Odd rides and strange chaps

The weirdest bike I ever used for despatching was a Morini 350 Sport. It fell into my hands when a neighbour had to sell quickly and I thought, buy it, ride it and then sell at a very nice profit. The first day showed the way things were going to be. The home-made electrics worked to a rhythm of their own. I eventually found out that my relatively bulky form was crushing the seat pan on to a dodgy connector.

The little 72 degree vee-twin screamed into life at 6000 revs, making a godawful racket. Turned the choke off, caused the engine to die a death. More kick-starting, this time with one choke on and one off! That got the little bugger rumbling until I engaged first gear and the bastard stalled due to clutch drag. By the time I finally got on the road I would've been in work on the venerable GT550.

This nastiness carried on right through the day, the good mixed with the bad. The good side was its narrowness and snappy acceleration, much more svelte than the GT and most other DR hacks. The bad side was the unpredictable starting (as bad when it was too hot as when it was cold), total lack of comfort and a double-sided drum brake that was a vicious old stopper. When it wanted to work.

As any DR knows, the best kind of bikes are ones you don't have to think about, all attention should be focused on the stretch of road ahead. The Morini was far from ideal, then. However, two days later the GT550 died an electrical death, was off the road for a couple of weeks. I rewired the Morini so that the ignition was always on, added a couple of spark plugs and new oil; began to talk quietly rather than curse the little Italian gem. A set of flat bars rather than clip-ons transformed the comfort.

The bike then proved quite a useful little DR hack. After a month of autumn riding, most of the tank and frame paint had fallen off, all the alloy had turned nasty and I was sure that the big-ends were knocking, or something. The GT550 was put back into use and the Morini tidied up, sold at a small profit. Most of the guys who turned up were rightly annoyed at the state I'd let the classic vee-twin degenerate into!

I've owned too many GT550's and 750's. The oddest one was a bike that had only ever been used for the DR chores. Gone through twelve owners and 260,000 miles, a sort of living legend. All the owners I knew had sold the bike thinking that it was on its last legs. Only to be confounded by its continued running.

My main mount was a nearly new GT550 so I could contrast the effect of a quarter of a million miles of abuse. Many of the chassis and braking components had been upgraded, so there wasn't a major difference there. Just a slight tendency to pull to the left, a legacy of a crash into the side of a bus that had left the hefty steel frame slightly bent. GT550 forks collapse in heavy accidents absorbing most of the impact!

No, it was the engine where most of the difference was felt. Secondary vibes sang through the chassis and the transmission was pretty awful, wear in the gearbox combining with a loose shaft drive. I usually trawled around town in third gear, reassured that clutch abuse was okay as the previous owner had fitted a newish clutch assembly. GT's stretch back so far into motorcycling history and are so widely available that most parts can be sourced from breakers, little need to buy anything new.

The bike was kept for a couple of months winter riding, which it shrugged off, and then sold to a newbie in the office. Weird chap, rake thin and about 6'6" tall! His helmet perched precariously on his large potato shape head. He was from the Welsh heartland but didn't seem to mind the sheep jokes. He didn't fit the GT very well but it was a lot less laughable than the C90 he'd ridden down the M4!

Within an hour of leaving the office the controller received an irate phone call from some cager who wanted to know who was going to pay to put the side of his car back on. The large fluorescent bib had given the game away and his description of someone who looked like an alien on steroids fitted Taffy perfectly. Of course, the controller denied any knowledge of such a strange looking employee!

He soon sold the GT, at a loss, to a veteran DR, and then found happiness with a Dakar replica. Being relatively short of leg (but not of beer gut) I never really got on with those kind of bikes. The Aprilia Pegaso I bought as a non-runner was soon sorted with an electrical rewire (believe whatever myths you want about Italian bikes but they still haven't sussed out the electrics) but every time I gave it a bit of throttle it wanted to go airborne.

By the way, Taffy was finally sacked when he rode his bike over the tops of half a dozen cages and he was last heard of holding down a job at one of the radio stations.

The Pegaso was soon off-loaded, but the GT didn't half feel lethargic afterwards. The slowest bike I ever did the DR hustle on was a Honda C90. An ancient step-thru that had been fitted with a relatively modern engine that featured a lack of airfilter and degutted exhaust. The chassis was up to 30mph but the motor would wind the bouncing abortion up to 60mph, given a long enough straight.

The chaos of Central London traffic meant that I was doing jobs quicker on the step-thru than on the GT. It went through impossible gaps like a ferret up a trouser leg, which was just as well as the SLS drum brakes didn't seem to work. It could be twisted through right-angles, shoved up on to pavements and skidded around roundabouts, having more in common with a skateboard than a proper motorcycle.

The antics of the bike so enraged one cager that he ran along the pavement until he managed to nudge the back of the Honda. The step-thru reacted badly to this, landing on its side. I'd managed to step/stagger off before it hit the tarmac and sort of ran along the pavement to shrug off the momentum. I looked over my shoulder to see some mad-eyed cager continuing in pursuit, having run over the fallen Honda. I sidestepped into a narrow alleyway and the cage roared past. I didn't bother trying to claim the C90, one glance told me it was completely written off.

One black-cab driver used to loiter outside our office, waiting for someone to knock off! When we sussed what he was up to, one of our gang of reprobates sneaked around the cab and put a bag of sugar in his petrol tank! We led him on a merry dance until his motor started to clang away when we gave him a cheerful blast on the horn.

He staggered out of his cab, ran at the nearest biker with death in his heart, but a bit of throttle put him in his proper place. Shortly after that event a firebomb was thrown into the office. Luckily, it didn't explode! For some reason taxi drivers think they are masters of the universe, when everyone knows that it's really DR's who enjoy that status.

Another odd DR hack I had the pleasure of was a GN400 Suzuki. Like the Morini, this was a temperamental starter, but it was so slow to wind itself up I often thought I'd stepped into a parallel universe. After a winter's worth of despatch riding it was reduced to total rat status, the rust so deeply ingrained into the metal that not even fervent wire-brushing had any hope of cleaning it up.

Also, all the chassis bearings were shot, the chain was reduced to knicker elastic and the engine, being both worn and lacking any balancers, rumbled ferociously. When the silencer fell off, it spat out flames and sounded like a runaway Sherman tank. I couldn't even give it away for free; next door's skip finally sufficed.

That wasn't the only commuter I'd had a go at riding through Central London. A nice little CG125 looked promising, but again proved just that little bit too slow to escape from enraged cagers, giving me several frightening moments. Didn't stop me putting 30,000 miles on the clock, by which stage there were cracks in the rear subframe and engine crankcases! At least a breaker gave me fifty notes for the rolling wreck.

At the other extreme, the biggest, nastiest bike I ever did the DR blues on was a Kawasaki Z1300 six. At times it seemed almost as wide as a small car but it made up for this by popping incredible wheelies on the back of its excessive torque. Several near death experiences didn't stop me enjoying a summer's despatching but as soon as the heavy rains came it turned into a rolling deathtrap, the power and mass being too much to control on slippery roads. I barely dented the engine's capabilities and the finish was much better than most Kawasakis, no problem selling it at a good profit.

One bike I never got on with was a BMW R80RS. Should've been a brilliant bit of kit for winter riding but I never managed to master the gearbox (which had 60,000 miles worth of wear in it); even the plod have problems riding them smoothly. It was also too wide for Central London.

Then there was... oh, enough, get some tackle, sign up for despatching and see for yourself. You could even make pots of money out of it.

W.A.

Heroes and Hacks

An elderly, early model, Honda CBR400 wasn't an ideal despatch hack but it was cheap and appeared in fine fettle despite the 56000 kilometres on its clock. The exhaust was either degutted or rusted out, either way it made for a loud and therefore safe ride through the jam-packed madness of Central London.

I was soon revving it into the red and skidding through the autumn wetness of the city. It looked a bit odd, with panniers and top box lashed out back, in contrast to the racer front end. And it wasn't very comfy, too much mass on my wrists. Also the handlebar lock was restricted, making for some desperate tugging on the bars to get through the usual gaps.

After a couple of weeks I'd adapted to its rather strange ways and was doing some record cross-London times. Then the engine turned extremely sulky, didn't seem to want to rev at all. Doing 20mph on a bike that was only vaguely comfortable above 60mph wasn't much fun, neither was being cut up by manic step-thru's. After a bit of pulling and poking I took it into the nearest Honda dealer who reckoned a new cylinder head would probably sort it.

Some more pulling and poking followed, I eventually discovered that the choke cable had rusted solid, leaving the choke half on. The simple solution was to force the choke permanently open and juggle the throttle from cold, the engine screaming at about 9000 revs for a couple of minutes until it caught. Had the neighbours screaming as well.

The well wired state in which I had to ride the madly revving little four quickly led to a series of accidents. The first involved the side of a bus, should've been straight into it but I somehow tricked the yowling Honda into going sideways. Merely ruining all the plastic plus indicators and one handlebar end.

The bus driver wanted to hit me but some concerned ped's held him back - astoundingly - long enough for me to give the CBR a few kicks and roar off into the traffic. Any kind of insurance claim makes the next premium totally impossible.

The second accident, the nearly bald tyres let loose on some diesel splattered tarmac with the predictable result of bike and rider sliding down the road. The nearest cagers veered towards my prone form - I kid you not! - but I hopped, skipped and jumped out of the way.

The bike did some serious damage to a couple of expensive cages but ended up intact, flipped upright next to a black cab. The dent in his door locked the driver inside, so I gave him the finger but I don't think he saw it as he was enveloped in all the steam coming out of his ears. Another runner.

Took about ten yards before I worked out that something was seriously twisted, the handlebars trying to leap out of my hands. Curiously, it was safer at 40mph than 4mph, allowing me to flee the area. Judging by the way the bike was flagged down by a couple of cops an hour later it had become a hot number. I pretended to ignore the plod, left them talking crazily into their radio. A can of matt black paint and some mud on the numberplate were a sufficient disguise to avoid further unwanted attention.

Turned out the forks were bent. The local back street bodger managed to snap them in half rather than straighten them out! Silly old bastard. He offered me a few hundred quid for what was left of the hack, mentioning that the main bearings sounded like they were knocking. More like his brain cells but I had a BMW R100RT lined up as my next cheap despatch hack so took the easy way out - after all, there was no simple way of moving the CBR!

The BMW was cheap because it had done 160,000 miles. The CBR's gearchange had been loose and unpredictable, but the RT took things to a new level of truculence! The shaft's bearings were so worn that it churned away in a malevolent manner, threatening to kick every engagement of a gear into a very noisy false neutral that felt like the gears were stripping teeth off each other.

I felt rather like a nodding dog in the back of a car, being shaken around by a falling and rising back end whilst the original pogo-stick front end reacted with violence both to the rear end's machinations and any road bumps. The bike lurched strongly sideways whenever the gearchange or throttle were used in anger but it was all fairly predictable and kinda fun after a while.

One element of the bike that shouldn't be underestimated is its sheer width. White with flashes of red and blue, I dumped on the horn, made cagers twitch out of the way, thinking it was a police bike, though they turned quite violent when they realised it was just another DR playing silly games.

The BMW lasted all of two weeks. Nope, the huge mileage hadn't finally caught up with the engine or transmission. At the end of a very tiring ten hours despatching, I misjudged the effect of a blast of throttle on second gear progress, the bike lurching into the side of a cage rather than going through a dubious gap. The BMW twitched the other way in recompense. An amazing amount of damage was done by the two cylinder heads, the bike ended up wedged between a big Ford and a bigger VW. Big cracks in the fairing the major damage suffered by the Beemer. It did bring home to me how unsuited the bike was to the more desperate despatching manoeuvres. After patching up the fairing, sold on at a couple of hundred quid profit.

I'd already found a replacement, a relatively low mileage Kawasaki GPZ600. Felt sublimely smooth and sophisticated, as well as incredibly fast turning, after the lumbering carthorse of a BMW. I did miss the RT's superb protection, especially as the days turned wetter and colder. Just add another couple of layers of clothes.

The GPZ had a certain amount of hidden nastiness, the sixteen inch front wheel, even shod with a newish Michelin, would twitch away from the upright without the slightest warning. Similarly, the discs lacked any kind of feel or feedback, dead easy to have the front tyre howling, skidding off the tarmac.

A couple of heavy boot-down sessions soon followed, making me ride in a relatively slow and cautious manner - ie, doing no more than 50mph through densely packed cages... only kidding, officer. After a little time I became a bit critical of a drop in power at around three grand, the bike sulked for a few moments until it got going again - probably in need of a new airfilter or something.

The easy way around it was to keep the revs above five grand, which was where most of the power was at, going nicely fierce at 8000rpm. A top speed of around 135mph (on the motorway, I hasten to add) and better than 55mpg made for some relatively easy times once I'd become used to the flimsy front end handling.

Kept the bike for around six months, never actually hit anything so it must've been a good 'un! Sold it because the camchain was rattling and the cheap Japlop I'd fitted to the front defined the meaning of suicidal. Made a nice profit, too.

I was then rather taken with a classic GS750 Suzuki, not the kind of machine that comes to mind as a useful despatch hack but it was cheap, down to shabby cosmetics - pound signs lit up in my brain! The engine wasn't at all nifty by modern standards, even with only 45000 miles on the clock, giving the impression of running through sludge. It would get there eventually, putting 125mph on the clock on a long straight.

The chassis was slow turning but about five times more stable than the Kawasaki, the GS one of the better bikes I've ridden in the wet (came with nearly new Metz's). The suspension appeared original but was nowhere near as soggy as I'd expected whilst the twin front discs had plenty of feel, sufficient power, and a touch of the old wet weather lag that was removed by gently caressing the lever to make the pads clear off the water.

A quick respray, some work with the decals, and a weekend's worth of polishing had it ready for the classic nutters. Of course, Monday was filthy and the bike soon covered in muck. Still, sold it to the first guy who turned up. After the heavyweight 750, the MZ 250 replacement seemed more like a moped than a worthy despatch hack but I'll soon get used to it.

Brian T.