Suzuki X5

This story begins in the Autumn of ’81. Approaching seventeen years old and feeling depressed at being on crutches after crashing my fast and highly illegal BSA Brigand (de-restricted, it sometimes managed 65mph, honest) and being off work for a couple of weeks, I persuaded my parents to drive me around to the local bike shop to look at 250s.

Easing myself carefully back into the seat of the seat, gripping the door pillar as I did so, my helpful mother decided to close the car do for me. I had a black finger nail to match my badly sprained ankle, cuts and bruises. Even looking at the new bikes didn’t seem so much fun any more, but as I hobbled around the bikes on show, I spotted what was to become my new love and companion in life.

She was slim, attractive and fire engine red, a Suzuki GT250 X5. Smaller and prettier than the X7, not to mention cheap with an electric starter as well as decent switchgear. The whole plot looked neater and better proportioned than the rival RD200DX. Mag wheels, hydraulic front disc, slightly stepped seat, reverse cone silencers and tail unit all made her a real cracker look at. I wanted one. Well, I bought it at quite a reasonable price and after my injuries healed, I ran it in for two weeks and then the good times started to really roll.

In 11 months I clocked up over 15000 miles and it never missed a beat. I junked the ridiculously narrow rear tyre in favour of a ‘TT 100 which required removal of the gusset in the rear plastic mudguard, causing it to crack under the weight of the rear light - fixed with some Meccano. The machine did have some high frequency vibes - at certain engine speeds it felt like the dentist was drilling away at my teeth. Most of the time, though, it was bearable, but it did loosen the lid of the tail section which then flies off and scares any following car rivers. The fit of this item was, surprisingly, improved when a bus ran over it after it flew off - it was unmarked save for a few scratches.

Rear tyre life was frightening just four grand from a TT100, but the front would do 12000 miles. If the chains were finished at 6000 miles, at least I didn’t have to replace any of the sprockets. Fuel economy could be as od as 65mpg and never worse than 40mpg. The motor appeared very tough. One day, the bike changed from third to second while I was banked over in a bend - the tacho needle shot around to the stop and I kept the throttle open, the engine eventually slowing to 9000rpm. No harm was done, but it was a rather strange experience.

Top speed was never as impressive as the RD200 (have you noticed how small two strokes like these always crack the ton after a few pints have been downed and the stories get wilder as chucking out time approaches?) but I could get 82mph on the clock, crouched down on the tank. Use the pillion pegs, chin on the clock and grab the left fork stanchion and you’d be rewarded with 85mph - a lot of bother for an extra 3mph but very important to young kids.

I thought our affair had ended when I was belting along flat out, laid right over going into a left-hander, down a slight dip, some nerk in his self propelled spam car decided to reverse towards me after he’d seen some friends he wanted to talk to. I couldn’t pick the bike up and swerve around him because I would’ve gone straight through a hedge, so I took to the grass verge. All went well until the front wheel found a huge ditch, which had the bike going into a double somersault and threw me off. I woke up to find myself being hauled into an ambulance, surrounded by concerned looking citizens - if I’d realised what was to follow they would have had to come with me. I was discharged the next day with nothing worse than a terrible headache and the bike had a few bent bits but no major damage.

The law were their usual helpful selves and told me as I managed to avoid the little twerp no other vehicle was involved. The local press were even better, making out I crashed through loss of control, no other vehicle was involved and that I’d suffered brain damage. Friends started to approach me with caution, which made me angry and them more cautious.

Eventually, things returned to normal and I traded in, with a mate, the X5 for a Trident; such was his disdain for little strokers that he ran the X5 into the ground and sold it for scrap - had I known what the Trident was going to be like, I would have had the X5 back as a runaround for when the Trident played up.

Paul Henshaw