This so-called friend turned up at my house on an ancient rusted motorcycle. He expected me to take this in exchange for the fifty quid I had loaned him. I had a closer look and it turned out to be a 1975 Yamaha RS125. This smoke factory was in a bad way. The best that could be said was that the engine still ran. Albeit, after a fashion.
It turned out that I had no option but to accept the heap. It was either that or nothing. After giving the owner a right ear bashing I wheeled the RS into the depths of my garage whilst I tried to think what useful purpose it might serve. I certainly wasn't going to neglect my beautiful Yamaha XJ550 in favour of actually riding the nasty bundle of corroded steel and alloy.
At least not until some cretinous lower life made off with the fair XJ. It was never seen again, probably ended up broken into tiny pieces in the depths of some cheap and nasty breaker. The RS came from the same stable as the XJ, which was about all I could find in its favour. I hosed off the accumulated dirt, grime, grease and oil, and immediately wished I hadn’t bothered. Huge chunks of paint were missing and the chrome was almost completely submerged beneath a mass of rust.
Much to my horror, the two stroke single engine kicked into life third kick and completely engulfed the garage in noxious fumes. First gear engaged with a terminal lurch and I was off for a totter around the local housing estate. Handling was weird, combining a harsh ride with a feel that resembled a blancmange in the way the machine leapt around.
Drum brakes and spoked wheels were not exactly a statement of modern fashion. The rusted spokes looked fit to snap and the brake shoes were evidently worn out, judging by the complete lack of braking power. Back home I tried to shake some life back into my right hand after I was forced to grab the front brake lever with all the muscle power I could summon. The adrenalin moment was soon replaced with enough pain to suggest I'd sprained my fingers.
I never did get around to fixing the brakes until I bought a crashed RS, it was an inexpensive and time saving way of developing my right hand muscles, and top speed was down from a quoted 70mph to 45mph, so the brakes were not in that much demand.
The gearbox was still surprisingly slick, the clutch OK and a new chain and sprocket set had been fitted about 2000 miles prior to my forced acquisition. The forks and shocks were the original nonsense in a terrible state of decay. The frame looked like it was bent twice, but in such a manner as to cancel each other out, as the wheels, shod with dangerous Cheng Shins, were more or less in line.
Whilst I waited for the insurance money to turn up there was nothing for it but to put the RS to use, commuting the ten miles a trip back and forth to work. As the roads were grid-locked in the rush hour (what a laughable expression) the RS proved ideal for cutting a path through the stalled cagers. The poor buggers got a dose of pollution to add to their worries as we ring-a-dingdinged past.
Mates at work found the contraption hilarious, but quietened down a bit when I told them I could still do the journey in twenty minutes whilst they had to take two hours. Fuel consumption hovered around 45mpg, which was worse than many a hatchback, so I didnt mention that. I let them work out for themselves that its commuter guise surely suggested low running costs. I'm sure the tyres featured iron in their make-up.
They never seemed to wear and gripped wet roads like there was a layer of grease between tyres and tarmac. I quite often slid into the side of stationary cars, tearing off a layer of their paint and taking out the odd mirror. The poor buggers couldn’t even get their doors open to give chase, so I left them sitting in the traffic jam, morosely contemplating their pathetic existence.
Other interesting features of the Yamaha included a complete absence of working lights, an exhaust that was held on by wire and a seat whose base had welded itself in rust to the frame - I dared not try to remove it, I felt that the saddle and whole rear subframe would collapse under such intrusion.
Quaint though these features were, they meant that there was no way the RS would ever pass an MOT, which in turn meant it wasn’t worth the bother of getting any insurance - I was pissed off with the insurers, anyway, when I'd reported the loss they immediately cancelled my policy and told me not to try to reinsure with them again. Bunch of thieving bastards!
I rode the bike for two months without major incident until the engine began to drastically lose power. It took about an hour to kick into life, would crawl up to 15mph and gave out such a dense cloud of pollutants that it should have been classed as a national threat to the environment. What should turn up in the paper but a crashed RS with a still running motor. Someone up there must hate me. I turned up, was impressed with the general condition of the machine, save for a broken frame, twisted fork and dented tank. Mine for £60.
An amusing weekend was spent sorting out the bad from the terrible. The machine that emerged looked OK, to the extent that it passed an MOT first time at the back street garage (hint, buy some tyres off them first). There was still much bouncing around, but the brakes worked and top speed had increased to an almost respectable 65mph, whilst fuel was better at 60mpg.
I was still not very impressed by the thing. Friends on huge superbikes used to pull up and have trouble stopping themselves falling over in hysterics I should point out I am 6' 4" tall and tended to dwarf the poor machine. With its newer engine it proved amazingly reliable - all I ever did to the poor beast in the next 8000 miles was check the oil!
The cycle parts, in contrast, were horrible rubbish. The first speck of rust quickly took over the whole part, leaving hardly any paint. When the petrol tank caved in I wasn't that surprised. Nor when the front guard fell off. Nor when the downpipe cracked, the rest of the exhaust deciding to fall off, shattering the moment it hit the tarmac. I stopped the machine, walked back and could not find a piece of the silencer larger than half an inch.
Why I didn’t just abandon the machine rather than pushing it home I don’t know. It couldn’t be ridden with flames shooting out of the exhaust port! The insurance had come up with the magnificent offer of £425 for the XJ, which they upped after about three months to £465. I was so fed up by then that I accepted this ridiculous offer for a machine that was in such good order it would have fetched twice that. With so little money I really had no option but to slog on with the RS until my savings caught up with the price of a good used motorcycle.
So on we went. With Avon tyres fitted the spectacular slides were a thing of the past. I only had to suffer a muscle pounding ride and the kind of leaping about that would do justice to a Heavy Metal fan. The bike was ridden flat out in every gear at every opportunity whilst I played mind games, trying to find out the shortest possible time I could do 9.8 miles in. Turned out to be twelve minutes - which through heavy traffic was both impressive and very frightening.
The end came when I persuaded the local Honda dealer that it would be a very good idea to allow me to trade in the RS for a nearly new Honda Revere. I think he was as desperate to sell something as I was to get my leg over a proper motorcycle - he allowed me £450 for the RS, which was about ten times what | would have got if I tried to sell the heap. I rode to the dealer petrified that something would break or fall off, the machine had reached that kind of critical stage when you just feel that it's only a matter of a few more miles before something terminal occurs.
I felt I was well shot of the RS. Overall, it was a pretty horrible motorcycle. As a cheap hack, the engine’s tough and... well, the engine’s tough.
Wilf Abbott