The answer is, of course, yes. And, er, no. My last British bike was a Norton 850 Commando tuned beyond reason, with the isolastics tightened up and a few non essentials junked at next door’s feline. The result was a bike that growled out torque and power like nothing else on earth and would shatter the wet dreams of even the latest high tech Jap multi riders in street races up to the ton. It was a sort of four stroke equivalent of a Yam DTR250 and it provided hours and hours of fun. It was eventually sold because I got fed up with the bi-weekly rebuilds and began to run out of money. I currently ride a Honda CBR1000, which if it is both very civilised and very fast, lacks the character of the old Norton. I’m still wracked with chronic longings for British bikes and even as I write this am negotiating purchase of a Royal Oilfield 750.
If you have never ridden a British bike your reaction is likely to be either sudden, almost inexplicable, conversion to the breed or total horror at the paucity of civilization inherent in old British motorcycles. Even on something as plain nasty as a sprung hub Triumph there’s such a direct communication between rider and road, and rider and engine, that he’s aware of every ounce of power and inch of rubber fighting their way through the elements, that all defects are overwhelmed in the sheer buzz of hustling the bike along the road.
But to get back to good British motorcycles - such is the state of the market that it’s almost impossible to name any particular make or model as being particularly good, because bikes that were once good may have been ruined by poor assembly, inferior quality pattern parts and neglectful maintenance, whilst machines that were once regarded as dubious may equally well have been re-engineered, fitted with better quality parts and lovingly cared for confused? Don’t blame me, we're talking about machines that are thirty, forty years old and in that time just about anything could happen.
Having said that, a quick and general history lesson of the British vertical twin will reveal that most of them were upped to 600, 650, 700, 750 and (god help us) 850cc from moderately tuned 500 twins, that if they never breached the ton were at least relatively free of the vibes and reliability problems of their bigger brothers. As these often look pretty much the same as the 650 and 750s, if you're not too concerned with speed, you can get all the street credibility of a British bike with little of the usual nastiness. If you want a good British bike, then buy one that is lowly tuned. If you're into serious speed then buy Japanese.
Unfortunately, the cost of British biking continues to rise, with both the cost of machinery and parts going almost as crazy as London house prices. There are still plenty of 70s British bikes well below the grand mark and often below £500. It’s the sixties and fifties stuff that has really taken off, with anything that’s really classic going way out of reach of the average punter - six grand for a Vincent, four grand for a Gold Star, etc, etc. Not funny. The other side of the coin is that you can buy a bike for a year, rebuild the engine, ride it and then sell it off at a profit. Almost as good as buying a Jap 550, thrashing and neglecting it for a year and selling it off at a profit just before it explodes.
The only flaw with that kind of argument is that British bikes tend to get to you and it becomes easier to get rid of the wife and kids than finish with the motorcycle. Take that as a warning and ignore it at your peril. What follows is a somewhat idiosyncratic (well, this is the UMG) guide to what I think are the best bargains around in the British bike market; naturally it avoids all the expensive classics and if it turns out really nasty don’t blame me, blame the times we live in.
BSA The sixties A65 has been made famous by a certain TV program, and prices are rising fast. The slower, almost sedentary, A50 can still be bought, in running order, for £350 to £450. An A7 or A10 is even better, but more expensive. BSA managed to retain shoddy crankshaft bearings throughout the model range for at least thirty years - SRM do a neat conversion. The sixties A65s were plagued by vibration, but in the seventies they almost got it back down to the levels of the A10. A friend bought a '72 A65 with single carb for £400 a month ago and it’s a surprisingly pleasant bike to ride.
Late sixties Bantams for less than a hundred notes are rare but not impossible - taut handling and a vaguely reliable two stroke single engine. The odd B31 comes up for a few hundred quid, but this 350cc OHV single is housed in such a nasty chassis that only speed-riding CD175 addicts need apply and the vibes on the bigger B33 are the kind legends are made from. Both bikes, in stock condition, are quite reliable as long as they aren’t thrashed, but finding one in original condition will prove difficult. Spares are generally available but some quality problems on things like valves.
Norton The nicest Norton is the 500SS, which was as fast as a Daytona, handled properly and didn’t vibrate as badly as their bigger twins. As with anything in a Featherbed frame the prices are moving from the merely amazing to the extortionate, and is merely mentioned in passing. Commandos are beginning to follow suit. Most of the engines have been fitted with Superblends and de-tuned by now, so the normal recommendation of buying one of the last models can be ignored.
I’ve heard of people buying runners for as little as £400 in the past year, so there’s some hope for us all. Electronic ignition is vital as the engines are very sensitive to ignition timing - the crummy contact breakers and vibes don’t mix at all well. Valves, guides and rings all wear at a depressing rate even in lowly tuned, beefy bearing form. You can buy a very nice bike with the right mods for around a grand. An ES2 single is not to be sneezed at, but the cost and performance equation is totally out of court.
Some of the older singles in non-Featherbed frames are available at under £500 but the handling is more than a little weird, and the vibes, on something like a sidevalve 16H rather destructive. An acquaintance recently bought one of these quasi vintage machines for £175 and it actually ran... just. Spares for the singles are difficult, for the smaller twins expensive and/or poor quality, only the Commando has lots of reasonably priced bits available.
There are loads of seventies Triumphs around. The single carb 650 is the best option, but somewhat rare. Whilst the oil-in-the-frame design produced the best handling of all the Triumphs, the early version had a very tall seat height, the oil bearing saddle tube can split depositing oil over the back wheel and some frame tubes have snapped on very high mileage machines. Prices go right down to £200 for something in need of much loving care, but four hundred notes can still buy a 750 in good running order.
Often overlooked, the sixties T90 is quite useful as a working hack - it’s no faster than a CD175, but this 350 looks and sounds more or less like the 650 so impresses the gullible. Something rideable can be picked up for around £350. And, of course, there’s the Tiger Cub. Even when it was introduced, its OHV single cylinder design was pretty antiquated but it does return 100 plus mpg and is easy to work on if you have a big enough hammer. Some collectors demand a grand or more for these devices, but there are still runners around for under a hundred notes.
Ariel I know a chap who had an Ariel 500 who used to burn up inside because he was continually burnt off by a Honda CD175. He was petrified of giving his bike some real stick because the engine had a reputation for collapsing under such treatment. Luckily, the 500’s very rare. The 650s were similar to the A10 in many ways, save for the frame. You may find the odd Huntmaster for around £300 to £400, and they’re quite usable beasts within legal speed limits. The singles are much more common, but somewhat fragile unless you go for the more exotic which, naturally. turn out to be too expensive. Spares are difficult, the range as a whole best avoided unless you can find a real bargain.
Royal Enfield The Bullet is the most famous, and prices vary enormously depending on originality and condition. The cheapest deal I’ve heard of was £225 for something that had been practically modified and was about to blow up. It’s much easier to pay a grand than that kind of price, but there are still bargains around. The Indian version is worth a look if you haven’t become racially vindictive after suffering Asian landlords in Shit City. Performance is negligible but they can be incredibly cheap to run. Bullets reached a climax of design and usefulness at the end of the fifties in 350 rather than 500 form. The twins were always ignored by most of the motorcycling populace, but that very rareness makes them an expensive proposition, both to buy and run.
The Meteor Minor 500 was the smoothest of all the twins, and even the last, very powerful 750 twin in Rickman frame, was relatively free of vibes, thanks to those dynamically balanced, hefty cranks. Like all Enfields they throw out as much oil as they consume. I’m currently trying to buy an example of the latter the price started off at £1500 and so far I’ve got it down to £1150 and I wouldn’t be happy paying more than a grand. Even at that price it’s not going to be the bargain of the century.
Matchless Matchless, along with AJS, were unique in using a three bearing crank - unfortunately the engineering techniques employed to produced such a feature were so imperfect that the engine became as famous for splitting its crankshaft as the Enfield motor was for dropping its oil. Along with chronic (and I mean chronic) cam wear, these twins are amongst the least reliable that British engineering managed to produce. They were also the most vibratory, even Triumph Owners can enjoy a laugh at their expense (which is saying something). Unfortunately, a paucity of engineering talent does not mean it’s bargain time in the used market.
Something like the G12CSR, Matchless’ rival to the Bonnie, can command over a grand. Given that tuning this type of motor has the same kind of engineering integrity as tuning a Combat motor, that kind of price is quite insane. An old 500 in shoddy condition might just be picked up for three hundred notes, the somewhat rare 600 for £500 and the quite rapid 650 for £550, but given the weaknesses of the motor these prices are about double what they ought to be. And the prices of the singles are bad enough to make me wish I’d stacked a garage full of them back in the sixties when people were practically’ giving them away.
The Rest There are some nice bargains around in the special market. A Triumph engine in a Norton frame is always worth a look. The quality of construction of Tritons does vary enormously and there are still some very scruffy examples running around - if the frame’s straight and the engine sound, it’s relatively easy and cheap to get the cosmetics right. Go for the Slimline frame unless you’re very tall, the differences in handling between it and the Wideline frame are nothing compared with the differences between suspension and tyres. Really nice Tritons fetch two grand, the dross goes down to around £300. So desperate were fifties Triumph owners, that they also placed their engines in BSA and Royal Enfield frames. The latter is rare and rather wobbly at 110mph, whilst the former is okay if matched with decent suspension and non-BSA brakes.
The overall picture of British motorcycling is a little depressing, so many machines have just become expensive relics used on sunny Sunday afternoons, although there is still quite a large base of dedicated users who just won’t accept anything other than British motorcycles - but even amongst these I keep meeting an increasing number of people who are being forced out of the game by the high cost and low quality of spare parts.
If I had to choose one bike that was going to be used hard, as my only machine, then I’d have to go for a Triumph twin. Not least because, of all the Brits, spares are still readily available and relatively cheap. The exact model would depend on the amount of money available. On a really low budget, I’d go for a single carb, seventies, 650/750 in ratty condition for around £300. I’d strip the engine down immediately, fit low compression pistons, mild camshafts and have the crankshaft dynamically balanced. Fitted with a decent oil pump and rebuilt “with a deal of care, the engine should be useful up to about 80mph, economical and reliable. The chassis I’d strip down, throw away all the non-essential junk and hopefully emerge with something that mirrors the fifties lean and graceful Speed Twin without any of its nastiness.
If you just want some fun, a sort of amusing second bike to play around with, just about anything will do, from a Norman Nippy to a Vincent V-twin, depending on your taste and pocket. The experience will be very different to anything from the Orient or the Continent - even if you find you dislike it intensely, it’s worth having a go, if only to have something to bore your grandchildren with in fifty years time.
What follows is the usual miscellany of readers experiences with British bikes, ranging from vitriolic hatred, never ending tolerance to outright love. As with most things, you pay your money, take your choice and end up enjoying or hating the effects. Such is life.
Johnny Malone