My Kawasaki 305 lay in my brother’s garage in Plymouth waiting for me to locate a set of wheels to replace the ones I smashed at Christmas trying to return to London in a fog. I kept kicking the Suzuki ER250, which had needed a rebore when I swapped it for two crashed LCs eight months ago. It had finally given in to the terminal dampness and zilch compression. It was February and had been snowing a lot.
I had gotten married four months ago and I think my wife was beginning to regard me as an embarrassment. But at the rate I was slinging bikes down the road it looked like a temporary arrangement. I was earning a crust as a despatch rider. I gave up with the ER and caught a train from Bromley into Victoria and then a tube to the West End. I staggered into the office, saw the one and only female DR, made enquiries about her spare bike, a 250 Wetdream.
I struck out, she’d already lent it to a friend. But while I was talking to her another DR overheard the conversation. He offered to sell his Kawasaki Z750 twin for any offers over £50. Over a coffee he told me why it was so cheap. It was in somebody’s yard, halfway between Luton, where he lived, and London. It had thrown its chain. Also, it was the kind of big twin where the vibration was so bad you couldn’t keep your feet on the foot pegs over 80mph. I said I would go to see the bike and he took me on the back of his other bike; I remember it was bitterly cold and there was a load of snow and ice about.
When we brushed the snow off I was surprised to see that the paint was in good order, apart from a ripped seat it looked pretty nice. It wouldn’t start because of a flat battery, but I managed to put the chain back on with the aid of a large hammer. I handed over £50 and took the battery home to charge it up.
The next day, after four hours spent on various trains, I put the battery back into the bike, plus some new plugs. It roared into life after the third kick, a loud blatting thunder out of the two into one exhaust that had a silencer that looked like a bit of sawn off drainpipe. I had feared the swinging arm bearings were shot, but they seemed OK. I was congratulating myself on finding a real bargain when it went onto one. I figured the carbs were choked up with trust from the petrol tank; after an hours cleaning we were off again.
I called into the office to announce that I was mobile. The controller gave me a few jobs. The first pick-up was around the corner. I zapped around there, picked up the job and came back outside to kick the beast into life. It wouldn’t start. The electric starter had long since died so I had to leap up and down on the kickstart. Nothing, sweat dripped off me in huge quantities. I slumped, gasping, over the bars. After about ten minutes I’d recovered. I gave it one last kick and it burst into life.
The next time I stopped the same thing happened. It just wouldn’t start when it was hot. Things started to get silly. A job in W1 would take half an hour - five minutes to do the job and 25 minutes to start the bike. My finances were in such a state that I couldn’t afford to put the bike into a dealers, so I tweaked the tickover up high and kept the bike running for most of the day.
Then, after the third day of ownership, I had just loaded up with six jobs and was off hacking around the West End, when I missed a gear, hitting neutral exiting a junction into Shaftesbury Avenue. I almost dropped it but managed to boot it into first and power the bike upright, the slide was a bit on the heavy side.
Things would have been alright had not the whole manoeuvre been observed by a couple of plod. One was an extremely nasty WPC who’d only just been set loose on the streets. I was pulled, showed my documents, which fortunately included a recently updated insurance to cover the Kwack. But then I was asked an embarrassing question... was this my machine? I had neither receipt nor log- book, so told them the truth - I’d bought the bike off a man named John who lived in Luton.
They decided they didn’t believe me and wanted me to accompany them to the station. I refused, saying I had loads of work on. Then I was arrested and they said they were calling for a van - the WPC said they’d managed to get a Honda 400 into the back of the van previously, as if she intended to make a career out of hassling innocent bikers. But I was quite interested to see how they got on with lifting the bulk of the Kawa into the van.
I phoned in to my controller to tell him the score. He sent another rider to pick up my work. This DR stopped some little way up the street so I had to walk over to him. I never made up my mind whether this was so I could leap on the back in a dash for freedom or because his CX had two bald tyres and probably failed its last MOT five or six years ago.
When their van arrived, I think for a moment that they thought I was going to help them - ha, ha. It was a rare old sight, I hope the dirt and oil they got on their clothes never came out. They soon gave up and said they would get a motorcycle cop to ride it back, I stifled a snigger; wait until he tries to start it!
At Vine Street cop shop I pointed out that few bike thieves, if any, would go to the bother of insuring a bike they just nicked as the insurance wouldn’t be valid. But the station sergeant had just found a packet of vitamins and was too busy checking for track marks on my arms. Then a motorcycle cop limped in, threw the keys to my bike on the desk and limped out. I was almost pissing myself with laughter. The Bill didn’t see the funny side and threw me in a cell. I was there for almost two hours before they’d traced the owners and released me.
The next day I took the bike to a dealer who discovered that the bike had dud spark plugs. New ones fitted, it started even when hot. But my leg was already in a bad way so I changed despatch companies to one with an office on a hill.
After my leg healed, the bike was completely reliable; together we settled down to making some respectable dosh. My wife liked the new bike and she found the pillion much more comfortable than the ER and loads more fun than the commuter train, so she consented to me taking her to work every day.
I liked the bike as well. It was endowed with vast amounts of torque, which was dead handy around town, there weren’t many could stay with it in the traffic light GP. Its first motorway trip showed up a fault - vibration. I could not get the speedo past 80mph for the simple reason that the grip was shaken out of my hand and the throttle shut itself off no matter how hard I tried to hold it open. It was unbelievable. When I returned home, I lifted the tank to reveal that a bolt had broken that was supposed to attach the head to the frame. When this was replaced the vibes were reduced to normal pile driver levels.
In April I had an argument with the boss’s brother-in-law and he fired me. I was glad to get off with just a sacking as this guy was a tad on the vicious side and had some nasty habits, as well as stacks of gold jewellery around his neck. My new job was on an out of town circuit. I was clocking up a lot of miles, and it was expensive. The bloody thing could eat a back tyre and a chain every month. Sometimes I would have to adjust the chain twice a day.
One night, coming back from Coventry, the handling went. It was the front wheel bearings, in the pouring rain I had to keep above 60mph to avoid being swamped by the bow waves from the juggernauts. I was a wreck. by the time I reached home, I kept expecting the bearing to collapse and jam the wheel.
The next day, on the way to buy some new bearings, I met a mate on a Z500. We both pulled up at some lights, in the ensuing GP start I completely forgot about the sorry state of the bearings. I easily stomped his Z500, but I then had to negotiate a bend on an elevated section of the A40. Life was very interesting for a short period of time and I discovered a most effective cure for constipation.
The next couple of months were good fun, the only thing to break was the kickstart, lucky in a way, as I was able to replace it with one from a breakers that was a couple of inches longer, making it easier to kick into life.
One day, I was in Manchester and hung around the office there hoping a return parcel would turn up. It didn’t, so I had to roar back down to London at maximum speed. It took only three and a half hours, the speedo hitting 105mph for most of the way. It took another three hours for my ears to stop ringing. I decided to change companies again as there wasn’t much money left after I’d taken into account wear of consumables. I had some good rides though.
Not long after that I sold the twin for £350. I was sorry to see it go. The only times it’d let me down were when the clutch cable had broken and when the clutch mechanism had chafed through the alternator wires, short circuited and set fire to a small area of the bike - it looked a lot more serious than it was as the fire was confined to where the grease had built up around the engine sprocket.
The bike had Boyer ignition so I never has to mess with the timing. When I bought it there were 38000 miles on the clock and I’d added another 16000 to that. It needed yet another rear tyre as well as a battery and shocks when I sold it, so I made a bit of a profit out of it.
I was very pleased with it, because it only cost £50 I caned it everywhere and it never complained. Its worst point was its weight, which made the handling pretty horrible when it was pushed hard and pretty dubious when just motoring around town.But having said that, it still remains one of the few bikes that I never actually fell off!
Max Liberson