Khraachnnngg! The undercarriage of the grossly overladen Honda 750 four scraped round another narrow IOW corner. A couple of weeks holiday in the West Country and the Isle of Wight were nearly over. We whined onto the jetty and I killed the whispering CB750 motor. It was 1977, summer, and we were waiting for the ferry to take us back to the mainland.
Another newish bike pulled up beside us, also two up. I was already fairly disenchanted with the Honda, but as soon as this other bike arrived I went off the four completely. I asked the other rider if he wanted to swap bikes, and I meant it. He grinned and said, you must be joking, without even hesitating.
His bike was a tasty black and silver, with twin front discs, spoked alloy wheels and a rorty parallel twin OHC engine. The Honda looked dull and wimpish beside the Yamaha, I knew I needed to get my hands on an XS650...
In fact, it was some eight years, and many bikes later before the process of actually owning one started. I'd looked at a couple of £350 examples locally which were obviously worn out and on the point of dislntegratlon after a decade or so of profound neglect and sadistic battering. There were some in MCN, but they were either in the Outer Hebrides or Cornwall or far too expensive. I was becoming impatient, especially as my last bike had exploded in a minor way.
The next week's MCN had an advert which sent me running to the phone, 1979 X5650, very low mileage, excellent condition, sidewinder exhaust, £500. I didn't care where it was, I had to look at it that night. The bike sounded great over the phone - I tried to ask searching questions but my technique was lamentable.
All I could do was gaze at my mental picture of a gleaming black and silver twin. Good judgement had taken the day off. Half an hour later we began a four hour car drive to Leigh-on-Sea with all my riding gear and a fat bundle of notes at the ready.
We arrived well after midnight. The vendor wheeled it under a streetlamp where it gleamed and sparkled seductively. It looked very clean; the engine, in particular was practically spotless — the 6000 miles on the clock seemed possible. However, even to my besotted, myopic vision it was obvious that the bike had been dropped. Bent and scratched front mudguard, a scored LH brake caliper and non-matching speedo and rev counter could have told me a lot - if I'd listened.
The seller told me he'd bought the bike from a bloke who had a minor prang and given up motorcycling as a consequence. It had been off the road for several years and the genuine mileage was, in fact, nearer to 2000, as the original speedo was broken and replaced. Oh yes, the frame and forks had been professionally checked for staightness... here's a year's MOT.
Motorcycling lust filled my heart. The vendor could have told me that the bike was blue-printed by Pops Yoshimura and ridden to first place In the TT by Captain Pugwash and I would have believed him. Even after my 2am test ride revealed that the XS only ran on one pot at low revs, steered like a wheelbarrow full of wet cement and vibrated like a jackhammer, I was still convinced that it only needed a little sorting.
Over coffee in the owner's flat £160 changed hands. Half an hour later the car and bike convey pulled out of Southend, heading north again. I felt excited and pleased until we reached the main road and I found I couldn't keep up with the car - a clapped £50 Renault six which could normally be outperformed by an half decent Raleigh wisp.
It was a long, tormented ride home, a 60mph grind. Filling the tank on the A1, I couldn't help noticing the incontinent carbs. Terrific. I could draw some small comfort from the bike's gutsy looks, but the excitement of ownership was draining away almost as fast as Shell's best 4 star.
Back on the road, dreadful vibration and worse performance plunged me into an even darker mood, not helped by the bike's tendency to pull viciously to the right.
Was I angrier with myself or Southend Smiling Boy. Don't know... but if it hadn't been for the fact that I badly needed sleep, that my shoulders were dislocated from trying to keep both wheels pointing in the same direction, and that the Yam probably wouldn't have returned without bursting into flames, I would have gone back and beaten us both up with the sidewinder exhaust which was conveniently falling off in any case.
A fortnight later, having done what little I could with the time and money available to make the XS run better, l lashed sleeping bag, spares and tools on the pillion, setting off for hols in France, hoping to go down to Marseille. I should have known better.
Not far from Orleans night was falling. I sprawled at the foot of a large oak on the edge of a vineyard overlooking the Loire. I ate the last of my bread and cheese, finished the bottle of local wine and listened to the crickets for a few minutes before dozing off under the stars. Peace, perfect peace... except the goddamned stinking bike was knackered. I'd be trying to limp home on it at first light.
All that day I'd listened to engine or gearbox noises becoming worse. By evening, rumbling knocking noises were clearly audible even over the loud exhaust bouncing off French village walls. Hoping for an obvious cause, I'd checked for loose clutch, gearbox sprockets, etc., but the noises clearly came from deep within the engine crankcases. Working on a fifty—fifty chance I'd been prepared to press on, but when the bike stopped charging for no apparent reason (other than sadism), I took the cotton wool out of my ears and admitted defeat.
The ride back to England was not pleasant. Over 3000rpm the engine noise was alarming enough to bring drinkers out of cafes to see what in the nom of the Diable was going on. Below three grand the motor just died - it took a team of pushers or superhuman powers to make it run again.
I stopped at a friendly garage/cafe to boost charge the battery, eat and try to swap the Yam for a VeloSolex or even a pushbike. But no-one was interested and my manic ride up the coast continued.
I just made the boat at Boulogne before dark, after narrowly avoiding arrest for refusing to cut the engine at a dockside document check. At Dover I spent hours going through the entire charging system (quaint aIn't it? - Ed) to achieve absolutely nothing.
Sweating and furious, l roared out of the ferry terminal into the dark Kentish night. After 15 miles the lights and engine expired simultaneously, and the last night of my non holiday was spent in a pear orchard dreaming of reliable Honda fours.
I was so disgusted with the XS650, and with myself for having bought it, that the dirty black heap was shoved cruelly to the back of the shed, and left to rot all over winter. In Spring I stripped the engine, finding badly scored pistons and bore, broken up main bearings and various other defects indicative of considerable mileage or abuse.
After reviewing my options, from the scrapheap upwards, I decided to go a bit mad and have the motor bored out to 840cc. I also found the root cause of the terrible pulling to one side - surprise, surprise, the frame was bent on one side the engine was 1/2 an inch closer to the rear wheel that the other. Also, the forks were bent and one of the yokes had a one inch crack right through it.
At that point, what should have been my pride and joy was a pile of assorted scrap worth about 50p. 1 did manage to resist the temptations of suicide, however, and the rides I've had on the 840 twin have almost compensated for the earlier anger and despair.
I feel I ought to add that both speedo bulbs blew the other day. Not a very significant thing in itself, but dismantling the instrument to fit replacements revealed somebody's handiwork with a hacksaw blade. The plastic inner barrel of the speedo has been neatly sawn to allow the mileometer's numbers to be turned back - what was that address in Southend?
Chris Quayle