Having carefully arranged the running of this magazine so that someone else risked their life and timetables to bring you the word on British bikes, you can imagine my horror when that person disappeared off the face of the earth aboard my personal vehicle, leaving some wreck of a BSA 250 single in its place. I wouldn't have minded if it had been a Vincent V-twin, or even a Norton 650 or even a BSA A10 or even a BSA Bantam, but these single cylinder BSA 250s are tough, vicious, nasty, crazy, violent devices that can break a persons ankle as soon as look at them.
Not that I'm totally unaware of the joys of British bikes, you understand, the plain fact is that every relationship I've had with one of the blighters has turned very sour after the first few hundred miles. I have as much empathy with British bikes as I do with fat women, which as anyone who knows me will tell you is zero.
I approached the bike with care and caution. I'd thrown away my tennis shoes, replacing them with a pair of very heavy motorcycle boots that some idiot in another motorcycle mag had caused me to buy one size too large in order to fit in an extra pair of socks, and which were in consequence impossible to walk in. Despite the cold, I was wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of lightweight jeans. I figured the bike would refuse to start if I had the audacity to approach it fully clothed in the expectation that it would actually fire first or second kick. This proved a wise move as the bike made no sign of coming to life despite tickling the carb, playing around with the awful switchgear and getting the engine past compression before leaping with all my ten stone onto the kickstart. After the tenth kick I concluded that Malone had sabotaged the machine in deliberate retribution for my failure to pay him any money.
Further thought revealed the idea that the chap's brain might be suffering from the days when he used to run a bordello, he might actually have been under the illusion that the heap of junk was a valuable classic that needed protection from thieves. Getting back to basics, I checked the petrol which was OK. There were, however, no sparks which ever switch position I tried. I eventually found a switch hidden under the side panel. Sparks! On the fifteenth kick the thing actually came to life. I revved the engine until the motor started bouncing in the frame. That'll teach you, I thought. Of course, there was no way the bike would do anything as civilised as tick over. As soon as I let go of the throttle it went dead. By the time I was dressed to take on the rigours of our wonderful winter, the engine had gone cold. It took another fifteen kicks to get it going again.
Remembering to hit the gear lever on the wrong side of the engine, I was away. For the first few hundred yards everything was great, if only because I was savouring the breeze dissipating the heat and anger that had just built up. We were doing 20mph, the engine sounded like a pneumatic drill trying to break into a box of ball bearings and the grips were were trying to leap out of my hands. I changed up to second, or rather after about six attempts I finally got past neutral and made it into second. The clutch lever had torn my hand muscles in half, and the gear lever had cut through several millimetres of top quality leather to try to crush my foot. I tried for third without the clutch lever and this made some very encouraging graunching noises,the bike felt like it leapt a foot off the ground when the power finally connected. With forty on the clock (well, actually, with the needle gyrating between thirty and fifty) the only thing I could find to commend 'was the reasonable directional stability. Anyone who's complained about secondary vibes from some Jap multi ought to try five minutes aboard some ancient British wreck to find out the real meaning of that word.
Aware that the British bikes were a little, er, lacking in decent brakes and that some devious person might have removed the brake pads as an act of ultimate revenge, I'd kicked the gear lever down through the box and backed off the throttle well before the junction. This proved a very wise move as the brakes were just as bad as expected . They might just be more powerful than those fitted to a Raleigh Runabout, but I wouldn't place my life savings on it, although thinking about the sum involved it wouldn't make much difference if I did.
Stopping at the junction coincided with the bike running out of petrol. KILL. Unfortunately, I'd left the hammer at home; foolishly, I'd left the tool kit there too. I pushed the bike to a petrol station and filled it up. The first mechanical problem reared its head after I'd handed over several notes for the petrol. Yes, the petrol tap started leaking. I just shrugged my shoulders, full of visions of presenting a charred heap to Malone. In fact, I cursed because I didn't smoke, so didn't have a match handy I could throw at the thing. It started after fourteen kicks this time.
My next problem was trying to use the bike to climb up a steep hill. In third the bike was bogged down and threatening to stall. In second it was screaming along threatening to explode. Natch, I kept it in second. We didn't seem to be going very fast so I enjoyed the scenery and the free massage. The bike seemed to give a sigh of relief when it made the crest of the hill. I let it lounge in fourth for the descent. I'm not too sure what the machine actually consists of. I think there's a B25 engine and chassis in there somewhere. The other bits and pieces seem to have been collected off the local scrap heap and attached with whatever fell to hand. The seat, for instance, doesn't feel very firmly secured to the frame rails and the stuffing has been accidentally deleted. This means that all the vibes from the OHV engine pass straight through to the rider. Not my idea of fun at all.
When new the engine is less than perfect. With quick wear valvegear, pistons and primary chain it only takes a few thousand miles for the engine to start developing problems, for the vibration to increase to frightening levels and for what little performance is normally available to evaporate. Throw in one of the weakest gearboxes in the business to make life really interesting. And that's on a good day. This particular example looked like and felt like it had last seen a good day about two decades ago.
Glancing behind to make sure it was safe to turn right, I found my vision obscured by clouds of blue smoke. Amid the normal engine noise I thought I could hear a ticking noise, that increased in frequency as I blipped the throttle to make sure the engine didn't die while I waited to make the turn. With any luck the valves would knock a hole in the piston and I could go and do the decent thing by buying a bus pass. Unfortunately, the noise and fumes cleared as suddenly as they appeared. I can't say that the vibes and noise had faded into the background, but by riding along at low speeds on the minimum of throttle in fourth gear they were kept down to a tolerable level, although cruising along at a maximum speed of 35mph was not even my idea of fun. In cold weather I want to make the journey in the shortest possible time and anything that slows me gets me exceedingly angry.
Much to my surprise I arrived at my destination without further incident. The bike had even decided to idle, and the fuel seemed to stop leaking once the engine was running. On my return journey I decided to rev the engine flat out in fourth to see what it would do. Acceleration was about on par with a Honda C90, although I couldn't fall asleep because of the vibes and the need to keep an eye open for stray pedestrians and dogs - the brakes were definitely inferior to the C90. Between thirty and fifty there was a quite remarkable degree of vibration considering the small amount of power the engine managed to produce, but once past fifty the device actually smoothed out a little and the speedo stopped gyrating quite so wildly. The only way to slow down was to use the engine braking and rush down the gearbox, the brakes made hardly any difference.
I wasn't beginning to like the bike, but it was rather more stable than many other hacks, especially some of the old Jap iron whose suspension had been laughable when new, let alone with a decade's wear and abuse. The thing could be flicked around greasy roundabouts with no problems, and even rode over the neglected surfaces of inner city roads without trying to flip the rider off the bike. Of course, the suspension didn't actually absorb very many of the bumps, that would have been too much to hope for. I later discovered that there was loads of a free play in the swinging arm bearings, so its stability was all the more remarkable.
Forced to ride the bike for a whole week, I was able to ascertain that the fuel economy was really rather good. Despite the brutal revving of the engine, the attempts to wreck the gearbox and the leaking fuel tap, it was returning 120mpg. At first, I refused to believe the mileage on the ancient speedo, but it appeared to correspond with distances travelled over known routes, so I had to accept that a twenty year old design in a near wrecked state was bettering many modern Jap 250 singles. These modern bikes were far faster and far more civilised, so the BSA couldn't really claim too much fame for such economy.
I even managed to get the engine to fire after a mere nine kicks from cold and just six kicks when warm, although on one nasty occasion the bastard kicked back hard enough to break my foot, except that I was saved by the stout boots I insisted on wearing whenever I was within a few yards of the bike. They were also useful for kicking it, when the bike misbehaved. You have to show these old British singles who's in charge.
In some ways it was useful to have so many intrusive mechanical problems because it took my mind off the cold and wet weather. It was all too easy to spend the journey on some smooth Jap multi screaming at God for inflicting such awful conditions on the UK. The BSA always demanded maximum effort and attention to get the gearchange right , to keep the engine out of the really bad vibration periods and to slow down well in advance . I took the bike on the motorway once. It didn't like being screwed along flat out for several miles. I knew it didn't like such treatment because it responded by gradually slowing down until it was doing no more than forty and the clouds of blue fumes had returned. Natch, it started to rain. But the bike never actually failed once it was running. Once it had time to rest, the performance returned to its normal levels.
The funniest moment occurred when I was returning to the bike after doing some shopping in the town centre . Some young chap was peering closely at the bike. I was about to walk away on the assumption that he might have been the original owner off whom Malone had borrowed the bike, when he saw me before I had a chance to disappear. The poor chap wanted to buy the thing. I checked his forehead to see if there was evidence of a frontal lobotomy. He offered two hundred quid, then three. Laugh? I almost went and brought Classic Bike...
Bill Fowler