Brit Bikes: A born-again Rocker re-discovers life in the fast lane

I was quite happy with my life until the day Brian turned up at my house, clad in leather jacket and denim jeans, proudly showing off his 1961 Triumph Bonneville. That gave me pause for thought, even if my thought processes at 52 are a little slower than they used to be. A whole bunch of us in the sixties used to have great fun roaring everywhere on British tackle before we suddenly got old and the rice burners took over.

About a month later, Dave, another old biking friend, had taken the plunge back into his youth, heady with nostalgia and a disgustingly large grin he turned up on an immaculate BSA 650 Rocket, the tuned version of the infamous A10. Both bikes had cost over three thousand notes, an expenditure that had left the women in our lives speechless. The wife could see the way things were going, what with the way I pored over Classic Bike rather than listen to some suddenly boring and inane TV rubbish. She put her foot down and said no way.

For the next several months I spent the weekends helping out my friends with the maintenance tasks, being taken pillion on the bikes and occasionally being allowed a blast. They were determined to get me back on to two wheels and the glorious feeling of freedom and fun attained when riding the bikes was the best way to convince me to defy female logic and damn the consequences.

The women, despite the fact that they had once been apparently keen pillions, now refused to entertain the idea of putting a leg over the pillion perch. They formed a united anti-biking committee as fervent and devoted to their cause as the most oppressive government committee you'd care to imagine.

When Dave's engine seized up they were delighted and when Brian and I came off they felt wonderfully vindicated - indeed, it gave me pause for thought as I wrenched my back and lost a deal of skin from my thigh. Our defences were almost breached by female wrath but a fantastic London to Brighton bash in the company of a huge pack of British bikes put the spirit back into us. It was in Brighton that I saw a well sorted but not quite immaculate Norton 650 Dominator. I was always a Norton man, just as Brian lusted after Triumphs and Dave would not hear a word said against BSAs.

The owner was keen to sell and appeared to know what he was talking about, listing an impressive array of improvements done and modifications made. A test ride was all that it took to persuade me it was necessary to hand over £3250. It was much smoother than either the BSA or Triumph, down I was assured by the owner to the dynamically balanced crankshaft and single carb. Handling was Featherbed precise, light yet stable.

A week later the deed was done, not a word spoken to the wife. When I roared up to the house, somewhat stirred and shaken (crazy traffic, ancient brakes...), if looks could kill I would have dropped dead on the spot. I was sent to Coventry for a month, had to cook my own meals and wash my own clothes. Eating fish and chips every day got me back into the sixties feel of things, as did wearing ragged jeans and a second-hand leather jacket.

We were all in work, at collar and tie levels of responsibility, so when I turned up on the bike, suitably dressed for biking and not work, I was met with amazed stares. I had to keep a suit in the office and change when I got there, which placated my bosses to a degree, but they still dropped heavy hints about letting the side down. I couldn’t have given a damn! As the wife had feared, once more into bikes I didn't want to get off the damn thing. Every spare moment was spent riding or fettling the Norton.

There is still a great debate as to how good or bad British bikes were. The enthusiasts claim huge mileages with little attention needed, the cynics that by the time they got you out of your street a trail of bits would have been deposited and a gallon on oil splattered over the tarmac. The truth is that they varied greatly. Quality control was a quaint, foreign idea back then. If you were lucky you bought a machine where all the tolerances went the right way and it ran pretty much like the designer had intended. If you were unlucky you ended up with a Friday afternoon special, which would give endless trouble.

That was then. After 25 to 30 years of use and abuse, rebuild and bodge, it was anyone's guess what was going down inside the polished alloy of their engine casings. I was lucky with the Norton, I had evidently bought a good one with all the available mods performed and the engine rebuilt with loving care by someone who knew what he was doing. It didn't even leak much oil, mostly out of the primary chain cover. Having said that, the carb, valves and points needed setting every 500 miles and the chassis needed a thorough going over to stop bolts falling off.

Dave's BSA was by far the most troublesome of the trio. Its engine had been bodged together by a cheapskate who was only interested in flogging the immaculate looking machine for as much profit as possible. The first seizure was due to mismatched pistons, the second to failure of the main bearings and the third to a valve breaking up. He was not a happy man. We took the motor down to the crankcases, had SRM put in new bearings and do a proper rebuild with new barrels, pistons and valves. We were immediately impressed by the relative smoothness of this refurbished engine and it has run well since then.

The Triumph has been somewhere between the two. Its crank and pistons have not given a moment’s concern, but it eats valves, rockers and tappets like there is something seriously out of true. Primary chain stretch is also a major problem despite replacement of the chain and engine sprocket. Oil seeps out of the cylinder head gasket, around the pushrod tubes and from the gearbox seam. It will do about 1500 miles before serious attention is needed to the top end - it may be the poorer quality of replacement components that causes the chronic valve problems!

Although we might have entered our second youth, we have done so with a great deal of maturity and common sense. We used to ride like lunatics, now we gently roar along with due note taken of the ancient drum brakes, the horrendous traffic conditions and, yes, the relative slowness of our reflexes. We have not exceeded 90mph so far. It has to be admitted that at that kind of speed all three bikes are entering fierce vibration zones that hint at disastrous mechanical consequences. Mostly, our cruising speed is in the 60 to 75mph range which suits us as well as the bikes (we disdain to wear full face helmets and the like).

On the road failures, over the last 18 months, have been rare after the bikes were sorted and their various idiosyncrasies adjusted to. To achieve this we have to spent a fair bit of time each week on maintenance chores (my youngest son loves polishing the chrome and alloy much to the wife's distress) and the aforementioned speed limitations adhered to.

I keep telling the wife that they are wonderfully cheap to run. Consumables don‘t seem to wear at all and fuel is in the 55 to 60mpg range. Commuting time to work has been drastically cut from about an hour to less than fifteen minutes. Rather than fuming and cursing inside-a steel cage I arrive at work invigorated and full of joy. Several near misses when inconsiderate cagers decided to occupy the bit of road I was on, did not put me off, the Norton responding rapidly to the panicked tug on the bars and avoiding the danger.

Even riding in the winter months had its good points, although I could not convince either the wife nor anyone in the office that riding through snow and ice was evidence of anything other than advanced senility. I do not suffer greatly from the cold, which obviously helped, so I was able to pit my skills and the bike's handling abilities against the horrendous road surface conditions. It required a gentle hand on the throttle and perfect balance to commute through the worst conditions but I made it through the winter months without falling off. The bike needed daily polishing to keep the cosmetics up to scratch but I was greatly impressed by the way she would often burst into vibrant life first kick in the most atrocious conditions.

My friends were not quite as mad as myself, they laid their machines up during the worst of the weather. We plotted and planned a month in France, riding the bikes down there and enjoying freedom from wives and worries. May was decided upon as the best month, warm enough to really enjoy the bikes but the country not yet infested with moronic tourists, an excess of caravans or herds of football spectators.

It rained all the way down to Dover (from Birmingham). So heavily that we all had ignition problems, the bikes going on to one cylinder and sometimes stalling. We went through a couple of cans of WD40 before we made it to the ferry and were completely soaked through. A change of clothes, a few coffees and a bit of grub allowed our spirits to lift when almost magically the rain clouds disappeared and what was left of the day's sun made an appearance.

Another old biking friend had a cottage on the outskirts of Argentan, where we had arranged to spend the night. Disaster almost struck when all three of us reverted to riding on the correct side of the road after stopping for petrol and oil. I thought there was something wrong but couldn’t put my finger on it until an irate artic driver flashed his lights and blew his horn. We scampered across his bows with only moments to spare. Our pace was restrained after that, even more so as darkness fell and we had to rely on our headlamps - British electrics famous for many things but not for lighting up the road in front to any great extent.

Perhaps predictably, the BSA's main (and only) fuse blew leaving Dave aboard a running machine with no lights (the ignition is separate, an ultra reliable magneto). Replacement fuses kept doing the same trick. We were about six miles from our destination, so it was decided that Dave should ride in the middle, my front light and Brian's rear hopefully insuring his safety. He was a bit white faced and short of breath when we arrived at the cottage, something to do with not being able to see where he was riding. We were a bit dismayed to find that no-one was at home, but found the key under a large stone and let ourselves in.

The owner didn't turn up the next day either, so after scribbling a note of thanks for the free food, drink and shelter we were on our way again. The electrical problem was just a wire that had come loose and was shorting out on the frame. We weren’t far from Le Mans, so it seemed like a good idea to have a look around. Unfortunately, before we arrived Brian's primary chain snapped. Poor chap was towed into Le Mans and we then had to spend the rest of the day hurtling around the town trying to locate a length of chain of the correct pitch and size. We found a cheap hotel for the night and moved out early the next morning.

We were way behind schedule but it didn't seem to matter. The sun was shining, the bikes sounded beautiful and the twisting roads to Lyon beckoned, over 300 miles in a day. We were all a bit tired by the time we arrived there and the bikes were running very ragged, Dave’s BSA having protested such prolonged abuse by shedding the rear light assembly. We picked this up off the road before it could be flattened by another vehicle, hammered it straight again and bolted it back on with a triple ration of spring washers.

The next morning we were up with the dawn, toolkits in hand, two hours spent fettling the machines. They ran much better after that attention. A lovely, easy 200 mile ride down to Sete followed where Brian had a holiday home in the form of a studio flat. It was a bit of a crush, the three of us and all our gear, but we were only going to use it for sleeping, spending the days exploring as much of the area as possible on the bikes. A great time was had over the next three weeks, the machines running like clockwork under the kind climate. At one point, in St Raphael, we were pursued by a pack of French widows who were not perturbed by our biking gear or unorthodox means of transport... they probably reckoned us so strange that we had to be rich eccentrics.

Surprisingly, everywhere we went the machines drew a large crowd, who congratulated us on riding the bikes so far from their native shores, and wanted to know the histories of our machines. Even the plastic replica crowd, mostly youths. in bright full leathers, would talk to us, even though we inevitably drew attention away from their pose machines. We must have done over 3000 miles running around Southern France predictably, the Triumph needed attention to its valvegear twice but the other two machines needed just their dose of regular maintenance.

The journey home was hard going. We had foolishly decided it was a good idea to do over 500 miles in one day back to Argentan and our friend’s cottage. We changed the oil, did a full service and said the requisite prayers the night before. We left before first light, knowing that we would need to beat the traffic and do as large a mileage before lunch as possible, to keep our spirits high. It was definitely a challenge to do that kind of mileage at our age on such old bikes.

We actually made fantastic time to Lyon, cruising at 70mph most of the way on deserted roads. We were through the town and charging hard to Nevers before 8.00am, just missing the worst of the traffic. We were using good A roads where the queasy handling of the Triumph would not limit our progress. Occasional bursts of speed to 80mph was perhaps pushing our luck, but it was one of those rides where everything comes together. By midday we had made Bourges, about 175 miles from our destination.

We celebrated our progress with a two hour lunch of epic proportions whilst the bikes were allowed to cool down in the shade of the cafe. We went easy on the wine and doused ourselves in excellent coffee to give us the energy to get going again, It took five hours to do the final part of the journey, as we were slowed by heavy traffic through Tours and Le Mans and were feeling rather lethargic ourselves after the heavy lunch. The bikes were ragged and ratty after such a day of abuse but we were in great spirits when we finally met up with our old mate at the cottage.

He was overwhelmed by our enthusiasm for the bikes and made us promise to track down a suitable machine for himself (another Triumph fanatic). So much cheap wine was consumed that the next day we were not up until noon. The bikes needed several hours worth of attention to restore them to sound health, so by the time we were ready to leave darkness was descending. We stayed another night and headed for the ferry the next morning. Calais, the English Channel and finally good old England. The customs officers were most amused by both our and the machines' age, good naturedly waving us through.

The ride up to Birmingham was identical to the ride down, rain and more damn rain. Another couple of cans of WD40 went west. By the time we reached home we were all convinced that it would be a good idea to retire early and go to live in France! That tour was over three months ago and we won't be able to repeat it until next year. The bikes are still in fine fettle, the wives as angry as ever and all three of us determined to take this British biking experience even further.

John Cumme

Kawasaki Z750

“One, two, three,” I shouted as loud as I could. It didn’t help. I could not budge the stricken Kawasaki from the tarmac where it lay. 500lbs was too much mass to shift. The bike had bounced down the tarmac when the front tyre, an admittedly elderly Roadrunner, had let loose on the greasy road surface. After a few more minutes of muscle straining a huge cager came to my aid, but even he had to struggle with the Z750.

Damage was confined to bent levers and a slightly dented exhaust. My pride had taken the greater battering. I continued on my way cautiously. The front end was more usually fairly predictable. It was the rear wheel that usually caught me out, stepping out under the sudden, switchblade like application of power come 7000 revs when the beast came on cam, powering up to maximum revs and the full 75 horses. The first few months with the bike had been frantic, but now I was more or less master of my universe.

Every time I thought I had gained full control of beast it always had some nasty little trick up its sleeve. A 1982 machine, it had been owned by a series of highway hoodlums who each added his own brand of modifications. The last had decided three inch longer shocks was just the thing to cure the wallowing that came as standard fare. I soon learnt that this was a bad idea as the bike wanted to sit up in corners under the slightest provocation. Within days I had fitted suspension of the correct length. I found I had swapped cornering instability for high speed weaves of a most violent nature.

The handling of this machine at speed was most unpredictable. In fact, the handling was totally unpredictable at any rate of knots, plodding or blasting through the limits, but at slower speeds there was time to react to the mad machinations or if the worst came to the worst dab a boot down.

Motorway riding was by far the most annoying. The Z would go for fifty miles at 90mph as if it was on rails, save for a bit of twitchiness, then suddenly some unseen reaction to the road would send the beast into a frenzy of weaves and wobbles. Thereafter it would wallow for a few miles and then either try a death twitch or settle back into a relaxed poise. It was as if there was some essential bolt that kept coming undone and then slowly doing itself up again. Most perplexing.

The engine was in much better shape than the chassis despite having suffered at least 75000 miles of abuse. There was plenty of evidence that it had been rebuilt at least once, if not many times. Wired in bolts on the underside of the engine were evidence of either meticulous preparation by a past owner (perhaps an old Brit bike fanatic with nightmares of the effects of vibration) or that it had spent many a day being thrashed at the race track. I hoped it was the former but suspected the latter was more realistic.

The clutch grabbed on ferociously and required a grip on the lever reminiscent of an old Norton I once had the misfortune to own. The past owner had informed me that it had stronger springs and plates than stock. The gearbox was notchy in nature but precise in function, never missing a change. The 4-1 exhaust had a subdued roar and was matched well by induction modified with bigger jets and K & N filters. No flat spots as such, just a huge surge of power. The bike would plod along at low revs happily enough but changing down a few gears was necessary to make the machine really motor.

The front forks were off a different model, as were the wheels and brakes. I never did trace exactly which, but the braking was both extremely powerful and very sensitive, despite the presence of the seemingly obligatory triple discs. The ride was firm but a few notches short of the back breaking tautness of an old British twin. The wobbles and weaves seemed to be the result of some weakness in the frame or its bearings, or perhaps merely shockingly poor steering geometry. The bike never felt entirely happy at any particular speed, there was always a certain twitchiness apparent.

I tried several different makes of tyres, but could find no cure... I only buy used tyres so perhaps I was on to a loser to begin with. Tyre wear was atrocious, it would take a rear tread down from 3mm to 1mm in less than 2000 miles! My commuting mileage meant I was doing that every two months. Although I only paid a couple of quid a throw for a tyre, the blood and bruises necessary to fit the rubber on the wheel did not leave me in a good mood for weeks afterwards. I did deduce that if you put a worn Metz on the back and a near knackered Roadrunner on the front, the Z would go into one hell of a speed wobble at 85mph!

Another large expenditure was caused by poor fuel consumption. Normally, it would do around 42mpg but if 750 mile carb balance sessions were neglected then it would dive down to a two stroke style 30mpg! It was always easy to know when the carbs needed balancing because secondary vibes started rattling the petrol tank between 5000 and 7000 revs. Access to the inner carbs was knuckle bruising and patience straining but I had a set of gauges and got the time down to about an hour. The valves never seemed to change their clearances so I soon took that as a hint to leave well alone. Someone had fitted electronic ignition in the past, so the only other things I had do was regular oil and filter changes.

I don’t know how lucky I was but in two years I did over 30000 miles without needing to touch the engine! Past owners had spent a small fortune fettling the machine, all I had to do was suffer the inconsiderate handling. A friend who used to race a Z650 reckoned all that was needed was some extra frame bracing around the headstock and swinging arm, plus a decent set of bearings in both those locations. Having once owned a T350 with similar frame bracing mods I was most reluctant to try such a radical cure - the Suzuki had gone fine until the frame had snapped at 60mph. I still had nightmares about the painful trip to the hospital and the way my leg had stuck out at an obscure angle.

The electrics occasionally proved troublesome. Intermittent wiring faults plagued the machine. Every time a circuit tester was taken to the bike the electrics worked perfectly. A gradual replacement strategy of all the old wiring eventually worked wonders. Fuses ceased to blow, bulbs stopped exploding and the battery lasted more than four months. I couldn’t get any extra power out of the huge headlamp, though.

I am quite old to still be motorcycling and not protectively caged (I love that description of car drivers, so apt!), but my finances do not reflect my mature years, so even if I wanted to (which I don't) I could not afford to run a car. I have just about enough money to run ageing Japanese fours that have seen better days but still have some life left in them. I know all about the British bike scene from past experience - they were a lot cheaper to run on the consumable front but needed such frequent rebuilds to compensate for their poor engineering that they ended up costing a lot more.

The Z750 was one of many Japanese fours in the 550 to 850 range that I have owned. I sold the bike still in good running order for what I had originally paid for her. Even allowing for inflation I reckoned that was a good deal. I probably wouldn’t buy another, the Z650 was almost as fast and much more stable. A GS750 I owned was better in all respects and even a Honda CB750F1 was superior in handling and lasted for 35000 miles in my hands before I sold it.

I have seen the odd low mileage Z750 on offer but at £1650 to £2000 they were way overpriced. There is a certain art that only time and experience can bring to bear on owing these old Jap fours. There are lots of real dogs out there waiting to cost you an arm and a leg, so only the experienced should brave these troubled waters... I bought a crashed CBX750 as a replacement and am well happy with this machine now that I have sorted the bent bits.

Charlie Laker

Yamaha XS650

I had this pretty ancient Yamaha 650 twin festering away at the back of the garage. An import from America, the custom version, which with 81000 miles done had become so rattly that I decided to store it away and ride something else. That something else turned out to be an exceptionally pig-like CB900. Last year this most dubious device had ruptured its crankshaft which led in quick order to a seized back wheel. I crawled away from the wreckage and swore never to buy another bloody Honda.

The insurance was only third party and the bike such a write off that I didn't even bother digging it out of the ditch where it had ended its life. That left me destitute with no option but to sweep away the accumulated cobwebs and pull the XS out of its hiding place. Not being entirely stupid I had covered the Yam in grease and filled the engine with oil, so I was hopeful that it would start up.

New plugs, new points, new HT leads, new battery, new coils, new ignition wiring and about 2000 kicks later I was still swearing my head off at the dead as a dodo motor. Further investigation revealed that the handlebar on/off run switch had corroded, so once the wiring was sorted to eliminate it I at last had a motor that was grumbling away in characteristic, chuff-chuff-chuff, vertical twin fashion.

The disc brakes had welded themselves together with corrosion. The tyres had perished. The chain was more rust than metal, which went for the silencers as well, non original cut-offs that gave a healthy bark before and now traumatised the whole neighbourhood.

Rust had broken out where I'd previously touched up the frame and had also filled the petrol tap filter, which I suppose was better than filling the carbs! Other nice touches were a seat base that had all but disappeared in the brown plague, cruelly pitted forks and cast wheels that were bright white in alloy corrosion.

The list might sound bad but with a garage full of junk, a few tins of various cleaners and paint, and a degree in bodging I sorted out the worst of the problems. I never did get the rear brake to work properly but the twin discs out front, once dismembered and cleaned up, made up for that.

Out on the road, top speed was a mere 80mph, acceleration stately and vibration mind numbing. There was obviously something seriously wrong with the engine, probably the pistons because as far as I knew it had never been rebored! Still, the bike would potter along in top, once the multitude of false neutrals had been overcome when changing up the slow and clattery gearbox, at 60 to 65mph with all the charm of some vintage motorcycle.

The chassis greatly added to this impression. The original XS-2 had always been a bit of a wobbler. The even heavier XS650 was OK until everything let loose, when it was even worse. The Custom version was no better, but at sub-70mph speeds, when the mild chop riding position was tolerable, the bike felt planted on to the road with great assurance. This was mostly illusion, however, for the part worn Roadrunners I'd fitted would let the back wheel step out with sudden and terrifying violence.

Only quick reactions on my part saved me from a dose of gravel rash. The old chain I had dug out wore at an incredible rate, adding to the unpredictability of the gearbox, needing adjusting every 50 miles and links removed every 600 miles. The twin carbs were still quite miserly in their delivery of fuel to the engine, the old horror show still giving 50mpg regardless of the degree of throttle abuse.

All that could be said for the bike in this state was that it was rideable and looked OK from a distance. It also had much more street credibility than the C90 which had also been slung to the back of my garage as a reminder of how far I had come and how far I could sink! We did 7200 miles before anything terminal occurred. Even then the old duffer got me home on one cylinder, 25 to 30mph all the way.

A sudden influx of money meant I could buy another machine but for sentimental reasons I decided to renovate the Yamaha's engine. In fact, I ended up having a 840cc kit fitted with the wildest camshaft available. There are cheaper ways of committing suicide. The crankshaft was still OK but the engine needed a new tensioner and camchain, just to be on the safe side.

The XS650 engine is basically a very tough unit which can take the power of the increased capacity. What no-one pointed out to me was that it would be accompanied by a much bigger increase in vibration. It became immediately apparent why Norton had to isolate their similarly sized Commando engine in rubber mounts. As soon as the motor fired up with a throaty roar I was aware of the whole chassis blurring away under me.

With high compression pistons, it had taken all my weight and energy just to turn the motor over and about ten completely exhausting kicks to ignite the fires, so at first the vibes were welcomed as a relaxing massage to my knackered muscles. That feeling soon faded away when I accelerated up the road.

The engine roared off with loads of torque from tickover but shook so viciously that there was no way it could be used past 4500rpm. The mirrors were useless, the bars couldn’t be gripped properly and my feet kept sliding off the footrests. After five miles on the fearsome beast I couldn’t see clearly, my watch had stopped working and one of my fillings fell out, which left me sweating with the sheer agony of an exposed nerve.

After an emergency session at the local dental hospital where I was training fodder for a first year dentist with sadistic urges - why I had to get the one ugly harridan when there were lots of black stocking wearing nubiles around, I don’t know - I came back to the XS full of dread and injunctions to keep it below 3000rpm.

Riding home I forgot all that when in a race with an XS1100. I roared through the city centre, the revs in the red, the Custom leaping every which way in between cars, the whole deal taking on a surreal feel as my vision started to go first to double and then triple and then... then, there was a horrible crunching sound both in the motor and my mouth. The engine seizure was simultaneous with the new filling promptly falling out of my tooth. | was still insulated from the pain by the injection and, anyway, too concerned with pulling in the clutch whilst wrestling with the handlebars when the bike was in full skid mode.

We came to a graceful halt after battering the sides of three cars and giving a canine a whack on the head with the front wheel. The owner of the dog was more outraged by this abuse than the cagers. I was the centre of much irate shouting until the plod turned up. They weren’t much kinder to my traumatised soul but refrained from getting physical when I was able to produce all the relevant documents to show I was 100% legal.

I had the tooth pulled out this time, which left me with a mouth full of blood for several days. The XS was brought home and found to have the con-rods poking out of the crankcases. Further investigation revealed that the oil pump was full of crud, what had been a marginal but sufficient flow for the stock engine under the new forces of the tuned motor turned out to be entirely inadequate. The gearbox looked like it had been attacked my a demented gorilla wielding a pick-axe, so few were the teeth on most of the gears and so bent the selector forks. 

The crankshaft was a mangled bit of metal wreckage. The cylinder head was OK apart from the fact that the cam lobes had disappeared and there was enough slop in the bearings to make a Honda G5 owner envious. The moral of all this is if you do any tuning work you have to check that the rest of the engine is in perfect working order.

The front wheel was bent, the forks twisted and various potentially expensive bits broken. My insurance was again minimal, I would probably be banned by them, anyway, after they received the claims for damage to three cars. Not to mention the fact that the dog owner was claiming huge veterinary bills and threatening to sue me for turning him into a nervous wreck, now afraid to go out of the front door with his bandaged mutt in case another crazed motorcyclist tried to run them down.

Good XS650 motors are so rare that there was little point trying to find one that I could afford. It was time to get really desperate and dig out the C90. The Yamaha XS650 was one tough cookie in its day, but that day is long past and most of them are now on the way to the knacker’s yard. If you find a good one by all means buy it, but don’t bother trying to tune it - just not worth the hassle.

Doc

Honda VF500

“Only a complete idiot would buy one of those” my father commented in his usual sympathetic tone, when he came out of the house to greet my slumped form. I had just knackered myself pushing 420lbs of dead Honda VF500F three miles from the local backstreet dealer’s. Like myself, dad was a keen motorcyclist and knew all about the troublesome nature of Honda’s V-four range.

The dealer had told me to take the machine as it stood, sold as seen, for a mere £300. He had sold the machine three times. Within a month the owners came back with a dead engine which had to be repaired under guarantee. The dealer offered a partial refund because he knew the only way he could economically repair the treacherous Honda was by waiting for a crashed one to turn up in the breakers. Even so, he reckoned he was at least five hundred notes out of pocket.

I bought the machine because there was little else on offer and thought that with father’s help I would be able to sort the motor out. The engine still turned over, the sparks and fuel were getting through, but the bugger would not make even the slightest imitation of an engine about to grumble into life. The compression tester revealed that there was hardly any compression in any of the cylinders.

The water-cooled lump proved to be awkward to remove and left us both swearing our heads off at its weight once we had gone through the motions of removing various plumbing, wiring and cycle parts. Complicated is the understatement of the year. Those bolts and studs not corroded in position rotated in their threads, helping to explain the oil encrusted state of the engine alloy.

Eventual dismantling of major bits of engine revealed a horrifying state. Even dad, who had spent his youth fettling fifties British iron, was at a loss for words. Just about every component was wrecked. Cams missing large lumps of lobes with bearings whose looseness was only matched by that of the crankshaft, which was twisted and mangled out of all recognition. It became apparent that the dealer, curse his mother, had used all the wrecked components from the three previous blow-ups to create an engine only fit for scrap or paper weights!

The chassis was in a reasonable state for a 1985 machine. Probably because the engine had never hung together long enough to cause much wear and tear! It was just a question of rebuilding the seized rear brake caliper, touching up the odd bit of rust on the frame and fitting a front mudguard. The tyres were nearly new Metz's, the chain was halfway through its life and the brake pads had plenty of meat left. The only solution was to start looking for a crashed bike with a decent engine.

Seven months later we were in business, with a 1986 motor that cost a reasonable £275. The mileage on the clock of the donor bike was 27846, which hopefully meant some decent life was still left in the replacement engine. It took about a month to fit the motor and get the machine running, mainly because of a wire that was crushed when the motor was inserted, causing the ignition to malfunction.

By the time I was ready to ride the bike into the glorious distance, a quite severe winter had descended. I was not too impressed to find that after half an hour in the wet and cold, my meticulously polished alloy had turned to white dust, nor that after less than 50 miles the motor started to misfire and then the bike burst into flames. It was one way of warming up on a cold day, I had time to grumble to myself, as I frantically leapt up and down trying to smother the flames with my gloved hands.

The ignition unit had decided it did not like the idea of working for a living and tried the scorched earth effect for size. Luckily, failure of these items is rare and a secondhand one was quickly and cheaply obtained. Winter riding also caused all the discs to gum up, needing much attention after less than 700 miles. Apart from that, I was impressed with the willingness of the engine to slog along at sub 5000rpm speeds, comforted by the secure feel of the chassis on the treacherous road surfaces and relieved to find that it did over 60mpg whilst not doing much damage to the consumables. I had spent every spare penny putting the bike on the road, there was nothing left in the kitty for tyres, pads, etc in the first few months.

It wasn't until April that I started to use the upper reaches of the rev band. I was dubious about the engine's reliability and at least wanted to test it out for a few thousand miles of moderate riding that matched the road conditions. In those first few months I found that not one of the 16 valves needed attention and that the four carbs stayed in tune. Impressed, I gradually worked my way up to the redline, telling myself that the short bursts of potent acceleration caused by using more than 7000 revs would do no damage to the engine.

You know how it goes. By the time the summer arrived I was intoxicated with its speed and handling finesse. I was using all of its 70hp and revelling in its 135mph top speed. On one memorable motorway escapade I kept her just off the red in top gear for two hours, often having to take cars that hogged the fast lane on the inside. One driver stuck his hand out of the window and pointed skywards. I was unsure if he was indicating police helicopters or that I would shortly be on my way to heaven!

In 9000 miles of such abuse I was impressed by the way the engine needed no maintenance, although I always checked it over at each oil change (every 1500 miles). Tyres lasted a reasonable 8000 miles a set before the back end started twitching and the front sliding away. Despite the 16 inch wheels, there was none of the general twitchiness that caused so much horror in other machines, just so long as the tyres were replaced when they were down to 2mm. The pads went for about 7000 miles at the front, which given the fantastic braking available was OK. Even the chain made it it past 8000 miles.

After the second winter in my hands the chassis was turning dog rough. Flaking paint, falling chrome and corroded alloy did not impress either innocent bystanders nor the police. I was being pulled over at least once a week, although apart from a bit of slop in rear swinging arm bearings (not so bad as to affect the fine handling) there was nothing fundamentally amiss with the VF.

Comfort was lessened when the seat started soaking up water and the silencers started to fall apart, turning the delightful V-four growl into an eardrum shattering roar. This found even less favour with the cops. I patched the silencer up with my welding gear as best I could. When I managed to buy a new exhaust system for £95 off a dealer selling old stock, I took it as a sign that the machine was due for a complete chassis refurbishment. A month in the garage saw the machine emerge in fine fettle, at least if you don’t throw up at the sight of deep purple and lime green. I always did have a funny kind of sense of humour.

I needed it when the engine seized up solid 450 miles later. The motor obviously didn’t share my joy in lurid colour schemes. I had noticed that there a bit of lurching in fourth gear, but the wide spread of engine power meant it was dead easy to avoid this by changing from third to fifth. I should have paid more attention. The Honda was trying to tell me that the gearbox was breaking up. I wondered why pulling in the clutch had no effect on the fishtailing rear wheel. 

The 80mph lurch was rapidly turned into a 50mph tumble when the bike threw me off. The motorway was relatively deserted so I was neither run over nor the cause of a mass pile up. I ended whacking into a concrete bridge after rolling over for what seemed like ages. My past life did not fly before me but the whack when it came knocked what little sense out of me that I still possessed. I was merely bruised, cut and slightly bloodied, my helmet splitting in two.

The VF was about a quarter of a mile down the road. I staggered after it, carefully collecting the bits of alloy, steel and plastic that had been torn off. A few car drivers had pulled over on to the hard shoulder. One of them rushed up to me, screaming, "You're lucky to be alive, you bloody moron." When I saw what little was left of the VF I tended to agree with him. It took about a week to hacksaw through the mangled frame to get at the engine, which had had both sidecases torn off. | was curious to find out the cause of the problem. There really wasn't one component in the whole machine that had not been wrecked by either the seizure or the accident! Faced with such disturbing carnage, I did the only fitting thing... bought an old VF1000!

David Murphy

Yamaha YPVS350

I have owned two Yamaha YPVS350s. The first caused me a lot of trouble. I was pulled over for speeding, doing about 70mph in a 30mph zone and had the book thrown at me. Not just the speeding and dangerous riding bit, but the frame and engine numbers bore no relationship to what was in the logbook (something I had not bothered to check) and were both from stolen motorcycles.

I was taken away to be interrogated by two large cops who were both as nasty as hell. I stuck to my story, which was the truth, that I had bought the bike in good faith from a back street dealer. They eventually tired of trying to make me shit myself and went off to look at the dealer’s den, which turned out to be full of enough stolen motorcycles to fill their quota for the next year. They still booked me for the speeding offences but toned down the speeding to 45mph (if 1'd agreed to plead guilty) and dropped the reckless driving bit.

They didn't give me the Yam back, which was the most distressing part of the affair. One way or another, that fiasco kept me off the road for two years until I bought my second Yamaha, this time privately and after checking that all the numbers matched - I even went down the cop shop with the documents so they could check that everything was OK. I paid a thousand notes for a 27000 mile 1986 RD350F2, complete with neat red and white fairing.

Within minutes I was howling up the road, glorying in the wailing spannies and doing, er, 80mph in a 30mph zone. Visions of imminent arrest hastily saw such excess fundamentally reduced and the front wheel was put firmly back on the ground. The bike was stock save for the expansions chambers, jet kit and an alloy swinging arm with eccentric adjusters.

I usually ride with a group of mates, all on 250 to 350 strokers. We howl across the landscape, generally giving biking a bad name and leaving a large cloud of pollutants in our wake. The RD was particularly bad on oil, needing a pint every 75 miles (I refuse to indulge this litre business). In town, slow riding caused the bike to stutter, the plugs to oil up and the powervalve to seize in position.

The whole lot would suddenly come free and power would soar as wildly as the front wheel. This caused various peds to scurry out of the way and the cagers to give a blast on their horns as we snaked past. Encouraged by this recognition, my mates and I used to form squads of wheelie-ing motorcycles that amused the locals in the town centre no end. We even made the front page of the newspaper, which prompted the police into action. But they soon went away after the letters of protest died down to an acceptable level!

35500 miles coincided with the demise of the piston rings. Removal of engine and subsequent stripping revealed the usual stroker horror story. One rebuilt crankshaft, new pistons and barrels later saw us back on the road. The partial seizure occurred whilst we were bowling along some fantastic A roads at about 90mph. The sudden locking of the back wheel made me drop a load, but the wobble cleared up when I pulled in the clutch lever. I was towed home, a most weird and frightening experience.

2000 miles later the powervalve seals went, an all too common occurrence on these strokers and not too expensive or difficult to fix. Top speed was an indicated 120mph, not really enough to keep up with some of my mates who would charge up to 135mph on the longer straights (or so they claimed). I could have opted to tune the motor but I was already in debt after the first engine rebuild and didn’t want another one just yet.

All of us who were running strokers that had done more than 25000 miles were experiencing similar problems. They just didn’t seem built to last any longer than that. When all the paint started falling off my frame I was convinced that it had rusted from the inside out and that at any moment the whole lot would dissolve under me. I had visions of sitting in space holding the bars and sitting on the saddle, whilst the rest of the bits shot off in all directions!

The brakes were similar crap. Twin front discs controlled by opposed piston calipers they were probably excellent when new, but now suffered from extreme alloy rot which tended to make them bind on at awkward moments. The rear disc was by far the worst, there would suddenly be a decline in power and billowing clouds of smoke off the disc as it seized on. This was easily fixed by removal of the hydraulic fluid and pads. The front required attention every 2500 miles to stop it doing a similar trick. Wet weather braking was hazardous in the extreme for the usual reasons.

Apart from the rot, the chassis was fine. The bike's low mass was combined with a slow steering geometry that meant you had to exert a bit of muscle to get it to lean over, but once it started to go could be controlled with apparent ease. Slight weaves intruded at more than 75mph but this was probably down to the worn suspension.

Several speed wobbles were experienced when bumps were hit at high speed, the ultra light front twitching like the end was nigh. Ride through it, my mates screamed in chorus; so I did. Falling off seems to be a habit amongst the YPVS crowd. I was no exception.

The thing is there's this lovely surge of power when the valve comes in that encourages you to ride in juvenile delinquent mode. On every occasion and on every trip. Town riding was especially dangerous because half the time I was up on the back wheel, which did not have a working brake! The first accident was only a ped who had the audacity to step on to a crossing just as I wanted to speed across it. I hurriedly put the front wheel back on the ground, at an angle which took the front of the bike away from me. I was thrown off the bike into this bulky type who by falling over on his back provided a nice soft landing. The Yam scraped along the gutter then catapulted up on to the pavement, knocking down a few innocent shoppers.

The bike was OK apart from a few bent bits. I was a bit shaken until I found myself suddenly stirred by the hulk who after picking himself up off the floor decided to vent his animal rage on my person. Oh well!

The second accident was a bit more serious as I went straight into the side of a car that had pulled out of nowhere. Broken forks and bent frame were the most expensive bits to rectify, but the cager was quite decent about the whole thing, an ex-motorcyclist, he bunged me 350 notes to sort out the mess. I came out about even after visiting a couple of breakers and getting the frame straightened.

The handling was never quite as good after that, which explains the third accident, at least to what is left of my mind. An 100mph wobble didn’t disappear when I opened the throttle in my normal heroic mode. I quickly realised that if I was going to be pitched off it was much better at a lower speed, so burnt off a layer of rubber with what was left of the front brake and stamped down the box like a maniac. The beast bounced about something terrible, until at 65mph the bars were literally wrenched out of my hands, hammering from side to side so strongly that they battered away at the steering stops. The bike ran off the road into a wire fence which exploded the front tyre with an almighty detonation. I was thrown over the bars to land in a nice soft field, but with the kind of thump that convinced my horrified riding companions that I was dead meat. I was laid out in about a foot of mud but OK apart from lots of bruises. The bike had wrecked its wheel, forks, fairing, tank and down-pipes, plus various expensive minor bits like the clocks.

I did reconstruct the machine using cheapo, worn bits from breakers - it was all I could afford. I never trusted it again, though, that final accident had taken the wind out of my sails. That and a mate on a TZR who had come off on the motorway, wrecked his spine and would have to spend the rest of his days as a vegetable. I sold the YPVS for £700 to a spotty kid with the same kind of wide grin and exuberance that I had previously sported. I'm now looking for a nice safe CG125 to commute to work on.

M. H.

Despatches: First Time in Shit City

I came to London, looking to make my fortune despatching and like many a fool before have ended up worse off than when I arrived. A cautionary tale follows...

I had made a few telephone calls to DR firms in London from my home in York. I was aware that I would need a middleweight in reasonable running condition. And a plausible line in chat to persuade the controller that I knew my way around London and was an old hand at despatching.

My first problem was that at 18 the only thing I was an old hand at was finding excuses for not doing any work in school. A fine art that had precipitated my flight to the capital. I had excelled so well in that aspect that the only job I could think I might just possibly land was as a DR.

I persuaded my parents that loaning me £500 was the best possible use for their money. At the very least it would get me out of their hair for a couple of months. At best, they could proudly stroke my Ferrari once I'd made my way in the world. They decided that anything was better than watching me moulder, collecting the dole every two weeks.

I hitched down without incident. Arriving late at night I made my way, like thousands before me, to Soho. An amusing time was had fending off various perverts and avoiding being mugged to death. Somewhat ragged, the next day, I approached the first of my DR company contacts. I assured him I had lived in the city for yonks and would have a nice CX500 ready to roll the following morning.

He was so impressed by my spiel that he put me on trainee rates for the first month, to see how I worked out. I rushed off to view the Honda, having previously arranged this by phone from York. Buying from MCN classifieds can always be dubious and I was just about to find out why. This 1979 specimen looked fine to my enthusiastic eyes. I wasn't actually allowed to test ride the beast, but a brief run on the pillion impressed me no end. After a CG125 just about anything is impressive. He wanted £375 but gladly accepted £300 when I pulled the pile of fifties out of my back pocket.

I can remember the tight feeling as I let out the clutch. The adrenalin running wild and the big grin I managed to pull off. I can also remember the way the bike crunched to a halt. It needed seven thousand revs to find the power to pull off. Below that the engine just died. Bred on the mild CG, this meant that I had a terrible time trying to master the plastic maggot.

Not having slept for a night didn’t help one bit. With job and bike in hand I headed for Paddington where cheap lodgings were rumoured to exist. Ended up in this doss house, ten to a room, a tenner a night. Couldn’t sleep much, kept thinking I ought not to be thrown in with what looked like a bunch of tramps.

I was out of there first light, eager as hell to make a good impression by turning up on the boss’s doorstep before him. Two hours later the CX finally gave up the fight and struggled into life. I was absolutely exhausted from trying to bump the bitch and I hadn’t even started the day's work.

Thrown into the carnage of the rush hour it only took ten minutes for the first crash. Not serious, I took the paint off the side of this cab. The driver went berserk calling me all the foul names under the sun. Demanded I give him £200. Instead I made up an insurance company and home address. He came within an inch of beating the shit out of me.

I couldn’t make much sense of the Honda in the chaotic traffic. Massive clutch abuse was needed to keep the revs up, the engine clattering terribly as the revs were poured on to stop it stalling. It didn’t seem any faster than my old CG125 which I had foolishly sold when I'd passed the test.

I turned up at work an hour late, shaking like I had caught malaria. The boss spent the next 30 minutes berating me. The way he went on I think it gave him an hard-on! He would be carefully monitoring my work from now on, any backsliding would mean instant dismissal. After twenty minutes I was given a pick-up and delivery, a mobile radio thrown at me, and told to get on with it. I thought that it was a pretty thorough training scheme they had going there!

The DR company was in the City, the pick-up in Kensington and the drop in Covent Garden. Nothing to it, I thought, after a glance at the A-Z. The Honda refused to start. After watching me for about 15 minutes trying to bump her, some DR’s gave a hand and she finally rattled into life. I told myself not to turn the engine off whatever happens. I made good time to Kensington but could not find the office.

There can be few people less friendly than Londoners when politely asked a question. After running around in circles for about twenty minutes I was becoming frantic. I finally grabbed a midget traffic warden by the throat and banged him up against a wall. Even then he was reluctant to give out any info. He finally admitted where the company was located. I came back out to find six parking tickets on the Honda. No problem, the previous owner could deal with them, I hadn’t registered the bike in my name.

The drop off went smoothly, I found the place first try. Proud of my achievement, when I got back to the office, about 90 minutes after first being handed the job everyone was agog with wonder. The boss took me into his office and closed the door. He quietly explained that I had set a record time for a delivery of that distance. Then screamed crazily that I was fired and I should get out of the office that instant before he beat me to death for daring to lie to him.

This time no-one helped me push the Honda. I ended up walking it to a bit of a hill and throwing myself on the machine as it rolled rapidly downwards. Youth recovers quickly from such setbacks and within the hour I was trying to convince another potential employer that | was an experienced DR with a perfect middleweight to hand. The new boss was even more reluctant to give me a job but put me on trainee rates. He didn’t shout, just tried to kill me with cancer from the huge cigars he smoked - I have no objection to anyone smoking, I just wish they would inhale all the fumes!

I did several local jobs, having left the Honda running on tickover. It seemed unlikely to me that anyone would want to steal it. Each time I came back the controller looked at his watch with a grimace. I must admit I was a bit amazed at how quickly some of the other DRs did their jobs.

I was invited back the next day but told to speed things up. Speed Things Up? I was thrashing the Honda to death just to break the bloody speed limit. I was riding with a death wish, as it was, because the front brake only worked intermittently. I had had several close scrapes already and only saved myself from serious injury by scattering a bunch of startled peds off a crossing - I had to go that way as the alternative was hitting the back of a taxi. After my previous experience, something too terrible to contemplate.

The other DRs had been real bastards. | was trying to find somewhere to stay and they just didn’t want to know. They were experienced old hands who couldn't get enough jobs themselves; the last thing they wanted was some youth willing to work for next to nothing cutting in on their already scant earnings.

That night was spent wandering around Soho again. I ended up in this underground bar with strippers and drinks a tenner a time. I talked with this attractive girl for about fifteen minutes and according to them I had to pay a hundred quid for the pleasure. I emptied my pockets (but not my underpants) - £36.85. They grabbed the money and the bouncer slapped me about a bit. I didn’t resist, he was big enough to give Frank Bruno pause for thought. He threw me a good five yards into the gutter.

I found a deserted back alley where I managed to fall asleep for a few hours. I was woken up by a filthy tramp trying to undo my jeans. I don’t know if he was after my money or body. I threw him off and ran for the main thoroughfare. The Honda started up after an hour this time which meant I actually turned up for work early - I had allowed three hours.

I left the bike ticking over as usual, listening to its rattles and rumbles. Watching the water temperature slowly climb into the red, I thought I might as well check on the level. By the time I'd worked out there was hardly any water in the radiator, the needle had reached the farthest point in the red sector. There was only one source of water available, so I emptied my bladder. Pissing on the rotten Honda seemed somehow appropriate.

It took another hour to persuade into reluctant life. The boss appeared as I was pushing the stinking CX up the road, took one look at it and hurried off shaking his head in disgust. When I went into work, only ten minutes late, the controller handed me an envelope, telling me that the appearance of both myself and the bike were not suitable to represent his DR firm. The envelope contained six quid which represented what I'd earned the previous day. I'd spent more than that on petrol as the CX was doing about 30mpg!

I spent the rest of the morning trying to find another job. I ended up with the worst shark in town. He took a hundred notes off me as a radio deposit, made me sign a twelve page contract of such tiny type that I couldn’t begin to hope to read it, not that he gave me a spare copy to peruse.

I did one job on the CX before it seized solid in the middle of crazed cagers. One bumped into the back and pushed me into the car in front. I sat there as the bike was slowly crushed. By the time the driver realised what he was doing the CX was banana shaped. It didn't matter, the engine was probably dead beyond repair. | grabbed the radio and did a runner. With no insurance, tax or MOT I would have been locked away on the spot after all the damage the CX had done to the two cars.

Back at the DR company I told the boss what had happened. He pointed to a paragraph in the contract which stated than any misrepresentation on the part of the DR, such as the state of my bike, would result in the forfeit of the deposit. He sat there with a smug smile on his fat face. I still had the radio in my hand so I slammed it down on his desk hard enough to splinter it into a couple of hundred bits. I screamed "Fuck you” at him and rushed out before he had time to recover his composure.

I counted my money. Forty four quid. In just a few days I had blown my father’s hard earned dosh and had nothing, save for a growth of beard and a few bruises, to show for it. Walking back towards Soho for a last look at the tawdry hell hole, I was molested by half a dozen tramps and propositioned by two ancient, huge Negro ladies. I kept protesting that I had no money. They looked at me as if I was a complete and utter failure. I tended to agree with them.

I had the choice of becoming a Piccadilly bum boy or going home to face the wrath of my parents. It was an easy choice, but much more difficult to hitch a ride. I ended going up via Bristol as that was where the only car that stopped was going! The parents were relieved to see me but speechless when I revealed how quickly I had got rid of the money it had taken them months of hard work to save.

The lessons that I learnt from this terrible experience? Don’t go looking for glory in London unless you’re loaded in the first place or willing to sell your body. If despatching is the only thing you can do, find a decent machine before you go and ride it down there. Don't lie too much unless you can back it up, if found out the boss goes into a fury and sacks you on the spot. And don‘t hand over any money as deposits to DR companies. I got the impression that even seasoned riders were having trouble covering their costs. So what hope us novices?

Darren Allan