A gleaming Yamaha SRX250 stood in the dealers, an import with only 4500 miles on the clock. Looked so nice that it could be genuine despite the bike being made in 1990. £2500 sticker price. Having read the UMG for a long time I decided to offer the Hells Angel type dealer eighteen hundred notes for cash. Fuck off, mate, was the reply and he walked off in disgust. I hung around for fifteen minutes, checking everything over and finding nothing wrong. The dealer came back, started her up and gave me a hard stare. I meekly handed over two and a half grand and was told to come back in three weeks when the machine would be registered, etc.
After that wait I was ultra keen to get on the road. The sun was shining, the roads were calling and my right hand was twitching involuntarily. The SRX weighs only 280Ibs and develops 28 horses... OK not in the race replica league but a damn sight better than things like MZs and the vast majority of older Jap 250’s. First impressions were of respectable acceleration (more than enough to kill cages dead) and an easy 75mph cruising lope on a short stretch of motorway.
Stability was good on the smooth roads that I encountered on the meander home. Later, bumpy country roads threw the bike around quite a lot but it seemed to hold its line OK. It was so light that it was dead easy to flick through a series of bends and the discs howled the tyres with just a marginal amount of input. Top speed was the ton on the clock, in reality about 95mph. Fuel went from 75mpg when ridden mildly to an all time worst of 60mpg! Usually, over 70mpg was achieved which I thought excellent... someone had drilled out the baffles, though, judging by the rather loud exhaust, and it was thus probably running a touch lean.
Which might explain the difficult early morning starting. It was fine once warmed up but needed a good two minutes on the starter before it’d growl into life. Then it'd be a series of kangaroo leaps before the motor settled down. In the first fifteen minutes it would stall when idling at junctions, and the like, unless given a bit of a caning on the throttle. As might be expected, this trait got worse during the winter, sometimes making me a bit exasperated.
But the rest of the experience was so good that I was willing to put up with a bit of bother early each morning. Think of a four stroke MZ that was neatly styled and you'd get an idea of how virtuous was the SRX250! Or that was how I thought of the machine until the winter rains hit the UK and the little Yamaha.
Firstly, there was the short front mudguard which was a plain silly affectation on what should have been a thoroughly sensible machine. In the mildest drizzle both engine and rider were covered in muck thrown off the front wheel. In heavy rain it was so bad as to make the engine go into a fit of the stutters. After noising around in the friendly breaker I came up with a proper mudguard for a fiver and it made the bike a whole lot more pleasant in the winter, with no cutting out.
Secondly, there was the final drive chain that imitated knicker elastic once attacked by our acid rain. The swinging arm was suspiciously long, the final drive sprocket mind numbingly small and the chain itself was some cheap and nasty thing made in some Far Eastern slave labour economy (it might have originally come with an O-ring job, but if so it was long gone).
By this time the clock was up to 9000 miles, so having to pay out for a new chain and sprocket set probably wasn’t a total disaster. I went for a HD O-ring type in the hope that the frequency of adjustment would be radically lowered (from a couple of times a week). The whole set was shagged within 6000 miles, perhaps the heavy power pulses of a thumper doing the damage. Anyway, I looked longingly at the MZ’s full chain enclosure.
After that wait I was ultra keen to get on the road. The sun was shining, the roads were calling and my right hand was twitching involuntarily. The SRX weighs only 280Ibs and develops 28 horses... OK not in the race replica league but a damn sight better than things like MZs and the vast majority of older Jap 250’s. First impressions were of respectable acceleration (more than enough to kill cages dead) and an easy 75mph cruising lope on a short stretch of motorway.
Stability was good on the smooth roads that I encountered on the meander home. Later, bumpy country roads threw the bike around quite a lot but it seemed to hold its line OK. It was so light that it was dead easy to flick through a series of bends and the discs howled the tyres with just a marginal amount of input. Top speed was the ton on the clock, in reality about 95mph. Fuel went from 75mpg when ridden mildly to an all time worst of 60mpg! Usually, over 70mpg was achieved which I thought excellent... someone had drilled out the baffles, though, judging by the rather loud exhaust, and it was thus probably running a touch lean.
Which might explain the difficult early morning starting. It was fine once warmed up but needed a good two minutes on the starter before it’d growl into life. Then it'd be a series of kangaroo leaps before the motor settled down. In the first fifteen minutes it would stall when idling at junctions, and the like, unless given a bit of a caning on the throttle. As might be expected, this trait got worse during the winter, sometimes making me a bit exasperated.
But the rest of the experience was so good that I was willing to put up with a bit of bother early each morning. Think of a four stroke MZ that was neatly styled and you'd get an idea of how virtuous was the SRX250! Or that was how I thought of the machine until the winter rains hit the UK and the little Yamaha.
Firstly, there was the short front mudguard which was a plain silly affectation on what should have been a thoroughly sensible machine. In the mildest drizzle both engine and rider were covered in muck thrown off the front wheel. In heavy rain it was so bad as to make the engine go into a fit of the stutters. After noising around in the friendly breaker I came up with a proper mudguard for a fiver and it made the bike a whole lot more pleasant in the winter, with no cutting out.
Secondly, there was the final drive chain that imitated knicker elastic once attacked by our acid rain. The swinging arm was suspiciously long, the final drive sprocket mind numbingly small and the chain itself was some cheap and nasty thing made in some Far Eastern slave labour economy (it might have originally come with an O-ring job, but if so it was long gone).
By this time the clock was up to 9000 miles, so having to pay out for a new chain and sprocket set probably wasn’t a total disaster. I went for a HD O-ring type in the hope that the frequency of adjustment would be radically lowered (from a couple of times a week). The whole set was shagged within 6000 miles, perhaps the heavy power pulses of a thumper doing the damage. Anyway, I looked longingly at the MZ’s full chain enclosure.
Fourthly, some function of the otherwise excellent riding position meant I got unusually wet in the rain. The water got in everywhere, especially around my groin, which was pretty embarrassing when I rolled into work with trousers that looked like I pissed myself, or worse, judging by the giggles of the young girls. Comfort didn't exceed the range of the twelve litre tank but was nevertheless good for 150 miles - in the dry!
A half fairing (GPz replica) was knocked on for the last half of the winter and made an appreciable difference to my comfort, especially as the low mass meant I could fit some very narrow bars, thus getting my digits out of the cold and wet. However, the bulk of the plastic and some function of its aerodynamics (or lack thereof) made the handling well dodgy above 75mph...
The first time it went weird I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, having strung the little Yam out to 90mph and decided that with the increased protection I'd discovered a marvellous way of touring on the cheap. That was before the forks started flapping about after we’d hit a little bit of corrugated road surface. I suspect that the damping had broken down due to the excess mass out front... how else to explain suddenly finding myself hanging on to a wild pogo-stick that was oscillating across the highway?
Hurried, desperate, application of the brakes and a wrestling match with the out of control bastard, finally got her back into line. Luckily, keeping the bike below 75mph resulted in sterling stability and complete peace of mind. Because of the high speed wretchedness the fairing was dumped when the sun began to shine again.
A single winter had a nasty effect on the Yam’s finish. Acid rain and salted roads were a bad combination that left the alloy stained white, the chrome shot to hell and the frame paint mottled with rust. That was all just a matter of hard work to fix, but what pissed me off most of all was the state of the calipers. They got so bad that the brakes barely worked by the end of February. They must've come from the same lot as Superdream calipers because they were of the type where the only way to disassemble them was with a lump hammer which left them dead meat.
The dealer |Ibought the bike off said no problem, he could get them for me next day, £90 rear and £125 front. Thieving bastard, I slammed the phone down in disgust and headed for the nearest breaker. TZR125 calipers fit, cost £30 for the pair. After that experience, I would’ve preferred a rear, trouble free drum, though once the calipers were sorted I could find no real complaints about the braking and the pads lasted forever and a day!
March, April and May were a haze of cheap commuting, fun weekend outings (only marred by the girlfriend shrilly complaining about the lack of comfort afforded by the pillion perch) and lots of night sorties just to blast the boredom out of my system. The kind of fun and frugality that’s all too rare on modern motorcycles.
The beginning of June was a bit of a downer. Sunday afternoon run with the boys (and girls), lots of highway joy, when the Yam suddenly sounds like a lorry going up a hill with a couple of crates of rattling ball-bearings inside. Bloody hell, think I, with the simultaneous mad bellowing of horns from my friends behind. I pulled over, thinking the worst.
Turns out the silencer had sokayplit where the pipe goes into the can, dragging along the ground but not coming off. The awful racket from the fact that it now had an open downpipe, itself glowing red hot. I'm only forty miles from home! At least it happened on the way back so most of the fun had been had. One of the guys, who rides a tuned MZ 301 and is therefore prepared for most disasters (mustn't snicker, it’s bad luck) had a collection of Jubilee clips and flattened beer cans which were combined to re-attach silencer to downpipe (something he read in the UMG, so well done chaps!). It lasted for a couple of weeks!
Again, the problem of spare parts turned up. £175 from the dealer for a new one shipped from Japan. More phone slamming. Down to the local breaker again. He welded on a can from his large selection, which was the same length and even had some baffling, as well as welding up some cracks in the downpipe. £50.
Performance and economy were the same as before but that didn't stop me becoming a bit wary of the bike, which by the end of June sported 22000 miles and had become a bit rattly around the top end area. Servicing was another joke, £150 ago at the dealers... sod that, I just changed the oil and lied when I sold the bike. Also, I couldn't find a manual even if I wanted to do it.
At the end of July I sold the bike for £1950 and bought a 1200 Bandit for £5000. Fabulous acceleration but a heavy, piggish handler and the bloody thing started spurting oil out of the cylinder head, though this was cured with a bit of heavy-handedness on the head bolts. I reckon Yamaha are mad not to import the excellent SRX250 - all my complaints could be fixed cheaply by the factory and they could pick up all the sales that used to go to the MZ250.
Carl Harrington