to the heavy clutch and variable tickover. Others have found it a bit of a handful until they’ve ridden a few hundred miles.

It is a middleweight and takes its appropriate toll on consumables. Front brake shoes go for around 10000 miles, rears 15000 miles. Tyre choice is limited by the 19" back wheel to Dunlop TT100s or Mk2 Roadrunners, and I use the latter as they wear better (8000 miles). F2 Avon fronts go 16000 miles but the old ribbed SM2s will last past 20000 miles at the expense of slight queasiness in the wet. The old, super sticky, Avon GP tyres, which were original equipment, give it cat like roadholding but I once wore one out in a 2000 mile blind through Scotland, and they don’t make them anymore, anyway.

You have to redline it in every gear to get below 50mpg, a process so barbaric and painful that 55-60mpg is normal, and it'll improve to 75mpg if you take it really laid back. I’ve never managed better than 500 miles per pint of oil, due to the lousy breathing, but with Jap engines needing changing every 1000 miles this isn’t so bad. At home it’s fed on Ford 15/50 because I can get it cheaply and it’s decent enough stuff, but on long trips it gets whatever’s available and has never complained. I don’t believe that an expensive straight oil would improve shell bearing life because of its poor cold starting properties, and, anyway, try asking for a half litre of Silkolene 40 in the Finnish backwoods.

All the important bolts are now in stainless steel, with plenty of copper grease if they’re screwed into castings and Loctite or locking nuts if they’re holding things together, and I haven’t had one drop off in years. Now and again I check them over, usually on a sunny morning when I’m on holiday or on the rare occasions that I clean it. It’s all down to that perseverance again... you find out over the years which bolts it’s going to try to shed and make sure it doesn’t get the chance.

I’ve had a set of plugs go 20000 miles without missing a spark (it’s that Boyer again, it squeezes sparks out of a matchstick) and do the tappets and timing chain once a year or if they start to rattle too much, which usually comes to the same thing. The primary chain needs adjusting twice every 15000 miles - I once ran one to 22000 miles at which point it started shedding rollers and made a very ugly noise. In all, the bike is not wildly labour intensive once it’s set up properly, and I would expend a similar amount of time maintaining any vehicle that owed me £1500. So there you have it. One of the best British parallel twins, I should say, with an engine/ chassis design that was reasonably well developed to give a fairly harmonious whole.

It has enough power to scare all but the terminally brain-dead. and sufficient speed to keep you awake, with the kind of looks you either love or hate but at least end up having some feeling for. Its strong suit is its sinuous handling and dependable road holding, but that applies to all Featherbed Nortons so it must ultimately be judged by its engine, which is definitely overstretched, and improves if slightly detuned. It is not fragile, but can be finicky, with a level of vibration that is only just this side of bearable. There’s plenty of torque and stomp there if you want it, but judging by the Japanese models that do sell most people don’t, and Harley freaks would find it pretty weak kneed, so it’s all relative.

It’s the kind of bike that requires dedication from its owner but repays that care by being very entertaining. The most depressing thing about it is that it’s now an officially recognised classic which is a sad fate for a bike that gives a fine ride and loves to roar and twist its way through wild, empty places. I remember a small boy saying to his dad, as they watched me tooling up to depart some small town square, "Wow, dad, he must be really rich!" Sure, sure.

Dale Middlehurst

Moto Guzzi V1000GS

The GS appeared soon after the V1000 Convert, which was burdened with a two speed, semi-automatic gearbox. The G5 looked identical to the Convert, both bearing a striking resemblance to the California less the foot boards. As its name suggests, the bike had a manual five speed box. With high handlebars, rear crash bars and Moto Guzzi emblazoned rigid rear plastic pannier boxes, their appearance is impressive in that particular Italian macho kind of way. Archaic to some, no doubt, but certainly imposing.

Equipped as it was with a manual box, one must consider whether it was an alternative designed to sell alongside the Convert or a hasty replacement for a lame duck in an attempt at a sales rescue bid. Fitted with a couple of user friendly gizmos and a consumer acceptable price tag, the G5 was an attractive proposition for anyone who fancied the idea of a 1000cc transverse V-twin. I’m not aware of how many were sold, few people seem conscious of their existence, though I have seen one other example which ye pleased me in so much as it looked even worse than mine.

I have the dubious fortune of knowing the full history of the bike, as it was originally bought by a mate of mine. I suppose that it would have been fair comment to say that armed with this information I should have considered my purchase more carefully.

The demands imposed by modern day conditions limit fitting a sidecar to smaller bikes, machines of a frail disposition or those which would necessitate major alteration. An outfit to be equal of any circumstance benefits from being big, strong and powerful. In all these areas the Guzzi scores highly. It has a full duplex frame providing ample choice for fittings. Shaft drive negates quick wear chains from the added mass of pulling a chair, and the combination of a wide spread of power and a five speed box means the ratios can be left stock without any problems fifth gear is only brought into play above 60mph, when the engine is purring away at a mere 3500rpm.

This may also help to dispel the rumours that combos are slow. I can cruise at seventy and above with little effort. The guy I bought the bike from claimed to have done several hundred miles, two up, at 95mph. Also useful for sidecar work, the bike has a diaphragm clutch with no less than two friction plates. It’s a fact of life that when you have the extra load capacity of a chair you tend to go beserk and pack in everything including the proverbial kitchen sink. Believe me, when I go touring any item which would normally be considered a luxury on a solo becomes a basic necessity. As an example, at last years BMF rally the only department in which I was found to be lacking was that I’d forgotten the teapot. You just don’t realise what hell it is having to brew up in a china mug.

If on paper the GS seems ideal for chair pulling, in reality it’s so dubious that I’m not able to give a succinct and unbiased opinion. Not only is the bike a brute, I think it hates me. The previous owner had hated the bike from the day he took delivery. The description often given to big Guzzis is The Italian Stallion. This was never more apt, I only wish I could break the beast in.

I’m unable to give an idea of what the bike might be like as a solo (though every day the possibility comes ever nearer) but as a combination it is a weight lifters proving ground. The macho image sometimes given to motorcycling is underlined by the sheer physical strength necessary to manoeuvre, unless it’s in its element of fast motorway cruising. At which point it becomes evident quite how heavy is the throttle. Mileage covered can easily be estimated by the decreasing lack of feel in the right hand.

Town traffic reminds me constantly of that enormously strong clutch - every time it’s used I’m forced to consider the viability of getting it power assisted. It’s just as well that the engine develops enough power to enable me to dump the clutch and temporarily forget about it. I swear that as I pull the clutch in I can feel the handlebar bending toward the lever.

That side of my body is rapidly becoming over developed because the gear lever itself must also be the worst design ever known to man. The lever must be the best part of 18" long and pivots (or should do) on a large, rust attracting, bolt, which like the air filter, distributor and starter relay, is almost completely inaccessible. Not only does this make gear selection something of a lucky dip, the full horror of a missed change is only realised when I have to use that bloody clutch again. Devotees of Guzzis will be quick to remind me that the gear pivot actually has a nylon sleeve that should be lubricated by the water thrown over the pivot by the rear wheel - my answer would be that it’s the only rusting nylon bush I’ve ever come across.

Another virtue (?) is the linked braking system, which distributes braking 25/75% between rear and front disc, with the handlebar lever working the right front disc. This is an excellent set-up when new, but spoiled by the decay of the calipers - I hope to replace the calipers with car units for cheapness and improved predictability.

These problems only manifested themselves after I’d got the beast to actually start. I had been warned that the voltmeter had to read at least 12V before thinking of starting the motor. Under my ownership the bike kept needing more and more presses of the button before it would fire up.

It soon only managed a click of the solenoid. I never did get the price of a new starter motor; presumably you'd need to wield an American Express Gold Card to buy one - an ever increasing frantic series of phone calls reduced the price of a reconditioned unit from £120 to £65.

The nice man in the shop smiled happily as he pocketed my hard earned dosh, adding that it was quite common for the starter to pack up. Scampering away with my newly acquired family heirloom clutched tightly to my chest, lest it should fall and leave me with the prospect of avoiding the bills next month as well, it was with foolish optimism that I bolted on the new part, only to be rewarded with the too familiar loud clicking noise.

What I’d overlooked was the tradition of Italian electrics. Bravely delving into the lecky area under the seat, I discovered between the battery and the brake cylinder, that the Wops, in their wisdom, had popped in an additional relay to that already existing in the starter motor. Removal of relay and cleaning of contacts produced a starter motor that turned the motor over until it hit compression and died a death.

It then occurred to me that the Guzzi’s high tech electrics ran to an ignition cut-out on the side stand and a starter motor inhibitor in the clutch cable. The prop stand was pulled off along with the most complicated method of operating a micro switch you could ever hope to encounter and the clutch cable device was wired out of the system. Not entirely to my surprise, the beast now starts reliably. The switchgear is of a standard equivalent to having bare wires and a bit of insulating tape.

Even though I know it hates me, for some inexplicable reason I keep coming back for more. Despite spending countless hours fiddling, often to no benefit, I’ve always reckoned that it’s basically an excellent bike with just a few adjustments...

There is something a about the bike that is most endearing. It’s one hell of a brute, totally lacking in finesse, every action is a job of work, but somehow it makes you feel part of it (I nearly have been several times). Though some would substitute the term wrestling for handling and archaic for proven design, to me it represents what biking’s all about - controlling a machine which lives and breathes, leaving you in no uncertain mind as to the experience.

The throbbing V-twin with its accompanying mechanical clatter does for me what a Plastic Maggot can never do, and until age or infirmity deems otherwise will continue to do so.

Alik Wickford

Suzuki GS850

After my first encounter with the Suzuki marque I decided that my well earned loan would be spent on another one. I needed shaft drive, enough power to go two up to Europe and take my 55 mile daily commuting run, and the usual things like good mpg. Thus, my choice was rapidly reduced to a Suzuki GS850, a device that’s been around since '78 and save for lots of cosmetic changes has remained largely the same in all the fundamentals with the exception of CV carbs, electronic ignition and a few minor changes to the cylinder head.

The classifieds in MCN revealed that finding a decent example was not going to be so easy. Pertinent questioning of the vendors over the phone soon revealed bikes that sounded promising as on their last legs - it’s much better to spend £2 on a long telephone call than £30 on a train trip.

A month passed and I began to be dispirited. I went to see a T reg bike that turned out to look very nice but application of compression tester revealed:a difference of over 50psi between cylinders. The vendor dropped his price by £200 to £700, but it was five years old and didn’t feel right so I left an unhappy owner, hoping I'd made the right decision.

I did, two weeks later an A-reg bike was advertised as being crashed but rideable. A long telephone call later, left me in a state of shock - I mean would you really tell all the truth to a prospective purchaser of your crashed bike? I held back and it did some good, the next time I phoned the price had tumbled. £950, for a bike that was then only one year old? To be honest, I expected a wreck, but when he arrived I at first thought that he must be out on another bike. Where were all the faults?

A few scratches on the grab rail, exhausts, crash bars and head fins; tank resprayed, new bars, no tacho... I forgot all this on the test run, what a difference from the last bike I tried - it picked up with such ease, flicked smoothly thru the box and stopped like someone had just dropped anchor. There were no weaves or wobbles at any speed - I was in love. Upon my return the seller must have known he was richer just by my large grin.

After picking the bike up and travelling the 260 miles home I soon found out the bike’s first bad point - those bars forced out my wrists and put all my weight on my wrist joints, and boy did they ache; they had to go. Bad point number two soon followed. Seeing that it was crashed I decided to totally strip everything just to have a look. I found everything in order, save for a leaking head gasket. I bought one from the local dealer but found I had a head with an extra bolt - the dealer refused to change it because I hadn’t told him that Suzuki had changed the head!

Finally, I found a helpful dealer in Manchester who informed me that I had a GZ model. The real shock came when I enquired about the cost of the tacho - pay £110 now and wait for 6 months. Somebody was pulling my leg. I would even have to wait 6 months for a grab rail. I decided to forget it, no wonder the guy sold the bike. The bike I thought was a good buy was rapidly turning into something of a white elephant. But I must not slag it off too much as the engine really is quite excellent. Many two to three hundred mile trips up north returned 45mpg at speeds of at least 80mph.

The engine is quite capable of propelling the bike at very high speeds, but you go above 80mph at your peril. My test ride hadn’t taken in such fast speeds and I had quite a shock after I’d owned the bike a while when temptation overcame native caution. The bike goes into the most horrific weaves and twists all over the place. The one way to get out of this is to carry the kitchen sink on the back, the more mass carried there the better the ride at high speeds. I tried every possible set up of the adjustable forks and rear dampers, even different fork oil, all to no avail.

I also tried many makes of tyres. Metzeler were the worst. I left home for a trip to Birmingham, some 300 miles later it was totally bald. Contis lasted well, but don’t go out in the wet. By far the best I’ve tried are Dunlop K262 & K263 Arrowmaxes. Plenty of feel, held the road really well and lasted for reasonable distances - 9000 for the front and 7000 miles for the rear.

I had done 15000 miles when it started to rattle; just a small rattle. I first checked the shims (I’ve only had to change four in 30000 miles) but they were OK. The camchain had some wear in it, phoning the dealer produced the usual response, a six week wait. So off I went on a bike with a rattle - it took 8 weeks and £47 before it arrived.

Engine removal is quite easy save for the weight. You really do need two people. When I took the barrel off only three of the pistons stayed with their con-rods while I fell sideways. The cause of my rattle was found to be a sheared gudgeon pin and, yes, there was loads of wear left in the camchain - was the air blue?

With a new gudgeon pin and the engine back where it should be, I was back on the road. For the next year it gave me trouble free biking. I did a few European trips, one clocking up 2000 miles in three days, skirting with the dangerous handling by often getting the speedo touching the ton. To say I was a happy biker was an understatement. Then a black cloud appeared when the engine rattle came back. I decided to strip the engine before buying any bits this time. All the pistons stayed where they should, but the one that had given me trouble before had shot its big-end - this was going to be expensive.

The Suzuki dealers refused to exchange the crank (do pigs fly?) but recommended SEP of Keyworth, who refused to give me a set quote, just a rough guess. Their time estimate of two weeks rapidly disappeared because they were having trouble getting the parts. Heron Suzuki refused to talk to me - ’we don’t deal with the public.’ Who the hell do they think buy their bikes? Luckily, I found a champion for my cause, Kate at Brian Bardsleys (Caernarfon 3060) persuaded Suzuki to fly my parts out from the Land of the Rising Sun straight to SEP, who then dropped everything and fixed my crank. The bill was £236, but they did do an excellent job and it hasn’t given any problems in the last 11000 miles.

The brakes were excellent but I decided to improve them still further by fitting Goodridge hoses and DOT 5 silicon fluid. This proved such an improvement in braking that the discs cracked which took me straight back to the parts problem.

The paintwork is still in good condition, the chrome is still chrome not rust. The original exhausts lasted 27000 miles, the shocks for 30000 miles (more if the IOM steam packet company hadn’t bent them). Perhaps most surprisingly, they were much better than the Koni replacements. All the casings come up really well with Solvol.

At present I’m averaging 47mpg with a best of 70mpg and worst of 30mpg. The bike’s fast enough to attract Mr Plod but she’s no racer. Running costs are reasonable. As a tourer it’s in its element, and it’s also a jack of all trades. Would I sell it? No. Would I buy another one? Yes. And that says it all.

L. Astley-Jones

Yamaha SR125

Great, sold the sodding thing at last! I felt very relieved as I watched my old 50cc Honda Express slowly negotiate the final bend and disappear out of sight. The new owner seemed happy enough, excited no doubt by the prospect of racing about on his new toy (I use the word literally). OK, so you can go for miles on a gallon of petrol, but an express it most certainly is not. It must be one of the most ironically named bikes in the history of motorcycle transport.

To be fair, it got me to work and back (10 long miles a day) for over a year and I clocked up 4000 miles. Most prospective buyers were, in fact, amazed that anyone could have gone so far in so short a time on a little moped. But it’s true, I’ve still got the scars to prove it.

Having said: farewell and good riddance to the Honda, I rushed back to my garage to make sure that my new bike was still there. Call it superstition if you like, but after conning someone into actually buying the Honda, I thought perhaps my new bike might have vanished into thin air, or worse turned into yet another Express. Panic over, my prized Yamaha was still there.

Not having passed my test I could only ride a small bike, although anything feels large after a moped. I answered a dozen ads in the local paper before I found the SR125SE. I liked its custom look, Low seat and high bars. It was three years old and seemed have been well looked after. It needed new front tyre and the clutch cable had seen better days. After a brief test ride I decided to buy it and handed over a bundle of notes (probably too many).

It had done a little over 10000 miles when I bought it and now a year later it’s done just under 17000. It still looks good from a distance, at any rate. Despite the high bars, the ride is very comfortable, although the lack of good aerodynamics means that top speed is a mere 65mph - it was quite fast when I first rode the bike, but now I’m used to the speed isn't very impressive. Most of the time this speed is adequate, but on long runs an extra 20mph would be very useful. It does a reasonable 80mpg if I thrash it, rather more if I take it easy.

I feel almost proud be seen on the SR, something which I would never have said about the Honda. I've also spent very little on maintenance. It’s fairly easy to service and spare parts won’t break the bank. I've replaced the inlet manifold, clutch cable, brake shoes and springs for under £15. A new tyre set me back about £25. The engine is a tough bugger as long as you change the oil and service it regularly.

The SR has a sturdy feel and handles well - for a custom. A 250 mile round trip at 55mph proved no problem for the bike although I felt a little tired and had pains in rather strange places. I’ve never been of the opinion that you need a big bike to go big distances - you can get just as wet and cold on a SR as on BMW.

I’ve only had one near scrape so far and that was caused by a tractor reversing out of a blind opening across a narrow lane. I was able to stop, but only at the cost of locking the rear wheel and leaping into a ditch - no serious damage to man or machine, I’m happy to say. If the headlamp beam had been a little brighter I might have avoided the ditch.

Anyway, no real complaints about the SR as a first motorcycle. It’s fun to ride, cheap on the pocket and quite stylish if you like this kind of thing - if you don’t, well, there are lots of straight bikes around. I used to dream of owning a moped, then a 125, now... well a Harley would be rather nice.

Tony Rand

Kawasaki KH125

After hearing the hair raising tales of how my dad raced Geoff Duke (ahem) on his Ariel Red Hunter, I was bitten by the bug. When my brother got a Suzuki GT185, what joy - I couldn’t wait till my legs touched the ground either side of it. I hoped that if it was left out in the rain it would shrink - no such luck.

The prospect of owning a nifty fifty never thrilled me, who wants to do side stitch at 30mph? At the glorious age of 17, the offer of a job 14 miles away meant transport of some sort or other not too many buses in the outback of Northumberland. Then I saw it, X reg, KH125, 7000 miles, 270 notes - well that was it, nothing could stop me. There I was the proud owner of GBB565X. The sweet sound of the holed exhaust was music to my ears.

The journey to work consisted of 4 miles of straight main road (the drag strip) and 3 miles of twisty country lanes. With this type of riding the bike returned 80mpg, even with my itchy right wrist. The bike would scream along nicely at 70mph or if redlined through the gears, with helmet next to the headlamp, an indicated eighty could be obtained.

The brakes (front disc and rear drum) must have been effective because I always managed to stop in time, except after a winter of snow the front caliper seized and being on the YTS didn’t do much about it until a Ford Capri fancied its chances. I ended up on my bot outside a restaurant it suddenly occurred to me to get it fixed.
Fortunately, damage was restricted to a slightly bent front fork.

The local dealer managed to obtain and fit a used caliper for 14 notes, whilst the front forks were straightened in the college workshop - the teacher had great practice at using the hydraulic press for this purpose. The engine consumed spark plugs for breakfast, and once I cross threaded the plug in the head. No calamity - I took the head off, screwed it in from the other side to straighten the thread, simple but true.

The suspension seemed alright to me, but then I wouldn’t know any better, as long as the back wheel didn’t overtake the front in corners I was satisfied. Once, while chasing an aunt who had left a camera behind, the bike started performing a pogo act in the corners and then went totally wild the cause was later found to be six spokes missing from the rear wheel. The clutch also went out of action on that run - the lock nut on the clutch was loose.

The rear mudguard was of the quick rot variety, although the front had hardly any rust spots. The alloy engine casings didn’t shine up and despite lots of elbow grease soon faded back to a dull sheen. The exhaust pipe was rusty when I bought the bike, but the silencer is still relatively rust free.

The vibes aren’t very intrusive although do check the gear lever regularly as it has a tendency to slacken and fall off and they are impossible to find. The lights were OK up to 60mph but the switch needed fiddling to make them come on. At 14000 miles the big-end started to go, so it was replaced and the bike and I finally parted company in favour of a KE125.

If only I had known better, it returned an abysmal 48mpg and lacked a sixth gear, with a top speed of only 65mph and went through spark plugs even quicker than the KH125. The KH was fast, economical, comfortable and only a RD125 could beat it, although I always seemed to have it in pieces every other weekend. It’s still running around now, eight months after I sold it.

David Atkinson

Honda CB250T Superdream

Back in the heady days of yore, well Jubilee year, actually, Honda Inc. brought out a pair of (yet more) four stroke twins. One to replace their flagging CJ250T, the other the late, lamented CB400F. The former (the 250) did its job OK but the latter (the 400 for those who haven’t worked it out) bombed out in a way that can only be called well deserved. Well, how could a ponderously overweight twin be expected to follow in the footsteps of the original people’s bike, the 400 four? Anyway, that’s another story.

There I was in '77 living 15 miles from civilization in the backwoods of Wiltshire, I’d just left the army and got a job in Andover, so I needed to commute. As Maggie-ism was already alive and kicking in the Shire counties whose boundaries I would cross, public transport was nonexistent. As I couldn’t drive it was back to a bike (not that I’m complaining about that, you understand).

Being a learner in those days, I was restricted to a 250 (oh, happy days) of which nearly all available at that time were racy two strokes. Not exactly ideal for Wiltshire’s cow pat covered roads. Yep, you've got it, I live near a farm. So after paying my deposit and signing away the next three years of my life to the finance company I took delivery of a brand new, shiny blue CB250 Dream. The first blue one in the Andover area. I rode the bike from Amesbury Motorcycles at 30mph, that 20 miles seemed to take an eternity. To someone used to a BSA B25 and a TS100, the Honda felt big and very top heavy (which is exactly what it was, anyway).

First impressions were of physical size and weight. I once parked it next to a Bonnie and the Triumph disappeared behind it, which was a pity really because it was much the prettier of the two. The other impression was the quietness of the exhaust, at times I had to look at the rev counter to check that the engine was still running. It was also very, very smooth compared to my other bikes, the chain driven balancers doing a good job of damping out the vertical twin primary vibes. Running in at moderate engine speeds gave a very good return on fuel, around 75mpg at speeds of up to 50mph and only gentle acceleration.

But once run in and properly serviced I started to open her up, gradually building up the revs. She took it all, even when the redline was exceeded, firstly by accident then progressively more and more till I was regularly exceeding the redline in all but top gear. Flat out in top, 90 would appear on the clock without much effort, and in ideal conditions it would eventually drag itself to an indicated 95, provided there was enough road. There is a flat spot around 5500rpm, just to catch the unwary and it’s pretty gutless below 6000rpm, but after that it really takes off (in 250cc terms) - to make it really go you have to play the box and rev the balls off it.

Handling at speed was fine, the steering fairly neutral in a straight line but there was some wallowing on fast bends, the sort you get on dual carriageways. Getting to the twisty stuff, however, soon showed up its deficiencies. Although the pegs could be touched down at 60mph, many other bikes, even ones with much older frame designs, could overtake on the inside of the bend with alarming ease.

There I was, already on my limits at a mere sixty, when things like Bonnies, Commandos and even KH250s would embarrass me and other Dream owners. I now own a '67 T100R which is in standard trim and handles far better than the Dreams and Superdreams. This is no bullshit - a T100R, for those too young to remember them, is the 500cc version of the Bonnie. The Honda definitely suffers due to being overweight and top heavy.

On the road, the Dream was superbly comfortable, more so than the Superdream, the large saddle being well padded and despite the bike’s size even I, at 5’ 5", could put both feet flat on the floor - which was just as well with the top heaviness of the bike.

The switchgear was standard Honda stuff of the mid-seventies, still years ahead of the items that Les Harris is fitting to the new Triumphs. One thing about Honda in particular and the Japs in general is that they long ago sorted out control ergonomics. Apart from the indicator switch that was fiddly to use when wearing thick gloves, all the controls fell easily to hand and were a joy to operate. The indicators were like lighthouse beacons compared to many bikes of that era, the horn was unusually potent, but the side was let down by the dismal power of the headlamp.

The brakes were a bit strange, the rear drum was excellent in the dry but inclined to be a bit grabby - but never dangerously - in the wet. The front hydraulically operated stainless steel disc is another story, however. In the dry it was only just adequate, only locking the wheel when you least needed it - on snow, ice or oil. While in the wet the braking all but disappeared cured by junking the stock pads in favour of Dunlopads.

The original Jap tyres would have been laughable if I hadn’t had to use them for a while. If the front brake had had any decent power there would have been some very lurid slides. Roadrunners were fitted as soon as possible and, I’m happy to report, were a vast improvement. Unfortunately the improved grip began to seriously worry the stock chassis.

The front forks suffer from chronic walking - not helped by the flimsy way they are fitted into the yokes. A fork brace would help, especially after the front mudguard has had a chance to rust away. The fork seals lasted a mere 2000 miles and cost £6 back in ’77. I stopped this rip-off by spending £1.80 on a pair of Norton Commando gaiters, which increased seal life to a more respectable 12000 miles.

The FVQ shocks lived up to their name, needing the hardest setting after only 3000 miles and were completely knackered after 5000 miles. If I’d indulged in two up riding I think I would have had to use them once and throw them away. Back then it wasn’t possible to buy replacements like Konis and the price of new ’uns was too funny for words. The Comstar wheels looked, er, different but the large, flat area could let the wind catch the front wheel and whip it from under you with hardly any warning; not confidence inspiring.

I did many journeys of two or three hundred miles without undue stress, but two-up the bike was pushed to maintain 60mph on motorways and fuel dropped from 60mpg solo to a mere 45mpg. None of my passengers ever uttered a word of complaint, so it must have a pretty comfortable pillion perch.

Most routine servicing was straightforward. Oil changes must be done regularly; filters should be changed with every oil change. If changes are done at intervals of less than 3000 miles then the small oil ways will become gummed up and as a result write off the big-end, at the very least, and probably most of the rest of the engine if you ignore all the noises. Replacement of the big-ends will probably cost you more than the bike is worth, so do change the oil as frequently as you can afford.

It’s extremely important to adjust the balance weight chain, at least every 10000 miles or less if you're paranoid. This means removing the engine cover, a process almost guaranteed to shear off one or more of the engine screws. It’s useful to have the patience of Job. Neglect the chain and vibes increase and engine wear accelerates. Despite the pain of the operation, it’s worth doing to avoid having to take the bike off the road and give lots of notes to the Jap importers for a basketful of spares.

The easiest bit to service is the ignition - just clean or replace the plugs when necessary - the CDI never gave a hint of a problem in 30,000 miles. The bike came with an O-ring chain that couldn’t be boiled in grease and didn't last any longer than the older type. A friend insisted on covering his chain in normal grease; we were able to save the bike and his father wanted a new garage anyway. Chain adjustment is simple as the swinging arm is blessed with wonderfully clear alignment marks.

All in all, not a bad bike, but limited in performance as it’s a 250 hauling a 400 chassis. As a reasonable bargain basement tourer/commuter I would recommend one. But, I would not pay more than £250 for a pristine example. Spares are expensive and you have to wait for them. Good points: comfortable solo or two up, controls, back brake, reliable engine if serviced regularly, reliable ignition system, clear instruments, handling as a solo tourer. Bad points: front brake, headlamp, stock tyres, quick rot chrome and alloy, useless mirrors, poor spares availability, handling two up or sports riding.

T Bassett