An American import, 12000 miles, 1987, stock as far as I could see, 1700 notes, nice overall condition with no sign of being thrown down the road. Related to our own Revere, the main difference, the dumping of the shaft drive in favour of a chain, resulting in a mass of a mere 365lbs. Sat on the bike, felt like it was designed just for me!
The engine's another version of the tough old VT500, 52 degree V-twin with three valves per cylinder cleverly controlled by a SOHC. Only 55 horses at 7500rpm but loads of torque that peaks out at 6500 revs. Typical Honda slickness and sophistication, within a few miles we were old friends and I was riding the bike at nine-tenths already sure that it would do what I wanted and go where I pointed it.
Ten-tenths riding brought out no real shocks, other than the tyres squirming on their edges; Japlops that hadn't aged very well though there was plenty of tread left. I was soon wishing for more power - the Yanks have loads of tuning kit available for them, from exhausts to camshafts, the engine safe up to about 70 horses! None of that comes cheaply, though, and it would've made more sense to track down an already modified bike, although such machines are usually thrashed much more than stockers.
As it was, top speed was around 115mph, if |I got my head down. In the normal upright stance, the bike didn't really want to do more than 105mph unless it was running down a hill. I didn't have any problems with the way the bike handled, it was stable enough despite the lack of mass, only knocked around by the larger bumps on the faster roads. No signs of speed wobbles however silly things got.
It was this feeling of security, come what may, that allowed me to push the bike harder and harder everything about it encouraged attempts at getting my elbow down. I'd soon fitted a set of Metzelers and was getting my knee down! A cop car was following me on one occasion and I was pulled over, accused of riding dangerously. At least they didn't ask me if I thought I was Barry Sheene! After studying the bunch of docs I always carry with me, they sent me on my way with a warning not to repeat such exuberance on the road! Like hell.
A week or so later I wished I'd taken their advice. It was a bit of diesel that caught me out. Slinging the bike hard into a series of favourite bends, the front wheel lost it all and the bike was whipped away from me. The impact with the ground hurt, but I managed to roll off the road into a ditch, much preferable to being run down by some mad cager or clipped by the bouncing Honda. Most of the bike is well tucked in, the major damage to the exhaust, pegs and handlebars luckily, the machine had also managed to miss being run over by a cage.
Bruised and bleeding, I managed to ride the accursed machine the twenty miles home, promptly collapsed on to my knees! Not a prayer of thanks but blood loss and shock! My neighbour was all for calling an ambulance but I staggered into the house, had an ice cold shower and cleaned up all the cuts. If I breathed too deeply a sharp pain shot through my ribs, but a bit of gentle prodding revealed that none of them were actually broken. I might've caught my ribs on the bars, or something, it went down so rapidly that I can't be sure.
As might be imagined, after the bike was fixed up, my riding was somewhat restrained. One friend, who was a real mad nutter, kept falling off, but didn't seem to learn, just got back on and hammered the throttle all the harder... until he broke an arm and a leg, after which he declared that motorcycles were far too dangerous for him to ride!
The mind has a way of dealing with these things, a few weeks later I'd forgotten the pain and was back to playing with the throttle, though I kept an eagle eye open for diesel on the road! The Honda felt lighter, faster turning, than an old Superdream I used to bounce around on, seemed to have twice the acceleration and ten times the precision.
Not much of a comparison. It could also take a mate's ZZ-R600 in the tighter curves, though no hope on the straights. V-twins are ideal power units for motorcycles - light, narrow, plenty of torque, though laid out like the Honda they do need water-cooling but modern engineering means that the overall package can be lighter than air-cooled units. Another friend's GPz500S was faster in every way but bounced around a bit in the curves where the Honda was totally stable. It was better than the CB500S but not by much.
I was only getting about 40mpg, tyres lasted 5-6000 miles and the chain needed loads of attention, so cheap running costs weren't an incentive... on the other hand, it had plenty of character, loads of midrange torque and was as happy being scratched as it was running along at a moderate pace.
The second accident was in Bath (some jokes in there somewhere, I think), the old cager coming out of nowhere trick. The front end of the Honda's not exactly excessive in specification and it didn't come as that much of a surprise to find the forks bent right back, though the profoundly ugly cast wheel had survived intact! It took me some time to recover from whacking my groin on the back of the petrol tank!
It was a waste of time trying to buy Bros kit in the breakers, for all the efforts of the grey importers they are still rare in the UK. Would Revere kit fit on? Yes, one hundred quid, thank you very much, sucker. The Revere's set up as a sensible tourer, the relatively mushy forks not really suited to the Bros's sporting pretensions, so I had to take it all apart, fit some heavy duty springs. That was better, though not as good as stock.
My nerve was disappearing rapidly. The second accident hadn't really been my fault, though I suppose I could have reacted a touch faster and minimised the impact. Back on the bike, I rode in a restrained manner, full of paranoia about having another accident! I was just getting back into the stride of things, after two weeks of pottering around, when the handling went vile.
I managed to pull over rather than fall off. The back tyre was flat. The AA were summoned, took me to a nearby tyre depot who put a tube inside the tyre. That got me home, at the price of a weave at 75mph. The tyre guy reckoned it wasn't safe to repair the tyre itself, I should really buy a new one. In short, a puncture cost me a hundred quid for a replacement tyre and the previous repair. This kind of thing really annoys me about modern motorcycling!
The worst was yet to come. This took the form of some cager not wanting to stop at a red light. The major problem was that I was in his way. He pushed the bike out into the junction, the front wheel caught by a Transit van. Not the kind of vehicle you want to have an argument with. Bike and I went flying again. The Honda was trampled by a couple of following vehicles as they swerved to avoid running me over! At least they had good judgement!
I was still in one piece, refused the offer of a ride in an ambulance much to their annoyance. The maniac who had tried to kill me had disappeared, as had any witnesses. The police concluded that I'd jumped the lights and caused mass carnage. A long list of offences conjured up out of thin air, the cops really getting into it - if they had to do the paperwork they might as well make it all worthwhile. I was almost in tears by the time they finished, couldn't even summon any rage at the injustice of it all!
As to the Bros, that was totally mangled, beyond help - even the crankcases were cracked! The insurers agreed that it was a write-off. They'll pay up eventually but after reading the police report cancelled my insurance and told me not to bother asking for another quote. As to the pending prosecution, I'm off to America where I have a job waiting (thank god for the sanity of computer programming) and no intention of paying up for something that I didn't do. Luckily, my licence is still pristine and the international licence wasn't a problem. I won't be buying another Bros, nor even a Harley... going to get one of those big old Yank cars, the only thing I'd feel safe in!
GH.